🇨🇳🇺🇸 The mere playing with war rhetoric is reprehensible and speaks of American desperation to salvage its diminishing global power.

In an extraordinarily provocative move, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has warned China that it is pushing for a more aggressive strategy – all the way up to instigating war. In a tome-like article published by the Washington-based Atlantic Council, there are foreboding demands for numerous “red lines” to confront China over.

🔗 READ MORE by Finian Cunningham ⤵️

#Finian_Cunningham #China #UnitedStates

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/11/washington-telegrams-china-of-red-lines-and-aggression/

🇪🇺🇷🇺 Borrell’s arrogance in presuming to come to Moscow to lecture on human rights is the real offense. Sergei Lavrov was eminently correct to give this attempt at humiliation short shrift.

As the old saying goes, a week is a long time in politics. Meaning a lot can change in a short span. Last week, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was in Moscow on what seemed to be a cordial and business-like meeting with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

A week later there are howls in the European Parliament for Borrell to resign and threats of more economic sanctions against Russia. For its part, Moscow is warning that it may break off ties with the European Union if the bloc goes ahead with threats to put the Russian economy at risk.

So what the hell happened? The Kremlin maintains that the meeting between Lavrov and Borrell in Moscow went well; not over-friendly, but nonetheless a useful, frank exchange of views on a range of subjects. From what the cameras showed at a joint press conference, that seemed to be the case.

🔗 READ MORE ⤵️

#Finian_Cunningham #Russia #EU #Borrel

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/14/european-union-over-borrell-who-humiliating-who/

🌍🧨 Britain and the United States worked together to kill the Bahrain revolution of 2011 and its people’s long-held aspirations for democratic governance.

Ten years ago this week, the Bahraini people launched a daring, peaceful uprising against a despised and despotic monarchial regime. During the next four weeks, the Al Khalifa regime was rocked to its shaky foundations as hundreds of thousands of Bahrainis took to the streets of the Persian Gulf island state.

What followed, however, was a crucial – if despicable – intervention by Britain and the United States which unleashed a wave of brutal repression – a repression that continues to this day. Without this British and American operation, the Bahraini regime would have fallen to a popular uprising.

🔗 READ MORE by Finian Cunningham ⤵️

#Finian_Cunningham #UK #ArabSpring #MidEast

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/17/how-britain-and-us-killed-bahrain-revolution/

🇸🇾🇱🇾🦅 The legacy from events a decade ago still reverberate to this day. Several members of the current Biden administration bear responsibility for the destruction, including the present Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Ten years ago this month, the Middle East and North Africa were convulsed by uprisings and subterfuges. The Arab Spring is generally thought of as a single wave of pro-democracy movements that swept the vast region. Far from it, however, the events were a mixed bag in which Western powers were not on the right side of history, as Western media would portray. Indeed, these powers played a nefarious role to ensure that the Arab Spring was kneecapped in order to cripple any progressive potential.

A look at the contemporaneous events in Bahrain, Libya and Syria shows the baleful role that the United States, Britain and other European NATO powers actually played. The Arab Spring certainly encompassed many more nations, but the specific events in those three mentioned Arab countries highlight the pernicious agenda of the Western powers which has left an ongoing legacy of misery, failure, conflict and terrorism for the entire Middle East and North Africa region.

🔗 READ MORE by Finian Cunningham ⤵️

#Finian_Cunningham #MiddleEast #Syria #Libya

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/19/killing-bahrain-revolution-us-uk-plotted-regime-change-libya-syria/

🇧🇭The Bahraini people’s struggle continues in spite of the lying, conniving Western governments and their media lackeys, Finian Cunningham writes.

*This piece below is a personal reflection by the author who found himself unexpectedly embroiled in the maelstrom. It was life-changing…

"I had been living in Bahrain for two years before the tumultuous events of the Arab Spring exploded in early 2011. Before that turmoil ignited, I was working as an editor on a glossy business magazine covering the Gulf region and its oil-rich Arab monarchies. But in many ways, I hadn’t a clue about the real social and political nature of Bahrain, a tiny island state nestled between Saudi Arabia and the other big Gulf oil and gas sheikhdoms of Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Oman.

During my corporate media employment I enjoyed a charmed life: a hefty tax-free salary, and a swanky apartment with rooftop swimming pool, jacuzzi and gym, which overlooked the sparkling Gulf sea and other glittering buildings that seemed to sprout up from reclaimed spits of land off the coast.

It was all weirdly artificial, if not hedonistically enjoyable. The luxury and glamor, the opulence. Unlike the other Gulf states, Bahrain had a distinctly more liberal social scene – at least for the wealthy expats. There were endless restaurants offering cuisine from all over the world. There were bars that freely sold alcohol which is “haram” in the other strictly-run Gulf Islamic monarchies. There were loads of nightclubs and loads of pretty hookers, most of them from Thailand and the Philippines. It all had the atmosphere of Sin City and forbidden fruit for the picking.

I later realized that Bahrain was not “cosmopolitan” as the business magazines and advertisements would gush about. That was just a euphemism for a vast system of human trafficking. All the service businesses were worked with menial people from Asia and Africa who were cheap and indentured labor. Where were the ordinary Bahrainis? What did they do for a living? In the cocooned expat life, the ordinary Bahrainis didn’t exist. Rich expats were there to enjoy tax-free salaries, glamorous glass towers, loads of booze and, if desired, loads of cheap sex.

My wake-up call came when my so-called professional contract was terminated after two years…"

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#Finian_Cunningham #Bahrain #ArabSpring

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/21/arab-spring-personal-story/

🗽The party that triumphed in the U.S. Civil War is racked by its own civil war, one in which the followers of Trumpism are guzzling down the kool-aid of conspiracy-thinking. And woe betide anyone who dares to question “dear leader”.

Former President Donald Trump is expected to be top speaker this weekend at the rightwing Conservative Political Action Conference where he will lay claim to the Republican Party being still under his sway.

🔗 READ MORE by Finian Cunningham ⤵️

#Finian_Cunningham #Rebulicans #WhiteHouse

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/02/28/party-abraham-lincoln-now-cult-conspiracists/