Alternative Media and the MH17 JIT Reversal

New Eastern Outlook
December 8, 2014
Ulson Gunnar

After weeks of protests and growing suspicion, Dutch authorities overseeing the investigation of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 have finally included Malaysia as a member of its Joint Investigation Team (JIT).

Malaysia had made it clear it was immensely displeased with its inexplicable exclusion from JIT formed after the downing of MH17 over eastern Ukraine. Including NATO members  (Belgium and the Netherlands), a defacto NATO collaborator (Australia) and a potential culprit in the air disaster (Ukraine), Malaysia's exclusion looked to be a part of an ongoing cover-up amid a larger attempt to use the disaster to frame Russia and advance NATO's agenda in Eastern Europe.

The conflict amid which MH17 was shot down is perceived to be a proxy conflict between NATO and Russia. That the investigation includes exclusively pro-NATO members or NATO members themselves, both the conduct of the investigation and any conceivable outcome would be highly suspect. Malaysia, the only nation directly effected by the disaster and perceived of being beyond the direct influence of NATO, would have provided a much needed counterbalance.

All That Glitters Isn't Gold, Even Gold

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
December 4, 2014

In times of socioeconomic turmoil, gold receives renewed interest. It is seen as a means of exchange with enduring value that can transcend the various currencies that generally displace its use during times of economic growth and stability. However, it must be remembered that gold's value is only as good as the markets within which it is traded. If they collapse, gold's value may become highly unpredictable.

For Gold, Perception is Everything 

Much of gold's value is a matter of perception. Gold's enduring value can be owed to the fact that it has been fully integrated into financial systems since ancient times. Its rarity and aesthetic appeal in ancient times, combined with industrial applications today, have helped it keep its place within international financial systems. While gold holds true value as a natural resource, much of its value still stems from perceived value just like many of the currencies it is seen as an alternative to.

The value of gold is only as strong as the system it is a part of. No matter how valuable gold may be perceived within a functioning economic system, should that system collapse, so too will gold's perceived value. Gold cannot be eaten, used as a source of fuel, nor be used for clothing or housing. Without a functioning market to trade it in, its value becomes highly unpredictable.

Whichever markets survive a hypothetical collapse would serve as one possible means to trade gold. Whether those markets are overseas, or built within the system suffering from collapse, gold's value would depend on the ability for these alternatives to transform physical gold into currency or resources required for maintaining a thriving society. Beyond this, amid a crisis gold could be theoretically bartered, though it would be highly impractical compared to the trading of necessities.

MH17: Malaysia's Barring from Investigation Reeks of Cover-up

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
November 28, 2014

It was a Malaysian jet, carrying Malaysian passengers, flown by Malaysian pilots, yet after Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down over Ukraine in July 2014, Malaysia has been systematically blocked from participating in the investigation, leaving an overwhelmingly pro-NATO bloc in charge of the evidence, investigation and outcome as well as the manner in which the investigation will be carried out.

Despite the integral role Malaysia has played during several pivotal moments in the aftermath of the disaster, it appears that the closer to the truth the investigation should be getting, the further Malaysia itself is being pushed from both the evidence and any influence it has on the likely conclusions of the investigation. With the downed aircraft in question being Malaysian, Malaysia as a partner in the investigation would seem a given. Its exclusion from the investigation appears to be an indication that the investigation's objectivity has been compromised and that the conclusions it draws will likely be politically motivated.

Joint Investigation Team Includes, Excludes Surprising Members 
With the Dutch leading the investigation, the logic being that the flight originated from the Netherlands and the majority of the passengers were Dutch, it has formed a Joint Investigation Team (JIT). At the onset of its creation it seemed obvious that Malaysia would too be included, considering it lost the second largest number of citizens to the disaster and the plane itself was registered in Malaysia. Instead, JIT would end up comprised of Belgium, Ukraine, and Australia, specifically excluding Malaysia.

US-Armed Syrian Opposition "Surrenders" to Al Qaeda?

