Stop the War, Stop Sending Arms to Ukraine. An Appeal from Brussels

March 25th, 2023 by Defend Democracy Press

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The participants of the conference Confidence Building Measures in the Face of Sharp Polarization in Europe, which was held at the European Parliament on March 20, 2023, have adopted the following appeal:

The war in Ukraine continues unabated, causing vast destruction to Ukraine’s people and its infrastructure, as well as enormous damage to the global economy. If the fighting continues, Ukraine will soon be a depopulated, devastated country.

Many people throughout Europe fear an escalation of the war. They fear for their future and that of their children.

The prolongation of the Ukrainian conflict is increasing the risk of nuclear, ecological, and socio-economic global disaster, and potentially risking the annihilation of humanity.

This is why we consider of utmost urgency to call for an immediate ceasefire and for a start of negotiations accompanied by the lifting of sanctions and a halt to the arming of Ukraine. Negotiating does not mean capitulating. Negotiating means making compromises. With the aim of preventing hundreds of thousands more deaths, or worse.

We call on all governments to stop the escalation of arms deliveries. Now! Every day this war continues costs up to 1,000 more lives – and brings us closer to World War 3.

There is no more important task for humanity today than to stop our descent towards disaster!

We call on the citizens of the world, on all social movements, intellectuals, trade unions, religious communities, and governments to act firmly in this direction and to coordinate their efforts to achieve lasting peace.

  • Pino Cabras (Italy), former Member of Parliament, editor of online portal Megachip
  • Aleksandar Ciric (Serbia), Board Member, Association of Lawyers of Black see – Caspian see regions
  • Michel Collon (Belgium), journalist, Director of Investig’ Action
  • Clare Daly (Ireland), Member of the European Parliament
  • Gilbert Doctorow (Belgium), political analyst, writer
  • Franceska Donato (Italy), Member of the European Parliament
  • Leo Gabriel (Austria), Member of the International Council of the World Social Forum
  • Marcel de Graaff (Netherlands), Member of the European Parliament
  • Inaki Irazabalbeitia (Basque country), former Member of the European Parliament
  • Dimitris Konstantakopoulos (Greece), journalist, member of the editorial board of online portal Defend Democracy Press
  • Josifs Korens (Latvia), President, International Mouvement Pour un Futur Sans Fascisme
  • Tamas Krausz (Hungary), Editorial board of quarterly journal Eszmélet/Consciousness
  • Vladimirs Lindermans (Latvia), journalist, publicist
  • Miroslav Radacovsky (Slovakia), Member of the European Parliament
  • Ivan Vilibor Sincic (Croatia), Member of the European Parliament
  • Mick Wallace (Ireland), Member of the European Parliament
  • Zahari Zahariev (Bulgaria), President, Slavyani Foundation
  • Tatjana Zdanoka (Latvia), Member of the European Parliament

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On March 18, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Tokyo and promised Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida that their countries would strengthen military cooperation, even by sending German ships and planes to the Pacific region. Then, only three days later – and a day after Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow – Kishida made a surprise trip to Kiev and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Kishida even visited the town of Bucha, the site of an infamous fake news campaign of alleged Russian war crimes.

The visit of the Japanese prime minister to the Ukrainian capital was undoubtedly timed to be immediately after the visit of Scholz to Tokyo and to nearly coincide with the Xi-Putin meeting, a clear expression that Japan is now fully behind the Western bloc in opposing Russia and China.

In a joint statement, Germany and Japan said that they will work on establishing “a legal framework for bilateral defence and security cooperation activities,” including on ways to protect critical infrastructures, trade routes and to secure future supply of sustainable energy.

For his part, Kishida said that the agreement with Germany was to “counter economic coercion, state-led attempts to illegally acquire technology and non-market practices,” an obvious reference to China.

With Japan embroiled in several disputes with China, and Germany pursuing a policy of aggression against Russia, it is rather surprising that they are teaming up to expand their hostile efforts considering their limited capabilities for global power projection, especially when compared to Russia and China.

None-the-less, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Emine Dzheppa, said the country was “happy to welcome” the Japanese premier in a way as if his visit was a gamechanger.

“This historic visit is a sign of solidarity and strong cooperation between Ukraine and Japan,” she tweeted. “We are grateful to Japan for its strong support and contribution to our future victory.”

This is obviously just another opportunity for a photoshoot. Japan has increasingly become hostile against Russia and China, and by Kishida visiting Kiev to take his photo alongside Zelensky, he is signalling to the West that Japan is prepared to do its part for Ukraine if they will do their part against China.

Tokyo’s decision will please the US, however, it is Germany’s reaction that is most telling. Although Kishida’s visit to Kiev was certainly a surprise to the unsuspecting public, undoubtedly Scholz would have been notified about the impending trip, perhaps from even before he arrived in Tokyo.

None-the-less, despite Germany and Japan having seemingly revived their World War II era alliance, it will do very little to deter China from defending its interests in the East and South China Seas or Russia from its military operation in Ukraine. This is for the simple fact that they, even in alliance, do not have the capability to challenge either country, let alone if Russia and China were in military alliance.

Although Japan is rapidly militarising, it is incalculably behind the Russian and Chinese militaries. The German military is in an even more pathetic state. Germany once had a very powerful military that was capable of instigating two world wars, but today the Bundeswehr only has 264,400 personnel, including 183,200 soldiers and 81,200 civil servants.

For comparison, even in 1989 the Bundeswehr numbered 486,000 personnel. After the reunification of the country in 1990, the great disarmament began.

Today, the German military has been exposed for having a severe lack of combat readiness, in terms of personnel numbers and the condition of military equipment. Germany not only faces serious problems in ensuring the combat effectiveness of its army, but also in the production of new military equipment and weapons. Although additional funds have been allocated for this, German experts still doubt that this will help.

Following the Russian intervention in the Ukraine conflict, the Bundeswehr made serious efforts to support the Ukrainian military. From January 2022 to March 13, 2023, arms, ammunition, and military equipment worth 2.7 billion euros were delivered to Ukraine. In addition, the Bundeswehr was forced to reinforce weaker NATO allies directly bordering Russia. About 1,000 German soldiers were sent to Lithuania and formed a fighting group with Lithuanian and Polish troops.

Yet, despite the pathetic condition of the German military, Scholz has promised to send forces to help Japan confront China. Although the statement is bold, it does raise the question on how many ships, soldiers, tanks and planes the Bundeswehr can send to the Pacific several thousands of kilometres away when a war is waging just a little more than a thousand kilometres away in Eastern Europe.

Sending such a force could signify a German presence in the region. But to say that a thousand or so German soldiers could possibly make a difference against the People’s Liberation Army of China is ludicrous, even if alongside Japan and the US. In this way, although the German-Japanese alliance is not a credible threat to Russia and China, it is an expression of intention that they will collectively pressure and provoke the two countries.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. 

US to Relocate Its Warplanes to Intimidate Moscow and Beijing

March 25th, 2023 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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US weapons abroad are being relocated in line with Washington’s new strategic priorities. According to recent reports, the US will send old and outdated attack aircraft to the Middle East, replacing the modern and advanced aircraft that are currently stationed in the region. The goal is to transfer the most efficient military equipment to Europe and the Pacific, where it can eventually be used against Russian and Chinese forces – which are currently the main concerns for the US government.

The data was shared in an article published by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on March 21. According to information obtained by the authors, there is a plan to redistribute the planes in April. It is planned that aircraft of the type A-10, an older and less efficient model, will be sent to American bases in the Middle East. WSJ sources inform that the Pentagon considers such planes to be strong enough to protect US interests in the Middle East, therefore there is no need for more modern and equipped jets.

“The imperative is to get the most suitable aircraft to the Pacific for the higher threat challenges (…) The A-10 is still relevant to the mission CENTCOM (United States Central Command) flies over the Middle East”, Larry Stutzriem, a retired Air Force major general, told WSJ.

There is still a lack of official and more concrete information on the subject, but, in fact, this move was already expected. The Middle East is no longer part of the focus of attention in American foreign policy today. In the midst of a proxy war with Russia and the imminent emergence of a conflict with China in Taiwan, it is expected that more and more modern war equipment will be transported to regions close to Russian and Chinese territories.

According to the most recent issue of the National Defense Review, published by the Pentagon last year, China would be a kind of “pacing threat.” This means that the US sees China as a danger, but at the same time considers the threat “under control” – suggesting that Beijing is being closely “monitored”. Also, in recent speeches, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin repeatedly corroborated this thesis, emphasizing the “Chinese threat”.

Regarding Russia, a country that is already the victim of American aggression – through the Ukrainian neo-Nazi proxies -, the same document states that Moscow would be an “acute threat”. This means that the rivalry between the countries would be something far beyond the mere collision of strategic interests, being also related to an antagonism of values. This would “justify” exceptional measures in search of increasing American military capacity against Russia.

For these reasons, it is likely that the next few months will see a wide redeployment of forces by the Pentagon. All sorts of modern, sophisticated, and efficient weapons may be located as close as possible to Russian and Chinese borders. Some sources claim that F-35 fighters are about to be sent on a large scale to Europe and the Pacific. This happens, of course, in addition to the official and regular arms supply that already takes place with the enemy states of Russia and China. So, a new wave of militarization is starting, and certainly will not end anytime soon.

Obviously, this wave will not end US military campaigns in the Middle East – nor in other regions where Washington maintains troops. There is a concern on the part of the US to avoid the loss of territories that are already under its military domain. After victory of the Taliban in Kabul, the image of the American Army among global public opinion was strongly shaken. And given the imminent defeat of pro-NATO forces in Ukraine, there is concern on the part of the Pentagon that anti-US rebellions will arise around the world, demanding an end to territorial occupation or the handover of military bases to local governments. For this reason, certainly these moves are calculated in a very careful way. It means that, in the face of the emergence of possible new conflict situations, more redistributions of weapons may be made, always in accordance with the updates of American strategic interests.

On the other hand, with these mobilizations becoming clear, the tendency is for Russia and China to prepare themselves for an eventual situation of open conflict. More than that, the greater the American pressure, the more the two countries tend to deepen their bilateral cooperation, which may adopt clearer military contours soon. And given the many reports of problems with the US defense industry and cases of corruption and financial speculation in the military-industrial complex, there are many doubts about the US capacity to face the integrated Russian-Chinese alliance.

