Events are unfolding at a quickening pace. Facing an alarming escalation in tensions around the world, we are looking to our most respected and renowned thought leaders for an honest assessment of both U.S. foreign and military policy to offer their most current thoughts and insights. We know they have some ideas for improving the prospects for peace.
Cynthia McKinney is an American politician and assistant professor at North South University, Bangladesh. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served six terms in the United States House of Representatives, as the first African American woman ever elected to represent Georgia. She was also the first Member of Congress to demand an investigation of the events of 9/11 and the first to file articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. She voted against every war-funding bill put before her. In 2008, Cynthia McKinney won the Green Party nomination and ran for U.S. President. Her responses below are exactly as she provided.
The questions here are not philosophical or abstract. They focus on the realities of the international power struggle unfolding in real time. They directly address the role of the U.S. in the escalating tensions and its capacity to reduce them. We also probe the role of everyday citizens in affecting the relationship the U.S. now has and will have with the rest of the world community.
Here is what Cynthia McKinney had to say.
Q. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has recently put the hands of the Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds before midnight. Midnight means all out war, probably nuclear holocaust. This is the closest it has ever been. Do you agree with this dire assessment?
A. While I don’t always agree with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, I have to acknowledge that for many people on the planet, it is already Doomsday; the U.S. is bombing or sanctioning dozens of countries around the world. U.S. bombs and U.S. sanctions have real consequences. As usual, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a very Eurocentric view of Doomsday: Iraq was pummeled with depleted uranium munitions. On a trip to that country three years ago, every member of my delegation arrived home sick after having been in Iraq just over one week. Depleted uranium used there has resulted in incalculable premature deaths, cancers, deformed babies, and untold general illnesses. Depleted uranium has been used in Somalia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as in Iraq. I introduced legislation to prohibit the use of these munitions and was visited by the Pentagon; my Congressional office was event infiltrated by a young, hip-looking intern who was later found rifling through my office files and fired on the spot. I did not, however, hear a peep from Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Q. The U.S. always portrays itself as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc. Polls tell us that most other nations actually regard the U.S. as the greatest threat to stability. What in your view is the truth here?
A. The so-called Spanish Flu actually originated on a military base in Kansas; so, too, the situation with SARS-CoV-2, the so-called China virus, whose bioweapon spike protein originated in the U.S., created with U.S. tax dollars. No one who has lived inside the U.S. would ever seriously declare the U.S. “as the greatest force on the planet for peace, justice, human rights, racial equality, etc.” Instead, those who know the U.S., know that the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. still ring true today: that the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. Only Israel and apartheid South Africa could rival the U.S. in modern times. U.S. allies, the colonizing countries, are also responsible for unspeakable horrors in pre-modern times. Now, certain elements of the U.S. Deep State have declared war against the people of Russia, China, and the bloodstreams of the current global population. After all, it was the Project for a New American Century that wrote in Rebuilding America’s Defenses on page 60 the following: “[A]dvanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” Every one of the signatories to this document put him- or herself in a position to make this statement become official U.S. policy. Hence, official circumvention of the moratorium on gain-of-function research in order to create the bioweapon spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 and the mRNA concoctions that are being portrayed as “vaccines.” In fact, the Spanish Flu became a global phenomenon helped along by a mass inoculation project of the Rockefeller Foundation. Parallels to today are staggering.
Q. Here’s a chicken-or-egg question: The U.S. accuses both Russia and China of rapidly expanding their military capabilities, claiming its own posturing and increase in weaponry is a response to its hostile adversaries, Russia and China. Both Russia and China claim they are merely responding to intimidation and military threats posed by the U.S. What’s your view? Do Russia and China have imperial ambitions or are they just trying to defend themselves against what they see as an increasingly aggressive U.S. military?
