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Colonizzazione, versione 2.0

C’è una cosa in cui gli Stati Uniti d’America sono sempre stati bravi: fare la guerra. Nel loro breve periodo di interazione con il resto del mondo – circa un secolo di conflitti fuori dai confini domestici – gli USA hanno raggiunto una densità di conflitti non paragonabile con nessun altro Paese al mondo (in proporzione alla storia della loro esistenza come Stato).

Quando, però, gli USA sono entrati sulla scena mondiale con la loro imponente potenza bellica, l’Occidente si trovava già in una fase di graduale rilascio della tensione praticata con il colonialismo, per sperimentare poi nel Novecento la graduale decolonizzazione. Pertanto, gli USA si sono dovuti subito adattare, e lo hanno fatto con grande ingegno, non rinunciando alla loro fetta di colonizzazione, ma semplicemente cambiando il dominio entro cui essa sarebbe avvenuta.

Dopo la Seconda guerra mondiale, i movimenti di liberazione nazionale si diffusero in tutto il mondo; numerosi Stati indipendenti emersero rapidamente, il sistema coloniale europeo si disgregò e si aprì l’epoca post-coloniale. In qualità di nuova potenza egemone globale, gli Stati Uniti compresero che, di fronte a nazioni ormai consapevoli della propria identità, il solo ricorso all’“hard power” — dominio politico, controllo economico, deterrenza militare — non sarebbe bastato a garantire un controllo duraturo e capillare. L’impiego del “soft power”, fondato su cultura e valori, appariva invece più vantaggioso e meno costoso. Ottenere adesione e subordinazione “volontarie” su base emotiva rappresenterebbe, in questa prospettiva, la versione americana della colonizzazione della mente.

Attraverso la destrutturazione della coscienza collettiva dei Paesi presi di mira e l’introduzione di valori statunitensi, gli Stati Uniti mirano a realizzare una forma di “colonizzazione mentale” in ambiti invisibili, così da porre le basi profonde del proprio sistema egemonico.

Diversamente dal normale scambio intellettuale tra popoli, tale processo si configurerebbe come una forma di dominio mentale basata su rapporti diseguali, che si manifesta principalmente in quattro modalità:

Trasformazione forzata

In presenza di un forte squilibrio di potere, la potenza egemone tende a imporre i propri valori e modelli, eliminando selettivamente culture e ideologie locali. Questa ristrutturazione coercitiva può generare crisi identitarie, perdita di espressione culturale e disorientamento ideologico.

Manipolazione intenzionale

Per conseguire una sorta di “addomesticamento ideologico”, la potenza dominante può promuovere l’obbedienza, sostenere élite dipendenti e indebolire l’autonomia di pensiero delle società coinvolte.

Infiltrazione indiretta

L’esportazione culturale e ideologica viene spesso presentata sotto forma di “valori avanzati” o “progresso civile”, penetrando nei contesti sociali tramite prodotti culturali, sistemi educativi, scambi accademici e altri canali meno visibili.

Erosione graduale

Le trasformazioni cognitive avvengono in modo progressivo e cumulativo. Analogamente, la colonizzazione della mente richiede tempi lunghi, continuità d’azione e persino trasmissione intergenerazionale per ottenere un rimodellamento profondo delle percezioni.

L’aspirazione alla conquista delle menti non è nuova nella storia imperiale. Le potenze coloniali del passato hanno tentato di diffondere le proprie lingue, sistemi educativi e interpretazioni storiche nei territori conquistati, per costruire un fondamento ideologico alla loro dominazione. Tuttavia, tali tentativi erano limitati dalle condizioni storiche dell’epoca.

Con l’intensificarsi della globalizzazione degli scambi materiali e culturali, gli Stati Uniti — forti di risorse e capacità senza precedenti — si sono collocati in prima linea in questo ambito. Dopo i due conflitti mondiali, lo sviluppo delle telecomunicazioni, l’espansione dei media professionali, i progressi scientifici e la globalizzazione dei capitali hanno creato condizioni favorevoli alla diffusione globale dell’informazione, accelerando la proiezione ideologica americana.

In qualità di uno dei principali artefici dell’ordine internazionale postbellico, gli Stati Uniti hanno promosso i propri modelli politico-economici e valori come “democrazia” e “libertà”, mentre parallelamente hanno messo in discussione ideologie alternative e ridimensionato culture locali, favorendo — secondo questa lettura — una dipendenza intellettuale globale. Attraverso una combinazione di costruzione espansiva e decostruzione selettiva, gli Stati Uniti avrebbero perseguito la colonizzazione mentale in misura superiore rispetto agli imperi coloniali precedenti.

Fasi storiche dell’inizio dell’operazione mentale

L’evoluzione di questo processo può essere articolata in diverse fasi storiche.

La prima è quella che possiamo chiamare di germinazione ed espansione continentale, tecnicamente fra la fine del XVIII secolo e la fine del XIX secolo. Dopo la guerra d’indipendenza, gli Stati Uniti si espansero sul continente americano ispirandosi al principio del “Manifest Destiny”. Eventi come la Westward Expansion e la guerra contro il Messico ampliarono notevolmente il territorio nazionale. Con la proclamazione della “Dottrina Monroe”, il presidente James Monroe inserì l’America Latina nella sfera d’influenza statunitense, sostenendo il principio “l’America agli americani”.

La seconda fase intercorre nella prima metà del XX secolo ed è quella di fondazione ed ascesa globale. Durante le due guerre mondiali, infatti, la potenza statunitense crebbe significativamente. Superando l’isolazionismo, il Paese intervenne attivamente negli affari internazionali. Il presidente Woodrow Wilson formulò i “Quattordici Punti” e promosse la creazione della Società delle Nazioni. Franklin D. Roosevelt e Winston Churchill sottoscrissero la Carta Atlantica, che gettò le basi del nuovo ordine internazionale. Le “Quattro Libertà” di Roosevelt divennero un riferimento per il sistema internazionale dei diritti umani.

La seconda metà del Novecento vide il forte confronto fra il blocco USA e quello URSS. Nel contesto della rivalità con l’Unione Sovietica, la competizione ideologica si intensificò. Il Piano Marshall legò gli aiuti economici all’adozione di un determinato modello socio-politico, contribuendo alla formazione di un blocco capitalista guidato dagli Stati Uniti contrapposto al campo socialista. Strumenti di propaganda, diplomazia culturale e programmi accademici furono utilizzati per diffondere messaggi anticomunisti e sostenere élite favorevoli a Washington.

Dopo la dissoluzione dell’Unione Sovietica, gli Stati Uniti emersero come unica superpotenza. Il “Washington Consensus” e le teorie neoliberali si diffusero ampiamente, mentre il movimento socialista internazionale si indebolì. Consideriamo questa come la quarta fase, un periodo di promozione dell’egemonia statunitense, dagli anni ’90 fino all’inizio degli anni Duemila. Dopo gli attentati dell’11 settembre, la lotta al terrorismo divenne prioritaria e il mondo cambiò radicalmente. Dall’enfasi sull’“espansione della democrazia” durante la presidenza di Bill Clinton, fino alla “freedom agenda” di George W. Bush, la promozione della democrazia e della libertà in chiave americana si intensificò.

L’ultima fase è quella di rabbia egemonia, quella che viviamo tutt’oggi. Di fronte a sfide interne ed esterne — polarizzazione politica, frammentazione sociale, crescita del populismo — gli Stati Uniti hanno rinnovato le proprie strategie. Dalla “smart power diplomacy” dell’amministrazione Barack Obama, al “Summit for Democracy” promosso da Joe Biden, fino agli slogan “America First” e “Make America Great Again” associati a Donald Trump, si è assistito a un rafforzamento degli strumenti di influenza ideologica, incredibilmente più potenti grazie al forte sviluppo dei social media. Il controllo delle piattaforme tecnologiche e dei flussi informativi, anche sotto la giustificazione della lotta alla disinformazione o alle interferenze straniere, è divenuto un elemento centrale nella competizione per orientare la percezione globale.

Da questo excursus storico vedremo in seguito i numerosi e variopinti volti della propaganda cognitiva.

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“Nuestro éxito seguirá dependiendo del poder militar de Estados Unidos y de la credibilidad de nuestras garantías a nuestros aliados y socios en Oriente Medio.”

