The West pushes Xinjiang issue while ignoring slaughter of Palestinians!

West's cry for Uyghurs, a mere crocodile tears!

Tom Fowdy didn't go far enough. The communist aim, from the start, encompassed human rights for the vast majority -- e.g., the right to live in peace, rights for women, rights for labor. Communists led the National Liberation movement and the opposition to colonialism -- i.e., the right to avoid being plundered. The Soviet Union led many of these struggles.

The predatory oligarchs who run the West stole the Soviet thunder and began to pose as "Human Rights Champions" themselves. It was pure hypocrisy from the start. Capitalism is a profit-driven system. Human values, human ideals, human rights are all irrelevant, because human lives are irrelevant. We become slaves to profit and war.

Now that Israel's barbaric behavior has exposed the West's "Commitment to Human Rights" as a grotesque facade, the communists once again have the field all to themselves. Human rights depend on working class empowerment. Period.


The US and its vassals do not care about the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. They care about the few Uyghur extremists and seperatists because they (the Uyghur extremists and separatists) can help the US and its vassals to destabilise China and create chaos in China.

Similarly, the US and its vassals do not care about the Hong Kongers. They care about the few Hoing Kong extremists and separatists for the same reason that they care about the few Uyghur extremists and separatists. Now that China has taken full control of Hong Kong through the National Security law, the US and its vassals no longer care about the Hong Kongers. Instead, the US and its vassals now want to punish the Hong Kongers. The same thing was true with regards to the Tibetans and the Taiwanese extremists and separatists.

What the US want in Xinjiang is bloodbath between the Chinese (Han and Uighur ethnic minorities). They want to divide China mortally in the name of religion and ethnicity and permanently stamped the BRI so that China's economic and Geo-strategic Interest are impaled for eternity.

Fowdy is always too good as usual in his analysis and assessment. He always has the clarity of thoughts. The Western countries could have fooled the Islamic countries had it been 20th Century, but, in this first quarter of the 21st century, they aren't going to be successful. The European countries are apparently kowtowing US intentionally for meager Geo-political and economic gains, they have no apparent reason to confront China. Rather, the Europeans  are losing their economic gain by becoming an American henchmen. It has never been about Human Rights, never been about the rights of the Muslims in Xinjiang. The Islamic countries are not blind; they have been keenly observing how America has been bullying the region in complete disregard to Human Rights; there has been no options for them to turn to, but now China is on the Horizon.


Members of the Falungong (a group of people claiming to have their own religion), once surroundeded the Zhongnanhai complex where top leaders of the CCP are staying.  After that this, the 100% Han Chinese group was subject to harsh suppression, with many imprisoned.

Many Falungong members fled to USA and this nuisance has since been eliminated in China.  Now, this was never brought up in the West as a genocide against Han Chinese, by the biased Western media.

Over in Xinjiang, it was peaceful in the late 1990s, no oppression against Uighurs.  Uighurs were peaceful too.  Then in 2008, Uighurs launched a series of terrorist attacks across China, killing many Han Chinese and also policemen.

The suppression of the Uighurs started after that and continues till today. China has to defend its internal security whether it comes from the overwhelming Han Chinese or any ethnic group.

Any country will do what China is doing to secure its security.  Or risk a civil war...something that  America and the West will be delighted to see.  China has 54 ethnic tribes and it is not oppressing them.

There are a huge number of people in the West who openly support terror and conquest based on cannons and not on human rights and international law. In fact, they are pushing civilization into the wilderness of extremism -- mostly based on religious extremism. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton supported ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Congress provided funding saying it was for “moderate” terrorists?

The West pushes the Xinjiang issue hard and selectively, while ignoring the sustained slaughter of Palestinians
Tom Fowdy
RT : 14 May, 2021

Muslims allegedly being treated badly in China? Terrible human rights atrocities that need to be stopped. Muslims being bombed, murdered and driven from their homes in Gaza? Meh, they’re anti-Israel terrorists.

As Gaza burns and rages on, and Palestinians’ homes are turned into their graves, the West’s two-faced hypocrisy towards Muslims has never been clearer.

Unsurprisingly, despite the climbing death toll, condemnation from the West at Israel’s military action has been non-existent. The United States has blocked a UN Security Council Resolution over the matter, while its secretary of State, Antony Blinken, unironically tweeted a celebration of the Muslim Eid Festival.

In the absence of such condemnation, there was at the same time nonetheless a concerted and observable push by the mainstream media and US-affiliated organizations yesterday to put the Xinjiang autonomous region of China back on the agenda.

Several stories were tactically released, including a report from the National Endowment for Democracy-funded Uighur Human Rights Project accusing China of imprisoning Imams on trumped-up charges, while another from the US State and arms industry-funded Australian Strategic Policy institute accused them of demolishing mosques. At the same time, the US and its allies lobbed accusations at China in the United Nations and Blinken branded Xinjiang an “open-air prison”.

