Instruction: Write an article about: Spanish lawmaker: NATO subordinates Europe to US, pushes war on China, enriches weapons companies. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Gerardo Pisarello, NATO, Partido Popular, Podemos, poverty, Spain, unemployment

Output:
Spain’s leftist member of parliament Gerardo Pisarello said the NATO summit was organized to “enrichen the weapons trade” and “reinforce the geostrategic priorities of the United States … above all to weaken China.” He condemned US “vassalage,” calling for a new “autonomous” European security model based on respect for the Global South.

(Se puede leer esta nota en español aquí.)
A Spanish lawmaker has condemned the NATO summit that was held in Madrid this June, denouncing the US-led military alliance for advocating for more war and pushing to enrich the weapons industry while Europeans suffer from inflation and an energy crisis.
On the floor of Spain’s parliament, leftist Deputy Gerardo Pisarello argued that “the NATO summit was not organized to strengthen the cause of peace,” but rather “was organized basically to reinforce the geostrategic priorities of the United States… above all to weaken China.”

“It is evident that Europe needs a new model of security,” Pisarello said. But “that security model has to be an autonomous model, a European model, not a model subordinated to the United States.”
He portrayed Washington as a neocolonial overlord, condemning Spain for offering to “surrender ourselves in vassalage to NATO.”
The US government came to Madrid “to sell us, at a high price, its polluting shale gas, its GMO grains, and above all, the weapons of Lockheed Martin and its war industry,” he declared.
Spain’s leftist member of parliament @G_Pisarello said the NATO summit was organized to “enrichen the weapons trade” and "reinforce the geostrategic priorities of the US" to "weaken China"
He called for an “autonomous” European security model
Full video: https://t.co/Tl3Gtkh6vu pic.twitter.com/hZkNFi16i4
— Multipolarista (@Multipolarista) July 6, 2022