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Lucas Leiroz is a journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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“The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading as a last resort all other justifications having failed to justify themselves as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice”

Harold Pinter, from Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech [1]

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Last Sunday March 19, marks the 20th anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq, a scene of mass slaughter, inhumanity, and suffering waged by a U.S. President and his coalition of hit-men. [2]

Many mainstream media outlets have commemorated the actions of two decades ago and its aftermath, noting that the war was, in fact, a disaster both for the millions of people in Iraq, and for the thousands of U.S. soldiers laid to rest. There has been plenty of talk about the difficulties facing Iraqis despite the execution of Saddam Hussein and the presence of elections. The war effort led to the decline in popularity of the hawkish leaders with the reigning whips in their hands. [3][4][5][6]

But from a casual glance at many major publication broadcasts and print articles, there has been relatively little attention to the fact that the war was based not on faulty intelligence of weapons of mass destruction that could be used against America or one of its allies. It was based on LIES! [7]

People in the peace movement, armed with the truth thanks to sites like Global Research, strove to prevent the bloodshed that would follow. It alarms these individuals that many years later, people are forgetting the extreme actions taken by the rulers acting in their name. Hence, the follow up conflicts in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and now Ukraine.

On this pivotal anniversary, the Global Research News Hour hopes to spark the flames of domestic resistance to finally burn down the U.S. war machine serving the lust of Neo-cons and the greed of defense contractors, and not the righteousness of humanity suffering drowned out by the amnesiac mainstream media din. We will look back twenty years at how the war started, how it was executed, and how the country is situated today as a so-called model of the free.

We will talk in this episode about the illegality of this war with the complicity of the United Nations Security Council, the truth that was known about WMDs, and the heartache and misery dispensed on the people we were supposedly there to fight for. The viewpoints we will hear come from former UN humanitarian coordinator Denis Halliday, former weapons inspector in Iraq Scott Ritter, Law professor Marjorie Cohn, and veteran turned war resister Joshua Key. We will also get a brief expression of outrage from another veteran turned journalist Mike Prysner.

Denis Halliday is the former UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq ( September 1, 1997 until 1998.) He resigned from a 34 year career at the United nations in protest to what he saw as the ‘genocidal’ economic sanctions carried out against the Iraqi people through the UN Security Council.

Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.

Joshua Key  is an Iraq War veteran. He fled the war for reasons of conscience at the end of 2003, and with his then wife and children in tow, made his way across the border to Canada in early 2005. Joshua Key is the author, along with Lawrence (Book of Negroes) Hill of The Deserter’s Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier who Walked Away from the War in Iraq.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the national advisory boards of Assange Defense and Veterans For Peace, and the bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. Her books include Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral and Geopolitical Issues. She is co-host of “Law and Disorder” radio.

Mike Prysner is an Iraq War veteran turned anti-war activist. He has co-produced the Empire Files with noted journalist Abby Martin. He also produces the Eyes Left podcast.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 385)

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

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Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

  1. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2005/pinter/lecture/
  2. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-deaths-survey-idUSL3048857920080130
  3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/series/iraq-war-20-years-on
  4. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/mps-mark-20th-anniversary-of-iraq-war-with-tributes-to-british-lives-lost/ar-AA18RTrz
  5. https://www.ap.org/services/live-and-location-services/events/iraq-war-anniversary
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/18/world/middleeast/iraq-war-20th-anniversary.html
  7. https://truthout.org/articles/for-20-years-team-bush-has-escaped-prosecution-for-war-crimes-in-iraq/

Who Funds the Fight Against Climate Change?

March 24th, 2023 by Natalie Burg

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This article was originally published in October 2021.

This article provides data on the multibillion costs of the Climate Change Agenda, which is predicated on the reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions including C02. Amply documented, the Climate Change agenda is in large part based on scientific falsehoods. 

There are data from NASA, which is the North American Space Agency, and they show that in the last 18 years there was no general global warming.  What exists indeed – because we are not deniers of the problem – are  changes in different dimensions in the weather, in the climate and more so in the atmosphere, etc.  We are going to explain this more in this interview. 

The second is the CO2-question which is now very prominent as all these young people are now on the street, because they believe in this story and this dogma of the CO2.

And this is very strange because a lot of scientists, real scientists, are denying the influence of CO2 as a reason for climate change or as an influence at all.” (Prof. Claudia von Werlhof)

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As a global society, we must increase spending to at least $4.13 trillion every year by 20301 to fund an energy transition sufficient to keep the planet below a temperature rise of 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a 2021 report by environmental think tank Climate Policy Initiative. That’s a lot. Especially compared to current spending. The annual global climate investment averaged $632 billion per year over 2019 and 2020—15 percent of the $4.13 trillion target.

That $632 billion accounts for direct investment in things like infrastructure, energy efficiency, and other big-ticket initiatives around systemic change to mitigate or adapt to climate change. (The numbers don’t include donations or the funding of things like research and development or public information campaigns.)

Due to rounding, subtotals don’t quite add up to Climate Policy Initiative’s total of $632 billion.

Here’s another critical number: $3.5 trillion. That’s the gap. That’s how much more money the world needs to spend every year, on top of what’s happening now to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. So who’s gonna fill it?

Source: Climate Policy Initiative, “Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2021.

Despite the shortfall in current climate finance, there is growing optimism that nations, organizations, and individuals will rally to meet the challenge—with their checkbooks at the ready.

“Finance is a huge lever, and possibly the most important lever, for the low-carbon economic transition,” Cooper Wetherbee, an analyst with the think tank Climate Policy Initiative (CPI), told me in an interview in March 2021, “if we use it correctly.”

To understand what that means, here’s the Means & Matters guide to the myriad groups, sectors, and industries pouring billions into climate action, whether it’s through sustainable infrastructure, innovation, carbon offsetting activities, and individual actions to minimize emissions.

What They’re Doing with the Money — And What They’re Not

1. Governments and Intergovernmental Organizations Big spenders that must think bigger (and smarter)2019/2020 Climate investment: $321 BILLION1Governments and intergovernmental organizations—such as the UN—are among the most significant funders of climate change action. The $321 billion in climate finance from public sources account for 51 percent of total global commitments.1

Even so, public investment needs to grow. The 2019/2020 spending only increased 10 percent over 2017/2018 after two successive growth periods of 24 percent. The aim should be more like 450 percent.

But the European Union gives us some hope, leading the public-spending pack. The EU committed to making at least 20 percent of its spending climate-related between 2014 and 2020.2 As of 2020, the EU reached these goals, with annual expenditures of more than €34 billion (equal to $40 billion) on climate change mitigation. The EU isn’t stopping there. Between 2021 and 2027, the EU plans to increase its climate spending to 25 percent of its total expenditure.The United States had fallen behind its European peers3 in climate change financing per capita after years of not even including the word “climate” in budgets4. But the Biden Administration is racing to catch back up. Between the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and 2022’s CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, US climate spending is set to triple over the next decade.5The $1 trillion infrastructure bill, for example, included more than $62 billion to support clean energy initiatives through the US Department of Energy, from manufacturing and workforce investments to expanding residential and commercial access to energy efficiency and renewable energy.6 This year’s Inflation Reduction Act includes $369 billion for cutting emissions, manufacturing clean energy products, and advancing environmental justice programs—investments the Biden Administration says will reduce US carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and save $1.9 trillion in climate damages by 2050.7At the same time, some states have retained or stepped up climate investment. California, the fifth-largest economy in the world, announced $54 billion planned in climate spending in September of 2022.8, 9Meanwhile, China, the world’s largest source of CO2 emissions, announced its allocation of $57 billion for ecology and environment protection in 2020 and pledged to become carbon neutral by 2060.10, 11 The fund will focus on air pollution prevention and control, as well as water and soil protection.While increasing the amount of public climate investment is critical, so is increasing the strategic approach of these investments.

“A massive transformation is needed to unlock the trillions required to help the world shift to a low-carbon future and build resilience to climate change,” wrote Sophie Yeo for Nature in 2019.12 

Financiers will have to step away from approaching climate change on a project-by-project basis—a wind farm here, a solar plant there—and start thinking about the carbon impact of every dollar spent . . . it’s really up to policymakers to incentivize this shift by financially discouraging the wrong kinds of projects.”

2. Corporations

Bulls in the China shop of climate action

2019/2020 Climate investment: $124 BILLION1

Industry is responsible for more than 20 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions.13 That makes one thing very clear: Private sector climate investment shouldn’t be viewed as philanthropy, but a necessary and just response to the environmental damage corporations have caused.

“The historically and current biggest emitters are the ones that both can and should be increasing their climate finance,” Climate Policy Initiative analyst Matthew Solomon said to me during our March call. “They’ve caused this crisis, so they should be paying to fix it. But also, if you’re emitting hundreds of millions of tons of CO2 every year, you’re best positioned to reduce that.”

Globally, corporations may have invested an average of $124 billion into climate action in 2019 and 2020, but that’s actually a decrease from their 2018/2018 average of $183 billion.1,14 And they’re investing in plenty of harm, too. Anti-climate politicians get nearly twice the corporate donations as those who vote in favor of climate action.15

Source: Climate Policy Initiative, “Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2021.

There are signs of hope. Market pressure is creating an incentive for companies to act, and some companies are responding. Tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook, and others vowed to power their data centers with 100 percent renewable energy.16 Companies known for their long commitment to climate action, such as Patagonia and REI, are demonstrating the market advantage of environmental investment. And the growing number of certified B corporations demonstrates a global shift toward building sustainability into companies’ business models. As many as 1,200 companies around the world have science-based targets in line with becoming net-zero by 2050.17

3. Funds and Institutional Investors

Private investors placing big-time bets on climate action

2019/2020 Climate investment: $8 BILLION1

What’s this category? “Funds” include things like venture capital and private equity, and institutional investors are big stock market movers, like pension funds. For most folks, the spending in this category can seem a little confusing, but it basically all falls into big-time private sector investing. Fortunately, the rising popularity of ESG investing is helping motivate these forces to channel money toward the good of the planet.

Here’s a venture capital investment example that many people will recognize: Beyond Meat is a plant-based burger company with a tasty enough product to inspire consumers to grapple with the environmental impact of industrial farming—which is huge. One study found18 that if everyone in the US swapped a quarter of the meat they now eat with plant-based proteins, it would eliminate 82 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.

Investments in sustainable food innovation may be helping us get there: growth in plant-based protein shipments to restaurants grew 20 percent in 2020, while meat shipments grew by two percent.19Beyond Meat serves as a case study for the potential impact of climate-focused venture capital. As of October 2021, the VC-backed Beyond Meat reached market capitalization of around $6.7 billion.20

While massive investment is a key ingredient in the needed climate finance paradigm shift, so is strategic investment in potentially game-changing innovation. For instance, not long ago, it might have been unimaginable to give up on personal car ownership for many. However, thanks to the billions of dollars venture capitalists put into micro-mobility solutions such as e-scooters, a car-free life is now a possibility for millions.21

According to a PwC report, climate tech VC funding grew a whopping 3750% between 2013 and 2019.22 Led by the efforts of VC firms such as Khosla Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and others, more than 1,200 climate tech startups received a total investment of $60 billion.