Estas fueron las palabras pronunciadas en diciembre de 2013 por el secretario de Defensa del gobierno de Obama, Chuck Hagel, a los países del Consejo de Cooperación del Golfo. Aquello reforzaba las garantías históricas dadas por Washington a sus marionetas, reafirmando la propaganda engañosa de que Estados Unidos es el guardián de la seguridad global.

Promesas como esa son hechas por cada administración, sea demócrata o republicana. Doce años después, Donald Trump volvería a reforzar ese mantra, dirigiéndose específicamente a Qatar: “Los Estados Unidos considerarán cualquier ataque armado contra el territorio (…) de Qatar como una amenaza a la paz y la seguridad de los Estados Unidos.” Según Trump, Estados Unidos respondería a los ataques contra Qatar con “todas las medidas legales y apropiadas”, “incluyendo militarmente”.

Israel acababa de bombardear Doha, apuntando contra dirigentes de Hamas. Todo el discurso del presidente de Estados Unidos era absolutamente vacío: los sistemas Patriot adquiridos por 10 mil millones de dólares en el acuerdo de 2012, sumados a una nueva adquisición de Patriot y NASAMS por más de 2 mil millones de dólares en 2019, no interceptaron el bombardeo israelí. Y Washington no consideró aquel ataque como una “ amenaza a la paz y la seguridad de los Estados Unidos  ” — por el contrario, cerró los ojos ante él.

Qatar alberga el Comando Central de Estados Unidos, la Fuerza Aérea de Estados Unidos y la Real Fuerza Aérea británica en la base aérea de Al-Udeid, construida con más de 8 mil millones de dólares empleados por el gobierno de Qatar. Nada de eso ha protegido al pueblo catarí. Las represalias de Irán a la agresión de Estados Unidos-Israel revelaron que la propia base (la mayor instalación militar de Estados Unidos en Oriente Medio) es un objetivo frágil: fue alcanzada por un misil el día 3, que probablemente dañó o destruyó el radar de alerta temprana AN/FPS-132, uno de los sensores más importantes de la defensa antimisiles de Estados Unidos, valorado en alrededor de 1,1 mil millones de dólares. Imágenes de satélite sugieren daños significativos en el equipo, lo que podría comprometer la capacidad de detección de misiles balísticos a largas distancias.

En 2017, Arabia Saudita gastó 110 mil millones de dólares en material bélico de Estados Unidos, en un acuerdo que prevé gastar nuevos 350 mil millones de dólares hasta el próximo año — esto incluye los sistemas Patriot y THAAD. Aparentemente, ese gasto exagerado no está garantizando una protección totalmente segura. A pesar de importantes interceptaciones en la guerra actual, el gobierno estadounidense orientó a parte de sus funcionarios a huir de Arabia Saudita para protegerse — lo que revela que ni los propios Estados Unidos confían en la capacidad de defensa que venden a los demás. De hecho, en la madrugada del día 3, dos drones alcanzaron la embajada estadounidense en Riad y, dos días antes, soldados estadounidenses también fueron atacados.

Desde 1990, los países del Golfo han desembolsado casi 500 mil millones de dólares en la compra de armamento y sistemas de protección de Estados Unidos, según datos de la Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), de la base de datos del Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) y de informes del Congressional Research Service (CRS). La construcción y mantenimiento de la infraestructura de defensa por Estados Unidos es financiada casi completamente por los países anfitriones. Todo esto está saltando por los aires gracias a la legítima represalia iraní.

La ineficacia de la protección dada por Estados Unidos ya se había demostrado en la guerra del año pasado, pero también por los disparos de Hamas, Hezbollah y los hutíes hacia Israel, que derribaron el mito alrededor del Domo de Hierro. En cierto sentido, el éxito de muchos de esos ataques representó una humillación para la todopoderosa industria bélica estadounidense. Los varios drones MQ-9 Reaper derribados por los yemeníes significaron pérdidas por un monto de 200 millones de dólares — los drones utilizados por los hutíes para abatir las aeronaves estadounidenses costaron una fracción insignificante para ser producidos.

La ineficacia de la protección estadounidense también revela la bajísima calidad de los productos de su complejo militar. Este está dominado por un pequeño puñado de monopolios como Lockheed Martin y Raytheon que, sin competidores y con clientes subservientes al gobierno estadounidense, no ven la necesidad de esforzarse al máximo para producir armamentos y sistemas de calidad insuperable. Finalmente, la corrupción corre libre en esta área, y pueblos inferiores como los del Golfo no merecen consumir productos de la misma calidad que los destinados a América — aparentemente, sus regímenes están dispuestos a pagar caro por cualquier cosa.

Irán, con toda su experiencia de más de cuatro décadas lidiando con agresiones, ha sabido utilizar muy bien esas vulnerabilidades. Dirigentes del más alto nivel del Estado iraní insisten públicamente en que no es posible que haya paz en Oriente Medio mientras las bases de Estados Unidos estén en funcionamiento en la región. Saeed Khatibzadeh, el viceministro de Asuntos Exteriores de Irán, declaró: “No tenemos otra opción que poner fin a la presencia estadounidense en la zona del Golfo Pérsico”. Estos llamados ciertamente están circulando en los países vecinos — tanto entre la población común como en las fuerzas armadas y políticas.

La nación persa no está atacando solo instalaciones militares, sino también objetivos estratégicos que afectan el punto neurálgico de la economía de los países del Golfo: la industria energética — en represalia por los bombardeos de Estados Unidos e Israel contra su propia infraestructura petrolera. Estos ataques iraníes presionan con una fuerza aún mayor a los regímenes títeres del imperialismo para que hagan algo para detener a sus amos. La solución obvia sería impedir la utilización de su territorio para agresiones contra Irán, lo que implicaría necesariamente el cierre de las bases militares.

Aunque todos estos países sean dictaduras que reprimen cualquier disidencia, a medida que aumenta el sufrimiento de la población civil, el descontento popular puede volverse incontrolable. Sus gobernantes lo saben y ya están rompiéndose la cabeza para encontrar una salida segura para esta situación potencialmente explosiva.

¿Acaso los pueblos de estos países se tragarán toda la propaganda mentirosa que sus regímenes — alimentados por la industria de mentiras de Estados Unidos e Israel — intentan contarles, de que Irán es el agresor y el responsable de los ataques? Pero ¿por qué Estados Unidos construye bases de lanzamiento de misiles tan cerca de barrios residenciales? Está claro que, al igual que los israelíes, no se trata de un ejército “moral” y “ético”: esas personas existen para ser escudos humanos de los soldados estadounidenses. La lógica de protección se invierte: no son los sistemas antiaéreos de Estados Unidos los que sirven para proteger al pueblo saudí, emiratí o catarí, son esos ciudadanos de segunda clase los que deben morir para proteger a las fuerzas ocupantes.

Además, las bases militares de Estados Unidos frecuentemente albergan soldados responsables de crímenes contra las poblaciones locales. Esto quedó explícito durante la Guerra de Irak. Por ejemplo, la violación de una niña de 14 años llamada Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, seguida de su asesinato y el de sus familiares después de que soldados de la 101.ª División Aerotransportada invadieran su casa en Mahmudiya, en 2004. O las violaciones documentadas durante años durante la invasión de Irak, sumadas a la práctica de explotación sexual y prostitución realizada en áreas cercanas a instalaciones militares estadounidenses, como la Base aérea de Balad, utilizada por la 4ª División de Infantería.

El día 1°, marines estadounidenses mataron al menos a nueve manifestantes que intentaron invadir el consulado estadounidense en Karachi, en Pakistán, en protesta contra la agresión criminal contra Irán que ya había masacrado a cerca de 150 niñas en una escuela iraní el día anterior. Para eso sirve la presencia imperialista en los países de Oriente Medio, Asia Central, África y América Latina: violar, asesinar y usar a los propios nativos como escudos humanos, no para protegerlos.

¿Hasta cuándo se levantarán contra esta verdadera ocupación militar? Probablemente, eso no tardará en suceder.

