VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 3 JULY 2018
by Thierry Meyssan
After having observed Donald Trump’s historical references (the constitutional compromise of 1789, the examples of Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon) and the way in which his partisans perceive his politics, Thierry Meyssan here analyses his anti-imperialist actions. The US President is not interested in taking a step back, but on the contrary, abandoning the interests of the transnational ruling class in order to develop the US national economy.
This article is a continuation of “What is Donald Trump’s position?”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 19 June 2018 (read the article below).
The problem
In 1916, during the First World War, Lenin analysed the reasons which led to the confrontation between the empires of his time. He wrote – Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. In this book, he clarified his analysis – « Imperialism is capitalism which has arrived at a stage of its development where domination by monopolies and financial capital has been confirmed, where the export of capital has acquired major importance, where the sharing of the world between international trusts has begun, and where the sharing of all the territories of the globe between the greatest capitalist countries has been achieved ».
The facts confirmed his logic of the concentration of capitalism that he described. In the space of one century, it substituted a new empire for the precedents – « America » (not to be confused with the American continent). By dint of fusions and acquisitions, a few multinational companies gave birth to a global ruling class which gathers every year to congratulate itself, as we watch, in Davos, Switzerland. These people do not serve the interests of the US population, and in fact are not necessarily United States citizens themselves, but use the means of the US Federal State to maximise their profits.
Donald Trump was elected as President of the United States on his promise to return to the earlier state of Capitalism, that of the « American dream, » by free market competition. We can of course claim a priori, as did Lenin, that such a reversal is impossible, but nonetheless, the new President has committed to this direction.
The heart of the imperial Capitalist system is expressed by the doctrine of the Pentagon, formulated by Admiral Arthur Cebrowski – the world is now split in two. On one side, the developed, stable states, and on the other, those states which are not yet integrated into the imperial globalist system and are therefore doomed to instability. The US armed forces are tasked with destroying the state and social structures of the non-integrated regions. Since 2001, they have been patiently destroying the « Greater Middle East », and are now preparing to do the same in the « Caribbean Basin .»
We are obliged to note that the way in which the Pentagon looks at the world is based on the same concepts used by anti-imperialist thinkers like Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi or Samir Amin.
The attempted solution
Donald Trump’s objective thus consists both of reinvesting the transnational capital in the US economy, and turning the Pentagon and the CIA away from their current imperialist functions with National Defense. In order to do so, he has to withdraw from international commercial treaties and dissolve the inter-governmental structures which consolidate the old order.
Undoing the international commercial treaties
From the very first days of his mandate, President Trump removed his country from the trans-Pacific partnership agreement, which had not yet been signed. This commercial treaty had been conceived strategically as a means of isolating China.
Since he was unable to cancel the signature of his country on those treaties which were already in force, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), he began to unravel them by imposing various customs duties which were contrary to the spirit, but not the letter, of the agreement.
Re-framing or dissolving the inter-governmental structures
As we have often written here, the United Nations Organisation is no longer a forum for peace, but an instrument of US imperialism within which a few states continue to resist. This was already the case during the Soviet policy of the empty chair (Korean War) and, since July 2012, it is once again true.
President Trump has directly attacked the two main imperialist tools within the UNO – the peace-keeping operations (which have taken the place of the observation missions which were originally planned by the Charter), and the Human Rights Council (whose sole function is to justify the humanitarian wars waged by NATO). He has deprived the former of their budget, and withdrawn his country from the latter. However, he has just lost the election for Director of the International Organisation for Migration, leaving the road open, for the moment, for the world traffic in human beings. Of course, he has absolutely no wish to destroy the UNO, but only to refocus its activities and bring it back to its original function.
He has just torpedoed the G7. This meeting, initially intended as a moment for the exchange of points of view, had become, as from 1994, a tool for imperial domination. In 2014, it transformed itself into an instrument for anti-Russian activity – thus conforming to what had become the new strategy of the Anglo-Saxon nations, aimed at « cutting our losses », in other words, avoiding a World War by limiting the empire to the borders of Russia and thereby isolating it. President Trump took great care during the meeting in Charleroix to show his confused allies that he was no longer their overlord, and that they would have to make it on their own.