The West is pushing the Xinjiang issue hard and selectively, while ignoring long-term sustained atrocities regarding Palestine. They then wonder why Muslim countries largely offer support to Beijing on this matter and don’t take the West’s word for it. The answer is because, unwittingly, the Israel-Palestine conflict (like all the other Western-backed conflicts surrounding it), remains the primary wedge of geopolitical distrust between the Islamic world and the US and its allies.

These countries have no reason to take America’s human rights rhetoric seriously due to the devastation it has inflicted on the Middle East, and they subsequently share a common interest with China on the norm of defending “national sovereignty” from outside interference.

The West advocates to its own public an image of benevolence and sincere self-righteousness, masquerading and rebranding what was otherwise a longstanding history of imperialism, as a global force for good and justice. As what is deemed “morally correct” overlaps with what constitutes “political truth” in Western theory, few of its citizens question the utilization of human rights as an extension of politics or the idea such a premise could possibly be motivated by dishonesty, economic power or malign intent; to be honest about it is rendered a form of “blasphemy”.

Thus, what is deemed “universal human rights” are not truly universal at all.

Countries in the Global South, especially in the Middle East, recognize this. In their experience, human rights have been persistently used as a pretext by Western countries to advance strategic and military goals in order to dominate them, as opposed to a truthful effort to improve people’s liberties and quality of life. And which are subsequently ignored when it suits the West, especially in matters of a much greater grievance to the Islamic world such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, which has been the keystone of anti-Western sentiment and ideology in the Middle East since the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

There have been many Western interventions in the region, mostly in a period between 1991-2012, justified on the grounds of human rights, such as Iraq, Libya and Syria. Concerning the latter, the West has accused Bashar Al-Assad of killing civilians in the decade-long civil war and called for his removal. Yet at the same time, the West has continually endorsed long-standing killings of civilians by Israel against Palestinians, and enabled that country’s expansionist policies in occupied territories, its unbridled aggression against many of its neighbours, and failed to resolve the seven-decade-long conflict.

In this case, if you are a Muslim country, why would you believe the US and its allies when they suddenly start crying atrocity, genocide and claiming they are standing up for the rights of a Muslim minority group in Xinjiang?

Does this, for any Muslim country, have any real credibility?

The same countries who destroy Middle Eastern countries with war and bombings, and refuse to condemn Israel even modestly, now frame themselves as the guardians of Muslims? It’s no surprise that Muslim countries have not joined in the West’s chorus of condemnation, but have offered support to China’s policies. Even if they do not agree ideologically with China as an atheist, communist state, there’s one important point regarding Xinjiang that creates a space of common interest: defence of national sovereignty.

Irrespective of what they may think about events on the ground in Xinjiang, Muslim countries are largely post-colonial states which have suffered, and continue to suffer, from Western interference. Therefore, China’s norm of “non-interference in one’s internal affairs”, combined with its emphasis on defending sovereignty against Western intervention, is an attractive and logical solution to Muslim countries. Why would any such nation jump on the Xinjiang bandwagon and promote the idea that the West should be allowed to assault a country on the pretext of human rights? What might this mean for them?

Muslim countries support China on Xinjiang for a myriad of factors, have no good reason to trust the West, and recognize that the US, the UK and other such countries crying foul on this issue are doing so out of political motivations, as opposed to a sincere concern about the well-being of Islamic people.

As Gaza’s buildings are razed and its people slaughtered, the silence and indifference on this issue speaks louder than words concerning the West’s position on “human rights”. Let us end with this comparison: Palestine is an issue which Muslim countries are angry about, which is ignored by the Western elite; Xinjiang is an issue which the US-led alliance is angry about, that they desperately want Muslims to be furious about on the West’s behalf, but is rightly being ignored.

Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.

America is to blame for the bloody violence in Jerusalem

"Washington has always blocked accountability for Israel". Not just Israel. Washington has always blocked accountability to what US did globally. It resents UN rules, and applies only "international rule-based order" which benefited US and allies. This of course is not universally recognised as these countries don't represent the world but US and selected few. It is so arrogant that it sanctions the UN prosecutors looking into US war crimes in Afghanistan. UN is impotent because there are no international court judges that US agreed to and even if it has, US will unilaterally ignored that. The rest of the world could only murmur faint protest lest they crossed path with US.

The ultimate bully.  A nation that behaves like the proverbial schoolyard nemesis who will not change his behavior until something happens to force his hand.  No respect for the human beings that it keeps imprisoned; no respect for borders or boundaries; no respect for international laws.  Its crimes are only compounded by its disingenuous claims of prejudice toward any who raise their voices in protest.  Sadly, in the United States, not one of our legislators dares criticize the world's leading rogue state as endless checks are signed to arm this monster.

No, it's not American folks that are to blame here, it's those politicians that ignore their own country and advocate for another. At least 1500 US politicians hold dual nationality with Israel, this would be 'conflict of interest' in any other country.

The big elephant in the room, that EVERYBODY refuses to look at, is that I*sr*ael is unsustainable as a colonizing instrument. it WILL end at some point. when that happens no one in the west will protect them, and all will hope Muslims give them mercy, they will as they has ALWAYS done and history is their witness though.