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
November 18, 2014

Al Qaeda affiliates are suddenly now Islamic State (ISIS) affiliates, and entire groups of militants the US has been arming, funding, and training are "surrendering" to Al Qaeda, bringing along with them a large number of US weapons. Is this a failure of US foreign policy? Or is this simply a rhetorical means to explain away what appears to be an immense army of extremists the US is once again building up to direct at one of its enemies, just as it did in Afghanistan in the 1980's? 

Al Qaeda Morphs into ISIS

In late September, just in time to aid the US in its fumbling justification for bombing Syria, terrorists allegedly beheaded a French tourist kidnapped in the North African nation of Algeria. The timing, as with previous ISIS executions, was impeccable, lending maximum propaganda value, not to the terrorist organization, but to the United States which has utilized each grisly murder as a means for direct and continued military intervention on both sides of the Syrian-Iraqi border. 

The BBC in their article, "French hostage Herve Gourdel beheaded in Algeria," would report that: 

The beheading, the spokesman says, is to "avenge the victims in Algeria... and support the caliphate" proclaimed by IS in Iraq and Syria.

Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate) pledged allegiance to IS on 14 September. 

Until then it had been known as part of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which grew out of an Algerian militant group and is now active across North and parts of West Africa.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, was directly associated with terrorist groups armed and backed by NATO in the 2011 invasion and bombardment of Libya in efforts to overthrow the government of Muammar Qaddafi in Tripoli. 

Putin Exposes Criminal Global Order

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
October 26, 2014

Russian President Vladimir Putin, before an international audience, exposed an international order capitalizing on the end of the Cold War to reshape the world according to its own interests, sidelining concepts such as basic international relations, international laws, systems of checks and balances, and even the very concept of national sovereignty itself. Amid President Putin's speech, he would condemn the United States' support for neo-fascists, terrorists, and its contempt for national sovereignty around the world.

The West's Rebuttal 

Curious language accompanied the New York Times' account of the Valdai International Club discussion in the Black Sea coastal region of Sochi, Russia in front of which President Putin spoke. In an article titled, "Putin Accuses U.S. of Backing ‘Neo-Fascists’ and ‘Islamic Radicals’," the NYT attempts to portray President Putin's statements about US support for neo-fascists and terrorists as merely baseless accusations.

The NYT claims, "instead of supporting democracy and sovereign states, Mr. Putin said during a three-hour appearance at the conference, the United States supports “dubious” groups ranging from “open neo-fascists to Islamic radicals.”" The NYT would also report, "“Why do they support such people,” he asked the annual gathering known as the Valdai Club, which met this year in the southern resort town of Sochi. “They do this because they decide to use them as instruments along the way in achieving their goals, but then burn their fingers and recoil.”"

It is difficult to understand why the NYT attempts to portray this statement as particularly controversial, or as a "diatribe," as the Times puts it, rather than a factual, timely, and necessary observation.

Obama, Malala and the Militants America Put into Power

New Eastern Outlook

Ulson Gunnar

Octover 15, 2014 

It would seem only natural that the presumed arbiters of the world would see their greetings and congratulations as the natural pinnacle of success for any they deem a global hero. And such is the case of now Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai who has been given an audience with US President Barack Obama (also a Nobel Peace Prize recipient) to be congratulated on for having "inspired people around the world with her determined efforts for girls' right to education." 

Malala Yousafzai was thrust into headlines when she was attacked and nearly killed in 2012 by Taliban militants in an attempt to stop her advocacy of greater access to education for children, and young girls in particular. 

But even as US President Barack Obama offered his empty words of congratulations to the young activist, the United States military and its intelligence agencies were busy along the Afghan-Pakistani border killing "suspected militants" alongside scores of innocent civilians, men, women and children just like Malala Yousafzai herself. In headlines the very same day as President Obama's meeting with Malala Yousafzai it would be reported that 2 more would be killed in a "suspected US done attack." 