4. Banks

Moderate climate investors with the capacity to change the game

2019/2020 Climate investment: $122 BILLION1

The connection between banks and climate change can seem fuzzy at best. But it’s more direct than it seems: Most of the money people deposit in the bank goes back out into the world in the form of loans. Those loans can fund things like mortgages or small businesses, as well as climate startups and solar farms.

“Banks are playing a more prominent role as an intermediary of sustainable and green debt instruments as well as a broader trend of setting climate-related targets,” states the Climate Policy Initiative in their 2021 report.1 There is no doubt that the banking industry has woefully underinvested in the climate in the past—but if there’s a silver lining to CPI’s new analysis it’s that commercial finance institutions increased their spending by 154 percent since the organization’s 2019 report.

Banks appear to be continuing on the right track. Based on financing data from the first few months of 2021, banks are on pace to lend more this year to renewable energy projects than to fossil fuel projects, according to an analysis by Bloomberg.23 And 117 global banks representing $70 trillion in assets have joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), committing their investment and lending portfolios to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.24

Overall annual climate spending must grow 454 percent by 2030 to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, so it’s not as if banks’ 150 percent increase is anything close to a silver bullet. But given the size and influence of the industry, it’s encouraging to see banking moving in the right direction.

5. Individuals

Small-scale investors with big-time influence

2019/2020 Climate investment: $55 BILLION1

“From the food we eat to clothes we wear or the buildings we live in, carbon is in everything we do. Consumers are increasingly more aware of this,” said Duncan Grierson, CEO and Founder of Clim8, a green investment app. “But a Swedish schoolgirl showed the world that no individual is too small to make a difference.”

The 2022 IPCC report on climate mitigation quantified that potential difference. For the first time, the IPCC working group measured the impact of “socio-cultural changes“—aka, shifts to public transit, reduced meat consumption and appliance use, shorter showers, and more.25 The report said these behavior changes “can offer Gigaton-scale CO2 savings potential at the global level, and therefore represent a substantial overlooked strategy in traditional mitigation scenarios.”

Of course, behavior change includes people’s choices as consumers. Households’ average annual climate-related spending over both 2017/2018 and 2019/2020 was $55 billion, holding steady after rising 50 percent between 2013 and 2018.1,15

Consumers are primarily investing in electric vehicles and installing solar panels on their homes. Some people are even finding ways to offset their own carbon footprint. Others are investing their wealth more sustainably. Today, one in three investment dollars that are professionally managed in the US use sustainable investing strategies, and 80 percent of investors believe companies with leading sustainability practices make better long-term investments.26, 27

The downside is that when it comes to the kind of direct capital flows needed to reach global climate targets, the financial influence of individuals is simply much smaller than other actors, like governments, banks, and corporations. While $55 billion isn’t nothing, it is less than 10 percent of the 2019/2020 climate financing totals, and individuals simply aren’t in control of the kind of large-scale infrastructure decisions required to slow climate change. A single household can’t, for example, wake up in the morning and decide to fund a light rail system in their region.

However, they can—and increasingly do—use their power as consumers to influence the entities that do. That is, they can elect leaders who will invest in light rail, and then they can pay to ride it. In 2019, nearly half of consumers said they’d pay more for sustainable products—and Gen Z, the consumer of the future, was willing to pay 50-100 percent more. In the 2020 election, climate voters donated tens of millions of dollars to pro-climate action candidates.28

“It’s important to know that consumers are not solely responsible for solving the climate crisis,” Solomon said. “But they do have power in numbers to influence the people who are making the problem worse.”

More Money and Beyond

The numbers on global climate finance tell a simple story: Everyone needs to do more—much more. Banks, corporations, and governments, in particular, have the capacity to ramp up their efforts. The Climate Policy Initiative’s report urges that “coordination across silos of public and private financial actors is needed to ensure coherence and impact on net-zero and sustainability.” 1

Is that goal possible on a global scale—in a complex world? The experts are taking an optimistic view.

“A movement is underway to take renewables from being a niche sector to being an important part of the whole picture,” Wetherbee said. “We have to green the whole picture, not just have a little place on the shelf for renewables, alongside all the harmful things we’re doing.”

The task may seem enormous, but all around the world we know what is needed and the roadmap is clearly laid out. The momentous shift is already underway.

“We have the solutions,” Solomon said. “We know what we need to do. It’s just a matter now of doing it.”

*

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Natalie Burg is a freelance writer and editor in Ann Arbor, where she spends much of her time getting out from under a pile of tiny people and large dogs, keeping her 1938 Cape Cod from falling over, and writing about sustainability, business, and public policy.

Notes

1. Climate Policy Initiative, “Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2021.” https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/publication/global-landscape-of-climate-finance-2021/

2. European Union, “Supporting climate action through the EU budget.” https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/budget/mainstreaming_en

3. Joe Thwaites, World Resources Institute, “2020 Budget Shows Progress on Climate Finance, But US Continues to Fall Behind Peers.” https://www.wri.org/insights/2020-budget-shows-progress-climate-finance-us-continues-fall-behind-peers

4. Jean Chemnick, Thomas Frank, Scientific American, “Climate Change Once Again Left Out of Trump’s Federal Budget.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-change-once-again-left-out-of-trumps-federal-budget/

5. Victoria Masterson, World Economic Forum “Three laws will triple US climate change spending over the next decade.” https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/us-climate-change-tech-spending/

6. US Department of Energy, “DOE Fact Sheet: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Will Deliver For American Workers, Families and Usher in the Clean Energy Future.” https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-fact-sheet-bipartisan-infrastructure-deal-will-deliver-american-workers-families-and-0

7. Emma Newburger, CNBC, “CLIMATE POLICYInflation Reduction Act could curb climate damages by up to $1.9 trillion, White House says.” https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/24/inflation-reduction-act-could-cut-climate-damages-by-1point9-trillion.html

8. CBS News, “California now has the world’s 5th largest economy.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-now-has-the-worlds-5th-largest-economy/

9. Office of Governor Gavin Newsom, “Governor Newsom Signs Sweeping Climate Measures, Ushering in New Era of World-Leading Climate Action,” https://www.gov.ca.gov/2022/09/16/governor-newsom-signs-sweeping-climate-measures-ushering-in-new-era-of-world-leading-climate-action/

10. Reuters, “China to allocate $57 billion to environment protection.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-environment-budget-idUSKBN22Y0BU

11. European External Action Service, “China carbon neutrality in 2060: a possible game changer for climate.” https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage/87431/china-carbon-neutrality-2060-possible-game-changer-climate_en

12. Sophie Yeo, “Where climate cash is flowing and why it’s not enough.” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02712-3

13. EPA, “Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data.” https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data

14. Climate Policy Initiative, “Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2019.” https://www.climatepolicyinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2019-Global-Landscape-of-Climate-Finance.pdf

15. Bre Bradham, Andre Tartar and Hayley Warren, Bloomberg, “American Politicians Who Vote Against Climate Get More Corporate Cash.” https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/22/top-oil-firms-spending-millions-lobbying-to-block-climate-change-policies-says-report

16. Greenpeace, “Clicking Clean:Who Is Winning the Race to Build a Green Internet?” http://www.clickclean.org/international/en/

17. United Nations Climate Action, “Net Zero Coalition.” https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition

18. Gidon Eshel, Paul Stainier, Alon Shepon & Akshay Swaminathan, Scientific Reports, “Environmentally Optimal, Nutritionally Sound, Protein and Energy Conserving Plant Based Alternatives to U.S. Meat.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-46590-1

19. Mihai Andrei, ZME Science, “The meat industry is freaking out over plant-based meat. They should.” https://www.zmescience.com/other/pieces/meat-industry-plant-alternatives-19022021/

20. Bloomberg, “BYND:US, NASDAQ GS” https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/BYND:US

21. Pitchbook, “Emerging Tech Research: Mobility Tech.” https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/q1-2020-emerging-tech-research-mobility-tech

22. Dr. Celine Herweijer and Azeem Azhar, PwC, “The State of Climate Tech 2020.” https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/services/sustainability/assets/pwc-the-state-of-climate-tech-2020.pdf

23. Tim Quinson and Mathieu Benhamou, Bloomberg, “Banks Always Backed Fossil Fuel Over Green Projects—Until This Year.” https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-wall-street-banks-ranked-green-projects-fossil-fuels/

24. Net-Zero Banking Alliance, https://www.unepfi.org/net-zero-banking/members/

25. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change.https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/

26. US SIF: The Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment, “The US SIF Foundation’s Biennial “Trends Report” Finds That Sustainable Investing Assets Reach $17.1 Trillion.” https://www.ussif.org/blog_home.asp?Display=155

27. Morgan Stanley, Sustainable Signals: Individual Investors and the COVID-19 Pandemic.” https://www.morganstanley.com/assets/pdfs/2021-Sustainable_Signals_Individual_Investor.pdf

28. Lisa Friedman, New York Times, “‘Climate Donors’ Flock to Biden to Counter Trump’s Fossil Fuel Money.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/climate/climate-change-biden.html

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American ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) capabilities are undeniable. The United States has been using the aforementioned capabilities to enhance its underhanded tactics, particularly in regard to stoking tensions between global powers such as China and India.

With the Asian giants being the pillars of both Greater Eurasia and the multipolar world led by BRICS nations, it’s adamant for America to ensure Beijing and New Delhi remain locked in perpetual border disputes that help neither China nor India in any way imaginable. On the other hand, prospects for deepening their cooperation in virtually all spheres are effectively endless and in the best interest of both.

It could even be argued that the areas Beijing and New Delhi are both claiming are of negligible economic and (geo)political value for either, especially given the fact they’re among the least developed regions in both countries, with little to no prospects for otherwise, as both global powers’ core cities and provinces are hundreds of kilometers away, at best.

Several American news sources recently reported that the US allegedly “provided India with unprecedented intelligence-sharing during a clash between Indian and Chinese troops in December 2022 along the disputed border high in the Himalayas, known as the Line of Actual Control [LAC]”.

The US News report cited several former and current Washington DC officials who claim that the intelligence shared with New Delhi was part of the 2020 agreement between the US and India known as BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement).

According to US News, the Pentagon

“provided India with real-time details of China’s positions and its force strength ahead of the [border] clashes, which the sources say were sparked by a Chinese military incursion, and Indian troops maneuvered to intercept the Chinese forces”. The information provided by the US apparently included satellite imagery and was “more detailed and delivered faster than anything provided by the US before”.

The sudden change of pace in American intelligence sharing with New Delhi can only be explained by the recent strides India and China have made toward full reconciliation and finding the final solution to the decades-old territorial disputes, the vast majority of which are the vestige of British colonial and imperialist policies.

Luckily, Chinese and Indian troops in the disputed areas are only armed with melee weapons, a part of mutually agreed measures to prevent escalation.