Gerardo Pisarello Prados is a Spanish-Argentine lawmaker from Catalunya, representing the socialist political party Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona in Common), which is affiliated with the national leftist party Podemos.
He is a member of the Congress of Deputies, the lower chamber of Spain’s parliament, where he serves as first secretary and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
In a speech in parliament on June 29, during NATO’s Madrid summit, Pisarello called for a new paradigm of “peace” and “respectful relations” with the Global South.
Citing left-wing leaders in Latin America, like Lula da Silva of Brazil and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, Pisarello declared, “There is a new multilateral world order that is emerging, which is irreversible, and which no empire, neither old or new, is going to be able to stop.”
The main threat to European security is not refugees, he stressed. Rather, “the principal security threat are the imperial disputes for energy resources, the concentration of wealth, the inequalities that creates, the migrations.”
The Spanish lawmaker denounced the demand by the United States and NATO that European governments boost their military spending to 2% of GDP.
This “would involve dedicating millions of euros to enrichen the weapons trade, when neither inflation nor unemployment is going to be resolved by filling Europe with more nuclear warheads or with more warships,” he said.
Pisarello pointed out that the combined military spending of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain is already four times larger than Russia’s.
Increasing the military budget “in the middle of a dire social and energy emergency would truly be the act of a pyromaniac,” he added.
The United States and its NATO alliance have pressured members to devote 2% of their GDP to military spending.
Since the 2008 financial crash, Spaniards have suffered from high levels of unemployment and poverty, and a brutal austerity policy that has continued regardless of which political party is in government.
This economic hardship has deepened with a global inflation crisis, which has been greatly exacerbated by Western sanctions on Russia, which have caused spiking energy prices.
Yet the Spanish government used the opportunity of the NATO summit held in Madrid from June 29 to 30 to announce that it will increase its military spending to 2% of GDP by 2030.
Spain already spends €12.21 billion on its military every year, which represents 1.03% of GDP. This means that Madrid is pledging to double military spending to roughly €24 billion in just over seven years.
For context, even before Russia escalated the war in Ukraine in February 2022, Spain had increased its military spending in the past seven years by more than €2 billion, from 0.93% of GDP to 1.03%.
Spain is currently governed by a liberal coalition led by the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party), which despite its name is a neoliberal centrist party that has governed just like the right wing.
Madrid’s proposal to significantly boost military expenditure must be approved by the parliament. Spain’s left-wing party Podemos, which is technically part of the coalition government, has pledged to oppose the measure. Meanwhile, the major right-wing Partido Popular (People’s Party), which is in the opposition, supports Madrid’s proposed spending hike.
The Spanish government is already saddled by tens of billions of dollars of debt due to foreign weapons contracts, and economic experts warn that the country will likely be forced to impose even more austerity measures in order to pay this off.
For more than a decade, Spanish workers have been heavily hurt by austerity measures imposed on them by a succession of neoliberal governments, at the orders of EU leadership in Brussels.
Spain has the second-highest level of unemployment in the European Union, after Greece. After the 2008 financial crash, national unemployment in Spain reached more than 20%. As of 2021, it is officially at 13%, although southern provinces have rates over 20%.
A staggering 27.8% of people in Spain are at risk of poverty, according to official government statistics, and that figure is getting worse by the year.
A map of unemployment in Spain, as of the beginning of 2022
Multipolarista translated Gerardo Pisarello’s speech into English. A full transcript follows below:
Gentlemen of the right wing, as you will come to understand, if we join the warmongering fervor that has come to show itself here today [at NATO’s Madrid summit], in the middle of a dire social and energy emergency, it would truly be the act of a pyromaniac.
Because we are going to say it clearly: what you all are proposing here does not guarantee any calm, or any security to working families and to the citizenry in general, among other reasons, because from the start it would involve dedicating millions of euros to enrichen the weapons trade, when neither inflation nor unemployment is going to be resolved by filling Europe with more nuclear warheads or with more warships.
After NATO’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it is evident that Europe needs a new model of security.
But if we have learned something from all of this, we must at least have two things clear: first of all, that that security model has to be an autonomous model, a European model, not a model subordinated to the United States, or to any other power; and secondly, that that autonomous security model should not be used for escalation without end, but rather for a foundational value of Europe and the United Nations: peace as a condition for shared prosperity.
I understand that the Partido Popular [Spain’s major right-wing party] which already involved us in the Iraq War, with Blair and George Bush, does not clearly see this goal, but at least you could listen to conservative people, of your own ideology, who remember that every single day of war means thousands of civilian victims, with mass displacement, with economic devastation, with mothers crying to their children, dead soldiers.
We, for example, would have hoped for a summit in which it is remembered that the principal security threat are not the Ukrainian refugees, or Syrian refugees, or Africans; that the principal security threat are the imperial disputes for energy resources, the concentration of wealth, the inequalities that creates, the migrations.
We would have wanted a summit in which it is explained that increasing military spending when there are urgent needs and when just France, Germany, Italy, and Spain spend four times more on the military than Russia, that it makes absolutely no sense.
We would have liked a summit in which it were said that the main challenge for Europe is not trying to pressure people with fear, but rather persuade them, that is to say, to be a credible promoter of peace and of negotiated resolutions of the conflicts in Ukraine, Yemen, Palestine, or the Sahara.
But that is not going to happen, because the NATO summit was not organized to strengthen the cause of peace, which was championed by people like Altiero Spinelli, Petra Kelly, or Olof Palme. This summit was organized basically to reinforce the geostrategic priorities of the United States, which are not about Ukraine or Europe, but above all about weakening China.
That, gentlemen, is why Mr. Marshall [the United States] has not come to this summit with a pack of social and green investments under his arm. He has not come with a Green New Deal under his arm.
He has come to sell us, at a high price, his polluting shale gas, his GMO grains, and above all, the weapons of Lockheed Martin and his war industry. And he has come to tell us that, more than ending the war, what we need to do is feed it.
And let’s be honest, that can be the project of an irresponsible warmonger like Boris Johnson; it can be the project of the Polish ultra-right-wing; it can be the project of the Latvian ultra-right-wing; but it cannot be the project of a Europe that respects itself, a Europe that wants to be autonomous, and that aspires to build a civilizational alternative based on the deepening of democracy, of peace, of social and environmental justice.
That other, autonomous European model not only is it what is better for the countries in the south of Europe; it is the only one with which we can earn the respect of the rest of the peoples of the world, beginning with Africa and Latin America.
Because what Africa hopes of us, gentlemen, not is that we go to pillage its resources, to later militarize the southern border, and shoot those who try to cross it [a reference to the Melilla massacre on June 24].
What Africa hopes for is a serious commitment, not just rhetoric, with a codevelopment that allows its boys and girls to eat every day, and not see themselves pushed to immigrate when they are teenagers.
Because what Latin America hopes for us is not what [Spain’s King] Felipe VI proposed, after receiving Biden at the foot of his airplane, that we surrender ourselves in vassalage to NATO.
What they hope for, which was told to us by [Brazil’s] ex President Lula, what was told to us by [Mexico’s] President López Obrador is that we seek peace and shared prosperity, starting from a respectful relation between free and equal peoples.
That respectful, not arrogant, Iberoamericanism is also what was just demanded by Colombia’s President-elect Gustavo Petro.
Gentlemen of the right-wing, don’t allow the neocolonial ravings of of the marquesses [feudal royals] of Vargas Llosa ruin this opportunity.
Because if that happens, I can assure you that Africa and Latin America will rebel.
They already did it with [King] Fernando VII. They already did it in Cuba and the Philippines, supported by Pi y Margall and by Unamuno.
And it will happen again if we don’t understand that there is a new multilateral world order that is emerging, which is irreversible, and which no empire, neither old or new, is going to be able to stop.
Thank you.
Discutiendo con la derecha sobre la Cumbre de la OTAN pic.twitter.com/b5ppFUzu0o
— Gerardo Pisarello (@G_Pisarello) June 29, 2022


Instruction: Write an article about: While fueling Ukraine proxy war, NATO and EU are militarizing the Balkans. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Balkans, Bosnia and Herzegovina, EU, EUFOR, European Union, NATO, Serbia, Yugoslavia

Output:
The proxy war in Ukraine threatens to drag the Balkans into a larger regional conflict, as the US, EU, and NATO militarize Bosnia and increase pressure on Serbia, and Ukrainian drones crash in Croatia.