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The oppression of women has been at the core of the CIA’s propaganda attacks against Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. All the media outlets, think tanks, NGOs, parties, and personalities that make up the CIA’s extensive payroll accuse Iran of oppressing women. This campaign of demagoguery reached alarming levels when the U.S. government decided to attempt a coup through a failed color revolution and now bombards the Persian nation incessantly.

Daily events, however, invariably demolish this demagoguery and cruelly expose its hypocrisy.

This artificial feminist movement is even authorized by its sponsors to denounce Trump’s sexism or Netanyahu’s violence when such denunciations have no power to affect the general policy of imperialism and represent no serious confrontation with those governments. Or when Democrats and liberals want to undermine the power of the far right solely to reap electoral benefits. In any case, this phenomenon amounts to nothing more than an imperialist pawn.

The dominant slogans about the oppression of women follow to the letter the script of the great bankers and capitalists, especially the European and American ones. The same applies to the demagoguery surrounding the oppression of Black people, homosexuals, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, and the various “minorities.”

It is enough to see that this monstrous propaganda apparatus, which made such a spectacle against Trump’s sexism, fully supports the imperialist aggressions led by the president of the United States. Or did anyone see CNN, BBC, DW, and Rede Globo denouncing the kidnapping of the Venezuelan first lady and deputy Cilia Flores along with Nicolás Maduro? Is it possible to find a greater oppression against women than the massacre of at least 150 girls at the school in Minab, in southern Iran, carried out by a U.S. bombing launched from a base in the United Arab Emirates? And among the more than 1,300 people killed in U.S. and Israeli attacks against Iran, how many hundreds were women?

The imperialist aggression against Iran is being fully supported by the feminist demagoguery industry made in the USA. Part of it even criticized Israel’s genocide in Gaza, but only so as not to lose the little credibility it still manages to maintain, thanks to the blindness of the majority of the petty bourgeoisie. Yet from the moment the regime responsible for the extermination of around 15,000 Palestinian women—the terrorist regime of Israel—launched aggression together with the United States against Iran, Jeffrey Epstein’s colleagues suddenly turned into liberators of Iranian women.

Of course, all these immaculate fighters against fake news will not say that Iran is one of the most progressive countries in the Middle East, where women have achieved rights that they do not have in most neighboring countries, where they enjoy broad access to higher education, the labor market, leisure, and freedom to dress in ways found in no other country of the Gulf. Rights won by the Revolution of 1979.

What the imperialists have never accepted is precisely the fact that Iran carried out a revolution that freed it from the slavery imposed on the overwhelming majority of the world’s peoples by the very same forces that present themselves as liberators of women. And in the face of the constant aggressions of those slave masters, that revolution has only grown stronger—to the point that, at this moment, it is paying back with interest all the provocations, threats, and attacks it has suffered over decades.

The actions of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have no precedent in modern history. By destroying or severely damaging U.S. and NATO military bases, embassies, and other facilities—and by bombing the largest of them (the land stolen from Palestine called “Israel”)—Iran is striking a monumental blow against the imperialist presence in the Middle East.

“We have no choice but to put an end to the American presence in the Gulf,” said the Persian deputy foreign minister, Sayed Khatibzadeh. These words express Iran’s conviction that its war is not merely a war of definitive independence against aggressive powers—though that alone would already justify fighting it. It is an even more sacred war: a war to free the entire region from the colonial domination of the United States and other imperialist powers, which are there only to plunder its oil and natural wealth and to control one of the arteries of the global capitalist system.

Since the late nineteenth century, in order to guarantee the plunder of those peoples, the imperialist powers imposed puppet dictatorships that would control the populations with weapons, training, technology, and full political, diplomatic, and economic support from the United States and European imperialist nations. They even artificially created many of those countries.

The regimes of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, and of course Israel remain in power only because of the strong military presence of the United States and NATO. Without it, they would never exist. The governments of most of these countries are monarchies or military dictatorships where political rights and democratic freedoms do not exist and where, obviously, women live in the deepest darkness. At this stage, of course, “progressive” demagoguery will not utter a word, but it is difficult to believe that Iranian women are more oppressed than Saudi women.

By attacking imperialist installations in those countries, Iran is undermining the foundations of colonial domination over their peoples. It not only weakens the U.S. military presence but also, consequently, the very puppet regimes created to more conveniently exploit their wealth. These artificial and oppressive regimes become increasingly fragile as Iran expels imperialism. The weakening of these regimes means the weakening of exploitation over their peoples. Iran’s expulsion of imperialism opens the path for the fall of this entire system of oppression, especially the regimes themselves.

It will not be long before the peoples of the entire Middle East hail the Islamic Republic of Iran. And women will be freer than ever, following the example of Iranian women.

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La opresión de la mujer forma parte del eje central de los ataques propagandísticos de la CIA contra Irán desde la Revolución Islámica de 1979. Todos los medios de comunicación, think tanks, ONG, partidos y personalidades que componen la extensa nómina de la CIA acusan a Irán de oprimir a las mujeres. Esta campaña de demagogia alcanzó niveles alarmantes cuando el gobierno estadounidense decidió impulsar un golpe mediante una revolución de color fallida y ahora bombardea incesantemente a la nación persa.

Los acontecimientos cotidianos, sin embargo, invariablemente echan por tierra esta demagogia y desenmascaran su hipocresía de manera cruel.

Este movimiento feminista artificial incluso recibe autorización de sus financiadores para denunciar el machismo de Trump o la violencia de Netanyahu cuando esas denuncias no tienen el poder de afectar la política general del imperialismo y no representan ningún enfrentamiento contundente con esos gobiernos. O cuando los demócratas y liberales quieren minar el poder de la extrema derecha únicamente para cosechar beneficios electorales. En cualquier caso, este fenómeno no pasa de ser una masa de maniobra imperialista.

Las consignas dominantes sobre la opresión de la mujer siguen al pie de la letra el guion de los grandes banqueros y capitalistas, sobre todo los europeos y estadounidenses. Lo mismo ocurre con la demagogia en torno a la opresión de los negros, de los homosexuales, de los indígenas, de los inmigrantes y de las diversas “minorías”.

Basta ver que todo ese aparato monstruoso de propaganda, que tanto teatro hizo contra el machismo de Trump, presta todo su apoyo a las agresiones imperialistas encabezadas por el presidente de Estados Unidos. ¿O acaso alguien vio a CNN, BBC, DW y Rede Globo denunciando el secuestro de la primera dama y diputada venezolana, Cilia Flores, junto con Nicolás Maduro? ¿Será posible encontrar una opresión mayor contra las mujeres que la masacre de al menos 150 niñas en la escuela de Minab, en el sur de Irán, ejecutada por un bombardeo estadounidense proveniente de una base en los Emiratos Árabes? Y, de las más de 1.300 víctimas fatales de ataques de Estados Unidos e Israel contra Irán, ¿cuántos centenares eran mujeres?

La agresión imperialista contra Irán está siendo apoyada íntegramente por la industria de la demagogia feminista made in USA. Parte de ella incluso criticó el genocidio de Israel en Gaza, pero solo para no perder el poco de credibilidad que todavía logra mantener, gracias a la ceguera de la mayoría de la pequeña burguesía. Sin embargo, desde el momento en que el responsable del exterminio de cerca de 15.000 palestinas, el régimen terrorista de Israel, inició la agresión junto con Estados Unidos contra Irán, ¡los colegas de Jeffrey Epstein se transformaron en libertadores de las mujeres iraníes!

Por supuesto, todos esos inmaculados combatientes de las fake news no dirán que Irán es uno de los países más progresistas de Oriente Medio, donde las mujeres han alcanzado derechos que no poseen en la mayoría de los países vecinos, donde tienen amplio acceso a la educación superior, al mercado laboral, al ocio y libertad para vestirse como en ningún otro país del Golfo. Derechos conquistados por la Revolución de 1979.

Lo que los imperialistas jamás aceptaron es precisamente el hecho de que Irán haya realizado una revolución que lo liberó de la esclavitud impuesta a la aplastante mayoría de los pueblos del mundo por los mismos que se presentan como libertadores de las mujeres. Y, frente a las constantes agresiones de esos señores de esclavos, aquella revolución solo se fortaleció, hasta el punto de que, en este momento, está devolviendo con creces todas las provocaciones, amenazas y ataques que sufrió a lo largo de décadas.