Killing Civilians in a War Against Militants of America's Own Creation 

Admitted by prominent Washington think tank Brookings Institution, it is estimated that for every militant killed, 10 or so civilians also die in US drone attacks. This is amid a conflict with militants that had once fought Washington's proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980's, a proxy war that saw socioeconomic progress made under Soviet patronage rolled back, including access to education for young girls and women. Such progress was rolled back and replaced by the oppressive, medieval ideology of the fighters the US eventually propelled to victory and power.   

So while the US continues the mass murder of Afghan and Pakistani civilians allegedly fighting the very militants it helped thrust into power in the 1980's, the US is "congratulating" Malala Yousafzai for nearly being killed amid danger the West's own media networks knowingly and intentionally put her in to sell news stories. 

Hong Kong's Identity Crisis

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
October 9, 2014

When Anson Chan sat before an audience in Washington DC earlier this year giving a talk at the National Endowment for Democracy sponsored "Why Democracy in Hong Kong Matters" event, she claimed that Hong Kong was suffering from an identity crisis.

Chan would claim, "we are facing an identity crisis in Hong Kong, particularity in the younger generation, people born after 1987 whose never known life other than under Chinese sovereignty. Hong Kong people pride themselves on the fact that we have an identity that is separate from the rest of China, we have core values rooted firmly in the rule of law, an open transparent accountable government, in protecting the rights and freedoms that we enjoyed under British colonial rule and which are protected under our constitution, the Basic Law. But today we see all these values being eroded."

Indeed, Hong Kong does face an identity crisis. It has irreversibly become once again a part of China after 142 years of foreign occupation by Britain. China now is a nation rising upon the world's stage, exercising increasingly what could be called "soft power" and developing its own institutions, organizations and laws to manage society and to conduct business both within China's territory and beyond it. What is eroding is not "the rule of law" or any of the other values Chan cited, but rather the West's versions of them as they existed under British colonial rule. These versions are being supplanted and incrementally replaced by China's own institutions, legal and socioeconomic structures as they should be.


What is left of British colonial rule over Hong Kong was originally designed to serve the British Empire, or in other words, emptying out the resources and prosperity of foreign lands, and consolidating it on behalf of London.

From Ukraine to Syria: UN's Selective Defense of Human Rights

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
October 5, 2014

For the past several years, the United Nations has served as a platform for Syria's enemies to air allegations of human rights abuses and even attempts to use such allegations to justify military aggression against Syria itself. Tales of "barrel bombs" being used against civilians, the bombardment of enemy positions at the cost of civilian lives and the destruction of vital infrastructure have all been constructs in the West's narrative against the Syrian government.

Now that the US is itself bombing Syria, killing Syrians including innocent men, women and children, as well as vital infrastructure local populations depend on for their survival, the UN has grown suddenly quiet. The Western press too seems to have reverted to its observance of the notion of "collateral damage." Suddenly, the very terrorists the Syrian government has tried to warn the world about for years as it fought them in its city streets and countrysides, are now bad enough for the end of defeating them to justify the means of occasionally killing civilians, so long as they are killed with US rather than Syrian weapons.

The startling hypocrisy combines with the fact that Syria's military is operating within its territory, conducting security operations to secure its own borders and all territory within it, while the US is operating thousands of miles from its own shores, in a foreign country, with both a doubtful pretext and an even more doubtful agenda in mind as it does so.

Where is the United Nations? The airstrikes in Syria carried out by the US, Persian Gulf states, and several European nations are done so without the Syrian government's approval, no recognized opposition party has approved of them, and certainly no UN resolution has provided the West with a mandate to exercise military force inside of Syria. On this point alone, the UN should be standing up in vocal protest, leveling sanctions against those participating in this act of unilateral, illegal military aggression. Additionally, the UN should be speaking out against the loss of civilian lives, just as it did during the past several years of chaos in Syria's ongoing conflict, as well as preparing monitoring teams and investigations into the impact of these attacks.

Aside from Syria, there is another battlefield the UN is suspiciously absent from. Ukraine. In Ukraine, Kiev has been carrying out increasingly atrocious campaigns of violence against its own people. As it steadily loses control over territory in the east of Ukraine, grisly scenes of mass murder, torture, and extrajudicial executions are being uncovered. Yet there is no protest voiced within the UN, no teams being mobilized to investigate unearthed crime scenes and no measures taken against the perpetrators which include ultra-right wing militant groups espousing modern-day Nazism like the notorious Right Sector.