"Israeli youths provocatively make their way through Muslim areas, chanting and singing patriotic songs"

What can be more "patriotic" than to shout your pride for having stolen a whole country and committing crimes against humanity on the population that is left after you send millions into exile, imprisoned some in the largest open air prison in the world and continue to kill theor children?

The world is to blame for Israel by turning a blind eye to their atrocities. Ditto the US.

Israel is the first open air concentration camp.  Invented by the west as a trap to destroy the people while giving them hope

America is to blame for the bloody violence in Jerusalem – & it just shows that state-led oppression is fine if you’re a US ally
Tom Fowdy
RT, 10 May, 2021

Trump’s overzealous pro-Israel policy – endorsed by Joe Biden – emboldened Tel Aviv to push ahead with new settlements in East Jerusalem, which are the root cause of the clashes. But there’ll be no rebuke from Washington.

So, who is really to blame for the violent clashes in the city that intensified today as Israeli police oppressed Palestinian demonstrations, following a month of growing tensions surrounding controversy over an eviction order in favour of settlers in East Jerusalem?

Police attacked the demonstrators with stun grenades, tear gas and rubber bullets, injuring hundreds. Things were anticipated only to worsen, given that today is 'Jerusalem Day' – the holiday marking when the east of the city was captured in the 1967 war, leading to its present disputed occupation – and usually sees hundreds of flag-waving Israeli youths provocatively make their way through Muslim areas, chanting and singing patriotic songs.

Not surprisingly, there have been no calls from Washington to “stand with the Palestinian people” or to “push sanctions” on their behalf against Israel to “hold them to account” for their international obligations, as we frequently hear in relation to adversarial countries, such as, of course, China. But with the United States and Israel, that’s how it has always been. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan expressed “concerns” to his Israeli counterpart but only urged Tel Aviv to “ensure calm.” Obviously, there will be no serious or direct condemnation involved.

The situation, of course, is one of America’s own making. One must question how and why did Israel become emboldened to accelerate settlements in East Jerusalem and other disputed territories? And how did this lead to the current spree of violence? The answer lies in the unilateral and illegal foreign-policy shifts forced through by the preceding administration, arguably the most one-sided in favour of Tel Aviv ever. It even recognised Jerusalem as the capital of all Israel, and Mike Pompeo visited the West Bank to state that settlements do not contravene international law. This has allowed Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to essentially have a free hand, more so than usual, in doing whatever he pleases.

When the Trump administration came to power, it took the opportunity to lead the US into a new foreign-policy epoch and completely rewrite its strategy on a number of issues, largely by ripping up that of the Obama administration.

While criticising Israel remains a universal bipartisan taboo in American politics, nonetheless the Republicans have been more fanatically in its favour due to the influence of the Christian right lobby, the Israeli lobby, and the outsourcing of policy to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. All of this created a position that was more imbalanced than ever before. The administration in effect gave up attempting to mediate peace between Israel and Palestine, and instead gave all-out backing to Tel Aviv.

Alongside the above, this influenced Trump’s unusually hard-line stance on Iran and the cancellation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as well as the diplomatic spree to push Arab countries throughout the Middle East to give diplomatic recognition to Tel Aviv, the “Abraham Accords,” including Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates. Pompeo claimed that by expanding the political space and clout of Israel, peace could be brought to the Middle East. The agreements also aimed to geopolitically isolate more hard-line, anti-Israel states such as Iran, and thus strengthen the clout of American influence and its security umbrella over the Middle East.

However, despite the wording of the Abraham Accords vowing peace, the opposite has, in fact, happened. By emboldening the Israelis so dramatically by giving them huge diplomatic and political concessions, they inevitably saw no reason to compromise themselves and have avoided accountability for their actions. The Trump administration has rewarded and strengthened Israel for its aggression; as an op-ed in the Atlantic dubbed it: “Israel gets something for nothing.”

And it is no surprise that, according to a report from the PLO, “transgressions against Palestinians in the West Bank since the September agreement have only grown.” It claims that Israeli forces have opened fire more than 240 times, killing two Palestinians, wounding more than 90, and detaining more than 480 people, including children. From September 15 to October 15, 25 homes and facilities in Palestinian settlements were demolished “without significant reason,” as Netanyahu pressed ahead with new settlement-building, which has served to increase Palestinian unrest and set the scene for the current violence.

In this case, the unrest we see now is a direct accumulative product of the Trump administration’s zealous pro-Israel policy, something which Biden has, by and large (like all Trump foreign policies), simply sought to sustain rather than challenge. Washington has always blocked accountability for Israel, even if some presidents were more inclined to make them negotiate. However, the previous White House took this to a new level, crossing new red lines concerning Jerusalem and the West Bank, which are now generating instability.

The fundamental message? State-led violence and oppression is perfectly fine when you’re an American ally. As Muslim nations watch the situation in Israel, US commentators and foreign-policy makers unwittingly scratch their heads and just don’t get why these countries won’t join the outcry of a “genocide” in Xinjiang. Because when has America ever truly stood up for the rights of Muslims? The US and its allies might be blind to the fate of the Palestinians, but the rest of the world isn’t.

Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.

