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<a id="gmail-label" href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/commemorations-attack-iraq-march-20th-and-libya-march-19th-reaffirm-useunato-axis-domination" rel="bookmark"><span><font size="4">Commemorations
of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the
U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to
International Peace on our Planet</font></span></a></div><div class="gmail-taxonomy"><a id="gmail-label" href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/commemorations-attack-iraq-march-20th-and-libya-march-19th-reaffirm-useunato-axis-domination" rel="bookmark"><span><br></span>
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<span><a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist"> Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist</a><br></span></div><div class="gmail-author-details"><span><br></span>
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22 Mar 2023
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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-field-cover-image gmail-field--type-image gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2023-03/war%20presidents%20article.jpg" title="Commemorations of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to International Peace on our Planet" class="gmail-colorbox gmail-cboxElement"><img src="https://www.blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2023-03/war%20presidents%20article.jpg" alt="Commemorations of the Attack on Iraq March 20th and Libya March 19th Reaffirm that the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination Remains the Greatest Threat to International Peace on our Planet" class="gmail-img-responsive" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="392" height="196">
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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-field-image-caption gmail-field--type-string gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item">The Intercept (Photo illustration: Elise Swain/The Intercept; Photos: Getty Images)</div>
<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-body gmail-field--type-text-with-summary gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><p><em>Iraq
and Libya were both targeted by the U.S. in the month of March. The
anniversaries of these war crimes must be commemorated, and the nature
of the US/EU/NATO war machine must be understood.</em></p>
<p><em>"The International Criminal Court should uphold an objective and
impartial stance, respect the jurisdictional immunity enjoyed by the
head of state in accordance with international law, exercise its
functions and powers prudently by the law, interpret and apply
international law in good faith, and avoid politicization and double
standards." (</em>Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin)</p>
<p>This commentary really should be part two from the piece I <a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/twentieth-anniversary-invasion-iraq-it-must-be-clear-us-greatest-threat-world-peace-and-collective" rel="nofollow">wrote last week</a>
in the run-up to the anti-war mobilization that took place March 18th
which commemorated the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. In that
article I made a similar argument about why the U.S. should be seen as
the greatest threat to the survival of collective humanity on our
planet.</p>
<p>That point, however, needs to be reinforced because in typical
arrogance, on the eve of that mobilization and the official March 20th
date of the U.S. invasion, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues
an arrest warrant for Russia President Vladimir Putin while Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Barack Obama, responsible for
horrific crimes against humanity and literally millions of deaths
combined in Serbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Yemen and Syria, walk around as free individuals.</p>
<p>It would be comical if it was not so deadly serious and absurd. Just a
couple of years ago when the ICC signaled under the leadership of the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2021/10/05/afghanistan-icc-war-crimes/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
wanted to conduct an investigation into possible crimes in Afghanistan
by the U.S. state, the Trump Administration told the court in no
uncertain terms that the Court would be subjected to the full wrath of
the U.S. government and the Court quietly demurred in favor of a
national probe that everyone knew was a sham.</p>
<p>This is just part of the infuriating double standards that Chinese
spokesperson Wang Wenbin refers to. For many in the global South, the
“neutral” international mechanisms and structures created to uphold
international law have lost significant credibility outside of the West.</p>
<p>The politicization of the ICC on the Ukrainian war and the
unprincipled participation of the United Nations that provided political
cover for the invasion and occupation of Haiti after the devastating
earthquake in 2010 are just two examples of how international structures
ostensibly committed to upholding international law and the UN Charter
are now seen as corrupt instruments of a dying U.S. and Western colonial
empire.</p>
<p>How did we get here?</p>
<p>It is not a mere historical coincidence that the world became a much
more dangerous place with the escalation of conflicts that threatened
international peace in the 1990s. Without the countervailing force of
the Soviet Union, the <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/26/the-delusional-commitment-to-the-doctrine-of-full-spectrum-dominance-is-leading-the-u-s-and-the-world-to-disaster/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">delusional white supremacists<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> making U.S. policy believed that the next century was going to be a century of unrestrained U.S. domination.</p>
<p>And who would be dominated? Largely the nations of the global South
but also Europe with an accelerated integration plan in 1993 that the
U.S. supported because it was seen as a more efficient mechanism for
deploying U.S. capital and further solidifying trade relations with the
huge and lucrative European Market.</p>
<p>Central to the assertion of U.S. global power, however, was the
judicious use of military force. “Full Spectrum Dominance” was the
strategic objective that would ensure the realization of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">“Project for a New American Century” (PNAC<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>). There was just one challenge that had to be overcome. The U.S. population still suffered from the affliction labeled the “<a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/03/george-h-w-bush-and-the-vietnam-syndrome/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Vietnam syndrome<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>.”