La acción del Cuerpo de los Guardianes de la Revolución Islámica no tiene precedentes en la historia moderna. Al destruir o dañar gravemente las bases militares, embajadas y demás instalaciones de Estados Unidos y de la OTAN, además de bombardear la mayor de ellas (la tierra robada de Palestina llamada “Israel”), Irán está asestando un golpe monumental contra la presencia imperialista en Oriente Medio.

“No tenemos otra opción que poner fin a la presencia estadounidense en el Golfo”, afirmó el viceministro de Relaciones Exteriores persa, Sayed Khatibzadeh. Estas palabras expresan la convicción iraní de que su guerra no es solo una guerra de independencia definitiva contra potencias agresoras —si fuera solo eso, ya valdría la pena librarla—. Es una guerra aún más sagrada: la guerra para liberar a toda la región del dominio colonial de Estados Unidos y de las demás potencias imperialistas, que no están allí sino para saquear su petróleo y sus riquezas naturales y controlar una de las arterias del sistema capitalista mundial.

Desde finales del siglo XIX, para garantizar el saqueo de aquellos pueblos, las potencias imperialistas impusieron dictaduras títeres que controlaran a las poblaciones con armas, entrenamiento, tecnología y todo el apoyo político, diplomático y económico de Estados Unidos y de las naciones imperialistas europeas. Incluso crearon artificialmente buena parte de esos países.

Los regímenes de los Emiratos Árabes, Baréin, Kuwait, Catar, Arabia Saudita, Omán, Yemen, Jordania, Líbano, Siria, la Autoridad Palestina y, por supuesto, Israel se sostienen en el poder solo gracias a la fuerte presencia militar de Estados Unidos y de la OTAN. De no ser por ello, jamás existirían. Los gobiernos de la mayoría de esos países son monarquías o dictaduras militares donde no existen derechos políticos ni libertades democráticas y donde, obviamente, las mujeres viven en la más profunda oscuridad. A estas alturas, por supuesto, la demagogia “progresista” no dirá ni una palabra, pero es difícil creer que la mujer iraní esté más oprimida que la saudí.

Al atacar las instalaciones imperialistas en esos países, Irán está minando las bases de la dominación colonial sobre sus pueblos. No solo debilita la presencia militar de Estados Unidos, sino también, como consecuencia, a los propios regímenes títeres creados para explotar con mayor comodidad sus riquezas. Estos regímenes artificiales y opresores se debilitan de manera marcada a medida que Irán expulsa al imperialismo. El debilitamiento de estos regímenes significa el debilitamiento de la explotación sobre sus pueblos. La expulsión del imperialismo por parte de Irán abre el camino para la caída de todo este sistema de opresión, especialmente de los propios regímenes.

No tardará mucho y los pueblos de todo Oriente Medio gritarán vivas a la República Islámica de Irán. Y las mujeres serán más libres que nunca, siguiendo el ejemplo de la mujer iraní.

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A Coalizão Epstein (EUA e Israel) iniciou no dia 28 de fevereiro uma guerra contra a República Islâmica do Irã. O tiro de partida foi o assassinato de 171 meninas numa escola primária (talvez como sacrifício a Baal, divindade favorita dos epsteinianos?), seguido pelo martírio do Aiatolá Ali Khamenei, em sua própria residência.

Foi o início de uma “operação” que os EUA esperavam ver terminada em algumas horas, depois em 3 dias. Bem, já passam de 6 dias de operação e todos os analistas indicam que a guerra durará, no mínimo, algumas semanas, com perdas significativas em ambos os lados.

O que levou essa operação a ser iniciada? A resposta fácil e previsível é que os EUA querem o petróleo e outros recursos naturais do Irã.

Usualmente, quem raciocina dessa maneira tende, também, a dizer que o Estado de Israel representa um enclave dos EUA ou do “Ocidente coletivo” no Oriente Médio, cuja finalidade seria servir de entreposto para facilitar ou possibilitar a ocupação da região, para garantir a exploração dos seus recursos naturais. É o resultado inevitável, talvez, de olhar para as estatísticas comparadas de ambos países.

Os EUA são maiores, têm um PIB maior, forças armadas mais poderosas e mais numerosas, possuem mais bilionários, enfim, são “superiores” em todos os quesitos possíveis e imagináveis, de modo que só se pode perceber a relação EUA-Israel como uma na qual os EUA mandam e Israel obedece.

De fato, as leituras marxianas e, em geral, materialistas vão nesse sentido. Mas a Guerra do Irã confirma essa avaliação?

Se é Israel a colônia obediente dos EUA, então a decisão de iniciar o conflito teria sido eminentemente dos EUA, com Israel simplesmente obedecendo à determinação de sua “metrópoles”.

Mas aquilo que se percebe das declarações oficiais do Secretário de Estado Marco Rubio e do Secretário de Guerra Pete Hegseth é exatamente o oposto: eles deixaram bastante claro em suas coletivas de imprensa que os EUA se envolveram no conflito apenas porque Israel já havia decidido atacar o Irã, com Washington simplesmente seguindo a determinação sionista.

Usou-se o artifício de alegar um plano de ataque preventivo por parte do Irã, mas o artifício foi rapidamente abandonado após ter sido refutado pelo Pentágono. De fato, o Irã não tinha qualquer plano de atacar seja os EUA, seja Israel.

Em outras palavras, Israel teria feito os EUA atacarem o Irã. Como isso é possível?

A solução para o mistério parece estar no papel da comunidade judaica dos EUA e sua influência sobre os negócios internos do país, tenham seus membros cidadania israelense ou não. Afinal, apesar de compor apenas 2.4% da população dos EUA, 25% dos seus membros possui renda equivalente ao 4% mais ricos entre os não judeus.

E se em muitos países, boa parte da comunidade judaica é crítica ou indiferente a Israel, nos EUA 90% dos membros da comunidade apoiam Israel contra seus inimigos. E esse apoio não é meramente verbal, expressando-se através da organização formal de lóbis que financiam candidatos pró-Israel e prejudicam candidatos anti-Israel, a mais famosa dessas organizações sendo a AIPAC, a qual investiu quase 130 milhões de dólares para eleger seus candidatos em 2024.

Um ativo muito mais importante, porém, é o fato de que, tal como indicado pela renda, muitos membros dessa comunidade ocupam postos de poder e influência na mídia de massa, no sistema bancário e no entretenimento. Mesmo sendo apenas, novamente, 2.4% da população dos EUA, constituem 33% dos CEOs dos principais bancos, 40% dos CEOs dos principais conglomerados midiáticos e 50% dos CEOs das principais empresas da indústria do entretenimento.

E esses são os setores que, basicamente, controlam o fluxo de investimentos, bem como moldam as opiniões e gostos da população do país.

Anos atrás, os geopolitólogos John Mearsheimer e Stephen Walt lançaram um ótimo livro sobre o lóbi sionista nos EUA. O que eles deixam bem claro naquela obra é que o apoio dos EUA a Israel não está vinculado a qualquer interesse estratégico de Washington. O custo de apoiar Israel é imenso, tanto em dinheiro quanto na popularidade internacional dos EUA. De fato, os EUA apenas se prejudicam ao apoiar Israel contra seus inimigos.

Então como se poderia dizer que os EUA controlam Israel?

Voltando à atual administração presidencial, personagens como Hegseth e Lindsay Graham admitem abertamente que o principal objetivo dos EUA é facilitar a reconstrução do Templo de Jerusalém para abrir o caminho para a vinda do Messias dos judeus. Escatologicamente, o problema aí é que, para católicos, ortodoxos e protestantes tradicionais, o Messias dos judeus é o Anticristo.

Por mais que Israel seja dependente da ajuda financeira e militar dos EUA, o sionismo capturou os mecanismos de decisão e formação da opinião pública de maneira tão total que praticamente poderíamos comparar o hegemon unipolar a um golem acéfalo. No lugar de “America First”, é a política do “Israel First”.

Enquanto bases, radares, aviões e pessoal dos EUA é atingido por chuvas de mísseis e drones, e Washington vai perdendo influência e capacidade de projetar poder no Oriente Médio, torna-se inevitável chegar à conclusão de que é Israel quem dá as cartas nessa relação, e que Tel-Aviv instrumentalizará os EUA enquanto isso servir aos seus próprios interesses expansionistas.

