Apparently, I have run afoul of the otherwise reasonable interpreters of history, and the history of US foreign policy during my adult life (which started when I landed in Vietnam in 1969).

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William P. Homans III2022-02-11 at 19:02

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Apparently the "moderators" of this site have decided (without any explicit statement) that the comment I attempted to post yesterday, which I am repeating below, is not worthy, or too dangerous, or something, to be printed. But I am hereby sending it again, just to see whether these moderators would care to revisit and disclose the reasoning behind their censorship, which I hardly expected.

Now, the person who posted the link for this Norton article on the Veterans For Peace (VFP) listserve is very concerned about the overall reach and scope of US imperialism. Well, imperialism comes in various forms: economic hegemony is the form American imperialism has most often taken since the days of Teddy Roosevelt. The troops have generally been called out to protect the flow of money.

It hasn't worked as well since Vietnam, at huge cost of life, persuaded America that it could not turn the South China Sea into a US sphere of petrochemical economic dominance. Unfortunately, the neoconservative foreign policy cabal that has dominated US policy since the publication of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC by Paul Wolfowitz et al. since 1996 has tried regime change over and over again, no matter how often it fails. And it's never gained the US a shred of geopolitical advantage.

And it has convinced a sizable portion- maybe a majority- of reasonable people that the United States is unilaterally to blame for all the bad, unreasonable, desperate behavior of dozens of governments and non-governmental entities around the world.

However, now, of course, China has made it very clear- even creating islands where there were none to have forward naval bases- that it will brook no argument: the South China Sea, and everything in it, including Taiwan, is theirs. That thar's the good ol' traditional imperialism, and they're threatening Taiwan, in the air and over the water, exactly as Russia is threatening Ukraine on land, air and sea. The message is clear: you belong to us. Capitulate or we'll slaughter enough of you so you'll have no choice.

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2022/02/10

"The world already knew what political and economic model Washington, Brussels, and NATO are offering, but now it can clearly see what China and Russia are posing as an alternative."

Sorry, I see Putin's work, and I see that both Russia and China are ruled by dictators. Y'all say what you want about Joe Biden: he knows what love and compassion are. Putin and Xi haven't got a clue.

Putin is likely to imperialistically invade and occupy part of the old Soviet Union. I saw a news video from Kharkiv, of demonstrating women whose signs were begging the world to stop Russia (or Russia to stop, it was unclear which). They had that look in their eyes that showed they feared death and destruction while knowing their risk was no fault of their own- nor of their country.

And the contingent of neo-Nazis in some Russian-populated areas of Ukraine is on the side of the potentially invading Russians. For all his wanting to "relitigate the Cold War," I wonder whether Putin is happy to have their help to further his own imperial dreams, or if he will just pragmatically decline to talk about it.

And China runs Uighur concentration camps, and threatens Taiwan with invasion just as Russia threatens Ukraine with it.

I hope the world DOES see the alternative offered by the "Eurasian powers." I hope it does not take as long to become clear to the somewhat liberal US/EU what the designs of the aggressor(s) are as it did for America to stand up against Fascism and Hitler.

I'm 72 and haven't been in a war since I was 21. I never hope to again. But I find myself looking at the example of the International Republican Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, fighting against Generalissimo Franco and his Nazi enablers, and wondering how many, if any, volunteers in that gallant but doomed effort were men of my age.

My father, at 20 in 1941, risked prison and fines to go and join the British Navy before our own nation would come to that nation's aid against the Blitzkrieg; I can think of worse endings for my life than to go and stand with the men, women and children of Ukraine, who will die by Russian aggression if Putin gives the order.

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Authors Website: http://www.watermelonslim.com

Authors Bio:

My name is William Perkins Homans the third, but probably more people know me as the bluesman (and artist) Watermelon Slim.



I've been in the fight against war, fascism, injustice and inhumanity for 47 years. I was at MayDay, 1971, and at the moratorium March the week before. I was one of the leaders of the Great New Jersey Turnpike Stall on my birthday, April 25, 1971.



I bear the scar on my left shin from a neoNazi jackboot, when I was one of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War who bounced the NSWPP from Flamingo Park at the Republican National Convention of 1972. My father fought the Nazis in the North Atlantic and Anzio, and I met their spawn in Miami.



My formal education has been first-rate. I wouldn't trade my degrees for Harvard ones. I was raised in the finest private Catholic and Episcopal high schools.
I earned my BA in History and Journalism from the University of Oregon/Eugene. I was also captain of the U of O bowling team, 1984-1986. High game 299. Mentors: Dr. W. Gordon Rockett, Dr. Daniell Pope
1997-2000: Oklahoma State University. M.A., History, 2000, plus the school-teaching curriculum. Mentor: Dr. Ronald Petrin

I am a world survivalist. My politics transcends right and left, perforce. I watch for signs we may transcend in some yet-unknown fashion the vectors and indicators in my environmental and geopolitical analysis.
As Tiny Tim said, "God bless us, every one!"