A. Interesting. I have visited Malaysia many times; it has a vibrant population of people from India and China. Yet, I was in the audience when Tun Dr. Mahathir stated that Malaysians had less to fear from the Chinese than they did from the British. In fact, the U.S. and their cousin English colonizers are responsible for the trafficking of individual Indians and Chinese all over the world. Add to that, the annihilations by French conquerors and Spanish Conquistadores—and you’re talking about the murders and subjugation of untold millions of individuals. The U.S. allies were not the victims of the colonial atrocities of Spain, Britain, France, Belgium, Holland. U.S. allies are the perpetrators of incalculable physical and psychological pain in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Interestingly, the friends to the colonized peoples were the Soviet Union and Mao’s China, which was divided as a result of U.S. hegemony over Taiwan and Britain’s sovereignty over Hong Kong. Neither Russia nor China, at their worst, can count the globally pervasive international crimes against humanity that are owned by the so-called West. Even worse, the U.S. has turned those reprehensible international behaviors onto the people of the U.S. Even going so far as testing potential bioweapons on the U.S. domestic population.
Q. The U.S. always denies that it has imperial ambitions. Most unbiased experts say that by any objective standards, the U.S. is an empire — indeed the most powerful, sprawling empire in history. Does the U.S. have to be an empire to be successful in the world and effectively protect and serve its citizenry?
A. Well, it depends on how one defines success and what it means to effectively protect and serve U.S. citizens. Clearly, the U.S. empire is successful for some people and it protects and serves some people. I have learned to always believe the opposite of U.S. government proclamations. In the words of a former U.S. President, “Trust, But Verify.”
Q. The highest ranking commanders of the U.S. military recently sounded the alarm. They have concluded that the U.S. — widely regarded as the most formidable military power in history — can’t defeat either Russia or China in a war. These military commanders are saying we need to dramatically increase our military capabilities. What do you make of this claim and the resulting demand for more DOD spending?
A. The “Missile Gap” propaganda won’t work a second time, although it’s probably true this time around! And, more than likely, it would be Russia AND China against the U.S. because U.S. policy has driven the two countries into a “Strategic Partnership.” The Pentagon shouldn’t receive another penny until they pass an independent forensic audit with prosecutions for fraud. Military contractors should be treated worse than the insatiable welfare queens that they are. If the military cannot fight either Russia or China, let alone the two of them together, it is the fault of the military and the Members of Congress who have allowed the complete mismanagement and neglect of true U.S. national security. Members of Congress and the Executive have misdirected true U.S. national security for generations and gotten away with it. The impunity must end. And justice must be meted out to those guilty of the treachery. Unless stern action is taken, and those who have been irresponsible with taxpayers’ dollars and U.S. national security are confronted publicly with their actions, the only thing that will happen is that yet another generation of criminals will move into positions of public trust.
Q. In 2009, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton announced a reset with Russia, heralding greater cooperation and understanding. By 2014, Obama had made a sharp reversal. A sweeping regime of sanctions has since been imposed on Russia to cripple its economy. Hillary Clinton and the Democrats now relentlessly demonize Russia and Putin, blaming them for every imaginable ill. Both in the media and from official pronouncements by government officials, Russia has become the favorite whipping boy for both the U.S. and its “special friend”, Great Britain. Why? What happened?
A. I believe the people of the U.S. would choose peace and a multipolar international political structure rooted in truth, justice, and dignity if they were engaged as important partners in an information-laden, transparent national dialogue.
Q. The number of spy missions, nuclear-armed bomber flights, and war games near Russia’s borders have vastly increased over the past year. Same with China. Is all of this just business-as-usual geopolitical posturing? Or does it represent a dangerous escalation and a new ominous direction in U.S. strategic positioning? What is the justification for what Russia and China see as provocations and aggressiveness, if not actual preparation for a war?
A. Yes; Yes; There is none.
Q. Between the FONOPS in the South China Sea and the recently expressed enthusiasm for Taiwan’s independence, the risk of military conflict with China keeps increasing. Where is this headed? If People’s Republic of China decides to use military force for full reunification of Taiwan, do you see the U.S. going to war in an attempt to prevent it?