While much of the world’s attention is focused on the war in Ukraine, the NATO-affiliated European Union Force (EUFOR) mission deployed combat troops to Bosnia, to the city of Banja Luka, on April 20.
These soldiers were sent to the Balkans ostensibly to monitor a peaceful protest organised by a Bosnian Serb veterans’ organisation, which was supported by the Bosnian Serb ruling party and its president Milorad Dodik.
The increasing visibility of EUFOR and NATO troops in Bosnia is exacerbating already high tensions in the former Yugoslav countries, following the dramatic escalation of violence in Ukraine this year.
The EUFOR intervention in Banja Luka followed similar “pre-cautionary” demonstrations of force in Bosnia over the last several months, including flyovers by French fighter jets and exercises in which EUFOR troops marched down commercial streets in central Sarajevo and drove around civilian areas in armored vehicles.

The protests in Banja Luka result from conflicting interpretations of jurisdiction under the Dayton Agreement, the deal that ended Bosnia’s four-year civil war in 1995.
The Dayton Accords established a tenuous political system for Bosnia and Herzegovina which saw power divided between two “entities” along the armistice line: the Croat and Muslim “Federation” and Serb “Republic”.
While Dayton formally incorporates Russia and other non-NATO countries into its oversight body, the agreement is in practice administered by NATO governments and by Austria, which together appoint a “High Representative” who has sweeping powers to overrule democratic decisions of the respective entity governments.
While nominally neutral, Austria plays a key role in implementing NATO policy in Bosnia, and its status within the former Yugoslav republics as a historic colonial power and major foreign investor undermine its claims to objectivity.
Dayton also laid the framework for what in effect became a permanent military occupation of Bosnia, first directly under NATO, and later under a joint EU-NATO operation known as the European Union Force Bosnia and Herzegovina, or EUFOR.
The symbol of EUFOR
While the ostensible purpose of EUFOR is to prevent the re-emergence of armed conflict between Muslims and Serbs, its contribution to regional and inter-community security is ambiguous at best, and the military occupation of Bosnia is routinely used by the West to exert political domination over the region.
In 2014, a wave of anti-privatization and anti-corruption protests began in Tuzla, a mainly Muslim mining town in Bosnia known for a tradition of socialist and labour militancy.
The protests were notable for broad solidarity between Muslim, Croat, and Serb protestors, and the shared contempt for the dysfunctional administrative structures and nationalist elites (including the aforementioned Dodik) created by Dayton.
In response, the Western-appointed High Representative threatened to suppress the protests with Austrian troops.
In a region with vivid recent memories of a horrific civil war, such Western threats were sufficient to send protestors home.
In response to Russia’s military incursion in Ukraine this February, the United States, European Union, and NATO have increased their activities with EUFOR, holding meetings featuring senior representatives from the US, UK, Germany, France, and Italy.
A very constructive meeting  consisting of @OHR_BiH, @eubih, @eufor, @natobih, @OSCEBiH and senior representatives  from Germany, France, Italy, UK, US  took place in EUFOR/NATO  HQ on Friday 18 March. pic.twitter.com/YQdUJjMScv
— Operation EUFOR Althea (@euforbih) March 18, 2022

This March, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Josep Borrell, traveled to Bosnia to meet with EUFOR leadership.
COM EUFOR Maj Gen Anton Wessely had the great pleasure to welcome the ?? High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Mr. Josep Borrell to Camp Butmir. @JosepBorrellFhttps://t.co/sxLPMmR1qz pic.twitter.com/qQl4YLbtzN
— Operation EUFOR Althea (@euforbih) March 16, 2022

Then in April, a bipartisan group of US senators took a tour of the Balkans to, in their own words, “convey continued U.S. support for its allies amid Russian aggression against Ukraine and the implications for European security in the region.”
Democratic and Republican senators met with representatives from EUFOR and NATO in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The US embassy in Sarajevo said the meeting was held “to discuss ways we can bolster cooperation and partnership.”
.@SenatorShaheen, @ThomTillis, & @ChrisMurphyCT met with @NATOBiH and @EUFORBiH to discuss ways we can bolster cooperation and partnership to support #BiH. pic.twitter.com/q13eMwWPId
— US Embassy Sarajevo (@USEmbassySJJ) April 20, 2022

EUFOR commanders have likewise been coordinating with the US ambassador to Bosnia, Michael J. Murphy, stressing “the importance of shared cooperation and partnership.”
Yesterday COM EUFOR Major General Anton Wessely was delighted to meet the U.S Ambassador to BiH Michael J. Murphy @USEmbassySJJ in his introductory office call to #EUFOR, where the importance of shared cooperation and partnership in supporting BiH authorities was discussed. pic.twitter.com/UOBUZEXZqU
— Operation EUFOR Althea (@euforbih) April 1, 2022