What is surprising is not why Biden’s administration is staying silent on this issue. What is surprising is why anyone ever expected them to do anything else.

Yes, they did say things about two state solution and all that jazz, but between all of them put together, they do not pose an ounce of integrity, they don’t even know the meaning of the word. Why is anyone surprised?

At the same time, behaviour like this from the Israeli government and the especially the Israeli Judicial system, is something that belongs to the stone ages and not in any civilised society.

Can you image what an uproar there would be, if the Iranian judicial system had evicted some Jewish families from their home in Tehran on the basis that in 1948 the same house belonged to some Muslim family.  That would be such big news that BB would stand up at the next UN meeting with a big annimated picture showing people wearing turbans and holding a whip, dragging these poor innocent people and their children out of their home, with a big title saying: “It does not matter where you live on the planet, the Iranians are only 6 months away from coming to take away your home”.

Where are the sanctions against Israel for stealing Palestinian homes and lands?  Where the EU and the US?  How about the UN?  So fast to sanction Russia and China, but too afraid to sanction Israel?  Looks like Biden will also take his orders from BiBi.  Nothing really changes.  The hypocrisy of the West is staggering.  The selling out of the Palestinians is shameful.  A good place to send in the UN troops to protect the Palestinian people.  The new holocaust the West watches in silence.  BiBi and the Israeli judicial system learned alot from Hitler and are using what they learned against the Palestinian people.  They cannot claim victimhood any longer.

As Israel plans to evict up to 550 Palestinians from East Jerusalem, Biden admin remains silent
Robert Inlakesh
18 Mar, 2021

Igniting tensions in East Jerusalem, Israeli settler organisations are seeking to uproot up to 550 Palestinians from the city, to the complete silence of a Biden administration that claims to seek a two-State solution.

In what could become one of the largest expulsions of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, Israeli settler organisations are working with the country's legal system to evict 24 families from their homes.

During October, 2020, the Israeli magistrate court of Jerusalem ordered the expulsion of 12 families, out of the 24 living inside the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. In addition to their expulsion from their homes, the Palestinian families were also ordered by the court to pay $20,000 in legal fees.

The expulsion order, which is likely to be completed with the destruction of Palestinian property, after it is seized to make way for illegal Israeli settlers, is set to be enforced as early as May. As it stands, four Palestinian households – comprising 27 people – will be forced out onto the street no later than May 2, while three other families are set to be forced out in August.

Israeli settler organisations based in the Karm al-Jaouni area are behind the expulsion orders, claiming that the land on which Palestinians live, in Sheikh Jarrah, was once owned by Jews prior to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Despite Palestinian attempts to present their legal case that the settler organisations are lying about this and have no proof, Israeli courts refuse to see the evidence. It is also important to note that, while the Israeli legal system will recognise the claims of Jewish Israelis to land allegedly owned previously by Jews, this right is not granted to Palestinians.

On the issue of the Sheikh Jarrah evictions, Fadi al-Hidmi, Palestinian Authority Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, stated that the international community is obligated to step in. “What is taking place is a systematic, programmed process of replacing the Palestinians expelled from their land and property with foreign settlers,” he said.

Last night, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement also released a statement, vowing a response to the actions of Israel in Sheikh Jarrah. The PIJ proclaimed that Israel “will pay the price for this aggression.”

In the 1970s, following the June 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem, Israel began implementing a “demographic balance” policy. The aim for the Israeli authorities is to limit the percentage of Palestinians living in the city to 30% or less. While Israel claims that Jerusalem is its undivided capital, the Palestinian Authority only seeks to gain back East Jerusalem, which is considered under international law to be an illegally occupied territory.

Despite the Biden Administration having stated consistently that it seeks a two-State solution and that this is the only solution in the Palestine-Israel conflict, it continues to ignore the ongoing ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem. Not only does Biden not confront Israel on the issue of its illegal settlements and home demolitions in Jerusalem, but it has worked to attack the International Criminal Court (ICC) which is poised to investigate the settlement issue.

Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is a supporter of the notion of a two-State solution weighed in on the announcement from the ICC that it would investigate alleged Israeli War Crimes, stating “The United States firmly opposes an @IntlCrimCourt investigation into the Palestinian Situation. We will continue to uphold our strong commitment to Israel and its security, including by opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.”

If there is to be a two-State solution, the capital of the future Palestinian State will have to belong in currently occupied East Jerusalem. However, this is being made more and more impossible by the day, with the systematic expulsion of Palestinian residents from the city, along with the expansion of key settlements such as Atarot, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos, which divide the city from the West Bank.

Along with Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli Settler organisations are also heavily targeting the area of Silwan, from which at least 36 families have been expelled since the beginning of 2020, according to Israeli NGO Peace Now. In East Jerusalem as many as 200,000 Israeli settlers live, with about 2,500 hardline settlers residing in properties surrounding Palestinians in areas like Silwan.

Earlier this week, 11 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli police forces, who reportedly raided the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Kafr Aqab as a bulldozer made an opening in the wall surrounding the area. Local youths then acted to tear down the fences built around the construction site, for what has been described as a Judaization project in the area.