Washington DC (ab)used the 2020-early 2021 escalation of Sino-Indian border scuffles to further drive a wedge between them, all under the guise it supposedly “cares about India’s security”. In the last several decades, the US (particularly the Pentagon) has been trying to build closer ties with New Delhi in an attempt to enlarge the zone of strategic containment of China. One of the ways of achieving this has been the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, colloquially known as the Quad, a largely informal security forum whose members are Australia, India, Japan and the US. It was initiated by Tokyo in 2007, with the obvious goal of strategically countering China’s rise. However, while New Delhi sees it as just another part of its multi-vectored foreign policy framework, the Quad is heavily (ab)used by the US and its satellites to derail China’s and India’s efforts to improve relations.

As a result, the ties between the US and India are slowly rupturing, particularly as New Delhi is coming under increased pressure due to its strategic partnership with Russia. Washington DC’s attempts to turn the Quad into a sort of quasi-NATO that would encompass most of the Indo-Pacific failed multiple times, as India repeatedly prevented joint Quad statements condemning Russia’s counteroffensive against NATO aggression in Europe. This has forced the US to turn to the much more tightly knit AUKUS which includes the US, UK and Australia, and is aimed at maintaining the political West’s power in the Asia-Pacific by targeting China, although in recent times this has also included North Korea’s and Russia’s Far Eastern interests. India simply wants to stay out of these disputes while maintaining its own independent geopolitical course.

For its part, Russia wholeheartedly supports this, as precisely such policies form the basis of the new multipolar world, where each individual country is encouraged to exercise the sovereign right to choose its own path while concurrently respecting the principles of indivisible security. The US-led political West finds each of these policies completely unacceptable and wants absolute subservience, which they are extremely unlikely to ever get from India.

However, Washington DC still needs New Delhi on good terms, as this is the only way to prevent the formation of a giant Eurasian monolith, which the US could never hope to circumvent or ignore, let alone defeat. In contrast, Moscow has been mediating and working on bringing China and India closer, an effort that only a world-class diplomacy such as Russia’s can achieve, something Washington DC can only dream of considering the fact that its foreign policy has long since degenerated into arm-twisting, blackmail and aggression.

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Einführung in Thematik

Es wird zunehmend schwieriger, sich im Schungel von Lügen und Halbwahrheiten zurechtzufinden. Immer mehr Zeitgenossen wollen deshalb nichts mehr hören von Politikern.

Mich persönlich halten die alternativen Medien „über Wasser“, weil sie wegen ihrer Regierungs-Unabhängigkeit der Wahrheit noch „die Ehre erweisen“.

Da wir aber nicht davon ausgehen können, dass „freie Geister“ uns jeweils lehren, was Wahrheit und was Lüge ist, sollten wir selbst in die Lage kommen, sie voneinander zu unterscheiden. Wir müssen lernen, selbst zu denken (Kant). Deshalb der Versuch einer psychologischen Annäherung an die Thematik. Erwähnenswert ist auch der Artikel von Dr. Garcia „Lügen, verdammte Lügen und Elefanten“ (1).

Der 20. Jahrestag des Beginns des völkerrechtswidrigen Angriffskrieges der USA, Großbritanniens und einer „Koalition der Willigen“ gegen den Irak ist sicherlich ein geeigneter Anlass, um über die zerstörerischen Auswirkungen von politischen Lügen und Manipulation aufzuklären.

Doch im Folgenden wird es nicht nur um die Gewalt als ultima ratio der Politik gehen, sondern ganz generell um die zerstörerischen Auswirkungen von Lüge und Manipulation auf die menschliche Seele und die menschlichen Beziehungen sowie um die Wahrheit als „Gegenmittel“.

Für den Aufbau von Vertrauen zum Mitmenschen sind die Informationen und kulturellen Werte, die Eltern und Erzieher täglich an das Kind herantragen, von großer Bedeutung 

Das Menschenbild der christlich-abendländischen Kultur besagt, dass der Mensch – auch schon das kleine Kind – schlechte Eigenschaften in sich trägt. Mit dieser Information – sei sie bewusst oder unbewusst – treten die Erzieher an das Kind heran. Immer vermuten sie einen bösen Willen beim Kind und sind deshalb oft unaufrichtig, streng und gewalttätig. Dadurch bekommt das Kind Angst vor dem anderen Menschen.

Wenn das Kind lernt, Angst zu haben, durchzieht dies sein ganzes Tun und Handeln, wie es sich in der Gemeinschaft bewegt und gibt. Die Gefühlsreaktion der Angst wird dann ein Bestandteil seines Charakters, den es bis ins Erwachsenenalter mehr oder weniger bewusst in jede zwischenmenschliche Beziehung hineinträgt.

Auch das Vertrauen zum Mitmenschen – das Fundament einer Persönlichkeit – entsteht in der Beziehung zu den Personen der Kindheit. Da der Mensch das Produkt der Erlebnisse, Erfahrungen und Eindrücke ist, die ihm Eltern, Lehrer und Erzieher von frühester Kindheit an vermitteln, ist entscheidend, welche Art von Informationen und welche kulturell vorherrschenden Werte sie an das Kind herantragen.

Wird das Kind durch unwahre Informationen und/oder verwirrende Lügen verunsichert und getäuscht, wird es sich von den Mitmenschen distanzieren. Das Vertrauen in den anderen kann nur entstehen, wenn es sich auf dessen Redlichkeit verlassen kann.

Liebe Leser, gestatten Sie mir, in diesem Zusammenhang auf ungünstige Auswirkungen der religiösen Erziehung auf die Kinder-Seele aufmerksam zu machen: es geht um nicht existente Geister, Teufel und Engel.

Kaum zeigen sich beim Kind die ersten seelischen Regungen und es lernt zu sprechen, wird es von den Eltern und der Kirche „in Obhut genommen“. Bildet sich einige Jahre später das Bewusstsein des „Ichs“, so schalten sich bereits Gott und Teufel der betreffenden Religion ein. Seinen Kristallisationspunkt findet der dem Kind beigebrachte Dämonenglaube in den Vorstellungen von Teufel und Hölle. Angstneurosen und schwere seelische Störungen sind nach Auffassung von Psychiatern bisweilen die Folge.

„Psychologische Operationen“ im gesamtgesellschaftlichen Raum 

Die Lüge ist eine Aussage, von der der Lügner weiß oder vermutet, dass sie unwahr ist. Er äußert sie mit der Absicht, dass der Empfänger sie glaubt. Auch die Manipulation eines anderen Menschen ist ein Betrug. Sie dient dazu, einen Vorteil zu erlangen und bedeutet die gezielte und verdeckte Einflussnahme oder Steuerung des Erlebens und Verhaltens von Einzelnen oder Gruppen, die diesen verborgen bleiben soll.

Bereits vor 500 Jahren verfasste Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) mit der Schrift „Der Fürst“ („Il Principe“) eines der ersten Werke der modernen politischen Philosophie. Hierzu schreibt die Schweizer Psychologin Dr. Barben:

„Für Machiavelli bedeuteten Macht und Ruhm alles, Güte und Menschlichkeit nichts. Er lobte diejenigen Despoten als mächtig und erfolgreich, ‚die es mit der Treue nicht genau nahmen und es verstanden, durch List die Menschen zu umgarnen‘. Ein Herrscher müsse, so schrieb er, ‚Milde, Treue, Menschlichkeit, Redlichkeit und Frömmigkeit zur Schau tragen‘, diese Eigenschaften aber wenn nötig brutal ‚in ihr Gegenteil verkehren‘. Auch dürfe er ‚vor dem Schlechten nicht zurückschrecken‘ und müsse fähig sein, ‚sich zu drehen und zu wenden nach dem Winde‘“ (2).

Doch diese uralten und groben Methoden des politischen Manipulators Machiavelli sollten mit der Zeit verschwinden. Deshalb setzten amerikanische „Spin-Doktors“

nach dem deutschen Mauerfall auf sanfte Gewalt („Soft Power“). Ein „Spin-Doktor“ ist ein Kommunikationsexperte, der dafür arbeitet, dass zum Beispiel die Öffentlichkeit eine Aussage oder einen Beschluss so verstehen, wie es für den Auftraggeber oder Politiker vorteilhaft ist (3).

Diese Form der Propaganda war im Vergleich zu den kommunistischen Methoden diskreter, subtiler und „gefälliger“. Joseph S. Ney, US-amerikanischer Regierungsberater und Harvard-Professor bezeichnete sie als „ein ausgezeichnetes Instrument, um die Welt dazu zu bringen, ‚freiwillig‘ das zu tun, was Amerika wolle“ (4). Mit “Soft Power“ war es möglich, die öffentliche Meinung in einer Weise zu formen, wie das bloße Propaganda nie konnte. Doch damit nicht genug!

Um die „Kommunikation“ zu verbessern, das heißt, die Meinung der Weltöffentlichkeit speziell in Kriegszeiten zu „optimieren“, wurde die „Psy-Op“-Gruppe der US-Armee um Zehntausende von Mitarbeitern verstärkt und die Zusammenarbeit mit Hollywood-Studios intensiviert. „Psy-Op“ soll „psychologische Operation“ heißen anstelle des ehemals hässlichen Begriffs „psychologische Kriegsführung“. Larry Dietz, ein hochrangiger, auf psychologische Kriegsführung spezialisierter US-Militär, definierte „PsyOp“ jedoch so:

„Psychologische Operationen sind ein zusätzliches Waffensystem, um eine Mission zu erfüllen, die ein militärischer Kommandant befiehlt. (…). Das Ziel von PsyOp besteht darin, das Verhalten (von Zielpersonen) im Sinne des militärischen Kommandos zu beeinflussen.“ (5) Siehe hierzu auch den Artikel von Alan Lash: „Psyops sind nicht neu, nur gefährlicher“ (6).

Zieht man noch einmal das berühmte Zitat von Leo Tolstoi (1828-1910) über den Charakter von Regierenden heran und erfährt, dass die Politiker „die verlogensten Menschen“ sind, dann fragt man sich, wieso wir Bürger ihnen so leichtfertig die Macht übergeben:

„Man könnte die Unterordnung eines ganzen Volkes unter wenige Leute noch rechtfertigen, wenn die Regierenden die besten Menschen wären; aber das ist nicht der Fall, war niemals der Fall und kann es nie sein. Es herrschen häufig die schlechtesten, unbedeutendsten, grausamsten, sittenlosesten und besonders die verlogensten Menschen. Und daß dem so ist, ist kein Zufall.“ (7)

Auch ist die Frage des Krieges eine allgemeine Kulturfrage, die daran erinnert, dass unsere gesamte Kultur vom Prinzip der Gewalttätigkeit durchdrungen ist und deshalb immer wieder auch auf den Irrtum verfällt, völkische Probleme durch die Methode der Gewalt, das heißt, den Krieg lösen zu können. Überall wird die Macht über die menschliche Solidarität und das Gemeinschaftsgefühl gestellt. 

