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“Whatever happens in Iran, the defeat of the West and its civilisation is inevitable. Trump cannot stop its implosion; he is accelerating it.” The American empire is collapsing like the Soviet Union, says Emmanuel Todd. In 1976, the demographer predicted the fall of the communist superpower based on infant mortality data. Today, he sees demographic statistics as a sign of the decline of the United States. And he warns against a re-armed Germany.

Interview with EMMANUEL TODD, Die Weltwoche, 27 February 2026

The war in Ukraine concerns Germany, the French demographer, historian and best-selling author told Weltwoche magazine in the spring of 2023. Shortly afterwards, Emmanuel Todd devoted a book to this country, in which the nihilism of Western civilisation occupies an important place: ‘The Defeat of the West’, published in 2024. In the spring of 2025, another interview was published in Weltwoche magazine. Todd then declared: ‘Russia has won the war’. This opinion is now shared by world-renowned experts such as American Colonel Douglas Macgregor.

As a young researcher, Todd made a name for himself in 1976 by predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union. He justified this prediction with the high infant mortality rate in the communist empire. Later, when he criticised the introduction of the euro, demanded by France in exchange for German reunification, he was in high demand for interviews in Germany. Todd attributed a ‘German neurosis’ to his country’s elite. He predicted that the single currency would help Germany assert its political supremacy in Europe.

His book Après l’Empire, published in 2002, became an international bestseller. He gave us his third interview since the start of the war in Ukraine, in which he draws a parallel between the decline of America and the collapse of the Soviet Union. And he asks the following question: what will Germany do when the war is over?

Weltwoche: Mr Todd, the war in Ukraine is entering its fifth year. In hindsight, are there any aspects that you misjudged?

Emmanuel Todd: I always have scruples and doubts. The prediction was correct: the West lost this war long ago. If the Americans had won it, Joe Biden would have been re-elected. Donald Trump is the president of defeat. Today, we must add that the consequence of defeat is the decline of the West. This collapse of a civilisation – Western civilisation – can be compared to the end of communism and the Soviet Union. It is still difficult to get a clear picture of how it will evolve. Its most spectacular symptom is the loss of reality.

Weltwoche: When did you realise the scale of the war in Ukraine?

Todd: When I managed to determine the number of engineers in the United States and Russia. The American population is two and a half times larger than the Russian population, but the United States trains fewer engineers. John Mearsheimer, whom I admire, believes that Ukraine is of existential importance to Russia. This is undoubtedly true. But unlike Mearsheimer, I am convinced that Ukraine is even more important to the United States: defeat in Ukraine reveals the weakness of the American system. It has a completely different significance from the defeats in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States loses, leaves chaos behind and withdraws. In Ukraine, they are fighting a war against their historical enemy since 1945. Losing it is unimaginable.

Weltwoche: Donald Trump wanted to end it in 24 hours.

Todd: That was his sincere intention. Trump’s vulgarity and amorality are unbearable for a European bourgeois like me. But he also defends entirely reasonable causes. The MAGA project, ‘Make America Great Again’, is about representing the interests of the nation. After a year, Trump had to admit that, despite protectionism and high customs duties, reindustrialisation was not working. There is a shortage of engineers, technicians and skilled workers. The illiteracy rate among young people aged 16 to 24 has risen from 17% to 25% in the last ten years. America depends on imports; it cannot do without them. As the world’s leading power, relocating industry to China was pure madness. Even in the agricultural sector, the trade balance is in deficit. Customs duties have become a threat to the dollar. It is the weapon of an empire that lives on credit from the labour of other countries. The disastrous state of American society makes it impossible to implement MAGA. It lacks the necessary economic and intellectual dynamism.

Weltwoche: And that is why Trump has to wage wars against his will?

Todd: That is his dilemma. He has been sucked into the vortex of American foreign policy over the last few decades. The United States was seeking to expand and strengthen its empire. Trump did not slow down this evolution, he accelerated it. Joe Biden has compensated for the decline of the empire with the war in Ukraine. Trump is multiplying theatres of operation. He has tried to measure his strength against that of China, which has brought him to his knees with its embargo on rare earths. He threatens Canada and Cuba. He wants Greenland and humiliates Europeans. In Venezuela, the imperialism of a dying empire has manifested itself in the form of kidnapping and looting. His customs policy is a form of blackmail. In almost every area, it has achieved the opposite of what it wanted.

Weltwoche: And all this because the United States can no longer win the war in Ukraine?

Todd: These are diversionary tactics. The result is that its enemies are forming alliances: Iran, Russia, China. Trump has not reduced the United States’ military commitment, but has multiplied it spectacularly. With their war cries and hostility towards Russia, Europeans are partly responsible for this development.

Weltwoche: After the negotiations in Alaska, during which European heads of state were treated like schoolchildren by Trump, Emmanuel Macron called Putin an “ogre” and a “beast to be fed” in a frightening interview.

Todd: Trump is taking advantage of this. America – the Biden administration – is responsible for the war in Ukraine, but Trump has managed to portray himself as a moderate and peaceful negotiator. He is presented by the media as an omnipotent ruler of the world, who reorganises it according to his will and fantasies. And this at a time when America is suffering its first strategic failure in the face of Russia. Venezuela, Cuba, Greenland – these are just diversionary tactics. It’s all about diverting attention from Ukraine to other theatres of operation. This is also the intention behind the negotiations. They only serve to buy time for all parties involved. The decision will be made on the battlefield, and Trump has realised that he cannot prevent Putin’s victory. Ukraine is on the verge of a total collapse of its system, however tragic and sad that may be for the Ukrainians.