Traumatized by the defeat in Vietnam the population was still reticent
about giving its full support to foreign engagements that could develop
into a possible military confrontation.</p>
<p>How was this challenge overcome? Human rights.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://ips-dc.org/syria_and_the_sham_of_humanitarian_intervention/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Humanitarian interventionism<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>,” with its corollary the “responsibility to protect" would emerge in the late 90s as one of the most <a href="https://blackagendareport.com/content/humanitarian-intervention-human-rights-gift-keeps-giving-us-imperialism" rel="nofollow">innovative propaganda tools ever created</a>.
Produced by Western human rights community and championed by
psychopaths like Samantha Power, the humanitarianism of the benevolent
empire became the ideological instrument that allowed the U.S. to fully
commit itself to military options to advance the interests of U.S.
corporate and financial interests globally while being fully supported
by the U.S. population.</p>
<p>With this new ideological tool, the Clinton Administration bombed
Serbia for 78 days in 1999 without any legal basis but with the moral
imperative of the “responsibility to protect.” By the early 2000s it was
obvious that the U.S. was not going to be bound by international law.
Operating through NATO and with the formulation of a “rules based order”
in which the U.S. and its Western European allies would make the rules
and enforce the order, the world has been plunged into unending wars,
illegal sanctions, political subversion and the corruption of
international structures that were supposed to instrumentalize the
legal, liberal international order.</p>
<p>But white supremacist colonial hubris resulted in the empire overextending itself.</p>
<p>Twenty years after the illegal and immoral attack on Iraq where it is
estimated that over a million people perished and twelve years after
the racist attack on Libya where NATO dropped over 26,000 bombs and
murdered up to 50,000 people, the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination is in
irreversible decline but the U.S. hegemon, like a wounded wild beast is
still dangerous and is proving to be even more reckless then just a few
years ago. </p>
<p>The disastrous decision to provoke what the U.S. thought would be a
limited proxy war with Russia that would allow it to impose sanctions on
the Russian Federation will be recorded in history, along with the
invasion of Iraq, as the two pivotal decisions that greatly precipitated
the decline of the U.S. empire.</p>
<p>However, with over eight hundred U.S. bases globally, a military
budget close to a trillion dollars and a doctrine that prioritizes a
“military-first strategy,” the coming defeat in Ukraine might translate
into even more irresponsible and counterproductive moves against the
Chinese over Taiwan in the Pacific and more aggressive actions to
maintain U.S. hegemony in the Americas through SOUTHCOM and the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA).</p>
<p><a href="https://brilliantmaps.com/threat-to-peace/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Global polls<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> of international opinion continue to reflect that the peoples’ of our planet see the U.S. as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/05/us-threat-democracy-russia-china-global-poll" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">greatest threat to international peace<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>. They are correct.</p>
<p>The commemoration of the attacks on the peoples of Iraq and Libya is
an act of solidarity not only with the peoples of those nations, but
with the peoples and nations suffering from the malign policies of this
dying empire today. It is a time of rededication to peace and to
justice, two elements that are inextricable. In the <a href="https://blackallianceforpeace.com/#home-above-fold" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Black Alliance for Peace<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>,
we say that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the
achievement by popular struggle and self-defense of a world liberated
from global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism,
patriarchy, and white supremacy.</p>
<p>This understanding is the foundation for why we are launching with
our partners, an effort to revive the call to make the Americas a Zone
of Peace on April the 4th, the day the state murdered Dr. King and the
date that the Black Alliance for Peace was launched in 2017.</p>
<p>For Africans and other colonized peoples, the task is clear. The
U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination embodies the anti-life structures of
colonial/capitalist oppression and must be seen as the primary
contradiction facing global humanity. We recognize that other
contradictions exist. We are not naive. But for the exploited and
colonized peoples of this planet, until there is a shift in the
international balance of forces away from the maniacs in the “collective
West,” the future of our planet and collective humanity remains
imperiled.</p>
<p><em><strong>Ajamu Baraka is Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of
the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist
for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of
the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United
National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the
Black is Back Coalition.</strong></em></p>
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