This Western coordination threatens to drag the Balkans into a larger geopolitical conflict.
Bosnia is not the only former Yugoslav country where NATO’s contributions to peace and security are dubious.
In March, a Tupolev Tu-141 drone carrying a bomb entered Croatian airspace via Hungary and crashed in a residential neighbourhood in central Zagreb, likely as a result of an error.
A Tupolev Tu-141 drone
It was later revealed that this drone, which is similar to a cruise missile, belonged to the Ukrainian military, and had sought to attack Russian forces.
While no one was hurt, the passage of the explosive-armed drone through hundreds of kilometres of NATO airspace without being intercepted raised questions in Croatia about the ability of NATO to provide for the country’s safety.
The Serbian and Bosnian Serb governments have faced increasing pressure from Western governments seeking to harm bilateral relations with Russia, despite their repeated statements deploring the escalation of violence in Ukraine and calling for a peaceful resolution for the conflict.
This pressure led Serbia to vote in the United Nations General Assembly to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council, which was a broadly unpopular move within Serbia.
According to the stated goals of US policy, the pressure on Serbia makes little sense: Serbia is a small, middle-income country that plays no role in Russia’s war effort.
Serbian neutrality is much less important for Russia than the roles played by Israel and Turkey, which unlike Serbia, have received little criticism in the Western press for their ambiguous position in the conflict.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has repeatedly implied that the pressures placed on his country are intended to destabilize the Balkans, not to help Ukraine.
Whatever one thinks of Vučić or the war, given the pattern of facts, this explanation is more plausible than the official Western one.
The Serbian government has also expressed its concerns with Russia’s invocation of the 1999 NATO intervention in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now Serbia and Montenegro) as a legal pretext for Russia’s own actions in Ukraine.
NATO’s 1999 intervention, conducted intentionally without UN Security Council authorization partly as a demonstration of NATO’s willingness to act unilaterally in violation of international law, nonetheless offered a flimsy legal pretext for military action: it first recognized a secessionist republic in Kosovo before immediately bombing Serbia to protect it.
While Kosovo independence has never received broad international recognition – mainly because of the global consensus that its secession and NATO’s intervention were both in direct violation of the UN charter – NATO was nonetheless able to force Serbia to accept a permanent occupation of Kosovo after 78 days of bombing.
Camp Bondsteel, that US Army base that hosts NATO’s Kosovo presence, is a key logistics hub for military operations across Asia. It is one of the world’s largest US military bases and has been implicated in grave human rights violations by US personnel, including rendition.
Much like the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Camp Bondsteel’s location in a legal grey area, under military occupation and without civilian oversight, offers advantages for covert operations.
Ukrainian soldiers being trained at the US Army’s Camp Bondsteel base in Kosovo in 2010
As in Bosnia, the constant threat of renewed NATO aggression is an ever-present phantom in Serbian politics.
Despite claims that its military occupations are intended to preserve regional stability, NATO has never demonstrated a desire to see durable peace and reconciliation among the Balkan countries.
On the contrary, perceived regional instability is a reliable pretext for maintaining a permanent military presence in a strategic location, without the democratic oversight, control, or transparency that would come with regular NATO membership.
The Balkans have experienced major wars every few decades throughout the history of modern states – often proxy conflicts between neighbouring superpowers – and during a period of intensified conflict in Europe, the region needs renewed diplomacy, not militarist provocations.
Yet in line with NATO’s maximalist, escalatory posture in Ukraine itself – explicitly seeking to sacrifice Ukraine in an apocalyptic proxy war to weaken Russia – NATO has done nothing to secure or reassure the peoples of the Balkans.
Perhaps the biggest danger is the creation of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Claims that the region is doomed to instability and violence risk feeding an escalatory cycle that may bring about the very violence one hopes to avoid.
While this may be good news for Western arms manufacturers, it does nothing to protect the lives of Croats or Albanians.
Despite racist lies about “ancient ethnic hatreds” and violent cultures, however, armed conflict and instability have been repeatedly imposed on the Balkans by self-interested foreign powers, exploiting the same internal fractures and divisions that exist anywhere else.
It is external provocations that threaten the region, not any fundamental conflicts between its peoples.
None of this is to say that recent Russian diplomacy in the region has been particularly positive either. Remarks by Russia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Igor Kalabukhov, were widely condemned, after he threatened retaliatory action should the country begin a process of NATO accession, citing Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine as an example of a possible response.
Escalatory rhetoric and actions on both sides – but particularly on the side of NATO, which has an extensive recent history of military aggression in the region and a significant military presence in both non-NATO former Yugoslav republics – is enhancing the grave danger of renewed violent conflict in the region.
The western Balkans is not the only place that has seen efforts from various actors to broaden the scope of the Russia-NATO proxy war by opening new fronts.
Transnistria, the disputed region on Moldova’s eastern border with Ukraine, which hosts a small Russian peacekeeping force, was hit by a series of bombings of unknown origin this April, targeting government institutions and radio infrastructure.
Moldova’s pro-EU president Maia Sandu has made similar remarks to Vučić, suggesting efforts to destabilize the formally neutral country. Exactly which forces are encouraging escalation in each of these cases, and why, is not always clear.
Both Russia and NATO have acted in ways that undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of weaker states, and both have engaged in escalatory rhetoric. However, efforts to prolong, intensify, and broaden the geographic scope of armed conflict, including efforts to draw Moscow into secondary proxy conflicts, are entirely consistent with the stated US program to maximize costs and destabilization within Russia itself.
The situation in Ukraine has made it abundantly clear that US policy makes no effort to protect its ostensible allies, including NATO members.
Not only does Washington see Ukrainian lives as an acceptable price to pay in a proxy conflict against Russia; economic devastation of Europe and explosive-armed drones landing in Zagreb are also acceptable.
This is an extremely dangerous period of history, for the Balkans, for Europe, and for the world.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov even stated that the risk of a nuclear war in the current circumstances is “considerable.”.
Coordinated efforts to encourage diplomacy, de-escalation, and peace have never been more urgent.