A. No.
Q. The U.S., against the clear objections of the government in Syria, is occupying valuable land, stealing the country’s oil, and preventing access to the most agriculturally productive region, effectively starving the population. The world sees this for what it is, a cruel game sacrificing innocent people for some perceived geopolitical advantage. Is this the kind of reputation the U.S. wants? Or does it simply no longer care what the rest of the world community thinks?
A. In as much as the controllers of the U.S. Deep State are carrying out these actions, clearly, it means that they are shameless and don’t care what the world thinks of them. This is not new. This is what the U.S. really is. Too bad the people of the U.S. haven’t cared enough since the 1960s to stop it, and when they did care enough to resist these policies, the Deep State of the U.S. resorted to deception, neutralization, and murder of its own citizens as policy. One thorough read of the COINTELPRO Papers and the Senator Frank Church Select Committee Reports discloses the extent to which the U.S. Deep State was willing to go to war against the peace-loving people of the U.S. in order to continue its rapacious plunder of the world outside of Europe.
Q. In a democracy, at least in theory citizens have a say in all matters of public policy. Yet, in the end none of the recent military campaigns and undeclared wars seem to achieve much popular favor or support. What is and what should be the role of everyday citizens in determining the foreign policy and military priorities of the country? Or are such matters better left to the “experts”?
A. All official papers should be declassified and the current state of media in the U.S. should be completely and totally revamped. The Big Six should be dismantled; the airwaves should be democratized; foundations and corporations should be forced out of the media business. Big Tech should be dismantled and social media should become a free market of ideas, big conversations, and big decisions. Peer-to-peer technologies and decentralization should become the new organizing principles on a foundation of freedom and responsibility. Direct Democracy should be the decision-making process for most issues of high state importance with adequate debate on the topics under consideration so that informed votes are cast.
Q. Related to that, the citizenry and most of Congress are kept in the dark with respect to special missions, proxy funding, CIA operations, and swaths of unknown unknowns constituting psyops, cyber ops, and regime change ops, all done in our name as U.S. citizens. The funds to support this sprawling “dark world” of sabotage and terror being inflicted on the rest of the planet, is also a secret. Now there’s pervasive spying on U.S. citizens right here at home. What place does any of this have in “the land of the free”? Does this mean government of the people, by the people, for the people is just a sham?
A. None; Yes.
Q. Recently we’ve seen some token but precedent-setting direct payments to citizens in the form of Covid relief. There is also the ongoing discussion about reparations to descendants of slaves. If it could be unequivocally established that the government has abused DOD funding, misused and squandered vast sums of money to promote unjustified wars, purchase unneeded equipment, unnecessarily expand U.S. military presence across the globe, and regularly lied to the American public to manufacture consent for these misadventures and fraudulent activities, practical and political considerations aside, do you see any constitutional or other legal barriers to the public identifying, expecting, or even demanding proper compensation? A cash refund or citizen reparations for massive, authenticated abuse of power?
A. A novel idea; I like it. I also like the idea of seizing the ill-gotten gains of billionaires and redistributing that wealth to U.S. citizens or residents in need. A rebate to taxpayers for the years of abuse suffered by them at the hands of a compromised and complicit Congress is certainly in order. Only a sick society would put a banker between a student and her professor and an insurance bureaucrat between a doctor and his patient. The United States has reached the outer limits of Constitutionalism and is now on the verge of becoming a completely unrecognizable polity. We the People must stop this slide to tyranny now, or forever be trapped inside its matrix.
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We are grateful to Cynthia McKinney for her thought-provoking views. The interview was arranged by John Rachel, Director of the Peace Dividend Project. This effort embraces a powerful, unprecedented, end-to-end strategy for challenging the tyranny of neocon warmongers in Washington DC, ending the endless wars, and reversing the self-destructive foreign policy and military paradigm which now poisons U.S. relations with the rest of the world. We hope to further interview Cynthia for the full-length Peace Dividend documentary film, a devastating indictment of the corruption and fraud built into our excessive military budgets and imperial overreach. This movie will inform, unite and empower everyday citizens to have a voice in determining the future they want for themselves and their children.
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