The GMO Labeling Conundrum

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
September 28, 2014

It would seem that large agricultural corporations touting genetically modified organisms (GMOs) they claim possess enhanced benefits for farmers and consumers would be proud to differentiate their products on the shelves from organic and traditionally produced food. However that is not the case. Not only is big-ag attempting to hide the true nature of their products, but the many big-business food processors that incorporate GMO ingredients into their final products are likewise attempting to mislead consumers.

The obvious fear is that consumers will avoid GMO products in favor of those not labeled as modified. While other arguments have been made in attempts to justify not properly labeling food as genetically modified or not, the underlying theme appears to be the belief of big-ag that consumers' ignorance over the alleged safety of GMO products threatens their business and with it, innovations they claim are a benefit not only to their bottom lines, but to all of humanity.

Of course, beneath the layers of this "belief," is the reality that their products do not offer any overwhelming benefit to humanity, and in fact, in many ways, have become a scourge to humanity. Additionally, peripheral arguments, such as GMO being in no way different to organic products, thus there is no need to label them, are so divergent from logic and commonsense that a general suspicion and distrust has formed in the collective mind of the public in regards to big-ag and those pushing their products.

To counter the growing ire of the general public, big-ag has raised an army of professional propagandists peddling pro-GMO talking points in the form of books, websites, mainstream media reportage and even while posing as ordinary citizens simply expressing their "opinions" in comment sections and upon what are supposed to appear as independent personal blogs. They, to no one's surprise, repeat verbatim the talking points proposed by big-ag itself, and while anti-GMO activists eagerly wade into the fray with this army of propagandists, the only relevant question that should be asked seems to escape them all.

Sanction-Drunk West Forgets to Target ISIS Sponsors

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
September 21, 2014

As the US and Europe prepare another round of sanctions against Russia over the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, the third round of such sanctions since the conflict began shortly after the Euromaidan unrest resulted in the installation of a NATO-backed regime in Kiev, a curious and inexplicable oversight appears to have been made.

While wild accusations have been leveled against Russia over its involvement over the violence in Ukraine, claims ranging from covert support up to and including unsubstantiated claims of a "full scale invasion," prominent media organizations across the Western World have for years reported a flow of cash, weapons, equipment and fighters from America's allies in the Persian Gulf as well as from nations like NATO member Turkey, and into the conflict raging within Syria's borders.

While baseless claims leveled against Russia have served as ample justification for the West to continue leveling sanctions against Moscow, no sanctions have as of yet been leveled against the overt sponsors of militancy and, in fact, terrorism in Syria. So widespread has state-sponsored terrorism become in the Middle East that what began as a limited proxy war against Syria has transformed into an immense regional army with tens of thousands of paid soldiers requiring millions of dollars a day to operate across multiple borders and confounding the forces of Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon combined.

As in Libya, So in Syria: The Folly of Interventionism

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
August 26, 2014

The United States has been inching its way toward intervention in Syria since hostilities began in 2011. From the beginning the US State Department admitted that terrorist armies were waging war against Damascus, but both the US government, its allies in Europe, and prominent media organizations across the West repeatedly claimed that the conflict was not an invasion by multinational terrorist organizations, but rather a "pro-democracy uprising." Now, years into the conflict, the US is finally at the threshold of direct military
intervention, announcing that it would begin flights over Syria to gather "intelligence."

As in Libya...  

The familiar narrative taking shape should sound strikingly familiar to the lead up to NATO intervention in Libya in 2011. There, just as in Syria, heavily armed terrorists, not "pro-democracy activists" were waging war against Tripoli. Intentionally misrepresenting the facts on the ground and the greater geopolitical context the Libyan conflict fit into, NATO successfully sold direct military intervention in Libya to the world. The "democratization" of Libya included daily NATO sorties into Libya, bombing the North African nation from air, while terrorist armies marched below, fully armed and equipped by NATO member states.

