U.S. PROFITS FROM ENDLESS WAR

‘War is a racket.’

That classic take on US imperialism by US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler (1881-1940) many decades ago described Washington's fixation on endless wars to dominate the world in its quest to expand and protect corporate profits.

Here, Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Ben Cohen (@YoBenCohen on X) reads from Butler's 1935 book, ‘War is a Racket: The Profit that Fuels Warfare,’ which revealed the strong commercial interests that shape US foreign and military policy. Butler’s military work helped US corporations establish their presence in Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia. Looking back, Butler realised he had been a ‘gangster for capitalism.’

Continued……. Imperialism involves a country using military force to ensure profits outside its borders. While researcher David Vine has stated that the United States operates at least 750 military bases in over 80 countries, US military veteran and psychologist Monisha Rios claimed in 2023 that at least 3,000 US military installations exist if counting non-base structures.

US warmongering has led some US states to rely on military contracts to bolster their economies. For instance, in 2024, Missouri congress member Ann Wagner pointed out that delays in ammunition shipments to Israel were negatively impacting workers in her district. 

Unfortunately, whether it's mutilated infants in Palestine, slaughtered peoples in the Horn of Africa, or s*xually assaulted women who live near US military bases, victims of US militarism pay the highest price.

Video credit: (@TCNetwork on X)

Sources

https://www.coffeeordie.com/article/smedley-butler-business-plot

https://www.vvaw.org/veteran/article/?id=4053

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2023/11/considering-history-remembering-general-smedley-butlers-anti-war-activism-for-veterans-day

https://www.nytimes.com/1931/04/29/archives/haiti-gave-butler-medal-for-exploit-capture-of-fort-riviere-was.html#:~:text=Smedley%20D.,President%20Dartiguenave%20for%20his%20services.

https://workersvoiceus.org/2023/09/19/smedley-butler-a-gangster-for-u-s-imperialism

https://www.bbh.com/us/en/bbh-who-we-are/our-story/200-years-of-partnership/brown-brothers-co-in-latin-america.html

https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-notes/21251330

https://archive.ph/Huqig

https://wagner.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/wagner-demands-answers-biden-administration-withholding-key-aid-israel

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/2/14/david_vine_us_bases_china_philippines

https://towardfreedom.org/story/archives/americas/protesters-rally-in-washington-d-c-against-u-s-wars-and-militarism-on-20th-anniversary-of-u-s-invasion-of-iraq

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2023/01/18/how-the-defense-industry-became-a-defining-feature-of-the-us-economy

Continued……. The same policies that once ravaged African economies during IMF-backed Structural Adjustment Programmes in the 1980s are now back in full swing, disguised in the language of “fiscal discipline.” Just 19% of respondents in any region reported economic improvement, with no region exceeding that figure.

Discontent cuts across political lines, with 85% of opponents of the Broad-Based Government (BBG) and 52% of its supporters reporting they are worse off.

Sources
https://eastleighvoice.co.ke/national/156441/rutos-government-faces-backlash-as-most-kenyans-say-theyre-worse-off-than-in-2022

https://www.tuko.co.ke/kenya/590861-75-kenyans-country-rutos-leadership-headed-wrong-direction-poll-shows/

https://nairobilawmonthly.com/tifa-poll-kenya-headed-wrong-direction/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DKOzQM-I_zv/

https://darubininews.co.ke/2023/12/17/for-every-10-shillings-i-collect-7-shillings-go-to-paying-debt-ruto-says/

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/kenya-president-spoke-imf-chief-after-pulling-tax-hikes-sources-say-2024-07-04/

WHEN, NOT IF. WHAT DOES NIGERIA'S MILITARY KNOW?

Not ‘if’ but ‘when.’ Nigeria's Chief of Defence Staff appears to have made a Freudian slip. Speaking during the Voice of Nigeria (VON) Forum 2025, General Christopher Musa said that Nigeria will be the next target when - not if - the Sahel falls to terrorism. That simple word choice is raising concerns about what exactly Nigeria's military knows regarding the security situation in the Sahel. 

Bear in mind that neighbouring Niger has accused Nigeria of collusion with France in its efforts to destabilise the Sahel. According to Niamey, Paris has partnered with terrorist groups in the Lake Chad region to destabilise Niger, with the tacit complicity of Abuja. The suspicion becomes more credible in light of utterances by certain French officials. For example, former spy Vincent Crouzet admitted that the departure of France from Niger gives Paris leeway to engage in more covert destabilisation as 'there are no French hostages’ in the country.

Continued……. In his speech, General Musa urged Nigeria, despite its size, to erect a border fence around the entire country before the Sahel ‘falls.’ But is ‘building a wall’ a good idea at all? Previously, fragmentation worked against Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, with terrorists slipping in and out of the region's porous borders to conduct attacks.  Now that these three countries have shown that a collaborative security alternative is available, and the region is moving toward greater integration, is increased isolation from its neighbours the way forward for Nigeria?

Let us know what you think.