Psychologische Operation „Killerspiele“: harmlose „Unterhaltungsgewalt“? 

Eine weitere Zielgruppe von ‚PsyOp‘ sind Kinder und Jugendliche – ein besonders finsteres Kapitel. Hierzu schreibt Dr. Barben:

„Um die Tötungsraten bei militärischen Einsätzen zu erhöhen, setzt das Pentagon Simulatoren ein, an denen das routinemäßige Töten geübt wird. Mit diesen wird den Soldaten die natürliche Tötungshemmung abtrainiert. Sie üben das schnelle und automatische Töten möglichst vieler Menschen. Vor einigen Jahren schloss das Pentagon Verträge mit Hollywood ab. Die Film- und Unterhaltungsindustrie versah die militärischen Mordsimulatoren mit einem ‚attraktiven‘ Design und vermarktete sie als ‚Kinderspiele‘“. (8)

In Wirklichkeit bewirken diese „Spiele“ bei Kindern und Jugendlichen genau das gleiche wie bei den Soldaten. Nach Auffassung des US-amerikanischen Militärpsychologen Dave Grossman gewöhnen sie ans Töten und verrohen das Gefühl (9).  

Zur Thematik „Killerspiele“ verfasste der Autor zusammen mit anerkannten Universitätsprofessoren, Militärwissenschaftlern, Jugendpsychiatern, Heimleitern und betroffenen Gymnasiasten zwei Handreichungen für Eltern und Lehrer: „Da spiel ich nicht mit!“ (10) und „Game over!“ (11). Beide befassen sich mit den Auswirkungen dieser sogenannten „Unterhaltungsgewalt“ in Fernsehen, Video- und Computerspielen – und was man dagegen unternehmen kann. 

Wann wird sich das Menschheitsgewissen endgültig Gehör verschaffen?

Das wirksamste Gegenmittel gegen Lüge und Manipulation ist die Wahrheit beziehungsweise ihre Verbreitung. Doch noch können wir nicht sagen, wann sich das Menschheitsgewissen, dessen Mahnruf durch die Jahrhunderte gellt, endgültig Gehör verschaffen wird, um den schrecklichen Irrtum der Herrschsucht aufzuzeigen.

Auch wissen wir nicht, wann das Menschheitsgewissen die sogenannte „absolute Wahrheit“ verkünden wird, wonach die Menschen zusammengehören und unter dem Gesetz stehen, zusammenzuwirken und einander die Hände zu reichen. Es besteht jedoch kein Zweifel, dass der Bestand des Menschengeschlechts davon abhängen wird, dass sich die Menschen in weit höherem Maße als bisher zur allmenschlichen Solidarität bekennen.

Bis zum heutigen Tag wird unter denen, die darauf angewiesen wären, sich gemeinsam gegen die Naturgewalten zu wenden und allen Menschen auf dieser Erde ein erträgliches Dasein zu sichern, Zwietracht gesät und auch werden sie nach „Strich und Faden belogen“.

Somit ermöglicht das Vorrecht der Regierenden und die Verblendung der Regierten immer wieder Rückfälle in die kriegerische Gesinnung, die im Leben des Einzelnen wie der Völker unsägliches Leiden verursacht. Gleichzeitig wird in schamloser Weise vom „Ethos des Krieges“ gesprochen, in dem sich die edelsten Tugenden des Menschen wie Mut und Entsagung, Pflichttreue und Opferwilligkeit entfalten würden.

Aufklärung und Erziehung als wichtigste Maßnahmen gegen Lüge, Manipulation und Krieg  

Die Geschichte ist ein Werk des Menschen. Wenn man diese Welt ändern will, muss man den Menschen ändern. Demgemäß sind Aufklärung und Erziehung die erfolgversprechendsten Maßnahmen, die gegen den Krieg, die Manipulation und die Lüge ergriffen werden können.

Natürlich sollten Eltern und Erzieher die Kinder dazu anhalten, stets bei der Wahrheit zu bleiben. Und wenn man sie noch nicht kennt, sollte man den anderen dazu einladen, sie gemeinsam zu ergründen. Auch ist es von zentraler Bedeutung, dass die Erwachsenen den Kindern stets Vorbild an Redlichkeit und Wahrhaftigkeit sind.

Lüge und Manipulation achten weder die Würde noch die Gleichwertigkeit der Menschen. Sie verstoßen gegen das Gewissen und das Gebot der Brüderlichkeit. Indem sie den Mitmenschen zum Manipulationsobjekt herabwürdigen, respektieren sie ihn nicht als gleichwertigen Partner.

Wer die ehrliche Absicht hat zu informieren, kann sich zwar irren, aber er fühlt sich der Wahrheit verpflichtet. Er will dem anderen etwas Wahres mitteilen. Dabei verfolgt er keinen heimlichen Zweck, den er vor dem anderen verbirgt.

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.

Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.

Noten 

https://www.globalresearch.ca/lies-damned-lies-elephants/5811493

2 Barben, Judith (2009). Spin doctors im Bundeshaus. CH-5401 Baden

https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/lexika/politiklexikon/296497/spin-doctor/

4 Barben, Judith (2009). Spin doctors im Bundeshaus. CH-5401 Baden, S. 37

5 a. O., S. 40

https://www.globalresearch.ca/psyops-not-new-just-more-dangerous/5812602

7 Tolstoi, Leo N. (1968). Rede gegen den Krieg. Frankfurt a. M., S. 74

8 Barben, Judith (2009). Spin doctors im Bundeshaus. CH-5401 Baden, S. 41f.

9 a. O., S. 42

10 Hänsel, Rudolf und Renate (Hrsg) (2005). Da spiel ich nicht mit! Auswirkungen von „Unterhaltungsgewalt“ in Fernsehen, Video- und Computerspielen – und was man dagegen tun kann. Donauwörth

11 Hänsel, Rudolf (2011). GAME OVER! Wie Killerspiele unsere Jugend manipulieren. Berlin

 

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Are These the 19 Most Important Dietary Supplements to Take?

March 24th, 2023 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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Molecular hydrogen is a selective antioxidant, meaning it doesn’t indiscriminately suppress free radicals but, rather, helps your body make the antioxidants it needs

Glycine and NAC are glutathione precursors; your body uses glutathione to increase the effectiveness of antioxidants such as vitamin C, which is why it’s known as the “master antioxidant”

Magnesium is involved in the functioning of more than 300 enzymes, and many people are deficient

The best supplements for you depend on your age, health status, diet and health goals

I mention a bonus supplement at the end of the article

*

While dietary supplements cannot take the place of a healthy lifestyle, they can be used strategically to boost your health, especially in cases of deficiency. In the U.S., 57.6% of adults aged 20 and over use supplements, with multivitamins, vitamin D and omega-3 fats representing the top three.1 Another survey put the percentage of Americans using supplements at 86%.2

So, it’s safe to say that many people are interested in taking control of their health with the support of supplemental vitamins, minerals and other compounds. But, when it comes to supplements, more isn’t always better.

To ensure you’re using only supplements you need — avoiding wasting your money while maintaining your body’s balance — I recommend using dietary interventions first. Next, work with a holistic health care practitioner who can guide you on which supplements your body truly needs.

19 Supplements I Consider Essential

The best supplements for you depend on your age, health status and health goals. If having a practitioner guide you isn’t possible, essential supplements may be next on your list — and I’ve compiled the list in rank order of what I believe to be the most important ones.

Some of the most important individual variables you need to consider would be if you are plant-based or choose to eat animal products. While many plant-based diets are fundamentally healthy, they do lack some vital nutrients, like vitamin B12, retinol, vitamin K2, carnosine, carnitine, collagen and choline. If you are plant-based, you will certainly want to consider adding these to your regimen.

1. Molecular Hydrogen (H2)

Molecular hydrogen acts as a selective antioxidant, meaning it doesn’t indiscriminately suppress free radicals. Rather, it’s unique in that it helps your body make its own endogenous antioxidants. This is important because excessive use of antioxidants can be counterproductive, while molecular hydrogen serves as a redox regulator.

The H2 molecule is the smallest in the universe, which allows it to diffuse through all cell membranes, including the blood-brain barrier and subcellular compartments, and into the mitochondria. According to Tyler LeBaron, Ph.D., it’s been shown to have therapeutic benefits in more than 170 different animal disease models.3 While there’s no risk of overdosing on molecular hydrogen, intermittent exposure produces the best results.

2. Vitamin D

Vitamin D has multiple actions on the immune system, including enhancing the production of antimicrobial peptides by immune cells, reducing damaging pro-inflammatory cytokines, and promoting the expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines.4

A recent study found giving vitamin D to people with COVID-19 cut risk of death from SARS-CoV-2 by 51% and reduced risk of admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) by 72%.5,6 Vitamin D also plays a role in heart disease, as it improves circulation and may be beneficial for high blood pressure. In addition, due to its effects on endothelial function, vitamin D may also help improve or prevent heart failure, heart attack, vasculopathy, stroke and diabetes.7

Ideally, optimize your vitamin D levels via sensible sun exposure, as there are many benefits to sun exposure even aside from vitamin D, such as increasing mitochondrial melatonin by near infrared (IR) exposure.

My vitamin D level is typically between 80 and 100 and I haven’t taken any vitamin D supplements so you can get your levels high if you are disciplined about your sun exposure. Just be sure to make sure you are eating a very low linoleic acid (LA) diet as it is excessive omega-6 fats that virtually everyone consumes, that cause sun-induced skin cancers.

However, if getting healthy sun exposure simply isn’t an option for you due to your location or lifestyle, daily vitamin D3 supplementation of 8,000 to 10,000 units is likely needed to reach a vitamin D level of 60 to 80 ng/mL.

Data from GrassrootsHealth’s D*Action studies suggest the optimal level for health and disease prevention is between 60 ng/mL and 80 ng/mL, while the cutoff for sufficiency appears to be around 40 ng/mL. In Europe, the measurements you’re looking for are 150 to 200 nmol/L and 100 nmol/L respectively.

The only way to gauge whether you might need to supplement, and how much to take, however, is to get your level tested, ideally twice a year — in the early spring and early fall — when your level is at its low point and peak, respectively. Make sure that your supplemental vitamin D intake is balanced with other nutrients, including vitamin K2 (to avoid complications associated with excessive calcification in your arteries) and magnesium.

3. Niacinamide

NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is one of the most important biomolecules in your body. It’s involved in the conversion of food to energy, maintaining DNA integrity and ensuring proper cell function. Together, these functions help protect against or delay aging and virtually all chronic disease.

NAD+ also acts as fuel for longevity proteins called sirtuins. Sadly, NAD levels dramatically decline with age, contributing to aging and chronic disease states. NAD is also used up by DNA repair enzymes and enzymes involved in inflammation and immunity, such that chronic inflammation, or acute illness in old age, can rapidly result in depletion.