An Israeli NGO called Grassroots Jerusalem states that the presence of illegal Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem causes great agitation to Palestinian residents. The NGO claims that settlers have “been responsible for forced evictions and terrorism.”

Last year almost 1,000 Palestinians were made homeless due to Israeli house demolitions in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with over 10,000 settler units having been approved.

If the Biden Administration continues to remain silent and shield Israel from prosecution for its violations of International Law in East Jerusalem, the two-State solution that the US claims to seek will only become more difficult to achieve. In order for there to be a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, Israel’s illegal settlements have to halt further construction, evacuate all settlers and the annexation of the territory – since 1980 – has to be reversed. None of the steps necessary to facilitate a two-State solution includes shielding war crimes, and what we are seeing is exactly that.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News and Press TV.

Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

We are decades away from fully-autonomous cars...

•      Although many new cars feature technology that partially assists with driving, we still do not have fully self-driving cars available for purchase.
•     In addition to perfecting the technology required for them, there are a number of other factors standing in the way.
•     They include poor road infrastructure, the communication systems needed to connect these cars with one another, and the additional traffic laws needed to regulate these vehicles.

Experts say we're decades away from fully-autonomous cars. Here's why.
Daniel Gessner
Business Insider, Aug 30, 2019

Following is a transcript of a conversation of a video with an expert in this field.

Narrator: This is Volvo’s 360c concept car, and it’s just one idea of what completely driverless cars might look like one day. That means cars without even a steering wheel that can safely navigate public roads entirely on their own. But with how much we hear about self-driving technology making its way into everyday cars, it’s hard not to wonder: How much longer do we have to wait?

Understanding just how far we’ve come with self-driving technology can be a bit tricky. To help define how sophisticated the automated technology actually is, the Society of Automotive Engineers classifies these systems using five levels.

Level 1 is driver assistance, where the vehicle is able to control steering or braking, but not both simultaneously. Level 2 is partial automation, where the car can assist with both steering and braking simultaneously, but your attention is required on the road at all times. Both Tesla’s Autopilot and General Motors’ Super Cruise are examples of this. Level 3 is conditional automation, where certain circumstances allow the car to handle most aspects of driving and the driver has the ability to temporarily take their eyes off the road. Level 4 is high automation, where, in the right conditions, the car can take full control, giving the driver a chance to focus on other tasks. And Level 5 is full automation. In this hypothetical situation, the car drives you, and there isn’t even a steering wheel.

So what level are we currently at? Most experts would agree: somewhere between Levels 2 and 3. However, one of their biggest concerns is the public’s misconception that we’re much further along.

Bryan Reimer: There’s an incredible amount of confusion in the general public around the context of self-driving. In our survey data here, about 23% of respondents believe that a self-driving vehicle is available for purchase today. And a lot of that has to do with statements by Elon Musk and others talking about the driverless capabilities and self-driving capabilities of vehicles. These are systems that are meant to assist the driver under the supervision of a driver.

Narrator: So, is it simply the limits of these automated systems that’s holding us back? Actually, there are a number of other factors in the way. For starters, our roads. Simply put, the roads, especially in the United States, are too much of a mess to support cars that can drive by themselves.

Bryan: So, while many individuals out there are really working on the development of self-reliant automation, in essence, a robot that’s fully capable of making its own decisions in today’s infrastructure, the reality is, today’s infrastructure is not well equipped for autonomy. In essence, potholes, poor lane markings, and all the other crumbling aspects of our nation’s infrastructure aren’t going to support high-tech well.

Narrator: In addition to more public roads needing signs and lane markings that self-driving cars can clearly make out, vehicles need to be wirelessly connected with that traffic infrastructure, as well as one another, in order to interact with the world around them flawlessly.

Fortunately, automakers like Volvo already have technology that allows their cars to communicate with each other and alert drivers of hazards via a cloud-based network. This type of connected technology is being tested even further within driverless cars at Mcity, a 32-acre mock city and testing facility at the University of Michigan.

Greg McGuire: So, what are connected vehicles? When we say “connected” at Mcity, we’re really referring not to streaming Netflix into your passenger seat so much, that’s a pretty solved problem in the industry, but in how vehicles and infrastructure can be connected together for lots of other benefits like safety. The idea is a low-latency way for vehicles to tell other vehicles and anything else that wants to listen where they are and where they’re going.

Narrator: So, once traffic infrastructure and communication is handled, what else do we need to address? Well, traffic laws.

Governments have a number of important decisions to make in society’s transition to self-driving vehicles. In the beginning stages, they will have to define what weather conditions are appropriate for vehicles to be operating fully autonomously. This is due to the fact that many of these car systems can be disrupted by rain and snow. One industry they could look to for guidance is the airline industry, who doesn’t hesitate to cancel flights in inclement weather.

They will also have to initially find a way for autonomous vehicles to safely navigate public roads amongst traditional cars. A possible solution could be designated lanes, similar to the high occupancy vehicles found on highways, and bus lanes found in certain cities.