Finally, after having tried to use France to dynamite the European Union, he turned to Italy, where he sent Steve Bannon to create an anti-system government with the help of US banks. Rome has already concluded an alliance with five other capitals against Brussels.
Reinvesting in productive economy
Via diverse fiscal and customs measures, rarely voted by Congress and usually adopted by decree, President Trump encouraged the major companies of his country to repatriate their factories back to the USA. There immediately followed an economic recovery, which is about the only thing for which the Press will recognise him.
However, we are a long way from noting a financial decline. World finance is probably continuing to prosper outside of the USA, or in other words, continuing to suck up the wealth of the rest of the world.
Reorienting the Pentagon and the CIA
This is obviously the most difficult operation. During his election, President Trump could count on the votes from his troops, but not those of the superior officers and generals
Donald Trump entered into politics on 11 September 2001. He immediately contested the official version of the events. Thereafter, he expressed his astonishment about the contradictions of the mainstream story – while Presidents Bush Jr. and Obama declared that they wanted to eliminate the jihadist movements, we observed on the contrary a drastic multiplication and globalisation of jihadism during their mandates which went as far as the creation of an independent state in Iraq and Syria.
This is why, as soon as he took office, President Trump surrounded himself with officers who enjoyed a recognised authority in the army. It was, for him, the only option, both to guard against a military coup d’etat and to ensure that he would be obeyed in the reforms that he wanted to implement. Then he gave carte blanche to all the military for everything concerning tactics on the ground. Finally, he never lost an opportunity to confirm his support for the armed forces and the Intelligence services.
After having confiscated their permanent chair at the National Security Council from the president of the chiefs of staff and the director of the CIA, he gave the order to cease support for the jihadists. Progressively, we saw Al-Qaeda and Daesh lose ground. This policy continues today with the withdrawal of US support for the jihadists in Southern Syria. From now on, they no longer form private armies, but only scattered groups which are used for occasional terrorist actions.
Similarly, he first of all pretended to give up dissolving NATO if it would agree to add an anti-terrorist function to its anti-Russian function. He is now beginning to show NATO that it does not enjoy eternal privileges, as we saw with his refusal to deliver a special visa for an ex-General Secretary. Above all, he has begun to diminish its anti-Russian function. So he is now negotiating with Moscow the cancellation of Alliance manoeuvres in Eastern Europe. Besides this, he is now taking administrative actions which attest to the refusal of the allies to contribute to collective defence as far as they are able. In this way, he is preparing to dismantle NATO as soon as he sees fit.
This moment will only come when the destructuration of international relations occurs simultaneously at maturity in Asia (North Korea), the Greater Middle East (Palestine and Iran) and in Europe (UE).
Keep in mind
- President Trump is absolutely not the « unpredictable » character so often described. Quite the contrary, he acts in a clearly thoughtful and logical manner.
- Donald Trump is preparing a reorganisation of international relations. This change will operate through a complete and sudden upheaval directed against the interests of the transnational ruling class.
Translation
Pete Kimberley
Read the article in Greek : https://infognomonpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/07/blog-post_59.html#more
https://www.voltairenet.org/article201778.html
What is Donald Trump’s position?
VOLTAIRE NETWORK | DAMASCUS (SYRIA) | 19 JUNE 2018
by Thierry Meyssan
Elected for his promises to change the paradigm, President Trump continues to astonish all those who take him for an idiot. Yet all he is doing is implementing the ideas that he developed during his electoral campaign, thus taking his place in a political tradition which, although long neglected, is solidly anchored in US history. Leaving aside the President’s public relations communications, Thierry Meyssan analyses his acts as compared with his engagements.
During the US Presidential electoral campaign, we demonstrated that the rivalry between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump did not concern their style so much as their culture [1]. The outsider challenged the Puritan domination over the USA, and demanded a return to the original compromise of 1789 – the Bill of Rights – between the revolutionaries who were fighting King George, and the major land-owners of the 13 colonies.