As the conflict drew to a close, with the Libyan government decimated, infrastructure nationwide destroyed, and very real atrocities (including genocide) unfolding just as NATO had falsely claimed were being perpetrated by Tripoli months earlier, it was clear that decimation, not democracy was the end result. Years after the decimation of Libya, the country remains in flames. There exists no stable government and the "pro-democracy freedom fighters" NATO assisted into power are now clearly exposed as sectarian extremists.

Ukrainian Weapons of Mass Destruction

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
September 1, 2014

In July, the Kiev-based regime deployed OTR-21 Tochka ballistic missiles also known as SS-21 “Scarabs,” against the people of eastern Ukraine. The missiles measure 6.4 meters in length and carry warheads of up to 454 kg, making them without a doubt a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). Despite Kiev utilizing weapons like the SS-21, there was little outcry in the United States or across Europe. The deafening silence over the use of such weapons in Ukraine stands in stark contrast to wild hysteria exhibited just in 2011 when the Libyan government allegedly deployed Scud missiles against NATO-backed militants fighting Tripoli, Sirte, and the desert city of Bani Walid.

Ukraine's Nuclear Legacy 

As a former Soviet state, Ukraine possesses a large variety of advanced weaponry and industrial capacity, aspects of a developed nation now in the hands of a state descending into third world-like chaos. Among Ukraine's industrial and technological inheritance is nuclear power. In total Ukraine possesses 15 nuclear reactors including the largest facility in Europe, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant. It also, until 1994, possessed nuclear weapons. Having been nuclear weapons-free since 1994, the new regime in Kiev has expressed interest in once again obtaining such weaponry for the purpose of "defending itself" from "Russian aggression." 

But absent of nuclear weapons, the possibility of Kiev committing to a course of action that threatens both Ukraine itself, as well as other nations across the region with nuclear catastrophe should weigh on the minds of all policymakers and analysts. Already, the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant served host to clashes between Kiev-backed Neo-Nazi militants from Right Sector and local police.

Fighting Back Against Western Sanctions

New Eastern Outlook

Ulson Gunnar

August 24, 2014

While the impact of sanctions leveled against Russia is being debated, one fact is perfectly clear; the dangerous interdependence cultivated by the concept of "globalization" leaves nations vulnerable amid a global order dominated by hegemonic special interests that use such interdependence as a weapon.

Two rounds of sanctions have been leveled against Russia targeting Russian banking, arms manufacturing, and oil industries. Even as the sanctions are marketed to the world as Russia "paying a price" for its role in "destabilizing" Ukraine, Russia has been busy cultivating ties and expanding markets that are increasingly found outside the West's spheres of influence and therefore, beyond the reach of these sanctions. Russia is also looking inward to diversify its markets and seek socioeconomic independence.

Instead of viewing the sanctions as an impassable obstacle requiring capitulation to Wall Street and London, Russia has viewed them as a challenge to sever reliance on unstable markets. More so, Russia's quest for alternative markets is a means of applying its own form of pressure back upon the West. While the West attempts to portray the sanctions as "cutting off Russia," the restrictions do at least as much to isolate the West itself.

Multipolar World Vs Western Hegemony  

In a unipolar world, supranational geopolitical blocs like the EU (European Union), the African Union, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and regional free trade agreements serve to consolidate and open up the collective socioeconomic potential of the planet to those at the top of this international order. Currently, this constitutes the special interests on Wall Street, in the city of London, and among the special interests converging in Brussels. Interdependence is intentionally cultivated among the various members of individual blocs and between supranational blocs themselves. This ensures that leverage is constantly maintained over each individual national entity, making individual nations incapable of sidestepping collective initiatives of the blocs they are a part of.

Ebola and the Absent "Humanitarians"

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
August 18, 2014

The US spent over two billion dollars during NATO's armed assault on Libya both in ordnance used during months of aerial bombardment and in covert support for terrorists used as proxy ground forces in the overthrow of the Libyan government. The United Kingdom is estimated to have spent even more. Hundreds of millions were spent by other NATO members throughout the duration of the assault. The "protection of civilians" was repeatedly cited as the altruistic justification for such an expenditure in manpower and financial resources.