Ayoub Aouad: The government’s kind of leaving it up to states to decide what’s going on, just because the technology’s so new and they still don’t really understand what it’s going to look like in the end. Once the government does fully get involved, the federal government, they’re gonna have to speak to lobbyists, people that represent truck drivers and taxi commissions. They’re going to realise a lot of jobs could be lost, and that’s going to be difficult. And then, also, liability. If these cars are on the roads and getting into accidents, who is liable?

Narrator: With all of these things considered, back to our original question: How soon until we have self-driving cars?

Ayoub: I’d say within the decade it’s gonna be on highways, but if we’re talking about being able to take your car wherever you want across the United States, being able to travel through New York City and sleep the whole time, I don’t think we’re anywhere close to that. Probably several decades away from that.

Bryan: Carmakers and tech companies are very heavily focused on the context of driverless technologies. Now, I’m not saying that that’s not the future. It is the future. But, as many have begun to admit publicly, that future is further away than anybody has realistically considered, to date. We as humans are really good at predicting the future, we’re not so good at the timelines. And the timeline to driverless technology changing how I live and move is probably in the order of several decades, if not further away.

Greg: How close are we to the Jetson’s car? We’re still a ways away, in my opinion. It isn’t really a matter of when these technologies will arrive, to me, but can we be ready and utilise them in the best way possible.

Joe Biden’s Long War to US Empire Making...

A Half-Century of Joe Biden’s Stances on War, Militarism, and the CIA

The new president’s paper trail reveals a man who has often betrayed his own bedrock principles.

Joe Biden’s Long War
Jeremy Scahill
The Intercept, April 28, 2021

“I’m not going to change,” Joe Biden said in his 2008 vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin. “I have 35 years in public office. People can judge who I am. I haven’t changed in that time.”

Never in U.S. history has the country had a president with the voluminous paper trail that followed Biden into the White House. Since the Vietnam War, Biden has been in public office for all but four of the past 49 years. He has cast thousands of votes, sponsored or co-sponsored hundreds of bills, and taken public positions on virtually every possible foreign and domestic policy issue. He has served long enough to make it possible to chart, in great detail, the evolution of his positions on a range of issues, to analyze his contradictions, and to draw conclusions about how he sees the role of Congress and the executive branch on the most sensitive and consequential decisions made by the government: decisions about war and organized state violence.

The Intercept conducted an exhaustive analysis of Biden’s political career, with a focus on his positions on dozens of U.S. wars and military campaigns, CIA covert actions, and abuses of power; his views on whistleblowers and leakers; and his shifting stance on the often contentious relationship between the executive and legislative branches over war powers. While many of Biden’s positions could be assessed by reviewing his sprawling voting record and public statements, evaluating some of his actions, particularly from the first few decades of his career, required poring over copies of the congressional record, speech transcripts, archival media reports, and declassified government documents, including from the CIA.

The picture that emerges is of a man who is dedicated to the U.S. as an empire, who believes that preserving U.S. national interests and “prestige” on the global stage outweighs considerations of morality or even at times the deaths of innocent people. It also reveals a politician who consistently claims to hold bedrock principles but who often strays from those positions in support of a partisan agenda or because he wants a policy adopted regardless of the hypocrisy or contradictions. Nowhere is this dynamic more pronounced than on U.S. wars.

    The picture that emerges is of a man who is dedicated to the U.S. as an empire.

While Biden seldom objects to U.S. military action on moral grounds, he has a long track record of confronting executive power grabs and efforts to usurp congressional authorities. Throughout his time in public office, he frequently intervened in debates over impending wars in an effort to impose constraints on the CIA, the military, and the White House, including, on occasion, when he was vice president. There are also several episodes from Biden’s career in which his objections to policy proposals failed to gain traction and he nonetheless supported those wars or operations once they commenced. On a handful of occasions, Biden has publicly retracted his initial opposition to wars or CIA operations, particularly when he perceives them as having been successful or in U.S. interests.

Biden stands out as one of the most passionate legislative defenders of congressional war powers in modern history, beginning with his co-sponsorship of the War Powers Act in 1973, his first year in the Senate. It was this issue — and what Biden denounced as President George H.W. Bush’s “monarchist” disdain for congressional authorities — that led him to oppose the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq. Soon after Bush declared victory in the Gulf, Biden determined that his opposition was a political mistake and began a transformation into a top hawk on Iraq. The shift would lead to transgressions of his early principles; Biden’s career is riddled with moments in which he supported military operations conducted in explicit violation of the War Powers Act, even as he continued to insist that the law mattered. In some cases, he would put up a fight in the run-up to U.S. military action in an effort to pressure a president to abide by the law, while in others, he would gently suggest that following the law would be wise but not necessary. Whichever strategy he chose on particular military actions, under both Democrats and Republicans, the end result has been the same: Biden has lent his support to the majority of U.S. wars.

While Biden has seldom expressed concerns about the consequences of U.S. wars on non-American civilians, he often questions whether the potential human costs of the deployment of U.S. ground troops are worth the objectives. His late son Beau’s service, particularly his 2008 deployment to Iraq, has clearly weighed on Biden’s mind as he has articulated a rationale for various foreign interventions. “I don’t want him going,” Biden said in 2007, after he learned that his son’s unit would be sent to Iraq. “I don’t want him going, but I tell you what — I don’t want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years, and so how we leave [Iraq] makes a big difference.”