Credit: Eset TV

Sources
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq9x94gj2no

https://www.senenews.com/actualites/politique/niger-vincent-crouzet-ex-agent-secret-francais-provoque-la-colere-de-la-junte_460200.html

https://sahellibertynews.com/2025/05/24/aes-ecowas-a-decisive-step-towards-regional-security-cooperation/

Continued……. https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/62968/libya-un-confirms-93-bodies-exhumed-from-mass-graves



https://achpr.au.int/en/news/press-releases/2024-03-27/discovery-mass-grave-containing-least-65-bodies-migrants-libya

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/22/bodies-of-65-people-found-in-mass-grave-in-libya-un-migration-agency

https://unsmil.unmissions.org/un-visits-tarhuna-launch-new-report-mass-graves

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/7/4/un-100-mass-graves-could-be-found-in-libyan-town

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1121912

HUBERT HARRISON: FORBIDDEN GENIUS OF BLACK RADICALISM

This video provides an overview of the unsung hero of pan-African history, Hubert Henry Harrison (1883-1927), who developed a range of innovative solutions to address radical injustices. After blazing a trail for Black revolutionary socialist politics, Harrison emerged as the most prominent Black freethinker and Black free lover of his generation. Harrison's Liberty League of Negro Americans catalysed the rise of Marcus Garvey and the largest international organisation of African people in modern history.

Continued……Harrison practised armed self-defence, and called for an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist ‘Coloured International’ in the face of European colonisation in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Because of his fierce and fearless radicalism, however, the full scope of Harrison’s revolutionary legacy has been erased from history. Until now. Dr. Brian Kwoba (Director of African and African-American Studies at the University of Memphis) in his new book, ‘Hubert Harrison: Forbidden Genius of Black Radicalism,’ restores Harrison's numerous breakthroughs in social movements for economic, racial and sexual liberation. Over a decade in the making, its richly-textured narrative highlights the startling relevance of Harrison's visionary thinking to modern times. The book cover features a masterful pencil drawing from Zambian artist Teddy Bechman.

"Brian Kwoba has written a beautiful, intellectual biography as radical and original as its subject." - Robin D.G. Kelley, author of ‘Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination’

Check the pinned comment below for links to the book page and @dr.kwoba.

WILL MORE DEBT FIX APARTHEID’S LEGACY?

The World Bank has granted South Africa a $1.5-billion infrastructure loan. The official purpose of the loan is to alleviate the country’s economic woes and reduce unemployment by boosting growth, particularly in the energy and transport sectors. However, this framing presumes that South Africa’s challenges stem primarily from a lack of financial resources. It ignores the troubling legacy of apartheid, which left wealth and land overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of the country’s White-settler minority. This makes up just some 8% of the population but owns over 70% of agricultural farmland.

Without directly addressing South Africa’s structural issues through land redistribution and the dismantling of the economic systems that sustain racial inequality, loans such as this one run the risk of escalating the very problems they claim to address.

Continued……Moreover, the World Bank provided finance to the apartheid regime during the ‘50s and even ‘60s, amid mounting global condemnation and pressure, including an (initially voluntary) UN arms embargo. The latter had been advocated and pushed for by civil-rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968). The World Bank has yet to face any accountability for its complicity in the oppression of Black South Africans, with activists maintaining that the institution owes reparations to post-apartheid South Africa.

Interestingly, the US, which had cut foreign-aid funding to South Africa earlier this year, is the World Bank’s largest shareholder. The loan announcement follows South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent visit to Washington. During his meeting with Donald Trump, he failed to challenge his host when the US president repeated debunked claims of a ‘White genocide’ in South Africa. Critics say it was a missed opportunity to set the record straight and assert South Africa’s sovereignty. Was Ramaphosa’s timid engagement with Trump an act of appeasement on behalf of capital interests?

Sources

https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/s-africa-wins-1-5-billion-world-bank-infrastructure-loan

https://debtjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/The-colonial-roots-of-global-south-debt.pdf

https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/2020/12/world-bank-reparations-demanded-for-murder-of-frontline-south-african-anti-coal-activist/

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/under-attack-by-trump-south-africas-ramaphosa-responds-with-trade-deal-offer-2025-05-21/

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9yyd2epk2o

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/21/whats-south-africas-land-law-at-the-heart-of-the-trump-ramaphosa-spat

https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/75906?ln=en

https://www.cadtm.org/spip.php?page=imprimer&id_article=17364

KABILA FIRES BACK AT TSHISEKEDI

In 2018, Congo went to the polls hoping to break free from decades of foreign interference and betrayal by local leaders. What followed was a controversial geopolitical arrangement masked as an election.

According to the non-profit Congo Research Group (CRG), the official National Electoral Commission (CENI), and the powerful Episcopal Conference (CENCO), which represents all bishops in the DRC, Martin Fayulu was the legitimate winner of the vote. CENI data showed that Fayulu garnered 59.42% of the vote, while Félix Tshisekedi received 18.97%. CENCO’s counts were 62.80% for Fayulu and 15% for Tshisekedi. Yet, Tshisekedi was declared president through a secret pact with the then-outgoing president, Joseph Kabila, setting the stage for the current crisis.