Not as amateur in politics as people thought, he had already displayed his opposition to the system on the very day of the attacks of 9/11 [2], then, later, with the controversy he maintained concerning President Obama’s birthplace.
We did not interpret Donald Trump’s fortune as a clear signal that he would be taking action in service of the rich, but as proof that he would defend productive capitalism against speculative capitalism.
We pointed out that on foreign policy, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had chosen the option of war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, implementing the strategy of Admiral Cebrowski to destroy the state structures of all the States in the « Greater Middle East » [3] ; while on the interior, they suspended the Bill of Rights – all of which led to the depreciation and pauperisation of the « poor white » elements of US society.
On the contrary, Donald Trump continually denounced the American Empire, and announced the return to Republican principles. He espoused the ideas of Andrew Jackson (1829-37) [4], and was adopted by the ex-collaborators of Richard Nixon (1969-74) [5].
He synthesised his ideas in interior politics with the slogan « Make America Great Again ! », in other words, no longer the pursuit of the imperial mirage, but a return to the « American dream » of personal enrichment. As for his exterior politics, he used the slogan « America First ! », which we interpreted not in the sense it was given during the Second World War, but the meaning it had originally. Therefore we did not see him as a neo-Nazi, but as a politician who refused to engage his country in the service of transnational elites.
More surprisingly, we thought it would be impossible for him to reach a cultural agreement with the Mexican minority, and we forecast that he would finally facilitate a friendly separation for the independence of California (CalExit) [6].
Our analysis of the objectives and methods of Donald Trump nonetheless left open the question of the capacity of a US President to modify the military strategy of his country [7].
Writing for two years, and expressing ideas which were completely opposite to all other commentators, we were wrongly classified as partisans of Donald Trump. This is an incorrect interpretation of our work. We are not United States electors, and as as result, we do not support any candidate to the White House. We are political analysts, and we attempt only to understand the facts and to anticipate their consequences.
Where are we today?
We must concentrate on the facts and eliminate all President Trump’s public relations statements from our analysis.
We must distinguish the effects for which Donald Trump is directly responsible from those which are the continuity of his predecessors and the effects due to ambient world evolution.
The interior
Donald Trump gave his support to a demonstration of white supremacists in Charlottesville, and also to the movement for the right to carry arms, including after the slaughter at Parkland. These positions were interpreted as support for far-right ideas and violence. On the contrary, however, it was for him a promotion of “Human Rights”, US version, as they were defined in the first two amendments to the Bill of Rights.
We may, of course, criticise the US definition of « Human Rights » as strongly as we like — and in the tradition of Thomas Paine [8], we do not hesitate to criticise it — but that is another question.
Lacking means, the completion of the Wall at the Mexican border, which had been built by his predecessors, is a long way from being finished. It is still too soon to draw conclusions. The confrontation with those Hispanic immigrants who refuse to speak English and to integrate the compromise of 1789 still has not happened. Donald Trump went no further than taking the Spanish service off the White House communication system.
Concerning the question of climate change, Donald Trump rejected the Paris agreement, not because he is indifferent to ecology, but because it imposes financial regulations which will only benefit those who control carbon trading [9].
As far the economy is concerned, Donald Trump has not yet managed to impose his revolution – exonerating exports and taxing imports. However, he withdrew his country from the free-exchange treaties which had not yet been ratified, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). While his Border Adjustment Tax was rejected by Congress, he is trying today to dodge the parliamentarians and to create prohibitive taxes on the import of certain products, a move which flabbergasted his country’s allies and provoked the anger of China [10].
Similarly, Donald Trump is slow to launch his Rooseveltian programme for the building of infrastructures, for which he has so far found only 15 % of the necessary finance. And he has not yet launched his programme soliciting foreign specialists to help improve US industry, although this was announced in his National Security Strategy [11].
But finally, the little he has already achieved has been enough to kick-start production and employment in his country.