Weltwoche: Is Iran also a diversionary tactic?

Todd: Yes. For me, Israel is not an autonomous country that pushes the United States to intervene in the Middle East. Israel is a satellite of the United States. Just like Ukraine. Israel does what Trump allows it to do. When he wanted a ceasefire in Gaza, he got it immediately. It was Israel that asked him for permission to end the Twelve-Day War. Netanyahu had to realise that the enemy was capable of producing many more rockets than expected.

Weltwoche: You have described the war in Ukraine as the beginning of a third world war.

Todd: The war in Ukraine is the beginning of a world war. One of the reasons for the Russians’ victory is the support they receive from China and India. The BRICS countries are siding with the Russians against the West.

Weltwoche: And now we will see a world war between the Americans and Russia and its allies, Iran, China and India?

Todd: Russia, China and Iran are taking a defensive stance. For now, it is an American attack on Tehran. No one knows what it will trigger. How will the regime, China and Russia react?

Weltwoche: But will they be allies against the United States in World War III?

Todd: During World War II, we had the Third Reich attacking everyone. Today, the attacks are coming from the United States. All the allies are authoritarian regimes threatened by the declining American empire.

Weltwoche: What is the role of Europeans? In one of our previous conversations, you said that the Americans are actually waging war against Germany.

Todd: What we are currently experiencing normally only happens in science fiction novels. The Western media system has become an empire of lies, incapable of describing reality. Its axiom is as follows: Russia threatens Europe. I find this absurd. I think Putin will annex part of Ukraine to Russia. Then the Russians will end the war. The conquest of Europe is simply impossible, and Putin is not interested in doing so. In my book, I discuss American nihilism, the decline of churches and moral values in detail. Today, I realise that I underestimated European nihilism. Europe is no longer a union of equal states. It is dominated by Germany. I found Olaf Schulz’s cautious policy reasonable. Friedrich Merz’s election as chancellor changed everything. He pushed the United States to relaunch the war against Russia. The CDU is the party of the Americans, and Merz has fuelled the Germans’ Russophobia. The Chancellor is creating a perverse synthesis between Russophobia and the economic crisis caused by the war. He wants to overcome the crisis by militarising industry. This is the new German doctrine for Europe. And the secret services are issuing warnings about a Putin attack on Germany.

Weltwoche: Merz wants the most powerful army in Europe. This brings back bad memories, and not only in France.

Todd: To believe that this rearmament is aimed exclusively at Russia is actually a naive mistake. For Russia, it is a serious threat; for the Americans, it is a blessing. I can only explain this madness by the crisis the EU is going through. It is at an impasse and has replaced its original ideals with the hostile image of Putin. The West is by no means on the path to regaining its lost unity. The return to nationalism is predominant in the United States and Europe. In Germany, the resurgence of national consciousness is less pronounced than in other EU member states: it has taken control of Europe. I must resort to science fiction once again: the war in Ukraine is over, Russia has achieved its goal. In this world without Russian threats, nations are returning and Germany is once again becoming a dominant and self-confident power with the strongest army on the continent. Who will be threatened then?

Weltwoche: As during the Second World War: all of Europe, including Russia, and in particular France, the hereditary enemy?

Todd: For Canada, it is not the Russians who pose a threat, but the United States. Yes, and for France it is Germany. French politicians lack historical awareness. Relations between France and Germany have improved because we French no longer have anything to fear from Germany.

Weltwoche: This was evident again during reunification, which France wanted to prevent.

Todd: There is cause for concern. The collapse of the West is accompanied by a return to brutality and hierarchisation: one submits to the strongest and attacks the weakest. That is what the Americans are doing to the Europeans, and the Germans have accepted this by electing Friedrich Merz. They need a scapegoat. For now, it is still Putin. But Franco-German relations are deteriorating.

Weltwoche: Does Macron’s willingness to share nuclear firepower with Germany testify to a desire for submission?

Todd: Merz makes very unpleasant statements about France. The war in Ukraine is turning into a world conflict between the former colonies and the West that exploited them. And within a decaying West, the conflicts of the past are resurfacing. Whatever happens in Iran, the defeat of the West and its civilisation is inevitable. Trump cannot stop its implosion; he is accelerating it. The Chinese and Russians are arming the mullahs, and the Americans have had to recognise that one aircraft carrier was not enough. Not even two. The Tehran regime cannot give in, and Trump cannot give up on an attack, because he would really lose face after promising his help to the insurgents.

Weltwoche: He backtracked on Greenland.

Todd: It was just theatre; he won’t start a war against Denmark. From Denmark, the NSA monitors all of Europe. Greenland is a secondary theatre of the end of the world.

Weltwoche: You compared it to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Todd: At the time, not a shot was fired; the Russians accepted the end of their empire with great dignity.

Weltwoche: Ukraine gained independence.

Todd: The Russians turned their backs on communism with great elegance. Their empire was not based on the exploitation of their satellites; they had tortured themselves with Stalinism. The period after the collapse was extremely difficult, especially since the Russians had centuries of totalitarian rule behind them. Compared to Russia, the United States and Europe are bad losers. This is particularly true of the Americans, whose history had been crowned with success until then.

Weltwoche: In World War III, do you see the Americans in the role of the Third Reich?

Todd: I am wary of comparisons with the 1930s. The situation is different. But of course there are similarities. For Trump, diplomacy consists of spreading lies. When he talks about negotiations, you can be sure there will be war. It was the same with Hitler.