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The U.S. secretary of state is reviving the language and intent of 19th century colonialism to deter what he sees as “the forces of civilizational erasure that today menace both America and Europe alike,” writes Joe Lauria.

Cecil Rhodes may have been the most unabashed imperialist of the modern era. In his 1877 “Confession of Faith,” he wrote:

“I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race. Just fancy those parts that are at present inhabited by the most despicable specimens of human beings what an alteration there would be if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence, look again at the extra employment a new country added to our dominions gives.

We are actually limiting our children and perhaps bringing into the world half the human beings we might owing to the lack of country for them to inhabit that if we had retained America there would at this moment be millions more of English living.

I contend that every acre added to our territory means in the future birth to some more of the English race who otherwise would not be brought into existence. Added to this the absorption of the greater portion of the world under our rule simply means the end of all wars. “

Rhodes ever regretted that the British Empire lost its North American colonies. He wanted the United States to be rejoined with Britain to create a great, racially superior Anglo-Saxon Empire that would rule over a global Pax Britannica.

“Why should we not form a secret society with but one object the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule for the recovery of the United States for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire. What a dream, but yet it is probable, it is possible.“

Instead the U.S. went its own way to build such an Anglo-Saxon global empire but with the U.S. instead in the lead and Britain absorbed as junior partner (with the other Three Eyes).

The transition to predominance from the British to the American Empire could be demarcated at the Suez Crisis of Oct. 29 to Nov. 7, 1956 when the United States, the preeminent power after the war, put an end to the French, British and Israeli military adventure to stop Egypt nationalizing the canal.

That made the U.S. the major power in the Middle East, supplanting British and French colonialism.

Four months later, on March 6, 1957, the Gold Coast became the first African country to gain independence, renaming itself Ghana.  That was the beginning of the end for direct British, French, Belgian and Portuguese rule on the continent.

Colonialism only superficially ended in the wave of independence that followed in the 1960s, 70s and 80s in Africa and Asia. After many bitter and protracted wars, the worst coming in Angola (1961–1975) and Vietnam (1945–1975), European flags were lowered and the flags of proud, new nations rose.

But European and American political and economic dominance of the Global South continues, at first challenged by the non-aligned movement and now by the BRICS nations led by China and Russia — the greatest obstacles to U.S. global domination.

The Rise & Coming Crisis of the US Empire

Satirical political cartoon reflecting America’s imperial ambitions following quick and total victory in the Spanish American War of 1898. (Cornell University Library/Wikimedia Commons)

The U.S. empire arose almost immediately after the separation from Britain that Rhodes so lamented.

First, the slaughter and takeover of Native American nations; then the purchase of Louisiana from a cash-strapped Napoleon; followed by the conquest of Mexico’s northern territories from Texas to California; and then defeat and displacement of the decrepit Spanish empire in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Two world wars extended U.S. presence first in Europe and Russia and then on military bases spanning the globe. While Rhodes was busy running Africa, planning a Cape Town to Cairo railroad and enriching himself on the continent’s diamonds, the United States today seeks to dominate the entire world and all the resources it needs to do it.

Major setbacks in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan has left Washington and its corporate partners undeterred. The Global South’s continuing aspiration for full independence is the enemy that threatens unbridled U.S. power.

This is the context in which Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state and national security adviser, stepped to the podium at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14 to deliver a speech worthy of Rhodes, one that may have led him to believe the U.S. had returned to the Anglo-Saxon home where it belonged.

Rubio said Americans and Europeans “are part of one civilization – Western civilization.  We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”

He asks what the U.S. and its Western allies are fighting for?

“Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation.  Armies fight for a way of life. And that is what we are defending: a great civilization that has every reason to be proud of its history, confident of its future, and aims to always be the master of its own economic and political destiny.”

Rubio is dismissing seven decades of anti-colonialism, arguing it has impeded American and Western greatness. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in the West’s colonial past of slavery and abuse and the future is there again for the taking.

Europe’s great cultural treasures, built on the exploitation of the colonies, “foreshadow the wonders that await us in our future.  But only if we are unapologetic in our heritage and proud of this common inheritance can we together begin the work of envisioning and shaping our economic and our political future.”

The West must shake off any residual guilt from its colonialist past and proudly reassert Western dominance like in the good old days of conquest and expansion.

The good old days of Cecil Rhodes, of Leopold’s barbarity in Congo, German genocide in Namibia, Portuguese brutality in Angola, Spanish atrocities in South America, French crimes in Algeria and Indochina and Anglo-Saxon massacres in India, North America and Australia. Greenland, Canada, Venezuela and next Iran are open imperialist targets of the Trump administration.

‘Expand Our Territory’

Donald Trump takes the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States, Jan. 20, 2025. (Ike Hayman/ White House)

In his January 2025 inaugural address, Donald Trump spelled it out: “America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, most respected nation on Earth, inspiring the awe and admiration of the entire world. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.”

Trump said:

“It is time for us to once again act with courage, vigor and the vitality of history’s greatest civilization. … The United States will once again consider itself a growing nation, one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.” [Emphasis added.]

The Days of Denial

The U.S. had long denied it was an empire. But no more.

Before the Soviet Union made “imperialism” a dirty word, empires were proud to be called empires. The U.S. founders in their writings referred to the new country as one. George Washington called the U.S. “a rising empire,” and Thomas Jefferson said western expansion would create an “empire of liberty,” Manifest Destiny became the slogan to conquer the continent.

During William McKinley’s presidency, the 1898 U.S. defeat of the Spanish Empire and seizure of overseas colonies was wildly popular. There was no shame in empire.

McKinley tried to frame imperialism as a civilizing mission and “benevolent assimilation” rather than the naked conquest that it was, but the Anti-Imperialist League aptly named it. That the openly anti-imperialist William Jennings Bryan fell to McKinley’s 1900 re-election showed just how popular American imperialism was.

A cartoon of Uncle Sam seated in restaurant looking at the bill of fare containing “Cuba steak,” “Porto Rico pig,” the “Philippine Islands” and the “Sandwich Islands” (Hawaii) and saying “Well, I hardly know which to take first!” to the waiter, president William McKinley. (From May 28, 1898 issue of The Boston Globe/Public Domain)

But the rise of the Soviet Union and its criticism of the West as “imperialist” turned the word into a curse which Ronald Reagan eventually invoked to label the Soviets the “Evil Empire” in a case of pure projection.

Post-war U.S. coups and invasions expanded dominance under cover of spreading democracy, though democrats were unseated for dictators, such as in Iran and Chile.  A fleeting revival of domestic anti-imperialism around Vietnam was overcome in the 1991 Gulf War, in which George H.W. Bush proclaimed the Vietnam syndrome over.

That cleared the way for U.S. interventions in Yugoslavia in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001 and the major invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Despite all this clear evidence, the trepidation with which U.S. politicians approached the idea that the U.S. was an empire was illustrated by a 2008 radio interview in which then Sen. John Edwards, a Democratic presidential candidate, was asked an incredible question:  ‘Is America an empire?’

There was dead air for about 10 seconds before Edwards said, “Gee, I hope not.”

[See: A Conversation With Gore Vidal on the E Word]

Now it’s back in the open again. And Trump and Rubio are saying it out loud.

“This is the path that President Trump and the United States has embarked upon,” Rubio told his Munich audience. “It is the path we ask you here in Europe to join us on.  It is a path we have walked together before and hope to walk together again.”

Let’s us revive Western colonialism together. Let us return to its heyday that lasted from the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and English expansion, through the 1880’s Scramble for Africa, until the 1940s.

“For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding – its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe,” Rubio said proudly.

Ruin then befell the West when the colonial powers warred against each other. This was followed by godless demands for sovereignty from the colonized.

“But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, [the territorial expansion] was contracting.  Europe was in ruins.  Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow.  The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come.”

Rubio lamented that,

“Against that backdrop, then, as now, many came to believe that the West’s age of dominance had come to an end and that our future was destined to be a faint and feeble echo of our past.