In the wake of the conflict, it was revealed that NATO's "humanitarian intervention" left entire cities filled with unarmed civilians encircled by Al Qaeda-linked militants and relentlessly bombarded by NATO sorties while food, water, gas, and power were intentionally cut off to "starve" the inhabitants into submission. It was also revealed that the threat to civilians cited by NATO members was fabricated by those NATO chose to replace the targeted Libyan government with.

Similar scenarios have played out in Syria, Ukraine, and even North and West Africa. At the cost of hundreds of millions, French troops have invaded and occupied several African nations over the course of the past 3 years, including five of their former colonies, namely Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. And while the French government claims their justification is fighting terrorism and improving security (hundreds of miles from their own shores) much of the terrorism is a direct result of NATO's intervention in Libya and the intentional arming of immense terrorist networks in the process that have proliferated money, arms and all the strife that follows, across the region.

Enter Ebola 

GMO Golden Rice: The Scourge of Asia

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
August 9, 2014

Asia's dependency on rice cultivation for both subsidence and income is intuitively understood. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimates the agricultural population of lowland rice cultivation in Asia to be over 470 million - larger than the entire population of the United States. Improvements in rice cultivation would stand to lift hundreds of millions from debt and poverty. Conversely, the disruption of rice cultivation would threaten to mire hundreds of millions in deeper debt, inescapable destitution, and all of the negative socioeconomic implications that follow.

Asia's rice farmers produce between 1-2 harvests a year depending on the climb and climate of any given region. They do so to sell their rice, generally to mills who in turn sell the final product to exporters or for domestic consumption. Out of each harvest, rice farmers keep a portion for their own consumption, but the vast majority of what they grow is for income.

The UK-based Rice Association claims there are up to 40,000 species of rice, with a wide variety of characteristics suitable for different markets and uses. Rice farmers grow those which local, national and regional markets are best suited to move. In nations where subsidies are offered for rice crops, cheap, easy to grow varieties are chosen. More desirable or exotic species are grown by independent farmers who have developed their own cooperative with millers, marketers and exporters. The rice Asians eat depends on both economic and market realities. The impoverished eat what is cheapest and most easily available, but not necessarily that which is healthiest.

Enter GMO: Problem, Reaction, Solution 

Poor diet leads to vitamin deficiencies, a persistent problem among the impoverished. A lack of basic healthcare and education allows the otherwise easily rectified problem to continue unresolved. The World Health Organization (WHO) states on their website, "an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 vitamin A-deficient children become blind every year, half of them dying within 12 months of losing their sight." This statistic is global, not regionally specific to Asia, but Southeast Asia in particular suffers from such deficiencies.

Kiev Deploys WMDs Against Eastern Ukraine

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
August 7, 2014

Ukraine's Kiev-based regime has deployed OTR-21 Tochka ballistic missiles also known as SS-21 "Scarabs," against the people of eastern Ukraine. The missiles measure 6.4 meters in length and carry warheads of up to 454 kg, making them without a doubt a weapon of mass destruction (WMD). Their use was revealed by a CNN report released just as US President Barack Obama announced that the US and EU would be issuing more sanctions against Russia. 

CNN revealed that, "there were reports that Ukraine's government in the past 48 hours used short-range ballistic missiles against the rebels, three U.S. officials told CNN. The weapons have a range of about 50 miles (80 kilometers) and pack up to 1,000-pound (454-kilogram) warheads." 

Why Japan's Rearmament Might Not Matter

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
August 7, 2014

Acrimony and elation erupted on opposing sides of a growing geopolitical rift in the Pacific following Japan's decision to sidestep its constitution and seek a more aggressive global posture. 

AP reported that, "Japan's Cabinet on Tuesday approved a reinterpretation of the country's pacifist postwar constitution that will allow the military to help defend allies and others "in a close relationship" with Japan under what is known as "collective self-defense.""