Weltwoche: Trump has not yet started a war.

Todd: He has not sent ground troops because he does not have the power to do so: society does not accept deaths, and this is generally the case in the West. No one likes to wage war, not even Russia. Even Putin manages his human resources with caution; he has not dragged his population into total war. Trump will not send ground troops to Iran either. We are still in the phase of rhetoric and air strikes. The mullahs’ regime has been weakened by the uprising. Intensive bombing could trigger a civil war. It could cause chaos and spark internal struggles. The war in Ukraine now seems to me to be a civil war triggered by the Americans. A regime change in Iran is not in their interest at all. The mullahs are a terrible regime, but the mosques are empty. A nationalist government supported by the population would not be much less hostile to the United States. As in the 1930s, we lack imagination today. The Shoah was possible because no one could imagine Auschwitz. Reality exceeds our imagination.

Weltwoche: You’re probably right, and we should read more science fiction novels to understand the present. Politics is content to learn from the past.

Todd: Rather than the past, we should be interested in what might happen and what we cannot possibly imagine. The central question that haunts me is this: what is happening to the Germans? Americans want to be Americans and Russians want to remain Russians. The AfD is not comparable to the Rassemblement National. It is a party whose aggressiveness is frightening. At the same time, the German elite is getting used to the idea of war. What will happen if the AfD and the CDU form an alliance? Will German nationalism then meet German militarism? Is Germany returning to being an authoritarian society because that corresponds to its temperament? This is a question we need to think about today.

Weltwoche: Do you have a tentative answer?

Todd: All my wrong predictions were about Germany: because I mistakenly thought that Germans could be like the French. When Schröder and Chirac protested with Putin against the war in Iraq, I saw it as an encouraging rapprochement and thought that Paris should share its seat on the UN Security Council with Berlin. I saw Germany as the leader of a sovereign Europe. My hopes were dashed. Germany immediately began imposing its unilateral decisions without consulting its partners: from the nuclear phase-out to the reception of refugees. Germany is jointly responsible for the Maidan, it presented Ukraine with a choice: Russia or Europe. Even in my book on Ukraine, in which I harshly criticise Great Britain, I spare Germany: because I largely agreed with Olaf Scholz.

Weltwoche: Why can’t Germans become French?

Todd: As a demographer, I was interested in the family structures of peasant society. They continue to influence political culture. In countries where brothers had equal rights, the concept of equality among men was able to take hold. This was the prerequisite for universalistic revolutions, such as those in France and Russia. Russia established communism, which applied to everyone. In Germany, revolution had no chance because brothers did not have equal rights. This explains its propensity for authoritarianism. In Germany, the idea of inequality between men and peoples prevails and, unlike Russia and China, a multipolar world order is unimaginable. This immediately raises the question of why France, with its tradition of equality, does not side with the Russians: because it submits to German hegemony. Macron’s willingness to share the atomic bomb weakens national sovereignty. For Germany, only hierarchical relationships are possible. The Germans want to dominate Europe because that corresponds to their temperament. After all, they are once again the strongest power.

Weltwoche: Once a Nazi, always a Nazi? You will be accused of systematic hostility towards Germany.

Todd: It’s not the first time. My assessment is not a reproach, but an observation. I admire and recognise the superiority of the Germans in many cultural areas.

Weltwoche: You argue as an anthropologist. Is there a nostalgic desire in the German unconscious for victory over Russia, for revenge for the Second World War?

Todd: I wouldn’t talk about revenge. After the war and after reunification, no one could have imagined how quickly Germany would rise to the challenges it faced. That’s a compliment. This country is different, it has enormous potential. But of course the Germans know who defeated the Wehrmacht. The aggressive rhetoric of the Russians gives the impression that they have been deprived of their victory. The refusal to acknowledge the Russian victory is tantamount to denying the German defeat.

Weltwoche: After reunification, the fall of the Soviet Union was also presented as a victory for the West, and the Russians were denied recognition for freeing themselves from communism, something the Germans had failed to do with Hitler.

Todd: The defeat of 1945 is considered a thing of the past, as if it never existed, just like National Socialism.

Weltwoche: At the same time, the Nazi past is omnipresent as a German obsession, and the AfD is fought as if it were a matter of resisting the Nazis. At home against Hitler, in Europe against Putin.

Todd: Are Germans really that obsessed with Hitler? If so, there is something in their subconscious that I have missed. And that would mean that the risks are even greater than I ever imagined. We are truly in a science fiction novel. The elites no longer have explanations or plans. They rely on the EU, which makes any decision impossible and has a distorted perception of reality. Germany dominates Europe, but this must not be said. We have a completely distorted view of the past, which guides our present, and we cannot imagine the future. And when you don’t know where you’re going, you can at least cling to Russophobia.

Weltwoche: Russophobia stemming from anti-fascism, with Putin in the role of Hitler. There are attempts to ban the AfD.

Todd: I don’t know Germany well enough to comment on that. Sometimes I tell a joke, but it’s not funny. I don’t know, I’m not sure… Yes, maybe that’s it: Germany is giving free rein to its authoritarian temperament. The AfD is compared to the Rassemblement National, Marine Le Pen to Meloni and Putin, and Meloni to Trump. These comparisons are pointless. What all countries have in common is a return to the nation. Even the Germans want to go back to being German. This dynamic has infected all parties, SPD, CDU, AfD. The differences between post-national ideologies are blurring. In the United States, we are seeing a rapprochement between the neoconservatives, who supported war as a means of imposing democracy, and the Maga movement, which wanted to end it. In Germany, a merger between the CDU and the AfD is conceivable. And it is conceivable that the return to the authoritarian nation will this time present itself as a struggle for freedom and democracy.