To restore NAD_, you need to fix the root cause for NAD+ depletion, which primarily involves addressing the decline in the NAD salvage pathway. By increasing enzymes in that pathway, which decline with age, your body can recycle NAD_ like it did naturally when it was younger. For more information, please review my fantastic interview with molecular biologist Nichola Conlon, Ph.D.

In addition to optimizing NAD+ levels, it also blocks lipolysis which is important if you are the more than 99% of the population that have elevated linoleic acid (LA) levels. Reducing the release of LA from your tissues will lower the amount of oxidative stress in in your body.

Niacinamide, like progesterone, inhibits the production of nitric oxide, and also like progesterone, it improves recovery from brain injury and also:

Niacinamide can also lower your triglycerides, which are a potent cardiovascular disease risk factor. It also has a direct anti-adrenaline effect and increases the oxidation of glucose which is your primary metabolic fuel.

The best way to supplement niacinamide is by taking a very low dose of 50 mg three times a day. This is an order of magnitude less expensive than taking NAD precursors like nicotinamide riboside or nicotinamide mononucleotide to increase NAD+ levels.

Please do NOT take high doses like 500 mg or even 1,000 mg, because taking more is not better and will be highly counterproductive as higher doses will impair your sirtuin longevity proteins.

You can purchase a niacinamide powder and take one-sixty-fourth of a teaspoon three times a day or take a 50 mg niacinamide tablet three times a day. Because a 50 mg niacinamide tablet currently is not being made commercially, we will be launching one very soon.

4. B Complex

Vitamin B complex is important for your health because it’s involved in a wide range of bodily functions and processes including cell health and the growth of red blood cells, energy levels, eyesight, brain function, digestion and appetite, proper nerve function, hormones and cholesterol production, and cardiovascular health.

B vitamins have a direct impact on your energy levels, brain function and cell metabolism. Vitamin B complex help support or promote cell health, growth of red blood cells, energy levels, eyesight, brain function, digestion, appetite, proper nerve function, and cardiovascular health and may help prevent infections.

Vitamin B complex is also important for pregnant women as it helps to form the neural tube, which is the precursor to the baby’s brain and spinal cord. It also helps to prevent birth defects of the baby’s brain and spine. It is important to note that vitamin B complex is water-soluble, which means it is not stored in the body and needs to be taken more than once a day.

5. Magnesium

Magnesium is necessary for the healthy functioning of most cells, especially your heart, kidneys and muscles. It’s involved in the functioning of more than 300 enzymes,8 and low levels of magnesium impede cellular metabolic function and deteriorate mitochondrial function.

Magnesium is also required for the activation of vitamin D, and deficiency may hamper your ability to convert vitamin D from sun exposure and/or oral supplementation. Unfortunately, deficiency is common and rarely diagnosed.9

When it comes to oral supplementation, my personal preference is magnesium threonate, as it appears to be the most efficient at penetrating cell membranes, including your mitochondria and blood-brain barrier. Magnesium is also absorbed through your skin, so you can use a topical solution or take Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate) baths to increase your levels.

6. Vitamin E

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble antioxidant that I believe is important for nearly everyone to take. Why? Because it limits the production of very dangerous free radicals from the metabolism of the omega-6 fat, linoleic acid (LA), which virtually everyone reading this has too much of. It does this by inhibiting lipolysis, or the release of the stored LA in your tissues.

While exercise and fasting are wonderful tools to improve your health, the downside is that virtually everyone has too much LA in their tissues and both of these strategies will increase lipolysis of LA stored in your tissue and produce loads of free radicals and oxidative stress.

Vitamin E not only can prevent oxidative stress from too much LA, but it may also help your body convert this dangerous fat to a non-dangerous saturated fat. Bacteria in your intestine can use vitamin E to saturate the LA. So, vitamin E can actually transform the polyunsaturated fat rather than just protect against it after effects.

Vitamin E is an aromatase inhibitor, which means it blocks the enzyme that converts androgens like testosterone to estrogen, which is useful in reducing the risk for many cancers, especially breast and prostate cancers. Not only does it prevent the production of estrogen, but it also detoxifies xenoestrogens from synthetic chemicals.

Vitamin E is an iron chelator and can also remove age spots or liver spots and scars on your skin if applied topically. It does this because it is an iron chelator. Another term for liver spots is lipofuscin, which is an accumulation of oxidized fats like LA and iron.

While cosmetically unattractive, removing lipofuscin spots is key because what you see on your skin is the tip of the iceberg. They are also in your tissues and organs and will contribute to premature aging. Thankfully, taking vitamin E orally seems to help lower lipofuscin levels. Vitamin E also lowers prolactin, which helps counteract high estrogen levels which tends to increase fertility. Finally, it also blocks adrenaline and reduces cortisol and inflammation.

All of these are major reasons why I am huge fan of vitamin E and believe most people would benefit by taking it. However, you just need to be very careful in selecting your vitamin E supplements as most on the market are counterproductive. Natural vitamin E is a family of eight different compounds: four tocopherols and four tocotrienols. If you eat certain wholesome foods, all eight of the different vitamin E compounds are naturally available.

So, please be careful and make sure to avoid all synthetic vitamin E supplements. You also want to make sure that it has no soy oil in it as soy is typically a GMO, loaded with glyphosate and high in LA.

Your vitamin supplement should have all tocopherols (alpha, beta, gamma and delta) with the majority of tocopherol as alpha. Similarly, it should have balance tocotrienols (alpha, beta, gamma and delta). The most common vitamin E supplement on the market is made from GMO soy, is synthetic and only has alpha tocopherol with no other isomers and has no tocotrienols. You definitely don’t want to use supplements like that.

7. Vitamin C (Not Ascorbic Acid)

Vitamin C is a powerful antioxidant that can strengthen your body’s natural defenses. It may reduce your risk of chronic disease, including protection against immune system deficiencies, cardiovascular disease, prenatal health problems, eye disease and even skin wrinkling.

Vitamin C plays an essential role in your body, particularly for skin and immune health. It also boosts collagen production and helps protect your skin from UV damage. Some research has found that supplementing with vitamin C can shorten the duration of a cold and may help prevent and treat other infections, such as tetanus and pneumonia.

There are basically two types of vitamin C: that derived from whole foods with all the vital and important micronutrients and synthetic ascorbic acid. They both are important and serve crucial biological roles.

The best of the synthetic ascorbic acid would by liposomal forms as they can more easily penetrate cell membranes, especially when needed in large doses as when treating an acute infection, sepsis or cancer. However, it is best to avoid taking synthetic ascorbic acid daily as this can impair copper utilization by your mitochondria.

It is better to take whole food vitamin C daily as this will support the integration of copper into the electron transport chain in your mitochondria and allow you to generate cellular energy more efficiently. Ideally this can be in the form of fruits that are high in vitamin C, like oranges, tangerines, amla (also known as gooseberry) and, my favorite, acerola cherries. It is best to take it a few times a day as vitamin C is water soluble.

8. Probiotics

If you don’t eat fermented foods on a regular basis, a probiotic supplement can be useful for maintaining your gut health and microbial diversity. Your gut microbiome affects nearly all your physiological systems, but gut microbial diversity decreases with age.10

For each gram-per-day increase in the average national consumption of fermented vegetables, the mortality risk for COVID-19 decreased by 35.4% in one study.11 Beneficial bacteria found in fermented foods may even be effective for suppressing colon cancer,12 while your mental health is also affected.

One randomized controlled trial demonstrated that high-dose probiotic supplementation is beneficial for people with depression,13 while Lactobacillus has been found to produce gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA), a neurotransmitter that inhibits excessive neuronal firing, helping to induce a natural state of calm,14 in animal studies.15

9. Omega-3 Fat as DHA and EPA

Omega-3 fats are important for brain health, warding off autoimmune disease16 and decreasing mortality from cardiovascular disease, while also reducing heart attacks and coronary heart disease events.17 An omega-3 index test is one of the most important annual health screens that everyone needs, and it’s a more important predictor of your heart disease risk than your cholesterol levels.

Even research supported by the National Institutes of Health suggests an omega-3 test is a good predictor of overall health and all-cause mortality.18,19 The ideal sources for EPA and DHA omega-3s include cold-water fatty fish, like wild-caught Alaskan salmon, sardines, herring and anchovies. If you do not eat these fish on a regular basis, consider taking a krill oil supplement.

Fish oil is among the most popular supplements in the U.S. Globally, the fish oil market was valued at $1.9 million in 2019, with estimates suggesting this will rise to $2.8 million by 2027.20 Many of these dollars may be wasted, however, due to a chemical process that leaves many fish oil supplements lacking in actual EPA and DHA.

The issue with most fish oil supplements is the chemical process used — trans-esterification — which transforms the oil into a synthetic product that’s far removed from the oil you’d get when eating fish or a high-quality cod liver oil.

When you eat fish or a high-quality cod liver oil, the omega-3 is in a triglyceride form. However, the omega-3s in most all fish oil supplements are in an ethyl ester which is essentially a synthetic substrate, created through the micro distillation process of crude fish oil, in which ethanol and/or industrial alcohol is added. This mix is heat distilled in a vacuum chamber, resulting in a concentrated omega-3 ethyl ester condensate.

The problem with ethyl esters is they’re the least bioavailable form of omega-3. Manufacturers could convert them back into the triglyceride form by detaching the ethyl alcohol molecule and reattaching a glycerol molecule in a process known as re-esterification,21 but most don’t because it’s so costly.

Additionally, not only does this molecular distillation process remove vital resolvins and protectins that are important in reducing inflammation, but it also concentrates the EPA and DHA. You can tell the concentration of these two fats in any given supplement by looking at the label. In fish, the oil consists of 20% to 30% EPA and DHA, whereas purified fish oil concentrate typically contains between 60% and 85% EPA and DHA.22

In my view it is best to avoid most omega-3 supplements as there are many dangers with them. Krill or a high-quality cod liver oil are some of the best choices I know of, but you must be careful here also, as most are very low quality and add synthetic vitamin A and D into the oil.

Krill oil stands out in this regard, however. It’s more bioavailable because the EPA and DHA are bound in a phospholipid form, allowing you to take lower doses while still reaping similar results. Research also suggests krill oil alleviates oxidative stress and iron accumulation, such that it could be used as a treatment for toxicity caused by iron overload.23

10. L-Glycine

I personally take teaspoon (about 5 grams) of glycine twice a day, in the morning and before bed. Glycine is an amino acid and is an important methyl-group donor. Methyl groups are found in DNA, where they play a role in cellular reactions. Glycine helps protect against intracellular calcium overload and hypoxia and has anti-inflammatory effects.