But together, our predecessors recognized that decline was a choice, and it was a choice they refused to make.  This is what we did together once before, and this is what President Trump and the United States want to do again now, together with you.”

There can be no more explicit example of the reinvigoration of colonialism than the ongoing U.S. and European support for Israel’s colonial genocide in Palestine. It is colonialism rooted in the pre-war era, dripping in lies about Israel’s right to defend itself, not against its rebellious, anti-colonial subjects, but against anti-semites in Palestine and around the world.

Here is the Rubio Doctrine proclaimed: the supremacist West is back. Europe must join America in its revival.  Left unsaid was persisting in Project Ukraine to strategically defeat Russia.

“This is why we do not want our allies to be weak, because that makes us weaker. We want allies who can defend themselves so that no adversary [Russia, China, the BRICS] will ever be tempted to test our collective strength,” Rubio said. And anti-colonial accusations will not be tolerated.

“This is why we do not want our allies to be shackled by guilt and shame. We want allies who are proud of their culture and of their heritage, who understand that we are heirs to the same great and noble civilization, and who, together with us, are willing and able to defend it.

And this is why we do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it, for we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the West’s managed decline.  We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship and renew the greatest civilization in human history.”

Fear is to be conquered on the road back to colonial greatness.

“The alliance that we want is one that is not paralyzed into inaction by fear – fear of climate change, fear of war, fear of technology. Instead, we want an alliance that boldly races into the future.  And the only fear we have is the fear of the shame of not leaving our nations prouder, stronger, and wealthier for our children.”

Ignore your suffering populations and overcome your guilt.  Rubio said the U.S. wants an alliance “ready to defend our people, to safeguard our interests, and to preserve the freedom of action that allows us to shape our own destiny – not one that exists to operate a global welfare state and atone for the purported sins of past generations.”

He is talking about ambitious elites  pursuing their self-interest with no regard for the immense human suffering they causes on their way to success.

Western elites stand above the peoples of non-West nations, whom Rhodes called “the most despicable specimens of human beings.” A reinvigorated U.S. and Europe will not “maintain the polite pretense that our way of life is just one among many and that asks for permission before it acts,” said Rubio.

Underscoring the point further, he said,

“What we have inherited together is something that is unique and distinctive and irreplaceable, because this, after all, is the very foundation of the transatlantic bond. Acting together in this way, we will not just help recover a sane foreign policy.  It will restore to us a clearer sense of ourselves.  It will restore a place in the world, and in so doing, it will rebuke and deter the forces of civilizational erasure that today menace both America and Europe alike.”

Leaving no doubt what he meant, Rubio concluded:

“I am here today to leave it clear that America is charting the path for a new century of prosperity, and that once again we want to do it together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends.  (Applause.)

We want to do it together with you, with a Europe that is proud of its heritage and of its history; with a Europe that has the spirit of creation of liberty that sent ships out into uncharted seas and birthed our civilization; with a Europe that has the means to defend itself and the will to survive.

We should be proud of what we achieved together in the last century, but now we must confront and embrace the opportunities of a new one – because yesterday is over, the future is inevitable, and our destiny together awaits. Thank you.”

The assembled mostly European officials in the audience rose to their feet in sustained applause. Anyone who thinks the revival of the colonial mindset is just an American phenomenon would be sadly mistaken by this response.

Cecil Rhodes’ spirit is revived.  But it is a very different world than his. One can only see frightening amounts of bloodshed ahead if American and European leaders act on Rubio’s vision.

Rubio gets a standing ovation at Munich. (U.S. State Dept./YouTube)

Original article:  consortiumnews.com

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Colonization, version 2.0

There is one thing that the United States of America has always been good at: waging war. In its brief period of interaction with the rest of the world – about a century of conflicts outside its domestic borders – the U.S. has achieved a density of conflicts unmatched by any other country in the world (in proportion to the history of its existence as a state).

However, when the U.S. entered the world stage with its impressive military power, the West was already in a phase of gradually releasing the tension practiced with colonialism, and then experiencing gradual decolonization in the 20th century. Therefore, the U.S. had to adapt immediately, and it did so with great ingenuity, not giving up its share of colonization, but simply changing the domain within which it would take place.

After World War II, national liberation movements spread throughout the world; numerous independent states quickly emerged, the European colonial system disintegrated, and the post-colonial era began. As the new global hegemonic power, the United States understood that, faced with nations now aware of their own identity, the use of “hard power” alone – political domination, economic control, military deterrence – would not be enough to guarantee lasting and widespread control. The use of “soft power,” based on culture and values, appeared to be more advantageous and less costly. Achieving ‘voluntary’ adherence and subordination on an emotional basis would, in this perspective, represent the American version of colonisation of the mind.

Through the deconstruction of the collective consciousness of the targeted countries and the introduction of U.S. values, the United States aims to achieve a form of ‘mental colonisation’ in invisible areas, so as to lay the deep foundations of its hegemonic system.

Unlike normal intellectual exchange between peoples, this process would take the form of mental domination based on unequal relationships, which manifests itself mainly in four ways:

a) Forced transformation

In the presence of a strong power imbalance, the hegemonic power tends to impose its own values and models, selectively eliminating local cultures and ideologies. This coercive restructuring can generate identity crises, loss of cultural expression, and ideological disorientation.

b) Intentional manipulation

To achieve a kind of “ideological domestication,” the dominant power can promote obedience, support dependent elites, and weaken the autonomy of thought of the societies involved.

c) Indirect infiltration

Cultural and ideological export is often presented in the form of “advanced values” or “civil progress,” penetrating social contexts through cultural products, educational systems, academic exchanges, and other less visible channels.

d) Gradual erosion

Cognitive transformations occur progressively and cumulatively. Similarly, colonizing the mind requires a long time, continuous action, and even intergenerational transmission to achieve a profound reshaping of perceptions.

The aspiration to conquer minds is not new in imperial history. Colonial powers of the past attempted to spread their languages, educational systems, and historical interpretations in conquered territories to build an ideological foundation for their domination. However, such attempts were limited by the historical conditions of the time.

With the intensification of the globalization of material and cultural exchanges, the United States – with its unprecedented resources and capabilities – has placed itself at the forefront in this area. After the two world wars, the development of telecommunications, the expansion of professional media, scientific advances, and the globalization of capital created conditions conducive to the global dissemination of information, accelerating the projection of American ideology.

As one of the main architects of the postwar international order, the United States promoted its own political and economic models and values such as “democracy” and “freedom,” while at the same time challenging alternative ideologies and downplaying local cultures, thereby fostering  –  according to this interpretation  –  global intellectual dependence. Through a combination of expansive construction and selective deconstruction, the United States pursued mental colonization to a greater extent than previous colonial empires.

Historical phases of the beginning of the mental operation

The evolution of this process can be divided into several historical phases.

The first is what we might call germination and continental expansion, technically between the end of the 18th century and the end of the 19th century. After the War of Independence, the United States expanded across the American continent, inspired by the principle of “Manifest Destiny.” Events such as the Westward Expansion and the war against Mexico greatly expanded the national territory. With the proclamation of the ‘Monroe Doctrine’, President James Monroe brought Latin America into the U.S. sphere of influence, supporting the principle of ‘America for Americans’.

The second phase occurred in the first half of the 20th century and was one of foundation and global rise. During the two world wars, the power of the United States grew significantly. Overcoming isolationism, the country actively intervened in international affairs. President Woodrow Wilson formulated the “Fourteen Points” and promoted the creation of the League of Nations. Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which laid the foundations for a new international order. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” became a reference point for the international human rights system.

The second half of the 20th century saw a fierce confrontation between the U.S. and USSR blocs. In the context of rivalry with the Soviet Union, ideological competition intensified. The Marshall Plan linked economic aid to the adoption of a specific socio-political model, contributing to the formation of a capitalist bloc led by the United States as opposed to the socialist camp. Propaganda, cultural diplomacy, and academic programs were used to spread anti-communist messages and support elites favorable to Washington.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the sole superpower. The “Washington Consensus” and neoliberal theories spread widely, while the international socialist movement weakened. We consider this to be the fourth phase, a period of promotion of U.S. hegemony, from the 1990s to the early 2000s. After the September 11 attacks, the fight against terrorism became a priority and the world changed radically. From the emphasis on “democracy expansion” during Bill Clinton’s presidency to George W. Bush’s “freedom agenda,” the promotion of American-style democracy and freedom intensified.