Weltwoche: How do you assess developments in France, where politics has long been characterised by the fight against populists and neo-fascists and where the radicalisation of the left is raising fears of a civil war between ‘anti-fascists’ and ‘fascists’? Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of the La France insoumise party, has called next year’s election to choose Macron’s successor “the final battle”.

Todd: This opposition is paralysing France. No party wants to abolish the euro or leave the EU. Only a radical uprising can end the political impotence. We need a movement that recognises our collective interests and leaves post-national ideologies behind. There is no sign of this on the horizon.

Weltwoche: Who will be the next president?

Todd: I don’t know, I’m not a prophet. Even though I have that reputation.

Weltwoche: It was Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the attacks on the Twin Towers, who spread it around the world. While fleeing from the Americans at the beginning of the millennium, he cited you as a prophet: after the end of the Soviet Union, it would be the turn of the American empire to fall. Who will you vote for?

Todd: I have no idea.

Weltwoche: Dominique de Villepin, che, in qualità di ministro degli Affari esteri di Jacques Chirac, ha condotto la campagna contro l’attacco americano in Iraq?

Todd: È l’unico politico che può contare sulla mia simpatia, almeno.

Weltwoche: Voleva raccontare una barzelletta.

Todd: È la storia di un campo di concentramento per ebrei, che vengono imprigionati e sterminati perché antisemiti.

Weltwoche: Questa idea non mi sembra affatto irrealistica, vista la confusione mentale e la retorica dominante che lei descrive. Ma restiamo nel campo della fantascienza: non sarà la Russia ad essere attaccata dall’«esercito più potente d’Europa», ma la Francia?

Todd: No, non credo, almeno nel medio termine. La Germania non ne è capace, noi abbiamo la bomba atomica. I giornalisti e i politici hanno dimenticato che De Gaulle l’ha costruita per proteggerci dai tedeschi. Se continuano ad accanirsi contro la Russia, potrebbero costringere Putin a usare armi nucleari tattiche. Posso solo sperare che i missili russi non mirino alla Dassault, ma alle fabbriche della Rheinmetall.

Original article: lafionda.org

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The cold-blooded killing of an American mother last week by a federal agent, and the justification of the murder by President Donald Trump, points to a horrific reality – the United States is degenerating into a death squad state.

Independent investigative journalist Dave Lindorff nails it. He says if this were happening in another country, the media would condemn it as a “police state.”

Lindorff warns that Trump is turning the U.S. into a fascist dictatorship where paramilitary forces are given a free hand to murder any designated political opponents.

Trump has used the scare tactics of mass immigration to militarize American cities and send in federal agents to terrorize communities portrayed as “enemies” and “human garbage.”

This is the playbook of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, when Hitler unleashed his private goon squad, the Gestapo, to harass and eventually eliminate anyone or any group designated as “undesirable.”

This week saw three people shot by Trump’s Department of Homeland Security agents, supposedly dispatched to round up illegal immigrants. Renee Nicole Good was shot dead by an agent who fired point-blank at her head as she calmly drove her vehicle away. Mrs Good presented no threat. She was an innocent U.S. citizen, a mother of three children, who had volunteered to monitor the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as they searched Minneapolis for immigrants. Like many U.S. citizens, Good appears to have been trying to observe ICE activities so that agents did not use unlawful violence. She ended up being murdered in an extrajudicial execution.

Trump and his Vice President, JD Vance, immediately covered up for the murder, claiming that the woman was a Radical Left lunatic who “weaponized her vehicle” and was threatening the ICE agents, who acted in self-defense. Video footage has shown this to be an out-and-out lie told by Trump and his aides to justify the cold-blooded murder of a U.S. citizen.

The rhetoric that Trump is using shows that his regime is creating a policy of political assassination against anyone who is designated and dehumanized as an enemy.

In a vile twist, first they came for the immigrants, then they came for the leftists, then they came for me.

This is all consistent with the facts that:

The U.S. created programs of political assassination over many decades in foreign countries: The Phoenix Program in Vietnam, the Salvador Option in Central America, and Operation Condor throughout Latin America. The United States has always acted as an imperialist rogue state under the guise of being the world’s policeman. But under Trump, the mask is off.

Trump this week declared that he considers that there is no limit to his power and that international law means nothing after he invaded Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

As Dave Lindorff points out, the U.S. corporate-owned media are saying nothing about the descent into fascist barbarism under Trump.

However, people are pushing back against the growing tyranny under Trump. The murder of Renee Good may prove to be a tipping point. But they will not find any help from the establishment politicians and media, who are cowardly and complicit, and are covering up the horror and danger of what the United States has become: a death-squad rogue state.

Check out Dave Lindorff’s articles

Also, Finian Cunningham’s new book, Killing Democracy

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James Bradley, author of Precious Freedom

Finian Cunningham, author of Killing Democracy

Best-selling American author James Bradley talks about his latest book, Precious Freedom, and how the genocidal war against Vietnam (1965-75) was enabled by the U.S. media’s false propaganda of the “Domino Theory.”

The theory was that Vietnam was falling under Soviet and Chinese communism and that the U.S. was defending the “free world” and “democracy.”

Bradley spent 10 years living in Vietnam, talking with Vietnamese veterans and survivors of a war that killed over three million of their people. He tells about the horror of mass violence from the Vietnamese perspective and how they defeated an imperialist aggressor that dropped more bombs on their small country than all the explosives that were used in the Second World War.