The exterior
In order to liquidate the American Empire, Donald Trump had announced his intention to cease support for the jihadists, to dissolve NATO, to abandon the Cebrowski strategy, and to repatriate the occupation troops. It is obviously much more difficult to reform the primary federal administration, the armed forces, than to change the economic and financial regulations by decree.
In priority, President Trump placed trustworthy people at the head of the Department of Defense and the CIA in order to avoid all attempts at rebellion. He reformed the National Security Council by diminishing the role of the Pentagon and the CIA [12]. He immediately put an end to the « colour revolutions » and other coups d’etat which had characterised the previous administrations.
Then he convinced the Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia, to cease their support for the jihadists [13]. The consequences of this decision quickly became apparent with the fall of Daesh in Iraq and in Syria. Simultaneously, Donald Trump postponed the dissolution of NATO, to which he simply added an anti-terrorist function [14]. Meanwhile, in the context of the British campaign against Moscow, the Alliance is actively developing its anti-Russian plan of action [15].
Donald Trump only kept NATO in order to control the vassals of the United States. He deliberately discredited the G7, forcing his baffled allies to assume their own responsibilities.
To interrupt the Cebrowski strategy in the « Greater Middle East », Donald Trump is preparing a reorganisation of that zone around his withdrawal from the agreements with Iran (JCPoA and secret bilateral agreement) and from his plan for the solution of the Palestinian question. While this project, which both France and the United Kingdom are attempting to sabotage, has little chance of managing to install regional peace, it enables him to paralyse the initiatives by the Pentagon. However, the superior officers are preparing to apply the Cebrowski strategy in the « Caribbean basin ».
The initiative for the solution of the Korean conflict, the last vestige of the Cold War, ought to enable him to call into question the validity of NATO. The allies only engaged in this organisation to prevent a European version of a situation like that of the Korean war.
In the end, the US armed forces should no longer be used to crush small countries, but exclusively to isolate Russia, even to prevent China from developing its « Silk Roads ».
Translation
Pete Kimberley
[1] “United States – reformation or fracture?”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 26 October 2016.
[2] See the speech by Donald Trump on New York 9, 11 September 2011.
[3] “The US military project for the world”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 22 August 2017.
[4] “Trump has picked a deeply disturbing hero”, Michael Gerson, The Washington Post, March 16, 2017.
[5] “Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ Foreign Policy Speech”, by Donald Trump, Voltaire Network, 27 April 2016.
[6] “An assessment and the perspectives of Donald Trump”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Pete Kimberley, Voltaire Network, 5 December 2017.
[7] “The Rotation of Imperial Power”, by Manlio Dinucci, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Il Manifesto (Italy) , Voltaire Network, 15 November 2016.
[8] Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (Droits de l’Homme), London, part 1 1791, part 2 1792.
[9] “1997-2010: Financial Ecology”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Roger Lagassé, Оdnako (Russia) , Voltaire Network, 7 December 2015.
[10] « USA : Impérialisme contre ultra-impérialisme », « Guerre économique ou “guerre absolue” ? », par Jean-Claude Paye, Réseau Voltaire, 26 février et 31 mai 2018.
[11] Security Strategy of the United States of America, White House, December 18, 2017
[12] “Presidential Memorandum: Organization of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council”, by Donald Trump, Voltaire Network, 28 January 2017. “Donald Trump winds up “the” organization of US imperialism”, by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network, 31 January 2017.
[13] “Presidential Memorandum: Plan to Defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”, by Donald Trump, Voltaire Network, 28 January 2017. “Donald Trump’s Speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit”, by Donald Trump, Voltaire Network, 21 May 2017.
[14] “Remarks by Donald Trump at NATO Unveiling of the Article 5 and Berlin Wall Memorials”, by Donald Trump, Voltaire Network, 25 May 2017.
[15] “Nato is not “obsolete”. Working with Mattis, it is clearing the ground for more wars”, by Manlio Dinucci, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Il Manifesto (Italy) , Voltaire Network, 16 February 2017.
Read the article in Greek : https://infognomonpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/06/blog-post_723.html#more
https://www.voltairenet.org/article201554.html
Emma Olive 