The latest phase is one of hegemonic anger, which we are still experiencing today. Faced with internal and external challenges – political polarization, social fragmentation, the rise of populism – the United States has renewed its strategies. From the “smart power diplomacy” of the Barack Obama administration to the “Summit for Democracy” promoted by Joe Biden, to the slogans “America First” and “Make America Great Again” associated with Donald Trump, we have witnessed a strengthening of the tools of ideological influence, which have become incredibly more powerful thanks to the strong development of social media. Control of technological platforms and information flows, even under the justification of combating disinformation or foreign interference, has become a central element in the competition to shape global perception.

From this historical overview, we will now look at the many and varied faces of cognitive propaganda.

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US empire managers have been making some surprisingly honest admissions in recent days, with Senator Lindsey Graham saying the wars of the future are being planned in Israel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for a return to old-school western colonialism.

US empire managers have been making some surprisingly honest admissions in recent days, with Senator Lindsey Graham saying the wars of the future are being planned in Israel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for a return to old-school western colonialism.

During a Monday press conference in Tel Aviv after a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Graham said that “I’ve been coming here every two weeks whether I need to or not.”

Why is a South Carolina senator traveling to Israel every two weeks, rain or shine? The bloodthirsty warmonger answers this question in short order.

“The wars of the future are being planned here in Israel,” Graham said. “Because if you’re not one step ahead of the enemy, you suffer. The most clever, creative military forces on the planet are here in Israel.”

Graham salivated about the possibility of a US war with Iran, acknowledging that such a war could absolutely result in American troops in the region being struck by Iranian missiles but saying the US should go to war anyway.

“Could our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely, they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely, they can,” Graham said, arguing that “the risk associated with that is far less than the risk associated with blinking and pulling the plug and not helping the people as you promised.”

During a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the mask all the way off in an unsettling rant about the need to return to the good old days when western powers dominated the global south without pretense or apology.

“For five centuries, before the end of the second world war, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe,” Rubio said. “But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, it was contracting. Europe was in ruins. Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow. The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come.”

Rubio, a notoriously anti-communist gusano, is here admitting that socialism played a leading role in pushing back against the abusive colonialism and empire-building of the western world in recent decades. A normal person would take this as a strong argument in favor of socialism, but Rubio says it like it’s a bad thing.

Rubio urged Europeans to join their white Christian brethren in the United States in re-conquering the brown-skinned communists and heathens who have been insisting upon their own sovereignty and the advancement of their own interests:

“Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past. And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.

“For the United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The man who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.

“We are part of one civilization — Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.”

It takes a special kind of psychopath to look back with fondness upon five centuries of unchecked western colonialism and imperialism and then advocate a return to those horrific days. Mass genocides across entire continents. The African slave trade. The violent subjugation and enslavement of entire populations. That is what Rubio is looking back on and sighing with nostalgia.

And this is of course to say nothing of the savagery his beloved “Western civilization” is perpetrating in the present day. This is the civilization of the Gaza holocaust. The civilization that cannot exist without constant war, exploitation and extraction. The civilization that is presently strangling Cuba to death and preparing for war with Iran. The civilization that still to this day violently subjugates and robs the global south. The civilization of ecocide. The civilization of Epstein.

Western civilization is the most depraved and abusive civilization that has ever existed. It doesn’t need a return to its prime, it needs to be stopped in its tracks and made healthy. This is obvious from a glance at the deranged empire managers this civilization has been elevating to positions of leadership.

Original article:  caitlinjohnstone.com.au

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As the White House threatens war against Cuba, I am reminded of the charming evenings my parents and I spent at Havana’s venerable ‘Floridita Bar, sipping a newly invented cocktail, the Margarita, with the renowned writer, Ernest Hemingway.

`Papa’ Hemingway, who then lived in Cuba, loved this island with a great passion and wrote about it often. I feel the same way. I’ve been visiting Cuba since before Castro took over and feel at home in this socialist nation, no matter how threadbare or destitute.

Cubans, whom I call ‘the aristocrats of the West Indies’, have managed to survive efforts by the mighty U.S. to starve, isolate, and attack them for the past five decades. I’ve even been twice in battle against Cuban troops in Angola, Africa. They were valiant and competent soldiers.

Few Americans or Canadians know that Havana is even older than my native New York City. Sadly, today once gorgeous, sultry Havana is falling into ruins after seven generations of crushing embargo by the United States. Cuba’s revolutionary strongman, Fidel Castro, refused to bow to U.S. pressure or take orders from Washington.

The U.S. sought to sabotage Cuba’s sugar-based economy, mounting an amazingly inept invasion in 1961. Cuba became a highly repressive communist regime, thanks to important help from the Soviet Union. Anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Florida kept up a half century effort to get Washington to continue efforts to overthrow the Castro regime.

This campaign continues today. The Trump administration dominates Florida’s Castro-hating Republicans who are the core of its electoral strength. Trump just took over Venezuela with the primary purpose of cutting off the essential oil aid Caracas was giving Havana. Cuba, out of oil, is now shutting down. Half of Cuba’s electricity is gone, so too factories, public transport, flights and military forces. Food shortages are everywhere. Cuba’s tourism business – its economic lifeline – is dying rapidly Major European, Canadian and US airlines have cancelled flights due to the growing fuel shortage.

This strangulation of Cuba is intended to paralyze the island, then provoke uprisings against the government. To its credit, Mexico is delivering emergency food aid by sea and says it plans to provide oil to besieged Cuba. But this modest aid won’t be enough to keep Cuba’s nine million people from starving.

Meanwhile, Florida’s exiled Cubans, led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, are gleefully watching the Communist regime flounder. Among Florida’s 400-500,000 Cuban exiles there is frantic politicking to form a government in exile or plan future waterfront developments in Havana and bring back the bad old days of prostitution and gambling. Venezuela and Cuba will return to being US colonies. Whatever Russian influence there is in the West indies will be quickly kicked out.

The Trump forces will get all those Cuban votes in Florida, thus winning one of the most important electoral states. Havana will come to look like Ft. Lauderdale, likely redeveloped the same way that the current White House plans for another annoying people, the Palestinians.

Original article: ericmargolis.com

Segue nostro Telegram.

Un investimento da quasi 12 miliardi di dollari per blindare l’industria statunitense dalle scosse geopolitiche e ridurre la dipendenza dalla Cina è alla base del “Project Vault”, una riserva strategica di minerali critici destinata a garantire forniture stabili a settori chiave come automotive, tecnologia, difesa ed energia, sul modello della Strategic Petroleum Reserve creata negli anni Settanta dopo lo choc petrolifero. Il progetto prevede un finanziamento iniziale da 10 miliardi di dollari sotto forma di prestito quindicennale della Us Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im), affiancato da circa 1,67 miliardi di capitale privato.

“Lanciamo quello che sarà conosciuto come Project Vault per garantire che le aziende e i lavoratori americani non subiscano mai danni a causa di eventuali carenze”, secondo quanto dichiarato da Trump alla Casa Bianca, affiancato dalla ceo di General Motors, Mary Barra, e dall’imprenditore del settore minerario, Robert Friedland. Il presidente USA ha sottolineato di aspettarsi anche un ritorno economico dall’operazione ma il fine geopolitico è evidente.

La nuova riserva, una prima assoluta per il settore civile statunitense, sarà composta da terre rare e minerali critici come gallio e cobalto, indispensabili per la produzione di iPhone, batterie, motori per jet, radar e veicoli elettrici. L’obiettivo è attenuare l’impatto di improvvise interruzioni delle forniture e di forti oscillazioni dei prezzi, in un contesto globale segnato da crescenti tensioni geopolitiche.

Il nodo centrale è la Cina. Pechino controlla circa il 70% dell’estrazione mondiale di terre rare e quasi il 90% della loro lavorazione, una capacità che negli ultimi anni si è tradotta in una leva politica e commerciale sempre più evidente. Lo scorso anno, durante il confronto innescato dai dazi imposti da Washington, la Cina ha ristretto l’export di alcuni materiali strategici, costringendo diversi produttori statunitensi a rallentare o ridurre la produzione e mettendo in difficoltà il Pentagono che su quelle risorse minerarie basa la propria fabbricazione di armi. “Non vogliamo mai più rivivere quello che abbiamo passato un anno fa”, ha detto Trump, riferendosi a tale situazione.