In addition to supporting brain function,24 supplemental glycine may be useful for the “prevention and control of atherosclerosis, heart failure, angiogenesis associated with cancer or retinal disorders and a range of inflammation-driven syndromes, including metabolic syndrome.”25 Importantly, glycine is also a glutathione precursor, discussed below. Ray Peat has shown that glycine is:

11. N-acetylcysteine (NAC)

NAC, a form of the amino acid cysteine. It’s most well-known to help increase glutathione and reduce the acetaldehyde toxicity26 that causes many hangover symptoms. Anyone who overdoses on acetaminophen (Tylenol) also receives large doses of NAC in the emergency room, as it helps prevent liver damage by increasing glutathione.

NAC can be combined with glycine (known as GlyNAC) for even more benefits. In a pilot trial of older adults, GlyNAC supplementation for 24 weeks corrected glutathione deficiency and improved multiple measures of health, including:27

12. Quercetin

Quercetin, an antioxidant flavonol found in foods such as onions, apples, plums and green tea, is a natural antiviral28which helps drive zinc into the cells to stop viral replications. It also combats inflammation and works as a natural antihistamine. A number of studies have also shown quercetin, when used early, also lowers your risk of hospitalization and death from COVID-19,29 and improves clinical outcomes.

Quercetin is one of the supplements I recommend keeping in your medicine chest for times when you feel you’re “coming down” with something, be it the common cold or influenza. This is because it helps drive zinc ions into your cells, which then serves to halt replication of the virus that you are infected with.

Like vitamin E, quercetin also chelates iron. Like niacinamide, it also increases NAD+ levels but through a different mechanism. Rather than serving as a substrate to make NAD+, it helps to activate the rate limiting enzyme in the NAD+ salvage pathway, NAMPT, thus increasing NAD+ levels. Finally, it can also help with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Plant-Based Diets Essential Supplements

If you are eating a plant-based diet or you do eat animal foods but are avoiding any organ meats, which are some of the most nutrient dense foods that we know of, then please seriously consider adding these supplements to your regimen.

13. Vitamin B12

Vitamin B12 is likely the most important nutrient that is missing from a plant-based diet and it is absolutely essential that you take it if you choose not to eat animal foods. Left undetected and unaddressed, a vitamin B12 deficiency can lead to fatigue, muscle weakness, intestinal issues, limited nerve development, mood disturbances and much more.

But it is not only vegetarians that can be deficient in this important B vitamin. There are three factors are involved in the widespread B12 deficiency we’re seeing today:

  • Many people don’t have enough stomach acidity due to lower levels of pepsin secretion to release the vitamin B12 from dietary proteins.
  • Factory-farmed meat and poultry (the most common types consumed today) contain lower levels of vitamin B12.
  • Insufficient production of intrinsic factor, a special protein, required for B12 to be absorbed in your small intestine may be the result of aging or an autoimmune condition.

Your body needs vitamin B12 to make red blood cells, maintain nerves, produce DNA and to carry out essential functions for your heart, arteries and veins, nervous system, brain and cognitive function. There’s no way you can enjoy optimal health without adequate B12 levels.

When you supplement with vitamin B12 be sure to choose the more biologically active, methylcobalamin, or “methyl B12,” is the most bioavailable and most absorbable form of vitamin B12. Avoid using the most common form of B12, cyanocobalamin.

14. Retinol (Vitamin A)

Retinol, also known as Vitamin A, is a fat-soluble vitamin that is essential for many bodily functions, including vision, growth, cell division, reproduction and immunity. It is not to be confused with beta-carotene. Even though many nutritional labels conflate the two, they are completely different. Since many are unable to easily convert beta-carotene to vitamin A, it is important to make sure you are getting retinol not beta-carotene.

Vitamin A is necessary for producing hemoglobin, the protein in your red blood cells that transports oxygen. It is necessary to properly recycle and make copper available in your mitochondrial electron transport chain for energy production. It is also necessary for your body to produce two vitally important hormones, progesterone and pregnenoloneand has ant-estrogenic properties. It is also helpful for male fertility.

One of the most important benefits of retinol would be to help your body’s immune system and natural defense against illness and infection to work optimally. It also works synergistically with vitamin D with many similar benefits. Also, like vitamin E, retinol has anti-estrogenic properties.

Retinol is responsible for making the pigments in your eye’s retina, improves your vision and promotes good night vision. It also can help protect against cancer. It likely also improves skin health and helps keep your skin moist, and may help reduce the risk of skin and other cancers. Doses are typically from 5,000 to 10,000 I.U.s.

15. Copper

Copper is an essential mineral that plays a vital role in many bodily functions, including the production of red blood cells, the absorption of iron and the maintenance of nerve cells. Most importantly, it is vital to the proper functioning of your mitochondria so you can generate enough ATP.

Copper and its master protein, ceruloplasmin, are instrumental for mitochondrial function. Ceruloplasmin is what drives the copper into the mitochondria, and each mitochondrion needs about 50,000 atoms of copper to do its work.

There are five cytochrome complexes embedded in your inner mitochondrial membranes. Their purpose is to shuttle electrons created from the food you eat that is ultimately converted to acetyl-CoA to produce ATP. If these complexes are deficient in copper, you will not be able to generate enough cellular energy.

Despite its bad rap, most people are deficient in copper. To raise your copper level, you could use a copper bisglycinate supplement (about 4 to 8 mg), or foods like grass fed beef liver, and whole food vitamin C that has the enzyme tyrosinase which is loaded with copper. For additional information please review my podcast with Morley Robbins.

16. Zinc

Zinc plays many roles in your body. It is required for the healthy functioning of all your cells, tissues, organs and bones. Zinc is the second most abundant trace mineral in your body, coming in just after iron. It’s found in foods like beef, poultry, shellfish and mushrooms.

Zinc deficiency is not just an issue with vegetarians, but for those with GI and digestive disorders who can experience decreased zinc absorption. Those who eat seeds, grains, nuts and legumes that are loaded with phytates which can bind zinc and also prevent absorption, may also be deficient. Pregnant and nursing women require higher levels of zinc and those with excessive alcohol consumption also need extra zinc to metabolize the alcohol.

Researchers have discovered hundreds of ways zinc supports health in your body, and every year, they continue to discover more. In the last decade alone, there have been tens of thousands of studies investigating the roles zinc plays in promoting good health.

Zinc provides support for immune function, healthy cell growth, respiratory health and healthy metabolism. It also helps support brain health and healthy function of your taste, smell and vision.

One of the biggest challenges with zinc for people of any age is that zinc isn’t stored in your body, so you must consume the amount your body needs each and every day which is about 15 mg. If you are eating sufficient animal protein or organs, you should not need to supplement unless you are sick, as supplemental zinc can be quite useful to limit viral replication especially if taken with quercetin.

17. Vitamin K2

Vitamin K2 is needed to activate the protein osteocalcin, which is found in your bones. Without vitamin K2, this and other vitamin K2-dependent proteins remain inactivated, and cannot perform their biological functions.30 Vitamin K2 also facilitates the transfer process of calcium from your arteries to your bone. Without it, your risk of arterial calcification increases. It does this by increasing the production of an important hormone for bone health, osteocalcin.

In one study, those who consumed foods with the highest amount of vitamin K2 were less likely to experience severe calcification in their arteries or less likely to die from heart disease over a seven- to 10-year period.31 Vitamin K2 also works in tandem with vitamin D and magnesium. As a rule, if you have osteoporosis, heart disease or diabetes, you’re likely deficient in vitamin K2.

If you are eating fermented foods such as natto, or vegetables fermented using a starter culture of vitamin K2-producing bacteria, then you may not need to take a supplement. Certain cheeses such as Brie, Munster and gouda, are also particularly high in K2, as are grass fed organic animal products such as egg yolks, liver, butter and dairy.

18. Collagen

Collagen, in addition to being rich in glycine, is well-known for its role in skin health, including helping mitigate age-related wrinkles.32 It may also reduce joint pain and stiffness33 while improving glucose tolerance34 and high blood pressure.35

My personal preference is to use a less denatured (unhydrolyzed) organic collagen supplement, as it has a more balanced amino acid profile or, better yet, simply boost your collagen intake by making homemade bone broth using bones and connective tissue from grass fed, organically raised animals.

19. L-Carnosine

Carnosine is a dipeptide composed of two amino acids: beta-alanine and histidine. It’s a potent antioxidant as it binds to advanced lipoxidation endproducts (ALEs) that are the result of oxidized seed oils in your diet. The highest concentrations of carnosine are found in your muscles and brain.

If you’re a vegetarian or vegan, you will have lower levels of carnosine in your muscles. This is one reason why many strict vegans who do not properly compensate for this and other nutritional deficiencies tend to have trouble building muscle. Eating beef is known to efficiently raise carnosine levels in your muscle,36 which is why if you’re a vegetarian or vegan this supplement may be particularly important.

Bonus Methylene Blue

While methylene blue is clearly not a vitamin or mineral and is, in fact, the oldest known modern drug, I consider it an important and, in many cases, essential supplement for most because it is the best product out there to increase mitochondrial electron transport efficiency and your production of cellular energy currency or ATP. In simpler terms, most anyone who is fatigued or tired will benefit from using methylene blue.

Additionally, it is very inexpensive if you avoid buying it in foolish ways. If you purchase 1 ounce (25 grams) of the bulk powder it will last you over three years if you take 20 mg/day, which is a solid maintenance dose, but if you are tired you can easily double or triple that.

Twenty mg is a very small amount and is about half of one-sixty-fourth teaspoon. That would be a one-one hundred twenty-eighth teaspoon, but those are not available. Just be really careful, though, as methylene blue is a dye and will stain your countertop. It’s best to measure over a stainless-steel sink. A dose of 50 mg is best taken by putting one-sixty-fourth teaspoon into an empty gel cap, as it can irritate your mouth at higher concentrations.

The best time to take it is prior to near infrared (IR) exposure from a near IR sauna, a photobiomodulation panel or sun exposure. For more details about methylene blue be sure to view my interview with the leading researcher in the field, Francisco Lima-Gonzalez, Ph.D.

The Timing of Your Supplements Matters

https://media.mercola.com/imageserver/public/2018/january/info/a-guide-to-supplement-timing-graphic.jpg

When and how you take supplements — such as with or without food and in the morning or evening — can make a difference in their safety and effectiveness. For instance, fat-soluble vitamin K2 is best taken with your largest meal that contains fat, while magnesium, which helps your body relax, is best taken in the evening. In the infographic above, you can see a simple breakdown of some of the most common supplements and when it’s best to take them.