Our interview focuses on the “Domino Theory” and how a giant deception was played on the American public to justify a huge crime as an act of virtue. The U.S. media propagated the lies and falsehoods to enable the war of aggression.

The Domino Theory was used to justify many other illegal wars for United States imperialism during the Cold War decades from 1945 to 1991. The U.S. and Western news media no longer use the term “Domino Theory,” but the essential theme is still played out in portraying wars as a necessary “defense” against an assumed enemy.

Take how the Western governments and media claim that Russia is going to invade Europe after it defeats Ukraine and that NATO must be ready to go to war against Russia, or how China must be confronted because it is allegedly threatening Taiwan (a part of China) and other Asia-Pacific countries. Take how Venezuela is portrayed as poisoning Americans with drugs and needs to be confronted by the U.S. military.

James Bradley discusses how the Western news media are an insidious and powerful propaganda service for U.S. militarism. The crimes of empire are enabled by a lying media system.

We also refer to Finian Cunningham’s new book, Killing Democracy, which explores how the media is used as a weapon of public control. There is a foreboding sense of world collapse and growing war. To understand what is happening and try to avert catastrophe, we need to recognize the power of Western media in deceiving and confusing people into acquiescing to criminal, self-destructive policies.

The U.S. and its Western allies have gotten away with mass murder for decades, violating international law with impunity. Impunity is afforded by the media’s brainwashing of the public, which prevents democratic accountability. The U.S.-led Western powers are driven by war as a form of economic engine. The “Domino Theory” and other lies are what the Western media tell the public to permit political, legal, and moral cover for imperial crimes.

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The so-called peace plan put forward by U.S. President Trump is a non-starter that won’t work, according to international legal expert Alfred de Zayas.

De Zayas says Trump’s much-ballyhooed initiative is not a peace offer. It is an ultimatum demanded by criminal rogue regimes that are responsible for genocide – the United States and Israel.

Professor De Zayas points out that Donald Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu have no credibility. Both are complicit in the genocide of Palestinians. The very idea of Trump proposing a peace deal amidst an ongoing U.S.-backed mass slaughter, where there is no legal prosecution of the perpetrators of genocide, nor for the illegal occupation of Palestinian land, and numerous other war crimes, is grotesque and absurd.

The appointment of British former leader Tony Blair to oversee Trump’s “peace plan” in Gaza is another insult.

“He should be behind bars as a war criminal,” says de Zayas, referring to Blair’s role in launching the U.S.-British war on Iraq in 2003, based on lies, killing over one million people.

On the issue of Gaza, the problem is that Israel, with support from the U.S. and European states, has been grossly violating international law and UN treaties for decades with impunity. This shameful lack of accountability and enforcement of international law makes Israel and its Western sponsors criminal regimes. It is nonsense to expect such serial violators to now propose a peace deal when they have not been held to account for a litany of crimes.

De Zayas says we need a ceasefire in Gaza urgently, with massive humanitarian aid for a population being deliberately starved to death by Israel. But any resolution must be applied with international law and justice for the horrific crimes.

Trump’s plan is a whitewash of the genocide. The Western mainstream media are also guilty of covering up the depth of horror. The media are ridiculously spinning Trump’s offer as genuine and credible, perhaps with a few flaws pooh-poohed here and there. The media are not reporting on the true horror and Western complicity in genocide. That’s because their long-time role is to serve as a propaganda service to sanitize the crimes and systematic lawlessness of Western rogue regimes.

Professor Alfred de Zayas teaches international law and history at the Geneva School of Diplomacy. He has worked as a UN staff expert on human rights for nearly 50 years.

His latest book is The Human Rights Industry (Clarity Press, 2023), see here: https://www.claritypress.com/product/human-rights-industry/

Catch his recent articles on wide-ranging international issues at Counterpunch: https://www.counterpunch.org/author/alfred-de-zayas/

Declan Hayes contends that the new rulers of Syria do not have a firm control over the country where resistance to the reign of terror is growing.

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Atrocities are being committed every day in Syria by the new rulers, according to Irish writer and peace activist Declan Hayes.

However, the Western corporate-run media are ignoring or censoring the horrific reality because the Western governments backed the regime-change operation.

He says that Syria – a cradle of civilization – is now being ruled by barbarians with the tacit support of Western governments and media.

The population is living under a reign of terror because the new rulers are terrorists affiliated with Islamic State who espouse an extremist version of Islam that does not tolerate other religions or versions of Islam.

Declan Hayes visited Syria as a peace activist and humanitarian many times during the decade-long war in that country. He witnessed the aftermath of atrocities carried out by insurgent groups in Latakia, Kassab, and Maaloula, among other places.

These mercenary groups were proxy forces financed and armed by the United States and its Western allies in a covert war for regime change against the former Syrian government.

The reasons for the regime-change operation were geopolitical due to the West’s support for Israel and antagonism towards Russia and Iran, as well as control of oil and gas resources.

Hayes maintains close contact with religious leaders and other community figures in Syria, especially among the Alawite, Christian and Shia Muslim communities. He says that the appalling violence and killings that were carried out by the Western-backed terror proxies during the decade-long war are continuing to be inflicted today.

Homes and villages are raided daily by armed supporters of Syria’s new ruling regime led by the de facto president, Ahmed al Sharaa, also known as Mohammad al Jolani, who is the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militia.