As the consummate insider of the foreign policy establishment, Biden has been inclined to tinker around the edges, offering caveats and constraints, rather than directly confronting and opposing the drumbeat for war — an approach that ultimately smoothed the path for wars to happen. Even in cases in which he passionately opposed U.S. military or CIA action, such as in President Ronald Reagan’s 1980s campaigns to aid the Contra death squads in Nicaragua and the right-wing military junta in El Salvador, Biden sought ways to tweak U.S. policy in return for his political or legislative support. In the case of the Contras, Biden offered to back Reagan’s support of the death squads with an agreement on what “the Contras could and couldn’t do with the money.” It is a pattern that hearkens back to Biden’s opposition to the war in Vietnam; his criticisms centered around denouncing strategic mistakes or foolish decision-making. He did not take that position based on the principles or moral values cited by anti-war protesters, whom Biden decried as “assholes.”

Biden entered the Senate at a crucial moment in modern U.S. history. President Richard Nixon would soon be forced to resign under threat of impeachment and removal. The CIA’s abuses, assassinations, and coups, among other scandals, had resulted in a number of congressional investigations, public hearings, and the first real efforts by Congress to impose any sort of limitations or restrictions on the agency’s activities.

In his early Senate career, Biden lambasted the CIA for its abuses, including domestic spying. As an original member of the newly formed Senate Intelligence Committee, Biden found himself in a powerful position to shape the future direction and leadership of the CIA. The cases of two nominees for CIA director early in Biden’s career offer a glimpse into the development of his views on secrecy and leakers.

Democratic President Jimmy Carter had campaigned on a pledge to rein in the CIA, prosecute wrongdoing by its officers and agents, and to cut its budget. He nominated Ted Sorensen, a former aide to President John F. Kennedy and a CIA outsider, to serve as director. Initially, Biden enthusiastically backed the pick, but when he discovered that Sorensen had written an affidavit in support of Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, Biden joined with Republicans to kill the nomination. In his unfiled affidavit, Sorensen described a culture of widespread leaking in Washington, explaining that many officials had leaked far more sensitive documents than Ellsberg with no consequences. Biden, noting that Sorensen had also admitted that he took home government documents for a biography he was writing about Kennedy, suggested that perhaps Sorensen himself should be prosecuted under the Espionage Act. Carter abandoned the confirmation process, and Sorensen bitterly withdrew his nomination, later blaming Biden for “political hypocrisy.”

Biden also tried to kill the nomination of Reagan’s CIA director, William Casey, in part because of concerns that Casey would return the U.S. to the lawless days of Nixon. Those fears were largely proved correct throughout Casey’s tenure, as the Iran-Contra scandal unfolded and the dirty wars in Central America created killing fields in multiple nations. Yet Biden, who ultimately voted to confirm Casey, both publicly and secretly aided Casey’s CIA in its war against leakers and whistleblowers. And he helped the CIA sell fraudulent U.S. wars, such as the 1983 invasion of Grenada, to other lawmakers.

By the time President Bill Clinton took office in 1993, Biden was entrenched in Washington as an influential senator with an ability to dramatically influence both domestic and foreign policy. Throughout the 1990s, he pushed through harsh and punitive policies on crime, while spearheading sweeping surveillance legislation that would form the basis for the Patriot Act after 9/11.

In the aftermath of his “mistake” in opposing the Gulf War, Biden shifted foreign policy gears and spent the entirety of Clinton’s two terms in office advocating for the constant bombing of Iraq, promoting regime change as official policy, and using economic sanctions to “cripple” the country.

Biden also staked out the most hawkish position on the conflict in Yugoslavia, ultimately encouraging Clinton to wage full-scale war against Serbia. While Biden frequently denounced the genocidal pogrom against Bosnian Muslims and passionately advocated for their defense, he also made clear that his motivation centered around U.S. interests and NATO’s credibility. “Who thinks NATO is going to be around five years from now, sustained by public opinion and a hundred billion dollars’ worth of U.S. funds, if NATO can’t play any role in bringing peace in this area of the world, or at least stopping the extent of the aggression?” Biden asked in 1993, as he agitated for the U.S. and Europe to wage war.

By 1999, with the Kosovo War looming, Biden went so far as to suggest that “we should have a Japanese-German-style occupation of” Serbia. His comments presaged an era post-9/11 when the U.S. would attempt such occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Biden, who proudly boasted of his record on the War Powers Act, took a different position on a war he supported: “Arguably, from the constitutional standpoint, [Clinton] doesn’t need it,” he said, adding that it would be preferable for Clinton to get congressional approval.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Biden’s decadeslong campaign for checks on executive power could have become a powerful counterweight to the Bush administration’s overreach. Instead, he merely offered an anemic critique and rote suggestion. Biden would emerge, in the early stages of the “war on terror,” as a leading legislative force supporting the most far-reaching aspirations of the Bush-Cheney White House. He was instrumental in the rushed passage of the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, the blank check given to the president by Congress for a borderless global war. He also boasted of his work in strengthening the Patriot Act and was an early supporter of sending people to Guantánamo Bay prison as well as denying some of them prisoner-of-war status.