Instruction: Write an article about: US bombing of Iraq and Syria is illegal aggression – Occupiers have no right to ‘self-defense’. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Iraq, Joe Biden, Syria

Output:
Militarily occupying Iraq and Syria is a thoroughly bipartisan policy in the United States. And bombing West Asia has become a favorite pastime that unites both Democrat and Republican presidents.

(Puedes leer este artículo en español aquí.)
The United States believes it has the right to bomb, militarily occupy, and economically strangulate any country, anywhere, without consequence. But the peoples of the world are standing up more and more to the global dictatorship of US hegemony.
On June 27, Washington launched airstrikes against forces in both Iraq and Syria, two sovereign countries that are illegally occupied by the US military and that have repeatedly called for American troops to leave.
The US attack proved to be a gift to the genocidal extremists in ISIS: it helped provide cover as remnants of the so-called “Islamic State” launched a terror attack on a power grid in northern Iraq. Similarly, the US bombing killed several members of Iraqi government-backed units who had been protecting their nation from ISIS and al-Qaeda.
This is far from the first time Washington has clearly been on the same side as far-right Takfiri fanatics. Current US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan admitted in an email to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2012 that “AQ is on our side in Syria.” And the US government supported al-Qaeda extremists in its wars on Yemen and Libya.
In addition to aiding notorious terrorist groups, these US strikes on Iraq and Syria were glaringly illegal under international law. They constitute a clear act of aggression against the peoples of West Asia, who for decades have struggled for self-determination and control over their own, plentiful natural resources — resources that the US government and its all-powerful corporations seek to control and exploit.
The Pentagon tried to justify its attack claiming it was an act of “self-defense.” Absurdly, the US Department of Defense — the world champion in violating international law — even cited international law to try to legitimize the airstrikes.
In reality, the US military’s very presence in Iraq and Syria is illegal. And under international law, a military power that is illegally occupying a territory does not have the right to self-defense. That is true just as much for apartheid Israel in its settler-colonial aggression against Palestine as it is for the United States in its imperial wars on the peoples of Iraq and Syria.
Iraq’s prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, made that clear. He condemned the US strikes as a “blatant and unacceptable violation of Iraqi sovereignty and Iraqi national security.”
In January 2020, in response to Washington’s assassination of top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi Commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis — a criminal act of war against both Iraq and Iran — the democratically elected parliament in Baghdad voted 170 to 0 to expel the thousands of US troops occupying Iraq.
Washington simply ignored the vote, silencing the voices of the Iraqi people — while threatening more economic sanctions on their government. The Pentagon stressed that the vote was nonbinding, but even the US government-backed RAND Corporation acknowledged that there “is no treaty or status of forces agreement (SOFA) authorizing the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.”
Likewise, the United States is illegally occupying one-third of Syrian sovereign territory. The internationally recognized government in Damascus has repeatedly called on the US military occupiers to leave, but they have refused, in a flagrant violation of Syrian sovereignty.
“The presence of Americans in Syria is a sign of occupation, and we believe that all nations and governments must stand up to their unlawful presence in the region,” Syrian Prime Minister Imad Khamis declared in 2020, after the US assassinations of the top Iraqi and Iranian military leaders.
While former Republican President Donald Trump radiated a kind of neocolonial arrogance, boasting that US troops would illegally remain in Syria because “we want to keep the oil,” the Democratic Joe Biden administration has not acted much differently.
President Biden appointed hardline neoconservative operative Dana Stroul as the top Pentagon official for Middle East policy. In 2019, Stroul bragged that Washington “owned” one-third of Syrian territory, including its “economic powerhouse,” which includes the vast majority of the country’s oil and wheat reserves.
Stroul’s promotion was an unambiguous sign that the Democrats are endorsing the same sadistic, Trumpian strategy to militarily occupy Syria, steal its natural resources, starve its government of revenue, deny its people gasoline and bread, and prevent reconstruction of what Stroul snidely referred to as the widespread “rubble.”
The reality is that militarily occupying Iraq and Syria is a thoroughly bipartisan policy in the United States. And bombing West Asia has become a favorite pastime that unites both Democratic and Republican presidents.
Trump launched airstrikes against Syria in April 2018 on totally unsubstantiated accusations that Damascus had carried out “gas attacks,” claims that have since been proven false by multiple whistleblowers from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Then in December 2019, the Trump administration bombed anti-ISIS militias in both Syria and Iraq.
Biden carried out a similar, illegal attack on these same fighters in eastern Syria in February 2021. It was yet another example of Washington serving as the de facto air force for the remnants of the so-called “Islamic State.”
The December 2019, February 2021, and June 2021 US airstrikes targeted the Iraqi government-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMFs), known in Arabic as the al-Hashd al-Sha’abi. The Pentagon stated unequivocally in its official statement on the June bombing that it was attacking Kata’ib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, two prominent Iraqi armed groups in the Hashd.
The Department of Defense misleadingly referred to these units as “Iran-backed militia groups.” The US government and the corporate media outlets that act as its obedient mouthpiece always describe the Hashd as “Iran-backed” to try to downplay their role as indigenous protectors of Iraqi sovereignty and deceptively portray them as foreign proxies of Washington’s favorite bogeyman.
In reality, the PMFs are Iraqi units supported by the elected, internationally recognized government in Baghdad. And the Hashd played a leading role in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other extremist Takfiri groups in both Iraq and Syria — while the United States, apartheid Israel, and NATO allies spent billions of dollars backing Salafi-jihadist death squads in their genocidal war on the people of Syria.
The Hashd do indeed receive assistance from Tehran, and they have every right to. Iran is Iraq’s neighbor, after all, whereas the United States is on the other side of the planet. But Washington, NATO, and their de facto stenographers in the corporate press corps seek to discredit all resistance to criminal US aggression in West Asia by erasing its organic, indigenous roots and lazily depicting it as a vast conspiracy controlled by an omnipresent Iranian puppet-master.
The PMFs made it clear that they will not tolerate Washington’s assault on their nation’s sovereignty. “We reserve the legal right to respond to these attacks and hold the perpetrators accountable on Iraqi soil,” the Hashd declared.
Unlike the US military occupiers, the people of Iraq and Syria do have a right to exercise self-defense in response to strikes by foreign aggressors. They can legally resist American military occupation and neocolonialism, just as the people of Palestine have the right to resist Israeli military occupation and Zionist settler-colonialism. This is a right enshrined in international law — and an inalienable right that any nation would defend.
If Washington wants to stop attacks on its troops, there is an easy way to do that: withdraw them from the region, where they are not wanted. American soldiers will be much safer at home.
(This article was written for Al Mayadeen English.)