HTS was formerly an affiliate of Islamic State and other Al Qaeda-linked terror networks. HTS seized power two months ago in Damascus after former President Bashar al-Assad fled the country with his family. Assad is living in exile in Russia.

The collapse of his government surprised the world but in many ways, it shouldn’t have been a surprise because Syria was worn down and destroyed by a 10-year war sponsored by the U.S., European powers, Israel and the Gulf Arab kingdoms.

The country was also devastated by crippling Western economic sanctions. Assad’s allies, Russia and Iran, could not prevent the collapse and takeover by the Western terrorist proxies.

Syria is facing an extremely dangerous future where the new regime is exacting brutal retribution against minorities and communities perceived as being loyal to Assad.

What makes the situation all the more grim is that the United States and European Union governments and their media are propping up the new regime, whitewashing its violations and its terrorist links, or simply ignoring the daily atrocities being inflicted.

However, Declan Hayes contends that the new rulers of Syria do not have a firm control over the country where resistance to the reign of terror is growing.

Dimitri Lascaris says Trump’s chaotic second presidency is hastening the demise of U.S. global power.

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Dimitri Lascaris says Trump’s chaotic second presidency is hastening the demise of U.S. global power.

“Trump could turn out to be a godsend for the rest of us if we can avoid a catastrophic war,” says Lascaris.

Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, journalist and activist. He worked for many years as a lawyer for some of the biggest corporations on Wall Street. To say he knows a lot about deal-making is an understatement.

Lascaris says Trump’s acclaimed business prowess and “art of the deal” are wildly overrated. He is a failed real estate magnate who has been bankrupted and bailed out numerous times.

His 1987 bestselling book, The Art of the Deal, should have been titled The Art of the Con.

Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza and turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East” is typical of his unscrupulous and brutish style. It is ethnic cleansing – a blatant war crime on a massive scale – dressed up by Trump as a wonder deal.

The 47th U.S. president’s stupidity, arrogance and criminality are fully on display.

As Lascaris points out, this does not bode well for Trump’s other big ambition – to produce a peace deal in Ukraine with Russia.

Trump and all recent American leaders have no credibility. They are seen as “agreement incapable”. During his first presidency (2016-2020), Trump broke the Iran nuclear deal and Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia.

It is doubtful that Trump possesses the depth of historical and political understanding to cut a deal over Ukraine. Especially since, as Lascaris notes, Russia has won the war and Trump has no leverage. He will be forced to accept Russia’s exacting terms, which means a humiliating defeat for the U.S. and its NATO proxies.

However, Lascaris warns that denouement could make for an extremely dangerous situation because Trump’s megalomania will find it impossible to accept such a debacle and contradiction to his boasts about “Making America Great Again.”

Lascaris says that Trump’s MAGA slogan will turn out to be MAWA – make America weak again.

His chaotic, irrational, impetuous and unscrupulous mode of business and foreign policy is alienating America’s postwar alliances and client-state relations. Trump is accelerating the demise of the American empire.

As Lascaris points out, Trump’s brutish and bullying behavior is a con to distract from not addressing the deep economic and social problems of the United States.

In Trump’s case, it’s not so much the Art of the Deal as the Art of the Con.

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Ron Ridenour, veterano escritor y activista anti imperialista sostiene que él está feliz de ver a Donald Trump como presidente de Estados Unidos. Pero no por ninguna razón positiva acerca de Trump como político o su gobierno. Ridenour manifiesta desprecio por el presidente número 47 (y por muchos de sus antecesores en la Casa Blanca).

La matonesca política exterior de Trump podría acuñarse como diplomacia FAFO: “jodiendo y averiguando.”

Ridenour, autor del libro titulado “La Amenaza Rusa a la Paz” sostiene que Trump es “bueno” en el sentido que está denunciando la charada de las denuncias yanquis acerca de la democracia y “proteger a sus aliados” de parte del denominado “mundo libre”.

Trump está insensata y volublemente explotando los mitos acerca de sus aliados occidentales y supuestos valores occidentales sobre la democracia y respeto por el derecho internacional.

Los señalamientos acerca de las virtudes Occidentales y de Estados Unidos son extremadamente absurdos. En las ocho décadas desde el fin de la II Guerra Mundial, Estados Unidos y sus aliados han provocado más guerras que ninguna otra nación — y aún así ellos se atreven de motejar a Rusia, China, Irán, Corea del Norte, Venezuela, Cuba y otros como “amenazas” para la seguridad mundial.

Rifenour se refiere al último escándalo (entre muchos otros) de Trump exigiendo la adquisición del territorio de Groenlandia para ponerlo bajo el control de Estados Unidos. Su amenaza de tomar la Isla del Ártico a la fuerza si es necesario de lo que ha sido una potencia colonialista europea como Dinamarca, está arrojando a toda la alianza transatlántica entre Estados Unidos y Europa hacia un total alboroto y caos.

Al hacerlo, Trump está dándose a conocer a si mismo, provocando la caída del orden occidental dirigido por Estados Unidos, sostiene Ridenour. Ese orden siempre fue del dominio imperialista y de una minoría de naciones privilegiadas sobre una gran mayoría. A partir de esa dominación se produjeron interminables guerras, conflictos, degradaciones y pobreza.

Trump no es nada diferente en términos de ser otro arrogante presidente imperialista que cree que Estados Unidos cuenta con un derecho excepcional para dominar. Pero lo que lo hace diferente es el sin dorar la píldora y bombástico estilo que esfuma la charada del poderío “benevolente” norteamericano y sus aliados occidentales.