Those that remember when last Japan exerted military force beyond its borders are protesting the recent step which they see as yet another attempt to remilitarize the island nation and push it toward participating in yet another disastrous armed confrontation. This includes not only nations that were victims of Japanese imperialism during World War II, but even the Japanese people themselves who paid tremendously in blood and treasure during their ill-conceived attempt at achieving hegemony over the Pacific. Whatever lessons protesters may have learned from history appear lost on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose English speech in Australia sounded suspiciously like various speeches penned for American politicians in regard to the US "Pivot Toward Asia." 

But for all the posturing the announcement involved, does Japan's attempt to rattle its saber actually matter? 

Why It Might Not Matter

Japan is a nation in decline. Its population is both aging and shrinking while its economy is mired in stagnation. Shifting toward greater militarization or cultivating adversarial relations with neighbors like China may be an attempt to rally its population around the flag, but that such a measure even seems necessary spells trouble for Japan. And Japan's military contributions to whichever nations is applies "collective self-defense" to are moot, considering many of these allies are likewise in permanent decline, including the United States itself. It is unlikely Japan's contributions will allow the US to break even in its Pacific calculus. America's attempt to "pivot toward Asia" has experienced many setbacks and delays including the ousting of allied regimes in the region and the ever expanding sphere of Chinese influence chaffing against waning US hegemony. 

Blowback Blackwater-Style

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
June 30, 2014

When we think about the term "blowback," we think of the rogues gallery of foreign mercenary forces the United States has created or exploited over the decades who invariably end up turning on their creators. The most prominent among these is Al Qaeda who, legend tells, was created in the Afghan mountains by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to fight the Soviet Union in the 1980's. Flush with cash and weapons, this Al Qaeda would go from lauded freedom fighters to America's preeminent global enemy, conveniently replacing the Soviet Union as the "free world's" new arch enemy as the Soviet Union collapsed.

Other "blowbacks" in the making include the terrorist forces the United States, many in Europe, and the Persian Gulf monarchies have created in their quest to reorder such nations as Libya, Syria, and now apparently Iraq. Time Magazine's mid-July 2014 issue includes a story titled literally, "Blowback," claiming, "with thousands of Westerners fighting for Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq, a foreign jihad no longer seems so distant, and officials fear that some of these fighters may eventually return radicalized by their experience - and ready to bring their war home."

What You Should Know About Azerbaijan

New Eastern Outlook
Ulson Gunnar
June 16, 2014

Azerbaijan and its population of nine and a half million, sits along the western coast of the Caspian Sea, bordering Russia to its north, Iran to its south, and Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey to its west. Its geostrategic position alone makes it an attractive target of political destabilization, regime change, and client state status for aspiring global empires, however its position in terms of energy production and transportation make such aspirations irresistible.

With the stated US-EU agenda of encircling and eventually integrating the Russian Federation into their "Europe Whole and Free," leaders from Washington to Brussels have taken turns describing their goal of reducing dependency on Russian energy, and "diversifying" Europe's energy markets. Already the US-EU has attempted to stall the creation of a Ukraine-circumventing Russian pipeline, the South Stream Pipeline, running through Bulgaria and Serbia to supply Europe with Russian natural gas. The next step is to replace Russian natural gas all together by commandeering the governments of entire nations and aligning their geopolitical posture to European and American designs.

Entombing Japan's Nuclear Nightmare

New Eastern Outlook

Ulson Gunnar
June 4, 2014

Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced the unprecedented undertaking of constructing a 1.5 kilometer long ice wall to contain four reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant - site of one of the worst nuclear disasters in human history. Several of the six reactors at Daiichi were damaged or melted down after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck Japan's northeast coast.

Kyodo News reported in its article, "Construction work for ice wall begins at Fukushima plant" that, "under the government-funded project, 1,550 pipes will be inserted deep into the ground to circulate coolant and freeze the nearby soil. The measure is aimed at preventing groundwater from seeping into the buildings and mixing with heavily contaminated water." After the barrier is constructed, waste water must somehow be treated and then the process of decommissioning the power plant can begin, a process expected to take up to 40 years.