Instruction: Write an article about: Israeli military conspiring with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Egypt against Iran. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Bahrain, Egypt, Ghassan Kanafani, Iran, Israel, Jordan, normalization, Palestine, PFLP, Qatar, UAE, United Arab Emirates

Output:
The US organized a meeting with top military officials from apartheid Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain to conspire against Iran, as Jordan’s king calls for a “Middle East NATO.”

The United States organized a meeting with top military officials from apartheid Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain in order to conspire against Iran.
These talks come while the staunchly pro-Western king of Jordan has called for creating a “Middle East NATO.”
The military talks were revealed in a June 26 report in the Wall Street Journal, titled “U.S. Held Secret Meeting With Israeli, Arab Military Chiefs to Counter Iran Air Threat.”
The US military’s Central Command is trying to coordinate the region’s aerial activities in hopes of containing Tehran.
Apartheid Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz referred to the collaboration as the “Middle East Air Defense Alliance,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
Anonymous US government officials confirmed the meeting to the newspaper. It was convened in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in March, in order to “coordinate against Iran’s growing missile and drone capabilities,” the newspaper said.
The talks brought together the chiefs of staff of the Israeli, Saudi, and Qatari armed forces, along with senior military officers from Jordan and Egypt and lower level officials from the UAE and Bahrain.
Kuwait and Oman did not participate in the meeting.
The US military’s air command center for the Middle East is located at al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest US military base in the region.
These military talks in Egypt were are a clear sign of the growing campaign of normalization of Israeli colonialism by the Gulf monarchies and their allies.
Egypt normalized relations with Israel in 1979. The Jordanian monarchy normalized relations with Israel in 1994.
The UAE and Bahrain normalized relations with apartheid Israel in 2020, as part of the Donald Trump administration’s Abraham Accords.
The leaders of Israel, the UAE, and Bahrain meet with Donald Trump at the White House in September 2020 to sign the Abraham Accords
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have technically not yet formally established relations with Israel, although they have been quietly collaborating behind the scenes for years.
The Saudi regime has purchased Israeli military equipment and surveillance and hacking technology. Israeli corporate executives have been welcomed by the Saudi monarchy.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have very tense relations, and Riyadh, which preaches a Wahhabi fundamentalist ideology, even imposed a blockade in 2017 on Doha, which is a top sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But the fact that the top military commanders of Saudi Arabia and Qatar participated in a meeting with the chief of staff of the IDF shows that the Gulf monarchies and apartheid Israel are still willing to collaborate in an effort to contain Iran.
Iran is one of the main supporters of anti-imperialist forces in the region, and the de facto leader of the Axis of Resistance.
Tehran has also formed broader economic and political alliances with China, Russia, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro visited Iran and signed a historic 20-year cooperation agreement involving energy, technology, and trade.
He pledged support against Western aggression in a joint “anti-imperialist struggle for a better world”https://t.co/eKGFPMkaPf
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) June 11, 2022

Citing the proxy war in Ukraine, Jordan’s pro-Western King Abdullah II endorsed the idea of making a “Middle East NATO,” a regional alliance based on the US-led military cartel.
“I would be one of the first people to endorse a Middle East NATO,” the Jordanian monarch said in an interview with CNBC this June.
“We work actively with NATO all over the world, and have been for ages. The relationship with NATO, from a Jordanian perspective is, actually, we’re partners,” Abdullah added. “That relationship with NATO is extremely special. We are fighting shoulder to shoulder, and have been for decades.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah II tells CNBC’s @_HadleyGamble he “would be one of the first people to endorse a Middle East NATO” pic.twitter.com/jcKWzwLJKZ
— CNBC International (@CNBCi) June 24, 2022

US President Joe Biden plans to visit apartheid Israel and Saudi Arabia this July.
Ghassan Kanafani, a prominent leftist intellectual of the revolutionary Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), argued back in the 1960s that the top enemy of the freedom of the Palestinian people was not just Israel, but also what he called the “reactionary Arab regimes,” like the Gulf monarchies, all of which are part of the US-led imperialist system.
It was an open secret for decades that these reactionary Arab regimes were collaborating with Israel, but in the past few years their alliance has become public and undeniable.