Pateando traseros, como lo está haciendo Trump, es solo la cruda patanería imperialista la cual demuestra la realidad de la política exterior norteamericana y de sus supuestos aliados que no son otra cosa que patéticos lacayos.

Trump no tiene la intención pero lo está demostrando muy efectivamente, el verdadero carácter de la política exterior de Estados Unidos y también está demostrando la cobarde naturaleza de los gobiernos europeos como abyectos lacayos que son serviles ante el poder de Estados Unidos en vez de representar las verdaderas necesidades democráticas de sus pueblos.

Más temprano que tarde, la clase trabajadora europea y norteamericana deberán darse cuenta de la ilegitimidad de sus gobernantes y de su podrido sistema belicista de explotación capitalista — y entonces luchará para organizar mejores sociedades y un mundo mejor de paz, justicia y genuino desarrollo.

Ridenour sostiene que el nuevo orden multipolar prometido por las naciones del BRICS del Sur Global (mayoría mundial) encabezada por Rusia y por China y otros, está planteando un desafío histórico al corrupto orden occidental.

Según Ridenour, el nuevo presidente de Estados Unidos es el primero y único dentro de un largo período que es brutalmente anti diplomático respecto del poderío norteamericano y cómo se relaciona con el resto del mundo. Esa brutal realidad hace que el orden Occidental y la OTAN sea insostenible. Es por eso es que el veterano agitador anti-imperialista, Ron Ridenour, estimula a Trump para que haga lo peor. Luego del caos y el desastre tal vez surja una nueva política de resistencia para hacer un mundo mejor.

La primera orden del día es deshacerse de las mentiras, las falsas pretensiones y virtud de la democracia occidental. Trump se parece a una bola de demolición que está acelerando el proceso. Podría haber muchas perturbaciones, durezas y sufrimientos más adelante pero una vez saliendo del caos desatado por Trump algo bueno podría surgir si la gente se da cuenta qué está en juego y por qué ellos tienen que luchar.

De manera bombástica Trump declara que él está haciendo a Estados Unidos Grande Otra Vez. Más que eso, él está acelerando una revolución y ni siquiera se da cuenta, revolución donde los oligarcas mil millonarios como él eventualmente serán derribados.

Eso, si Trump no es derribado por el Estado Profundo que podría percibirlo como demasiado inquieto o una insoportable amenaza para el Impero norteamericano y su estafa hegemónica global.

Traducción desde el inglés por Sergio R. Anacona

Ron Ridenour, a veteran anti-imperialist activist and writer, says he is happy to see Donald Trump as the US President. But not for any positive reasons about Trump as a politician or his administration. Ridenour has contempt for the 47th president (and many of his White House predecessors.)

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Trump’s bullying foreign policy could be coined as FAFO diplomacy: “F..ck around and find out”.

Ridenour, the author of the book The Russian Peace Threat, believes that Trump is “good” in that he is exposing the charade of American claims about democracy and “protecting its allies” of the so-called “free world.”

Trump is so reckless and unhinged he is exploding the myths about Western allies and supposed Western values of democracy and respect for international law.

The claims about US and Western virtues are so absurd. In the eight decades since the Second World War, the United States and its allies have waged more wars than any other nation – and yet they dare to call Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, and so on, “threats” to global security.

Ridenour refers to the latest debacle (among many) of Trump demanding the acquisition of Greenland territory under the control of the United States. His threat to take the Arctic island by force, if necessary, from has-been European colonial power Denmark is throwing the whole transatlantic alliance between the US and Europe into utter uproar and chaos.

In so doing, Trump is, unbeknownst to himself, accelerating the downfall of the US-led Western order, says Ridenour. That order was always about the imperialist dominance of a minority of privileged nations over the majority. Out of that dominance were born endless wars, conflicts, degradation, and poverty.

Trump is no different in terms of being another arrogant imperialist president who thinks the United States has an exceptional right to dominate. But what makes him different is the unvarnished and bombastic style that blows away the charade of the “benevolent” US power and its Western allies.

Kicking ass as Trump is doing is raw imperialist thuggery which is showing up the reality of US foreign policy and its supposed Western allies as nothing more than pathetic lackeys.

Trump is unintentionally but very effectively showing the real nature of US brute power and also showing the craven nature of European governments as abject lackeys that are servile to US power rather than representing the democratic needs of their people.

Sooner or later, American and European working people must realize the illegitimacy of their rulers and the rotten, war-driven system of capitalist exploitation – and hence fight to organize better societies and a better world of peace, justice, and genuine development.

Ridenour maintains that the new multipolar order promised by the BRICS nations of the Global South (the world’s majority) led by Russia and China, and others is offering a historic challenge to the corrupt Western order.

According to Ridenour, the new US president is the first one in a long while who is brutally undiplomatic about American power and how it relates to the rest of the world. That brutal reality makes the Western order and NATO untenable and unsustainable. That is why veteran anti-imperialist campaigner Ron Ridenour is cheering Trump on to do his worst. Out of chaos and disaster may arise a new politics of resistance to make a better world.

The first order of business is to clear away the lies and false pretenses of Western democracy and virtue. Trump is such a wrecking ball, he is hastening the process. There may be a lot of disturbance, hardships and pain ahead, but at least out of the chaos unleashed by Trump something good may arise if people know what is at stake and what they have to fight for.

Trump bombastically declares he is Making America Great Again. More like it, he is hastening a revolution without even realizing it, one where billionaire oligarchs like him are eventually taken down.