Biden was a key figure, during his tenure as Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, in selling the Iraq War and calling for regime change. After the war proved a disaster and the fraudulent claims about weapons of mass destruction were thoroughly debunked, Biden sought to blame his support of the war on a private conversation he had with President George W. Bush. Despite having voted for and promoted the war cause, Biden even claimed that he did not back it: “Immediately, the moment it started, I came out against the war at that moment,” he said. It was a typical move for a politician with a record of staking out muddled positions that can be recast with the benefit of hindsight.

As vice president under President Barack Obama, Biden occasionally offered a dissenting voice. He was skeptical of the plans to raid Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, opposed the regime-change war in Libya, and argued against a troop surge in Afghanistan. But as history unfolded, Biden would praise both the bin Laden raid and the war in Libya. He has said that he sees the role of vice president as speaking straight to the president and encouraging robust debate, particularly over such consequential policies as the decision to use military force.

Now, after decades in the Senate and two terms as vice president — effectively a lifelong campaign for the White House — Biden is the commander in chief, and the final calls will ultimately be his to make. After a half-century of work on the balance of power and congressional authorities, Biden finds himself as a president with a rabidly and evenly divided Senate. His presidency will undoubtedly present him with decisions to make on which branch of government prevails in a dispute, particularly when it comes to war powers.

His presidency will also exist in a world shaped by policies and dynamics that Biden himself helped establish. He recently announced that he intends to abide by the agreement reached between the Trump administration and the Taliban to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Instead of keeping President Donald Trump’s May 1 withdrawal date, though, Biden said it will happen by the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. In his speech announcing his intention to end the U.S.’s longest war, Biden portrayed the conflict’s history as having begun on September 11, 2001. But during the Carter and Reagan administrations, decades before 9/11, Biden supported U.S. policies that helped incubate both the rise of Al Qaeda as well as the eventual U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. In 1981, he voted in favor of opening the spigot of U.S. aid to Pakistan to use in supporting insurgents fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. When Clinton conducted the first U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in 1998, in what was a precursor to the policies of the war on terror, Biden supported it.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Biden voted with all but one of his colleagues in Congress in favor of overt war. In 2009, as vice president, he argued in favor of using the CIA, special operations forces, and drone strikes instead of the large-scale troop surge favored by other administration members. In the end, Obama did both. In the closing weeks of the 2012 presidential election, Biden promised to end the war. “We are leaving,” he said. “We are leaving in 2014. Period.” Despite this and other pledges during their eight years in office, Biden and Obama passed the war on to Trump.

Now, as commander in chief, Biden is saying that this time, the end is really at hand, albeit with some caveats. While the timing of this shift in U.S. policy on Afghanistan is a direct result of decisions made by the Trump administration, and not Biden, the current plan as it has been described is similar to what Biden advocated for during the first year of his vice presidency in 2009. The administration and military leaders have indicated that Biden will keep CIA and special operations teams in the region to strike as necessary. How many of these forces will discreetly remain inside Afghanistan is unclear, as is the fate of the roughly 16,000 private contractors on the ground. The policy leaves open the option for U.S. forces to redeploy to Afghanistan as Obama and Biden did in Iraq in 2014 to fight the Islamic State after having “ended” the war in 2011.

As with many foreign policy issues and U.S. wars, studying Biden’s long political history offers a revelatory tour through the excesses, crimes, and contradictions inherent in U.S. empire-building. To produce this project — which consists of 56 entries describing episodes in which Biden played a pivotal role — we reviewed scores of U.S. military operations and CIA activities with a focus on major historical events such as wars, invasions, regime-change campaigns, airstrikes, torture, and abuse of power. It also includes some examination of Biden’s role in domestic surveillance policies and civil liberties. This is not intended as a sweeping analysis of Biden’s entire foreign policy doctrine; rather, it is centered around a narrower set of issues related to war powers, the military, and CIA. When it comes to Biden’s two terms as vice president, we focused only on issues in which Biden held a dissenting view, such as the debates around a troop surge in Afghanistan in 2009 and the U.S. war against Libya in 2011, or in which Biden was a significant voice in the administration on an issue, such as with the cases of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks. This is also not a project focused on Biden’s actions as president but rather a historical analysis of his career leading up to his presidency.

While previous actions and policies help inform our understanding of politicians, this history does not exist in a vacuum separated from the politics and realities of the present. Throughout his career, Biden has shown an ability to adapt and evolve and, at times, to abandon what he claimed to be deeply held principles. Undoubtedly, Biden entered office with an image of his place in history and the opportunities the presidency offers him to shape or alter his legacy and the country’s future. He also seems keenly aware that his ascent to the presidency required a complicated mixture of internal Democratic Party politics, social justice uprisings, and the chaos of the Trump era. To what extent Biden will defer to the demands presented by the times in which we live or the voices of others in his administration, rather than his own historical commitments, is a question only the next chapter of history will be able to answer.