sanctions

A total blockade of war-torn Syria is the desired effect of sweeping new sanctions imposed this week by the United States. The purpose is to prevent the Arab nation from achieving reconstruction and international normalization after suffering nearly a decade of war.
Washington’s objective is to make regime change in Damascus inevitable by making social conditions in the country as unbearable for the population as it possibly can.
With cruel Orwellian irony, the American sanctions implemented this week bear the words “Syria Civilian Protection Act”.

As Syria tries to recover from a nearly decade-long war, the US has imposed crippling new sanctions under the Caesar…
The post Crippling new sanctions punish Syrian civilians for US defeat in proxy war appeared first on The Grayzone.

Medea BENJAMIN

Credit: Cubacooperation

A team of 85 Cuban doctors and nurses arrived in Peru on June 3 to help the Andean nation tackle the coronavirus pandemic. That same day, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced another tightening of the sanctions screws. This time he targeted seven Cuban entities, including Fincimex, one of the principal financial institutions handling remittances to the country.

Over the past few months, the latest in a long history of extrajudicial killings of Black Americans has claimed the lives of three people: Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year old man gunned down in February by a gang of armed white men who chased him through a South Georgia neighborhood; Breonna Taylor, massacred in her own home by police officers who were serving a no-knock warrant on her apartment last March in relation to a drug case that had nothing to do with the budding 26-year old

On May 6th, President Trump vetoed a war powers bill specifying that he must ask Congress for authorization to use military force against Iran. Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign of deadly sanctions and threats of war against Iran has seen no let-up, even as the U.S., Iran and the whole world desperately need to set aside our conflicts to face down the common danger of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Michael TENNANT
President Donald Trump’s May 6 veto of a Senate resolution that would have required him to seek congressional approval for any further military confrontations with Iran demonstrates that, despite his occasional feints toward scaling back foreign intervention, Trump is as much a warmonger as anyone else in Washington. Worse still, his explanation for his veto indicates that he believes presidents have unlimited authority to launch wars, contrary to clear constitutional language.

In April 2015, the Obama Administration removed Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism – a move in line with the diplomacy pursued following the release of the Cuban Five anti-terror agents from U.S. jails in 2014.