That’s if Trump is not taken out by the US Deep State, who may view him as too reckless and an unbearable threat to the American empire and its hegemonic global racket.

Author and human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik says the Western powers are whitewashing a terrorist regime that is imposing a reign of terror on the Syrian population.

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The new rulers of Syria are presented by Western governments and media as “rebels” and “reformed militants” who are trying to bring law and order to the Arab country.

Author and human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik says the Western powers are whitewashing a terrorist regime that is imposing a reign of terror on the Syrian population.

The new rulers of Syria are presented by Western governments and media as “rebels” and “reformed militants” who are trying to bring law and order to the Arab country.

Author and human rights lawyer Dan Kovalik says the Western powers are whitewashing a terrorist regime that is imposing a reign of terror on the Syrian population.

Kovalik has just visited the country on a fact-finding mission.

He toured the capital, Damascus, as well as the outlying countryside. He witnessed firsthand minority groups living in fear of violent retribution from the now-dominant militant factions who profess an extremist version of Sharia Law.

Kovalik corroborates disturbing alternative reports filtering out of Syria of executions, lynchings and other atrocities meted out by the terrorist militia whom the West complacently calls “rebels”.

Christians, Alawites and Shia Muslims are in grave danger from the new rulers of Syria headed up by de facto leader Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa (also known as Mohammed al-Julani). He is head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) faction.

HTS evolved out of Al Qaeda, Islamic State and Al Nusra Front. All these groups are officially on the US and West’s designated terrorist list. But that designation is part of the charade whereby the Western governments have covertly sponsored these groups as proxies for geopolitical interests.

Syria’s de facto ruler al-Sharaa (al-Jolani) was up to recently on the US wanted terrorist list with a $10 million reward for his capture. Since taking over Syria in December, the US has de-listed him after Washington delegates met in Damascus in recent weeks to discuss restoring diplomatic relations and carving up the resources of the war-torn Levantine territory. The US military already illegally occupies oil and agriculturally rich land in Syria.

Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was also quick to travel to Damascus to greet the new regime and talk up business opportunities.

There should be no surprise in all of this. For years the Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist groups in Syria were the proxies for the United States and its NATO allies deployed to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad in a dirty covert war for regime change.

Western media are depicting the downfall of Assad as a liberation from dictatorship. That’s a tall order given that the “liberators” are terror groups that inflicted unspeakable violence on the Syrian population during the Western-backed proxy war.

Dan Kovalik attests that Al Qaeda (and its variants) is now in government in Syria – the very organization that the US and its Western allies supposedly fought against in a global “war on terror”.

He warns that Syria is facing dark and dangerous times ahead as minority communities fear for their lives. But the Western governments and media are whitewashing the terrorist regime with blood on their hands. The cover-up is made all the more urgent because the West is fully complicit in the destruction of Syria.

Kovalik is the author of several books published by Skyhorse Publishing. His titles include The Plot to Scapegoat Russia, The Case for Palestine, The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela, and No More War… How the West Violates International Law by Using ‘Humanitarian’ Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests.

At least Trump is willing to give peace a chance with Russia over Ukraine, Peter Kuznick says.

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The chances of a peace deal in Ukraine are suddenly a lot higher under President Donald Trump only because he has a realistic sense of a nuclear Third World War happening between the United States and Russia if that conflict is not ended promptly.

Peter Kuznick, an esteemed American professor of history, says that the Biden administration brought the world closer to a nuclear conflagration than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Biden did this by relentlessly arming Ukraine with weapons to strike deeper and deeper into Russia instead of trying to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Indeed, there was no diplomatic effort from Washington under Biden. It was ideologically and propaganda-driven for confrontation, as was the Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris.

Kuznick points out that Trump is no John F Kennedy in terms of the latter’s depth of historical and philosophical knowledge. But in comparison with Joe Biden, Trump has shown more humanity and common sense by not insulting Putin and in reaching out for a peaceful end to the slaughter in Ukraine. Biden called Putin a thug and said he would back Ukraine as long as it takes to defeat Russia. The last Democrat administration spent $175 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money propping up a NeoNazi regime in Kiev that has lost over one million military casualties since the war erupted in February 2022.

By contrast, newly inaugurated President Trump says that he wants to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a priority to find a peaceful way out of the conflict and to avoid a catastrophic escalation between nuclear powers. Putin has welcomed a meeting with the new president and said he appreciates the urgent concern to avoid a nuclear disaster.

Kuznick is author of The Untold History of the United States, which was coauthored with acclaimed film director Oliver Stone. The book was turned into an award-winning television series aired on Showtime, Netflix and other channels. Kuznick deplores the way the U.S. and NATO partners undermined international security by expanding on Russia’s borders despite earlier promises to the Soviet leaders that would not happen.

If peace is to be found in Ukraine, it must be based on a bigger picture of lasting global security that considers all nations’ concerns.

That means the United States must treat Russia’s national security concerns over NATO’s expansion seriously and respectfully. Can the Trump administration deliver? It is packed with hawkish figures like Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Donald Trump is better placed than the Biden adminstration to cut a deal with Russia for peace in Ukraine and thereby avoid nuclear disaster, says Kuznick.

Trump’s cabinet is filled with billionaires and his mercurial, superficial understanding of the world can be deprecated. Maybe his peaceful aspirations are muddled and not feasible given that Trump is surrounded by hawkish figures.

But at least he is willing to give peace a chance with Russia over Ukraine. That alone makes Trump a welcome change from the vile warmongering of Biden and his would-be successor Kamala Harris.