Instruction: Write an article about: EU calls China and Russia ‘threats’ in ‘war for the future of the entire world’. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Belt and Road Initiative, China, Cold War Two, EU, European Union, Global Gateway, new cold war, Russia

Output:
European Union leader Ursula von der Leyen warned China and Russia are a “global challenge” to Western hegemony. She called for weakening their influence in the Global South, cutting their access to raw materials, opposing Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, and expanding the EU.

The European Union is waging a proxy war on Russia in Ukraine, as well as an economic war aimed at destroying Russia’s economy. But Moscow is not Brussels’ only target. Beijing is also in its crosshairs.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made it clear that Europe sees both China and Russia as threats. And it is waging a new cold war aimed at undermining them, in order to maintain a so-called “rules-based order” dominated by Western hegemony.

Von der Leyen emphasized that the EU is raising hundreds of billions of euros to fund programs to weaken Chinese and Russian influence in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The EU leader portrayed the resource-rich Global South as a battlefield. She warned that the demand for raw materials needed to build renewable energy technology “will exponentially increase,” and insisted that the West must prevent China from controlling those natural resources.
In an October 12 speech at the 2022 EU Ambassadors Conference in Brussels, von der Leyen declared, “Russia’s failure [in Ukraine] alone will not save the rules-based global order. Because the Kremlin’s revisionism is not the only nor the most serious threat to the rules-based order.”
“The so-called no-limits partnership declared by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping is also a clear challenge to the post-war order, built on the core values of the UN Charter,” the EU chief said.
“Of course, we are observing carefully the aftermath of the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to see any changes to China’s international posture,” she added ominously.

Von der Leyen characterized the China-Russia alliance as a threat, imploring, “we need to counter this global challenge.”
She made it clear that Europe seeks to maintain its influence in “the entire world,” insisting, “The war in Ukraine is not only a European war, it is a war for the future of the entire world. So Europe’s horizon can only be the entire world.”
Von der Leyen, a right-wing German politician, concluded her speech with nationalist fervor, proclaiming, “Long live Europe!”
The EU leader’s comments echoed the positions of the US government’s 2018 National Defense Strategy and NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept, which both declared China and Russia to be the West’s main adversaries.
NATO’s 2022 plan declares second cold war on Russia and Chinahttps://t.co/98CElPCm2g
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) July 11, 2022

While much of her October 12 speech was dedicated to demonizing Russia, the EU Commission president also devoted a significant amount of time to fearmongering about China.
Von der Leyen boasted that the European Union has created an investment program, called Global Gateway, in order to challenge China’s massive global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative.
She called for more funding from EU member states, to raise €300 billion for this neoliberal public-private partnership, in order to challenge Chinese and Russian influence in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Echoing the debunked myth of “debt-trap diplomacy,” the EU leader claimed:
A ‘Belt and Road’ debt crisis is now in full swing. Tens of countries are massively indebted with China. Eight of these countries – from Angola to Laos – will spend in 2022 more than 2% of their gross national income to pay their debt to China. Our Global Gateway investment programme is about giving countries a better choice, to give them an alternative.
Von der Leyen failed to mention that China has pardoned or restructured tens of billions of dollars of debt for more than a dozen countries.
(For context, Argentina is trapped in $45 billion in debt owed to the US-dominated IMF, which represents nearly 10% of its gross national income. Similarly, following a US-backed coup, Honduras was trapped in $9.25 billion of external debt, due largely to the IMF, which makes up a staggering 35% of its GNI.)
The EU chief also warned about “the Asia-Pacific, where the footprint of Chinese investment is massive.” She did not acknowledge that China, unlike Europe, is actually located in the Asia-Pacific region.
“We need all continents to rise up in defence of the rules-based order,” she urged.
Von der Leyen noted that she and US President Joe Biden are holding a “Leaders’ Summit” to “really push forward a value-based investment agenda for the world.”
The proxy war in Ukraine has pushed the United States and Europe closer together than ever, von der Leyen explained with delight in the October 12 speech.
“Never before have I experienced such an intense cooperation with the White House as I did this year,” she said. “And our cooperation got even stronger in the run-up to Russia’s invasion.”
“Now, the transatlantic bond is stronger than ever at a crucial time for Europe,” she added with a smile. “We coordinated our sanctions, round after round. We stepped up our energy coordination and energy supplies on both sides.”
The EU leader emphasized that US energy exports have “made it possible for us to diversify away from Russian fossil fuels.”
“It helped enormously that I had the agreement with President Biden on the LNG [liquified natural gas] and they really stepped up in delivering LNG toward the European Union,” von der Leyen said.
“And like-minded partners like the United States and for example Norway have massively stepped up and helped us break free from our very dangerous dependency [on Russian energy],” she added.
The proxy war in Ukraine has created “a huge tectonic shift in the region, because we are diversifying away from Russia,” she stressed.
Von der Leyen explained that, in the beginning of 2022, Russia provided Europe with 41% of its imported pipeline gas. As of October 12, that figure has decreased to just 7.5%.
“This is a huge move. This is an enormous decrease, a necessary decrease. We would have never been able to do that if it would not have been for our close friends and partners, like for example Norway and like the United States, with LNG coming in,” she said.
Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged mere hours before the EU opened its own competing Baltic Sea pipeline.
US Secretary of State Blinken boasted it was a “tremendous opportunity” to weaken Moscow.
Full video: https://t.co/jlNNQA2iXF
Article: https://t.co/Z7Ux1iPzlb pic.twitter.com/4AN16LXUiL
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) October 8, 2022