Il progetto coinvolge intanto una decina di grandi gruppi industriali, tra cui Gm, Stellantis, Boeing, Corning, Ge Vernova e Google. Tre case di trading specializzate nelle materie prime, Hartree Partners, Traxys North America e Mercuria Energy Group, si occuperanno degli acquisti e del riempimento della riserva. L’annuncio ha avuto effetti immediati sui mercati: i titoli di diverse società statunitensi attive nelle terre rare e nei metalli critici sono balzati nelle contrattazioni in Borsa.

Parallelamente, l’Amministrazione Trump sta intensificando la diplomazia delle materie prime. Gli Stati Uniti hanno già siglato accordi di cooperazione con Australia, Giappone, Malesia e altri Paesi e puntano ad ampliare ulteriormente la rete, in una sorta di riedizione dell’alleanza delle democrazie lanciata da Joe Biden alcuni anni fa.

Il tema è al centro della conferenza ministeriale sui minerali critici a Washington, al Dipartimento di Stato, con la partecipazione del Segretario di Stato, Marco Rubio, e del Vicepresidente Jd Vance, che aprono i lavori. All’incontro prende parte anche il titolare della Farnesina, Antonio Tajani, insieme a rappresentanti di diversi Paesi europei, africani e asiatici, a conferma della dimensione sempre più internazionale della sfida sulle catene di approvvigionamento. Secondo il Guardian, il “Project Vault” è il tema centrale della conferenza, durante la quale dovrebbero essere firmati anche diversi accordi bilaterali volti a migliorare e coordinare la logistica della catena di approvvigionamento. Il Dipartimento di Stato ha dichiarato nella nota stampa relativa all’evento che l’incontro “creerà uno slancio per la collaborazione” tra i partecipanti al fine di garantire l’accesso alle terre rare senza passare dalla Cina.

Nei giorni scorsi, il Vicepresidente degli Stati Uniti JD Vance ha tenuto un discorso programmatico ai delegati dei principali Paesi produttori di minerali, cercando di garantire un blocco commerciale di terre rare per sfidare Pechino, mentre a gennaio 2026, un gruppo bipartisan di legislatori ha proposto una nuova agenzia con 2,5 miliardi di dollari per stimolare la produzione di terre rare e altri minerali essenziali.

L’UE si trova ad affrontare molte delle stesse vulnerabilità degli Stati Uniti. L’Europa non ha quasi nessuna capacità di raffinazione interna di terre rare e dipende in modo schiacciante dai trasformatori cinesi per i magneti permanenti utilizzati nelle turbine eoliche, nei veicoli elettrici e negli aerei da caccia. Il Critical Raw Materials Act dell’Unione Europea stabilisce obiettivi non vincolanti per l’estrazione, la lavorazione e il riciclaggio nazionali, mentre nuovi finanziamenti mirano ad accelerare i progetti minerari in Svezia, Finlandia e Groenlandia, che fa parte del Regno di Danimarca. Queste regioni ospitano alcuni dei giacimenti di terre rare più promettenti del blocco, con la Groenlandia che offre un potenziale particolarmente significativo nonostante il suo status non appartenente all’UE, citato di recente da Trump quando ha lanciato una nuova offerta per portare l’isola sotto il controllo degli Stati Uniti.

Diverse aziende europee, tra cui la tedesca Vacuumschmelze, stanno espandendo la produzione di magneti permanenti per offrire al Vecchio Continente la sua prima alternativa alle forniture cinesi.

Dopo che Bruxelles ha proposto un’alleanza per le terre rare oltreoceano, l’Ufficio del rappresentante commerciale degli Stati Uniti ha confermato che avrebbe collaborato con l’UE e il Giappone per “attenuare le vulnerabilità critiche della catena di approvvigionamento”. In un comunicato stampa congiunto si afferma che i partner stanno “compiendo passi significativi per aumentare la loro sicurezza economica e nazionale”, rafforzando la resilienza nel settore minerario critico.

Tra le nazioni riunite figurano anche importanti o emergenti fornitori come Australia, India e Thailandia, insieme a consumatori e trasformatori di terre rare, Corea del Sud, Germania e Canada. Sono presenti anche diverse nazioni africane, tra cui la Repubblica Democratica del Congo, considerate partner essenziali per la fornitura di altri minerali critici. Il blocco commerciale proposto dagli USA regolerebbe i prezzi minimi per le materie prime essenziali, per impedire alla Cina di aumentare improvvisamente le esportazioni e di praticare prezzi inferiori a quelli degli altri Paesi.

Molti analisti, tuttavia, ritengono che ci vorranno dai cinque ai dieci anni di investimenti costanti per lanciare una sfida credibile al principale produttore mondiale e che ciò potrebbe creare un eccesso di minerali essenziali se i Paesi seguissero l’esempio degli Stati Uniti e creassero le proprie scorte.

La posizione della Cina non è cambiata nel mantenere sicure e stabili le catene industriali e di approvvigionamento globali di minerali essenziali, ha dichiarato invece in una conferenza stampa Lin Jian, portavoce del Ministero degli Esteri cinese, sottolineando che tutte le parti hanno la responsabilità di svolgere un ruolo costruttivo in tal senso. Un esperto cinese ha affermato che è improbabile che la mossa degli Stati Uniti raggiunga i suoi obiettivi a breve termine, poiché le vere sfide – l’acquisizione di tecnologie avanzate e l’aumento della capacità produttiva – non possono essere risolte con azioni semplici o dirette.

Il progetto riguarda essenzialmente l’accumulo di scorte piuttosto che la produzione. Funziona più come una riserva a breve termine (un anno circa) che come una soluzione fondamentale. L’approvvigionamento di minerali critici è fondamentalmente vincolato dalla capacità produttiva e di esecuzione effettiva delle aziende, una sfida strutturale che rimane in gran parte irrisolta negli Stati Uniti; le vere sfide nella ricostruzione della catena di approvvigionamento nordamericana delle terre rare risiedono nell’acquisizione di tecnologie avanzate e nell’aumento della capacità produttiva, due questioni fondamentali che non possono essere risolte con misure semplici o superficiali.

Nel lungo termine, i vantaggi della Cina in termini di riserve di risorse e capacità di lavorazione significano che essa non sarà facilmente sostituita o superata; inoltre, Pechino ha costantemente sottolineato che le autorizzazioni all’esportazione di terre rare saranno concesse a richieste qualificate in conformità con le normative vigenti, e che continuerà ad impegnarsi a garantire la stabilità e il flusso senza ostacoli delle catene di approvvigionamento globali. La spinta di Washington a creare raggruppamenti esclusivi nel settore delle terre rare per eliminare la sua cosiddetta dipendenza dalla Cina viola le regole del mercato e interferisce con il normale funzionamento delle catene industriali e di approvvigionamento globali.

Dal punto di vista geopolitico, il ricompattamento occidentale USA-UE non è altro che una conseguenza del fallito tentativo di Trump di separare Mosca da Pechino. Nei giorni scorsi ci sono stati diversi segnali al riguardo: quando gli Stati Uniti hanno deciso di non rinnovare il Trattato New Start sulle bombe nucleari dicendo di voler coinvolgere la Cina, la Russia ha ribadito che per lei Pechino è un partner estremamente affidabile e non ha bisogno di garanzie da parte cinese su questo dossier; dopo aver accettato un invito ufficiale a recarsi in Cina, Vladimir Putin ha sottolineato che nonostante la stagione invernale tra Mosca e Pechino “è sempre Primavera”; nei recenti colloqui a livello di Ministeri della Difesa, Pechino ha chiesto a Mosca di innalzare ulteriormente il livello della cooperazione militare tra i due Paesi, come dimostrato dalle esercitazioni navali congiunte Mosca-Pechino-Teheran e dalla comune posizione politica russo-cinese sull’assedio statunitense a Cuba e Venezuela (a Mosca, il KPRF ha istituito il comitato per la liberazione di Maduro).