In addition to Europe rapidly increasing its energy imports from the United States and Norway, von der Leyen noted that the EU signed a trilateral gas deal with Egypt and apartheid Israel, which she said “has played an important role in our strategy to get rid of the Russian fossil fuels.”
But the EU chief emphasized that Europe also seeks to control the natural resources needed to develop renewable energy technologies – and many of those materials are in Africa.
Von der Leyen spelled it out:
But my visits in Cairo and Jerusalem were about much more than gas. Because our goal remains the transition away from fossil fuels. And the Mediterranean countries hold an immense potential for renewable energy.
For example, we have launched a new hydrogen partnership that looks very promising for both Europe and Egypt. And at the same time, we are working in the same direction with other northern African countries, too.
Because we know we need the energy; we need renewable energy; we need the hydrogen. And those northern African countries have all the resources that are necessary in abundance.
(While the EU chief claimed the West is defending a “rules-based order,” she also unwittingly showed with these remarks how said order contradicts international law. The United Nations does not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel; East Jerusalem is illegally occupied Palestinian territory, according to international law. But von der Leyen implicitly referred to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.)
Von der Leyen acknowledged in her speech that, as the world transitions to renewable energy technologies, Europe’s need for the natural resources of the Global South will “exponentially increase.”
The EU leader warned that there is, however, a problem: China, which she said “dominates the whole global market”:
But I just want to mention the third example that shows how important these moves with our best friends are: That is raw materials.
Take lithium or take rare earth metals, they are vital for our green and digital transition. No wind turbine, no solar panel without these raw materials.
The demand for them will exponentially increase. That is for sure.
First of all, that is good news because it shows that the green transition is progressing. That is good.
The not so good news is: one country dominates the whole global market. That is China.
In order to weaken Chinese and Russian influence, von der Leyen called for the EU to boost its operations in Central Asia:
We must also step up our engagement in Central Asia. The region is a gateway between Europe, Russia and China. And it is going through an era of turbulent transformation. Some countries are pushing for reforms that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago. And they deserve all our political and economic support.
So this is the time to enhance our economic engagement in Central Asia and provide alternatives to the region to be connected to the global economy. I want Europe to be a partner for change in Central Asia. Because the global geopolitics are also changing.
You know that tectonic plates are shifting. And in times like these, we must be ready to sail uncharted waters. We must engage beyond our immediate neighbourhood and the circle of our traditional allies.
In the same vein, von der Leyen urged for the European Union to expand into the Balkans.
The EU leader proposed adding new member states like Ukraine, Albania, North Macedonia, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and potentially even Georgia.
“The Western Balkans belong in our family and we have to make this very, very clear,” she declared.
Von der Leyen also used her October 12 speech to express staunch support for violent protests in Iran, which seek to overthrow the government.
The EU chief portrayed the ongoing riots as a feminist uprising. She blamed all of the violence that is happening on both sides solely on the Iranian government, ignoring the documented attacks carried out by rioters.
She then called for more sanctions to be imposed on Tehran.
“Now is the time to sanction these people [in Iran] who are responsible,” von der Leyen declared. “The shocking violence inflicted on the Iranian people cannot stay unanswered. And we have to work on sanctions together.”
At the 2022 EU Ambassadors Conference, von der Leyen reiterated Brussels’ undying support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“We, the European Union, must keep supporting Ukraine through thick and thin, for as long as it takes,” she declared, adding that Ukraine was “enthusiastically” given EU candidate status.
She boasted of nine harsh sanctions packages that Europe has imposed on Russia.
Von der Leyen disclosed that the EU has provided Ukraine with at least €19 billion since February 2022.
She noted that this is a conservative estimate, as it “does not include what the European Peace Facility is giving, the equipment with military capabilities and weapons.”
The United States has also given at least $60 billion in support to Ukraine, with an average of $228 million in military aid per day.
The Joe Biden administration pledged Ukraine $39.87 billion in military aid between February and August 2022, for an average of $228 million per day, fueling a brutal proxy war causing tens of thousands of deathshttps://t.co/L6UvfrglFd
— Multipolarista (@Multipolarista) September 2, 2022