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Notes

1 U.S. CDC, NCHS Data Brief No. 399, February 2021

2 American Osteopathic Association January 16, 2019

3 Bitchute, Interview With Tyler Lebaron March 1, 2023

4 Scientific Reports volume 11, Article number: 10641 (2021)

5 YouTube, Dr. John Campbell February 1, 2023, 14:07

6 Pharmaceuticals (Basel). 2023 Jan; 16(1): 130., Abstract

7 International Journal of Nanomedicine January 19. 2018; 2018(13): 455-466

8, 9 BMJ Open Heart 2018

10 Aging (Albany NY). 2019 Jan 31; 11(2): 289–290

11 medRxiv July 7, 2020; DOI: 10.1101/2020.07.06.20147025

12 Factors Determining the Apoptotic Response of Colorectal Carcinoma Cells to Butyrate, a Fermentation Product Derived from Dietary Fiber (2009)

13 Translational Psychiatry June 3, 2022

14 The Journal of Neuroscience May 1, 2013; 33(18):7770-7

15 Translational Psychiatry June 3, 2022, Discussion

16 BMJ 2022;376:e066452

17 Journal of the American College of Cardiology December 13, 2022, Volume 80, Issue 24, Pages 2269-2285, Results

18 Journal of Clinical Lipidology, 2018;12(3):718

19 EurekAlert! March 15, 2018

20 Business Wire September 9, 2020

21, 22 A Comparison of Synthetic Ethyl Ester Form Fish Oil vs. Natural Triglyceride Form (PDF), What Are Triglycerides and Ethyl Esters?

23 Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 Feb;27(4):3950-3961. doi: 10.1007/s11356-019-06983-1. Epub 2019 Dec 10

24 Clinical and Translational Medicine March 27, 2021, Section 4.13

25 Medical Hypotheses January 15, 2019

26 Indian Journal of Clinical Biochemistry 1994, 9 (2)

27 Clinical and Translational Medicine March 27, 2021, Abstract, Results

28 Journal of Infectious Diseases and Preventive Medicine May 24, 2014; 2: 111

29 International Journal of General Medicine June 8, 2021; 14: 2359-2366

30 Integrative Medicine (Encinitas) February 2015

31 The Journal of Nutrition November 1, 2004: 134(11); 3100-3105 (The Rotterdam Study)

32 Journal of Medical Nutrition & Nutraceuticals 2015; 4(1): 47-53

33 Curr Med Res Opin. 2008 May;24(5):1485-96

34 J Med Food. 2016 Sep;19(9):836-43

35 J Med Food. 2010 Apr;13(2):399-405

36 Science Direct, Carnosine

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A March 7, 2023 CBC article headline reads: “Nova Scotia tight-lipped about spike in deaths – Unexpectedly high numbers of people are dying in an untimely fashion,’ expert says” (click here)

All highly COVID-19 vaccinated countries and jurisdictions are seeing record excess deaths on the order of 1 per 1000 population in 2022.

Now we can add the small Canadian province of Nova Scotia to the list.

From CBC article: “For the first 10 months of 2022, there were 848 more deaths than expected in Nova Scotia. The province said 546 of those were due to COVID-19. That means almost 36 per cent of the deaths are attributable to other causes.”

CBC News asked the Nova Scotia government what is causing the excess mortality in this province, but did not receive a specific answer. A spokeswoman noted excess mortality “represents all deaths — cancer, suicide, heart disease, natural causes, etc. — not just COVID-19.”

But it’s unclear what those other causes are. The province declined interview requests with Health Department officials and the chief medical examiner.

The population of Nova Scotia is 971, 395.

The annualized 2022 excess deaths is 848/(10/12) = 1018.

1018 deaths in 2022 for a population of 971, 395, is around 1 death per 1000 population.

Excess deaths in Canada

According to Statistics Canada, there were 53,741 excess deaths in Canada from March 2020 until end of August 2022 (click here)

Then we subtract “COVID-19 deaths” of 14,642 in 2020 (click here)

We are left with 39,099 deaths since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, until end of August 2022. Extrapolate that to end of 2022 and it’s about 47,000 deaths with more of those deaths occurring in 2022.

I believe when the numbers are in, we will see somewhere between 30,000 to 35,000 excess deaths in Canada in 2022, or about 1 in 1000 population.

My take

Over 80% of COVID-19 deaths in 2020 were in Long Term Care home settings where vulnerable elderly were euthanized with drugs like Midazolam + Morphine or abandoned and left to die. (click here) Most deaths were “with COVID” not “from COVID”.

Once COVID-19 vaccines were rolled out in late December 2020, all deaths in the first 14 days post vaccination were counted as unvaccinated COVID-19 deaths – this was done to fraudulently create a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” which didn’t exist.

This “pandemic of the unvaccinated” fraud was pushed by US President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and their Public Health henchmen Anthony Fauci and Teresa Tam. In Alberta, it was pushed by Deena Hinshaw.

I believe there were very few true COVID-19 deaths in 2021 and 2022. Many of the deaths were in the COVID-19 vaccinated whose immune systems were severely damaged by the jabs, or they were post vaccine deaths in the first 14 days.

Therefore the vast majority of excess deaths in 2021 and 2022 were most likely due to COVID-19 vaccines.

These post COVID-19 vaccine deaths are accelerating. 2022 was worse than 2021 and we are seeing deaths on the order of 1 per 1000 population in 2022.

2023 is shaping up to be even worse than 2022.

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

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***

 

Declassified files show how Russia’s president, during the 1990s, repeatedly told Western counterparts he was “not against” expansion of the military alliance, Matt Kennard reports. He even devised an agreement to bring the Russian people onside. 

Boris Yeltsin privately stated he was not against NATO expansion in the 1990s while publicly opposing the military alliance, declassified files show.

This posture went back as far as 1993, two years into his presidency, which would last until 2000 when he appointed Vladimir Putin his successor.

Declassified notes from a meeting of the British cabinet in September 1993 include a statement from defence secretary Malcolm Rifkind on the “Russian attitude to the Enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”.

Rifkind said that on a visit to Poland the previous month, President Yeltsin had told his Polish counterpart Lech Wałęsa “that the Russian Government had no objection to Poland and the Czech Republic joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”.

Rifkind added that this statement “had not been agreed beforehand in Moscow” and “had surprised his Polish hosts and had disconcerted the rest of the Russian delegation”.

Rifkind concluded that “it was not to be assumed that the Russian authorities as a whole would be so relaxed about the extension eastwards of a Western, albeit defensive, military alliance.”

Yeltsin’s acquiescence in NATO’s expansion was not something shared by his prime minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin. In a private conversation with prime minister John Major in 1996, Chernomyrdin said NATO expansion “could explode” across Europe, declassified files also show.

The proposed NATO expansion after the collapse of the Soviet Union was a hugely controversial policy in Russia. The Western military alliance had originally been set up in 1949 ostensibly as a “defensive” bloc against the “threat” posed by the Soviet Union.

Declassified notes from a meeting of the British cabinet on 16 September 1993. (UK National Archives)

‘Not against the process of enlargement’

But as NATO’s first post-Soviet expansion was being negotiated through the 1990s, Yeltsin’s private support continued.

In December 1994, John Major and President Yeltsin had a bilateral meeting in Budapest. “This record should be handled discreetly, and is not suitable for passing on to the Americans,” the summary of the meeting read.

“Yeltsin said he had felt that he and the Prime Minister had come to an agreement…over NATO enlargement,” it added.

Yeltsin “was not against the process of enlargement, so long as it was well balanced and gradual”, it continued.

“It would be all right if, after a time, one country joined NATO, and then perhaps a year later another. But he could not agree to enlargement if it was a matter of taking in the whole of Central and Eastern Europe (comment: by implication as a block). This would affect all of Russia’s interests.”

Major said “he understood Yeltsin’s concerns”, adding, “we believe that enlargement had to be handled cautiously and without deadlines…After the division of Europe for so many years into two blocs, everyone needed to approach this subject with great caution.”

Yeltsin “said he understood the Prime Minister’s position and was satisfied with it”.

In December 1996, Major and Yeltsin talked on the phone as plans for the announcement of the first NATO expansion got closer. “On NATO enlargement, the message was…all sorts of voiced opposition, but in the end tacit acceptance that it would happen,” a summary of Yeltsin’s position read.

Madrid Declaration

These sentiments continued after Tony Blair’s Labour won the general election in May 1997. “The noises made by Yeltsin [on NATO expansion] were all positive,” read the summary of a call between new prime minister Blair and Yeltsin.

A British telegram from Washington, also from May 1997, recounted that a meeting between President Clinton and Yeltsin had “excellent atmospherics”. It added: “Yeltsin [is] in good shape. Clinton encourages him to come to Madrid, sketching out possible arrangements to ease the Russia domestic angle.”

The NATO Summit in 1997 was when the organisation put forward the “Madrid Declaration” which formally invited the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to join the alliance. They became members in 1999.

“Yeltsin asked Clinton’s advice on whether he should come [to Madrid],” the telegram noted. “He was worried about the domestic downside (ie being accused of blessing NATO expansion). His advisors…were cautioning against attendance.”

Clinton said it would be good if Yeltsin could come. “He recognised the Russian arguments for and against. But there was scope for Yeltsin to make this another personal and political success. Madrid would not focus only on NATO expansion. The Alliance would also be adapting itself, which should be congenial to Russia.”

Yelstin listened carefully and said “he would reflect”. The UK National Security Council concluded: “Yeltsin is personally keen to go to Madrid, provided he can devise the right presentational strategy.”

Founding Act

Also in 1997, the NATO/Russia Founding Act was signed, ostensibly to build up trust and habits of consultation and cooperation.

But the declassified files show that the Act, which NATO refused to make legally binding, was a public relations exercise requested by Yeltsin to help him dampen domestic opposition to NATO expansion.

One UK document noted that NATO expansion was “the catalyst for the NATO/Russia agreement, although we have been careful not to link the two issues.”

UK foreign secretary Robin Cook commented that Yeltsin continued to publicly oppose NATO expansion. However, the Russian leader was privately focusing efforts “on negotiating a joint document with NATO that would enable him to claim that NATO had taken Russian security concerns fully into account before proceeding with enlargement.”

Cook revealed that the Russians had wanted the document to be legally binding and allow for Russia to “enjoy wide-ranging joint decision-making with NATO”. The Russians also requested that the agreement state that the Baltic states and Ukraine should be ruled off-limits for future NATO expansion.

NATO refused all these requests, but the Russians signed anyway.

Cook concluded: “I judge that the NATO/Russia agreement has considerable net political benefits to UK and NATO interests. Russian opposition to NATO’s decision, at its Madrid Summit, to invite some countries to begin accession negotiations, is likely to be considerably more muted than it might otherwise have been.”

He added: “Russia’s leaders will have a vested interest in presenting the NATO/Russia deal in a positive light, and in portraying NATO not as a threat or adversary, but as a partner, sensitive to Russian security concerns.”

‘Develop his domestic defence’

The declassified documents also show the US was concerned with helping Yeltsin defend himself against domestic Russian attacks on NATO expansion.

A January 1997 message from Washington to London noted that the US government “would like to help Yeltsin develop his domestic defence of NATO enlargement”.

It added: “The underlying American objective was to reinforce Russian leaders (and particularly the younger generation) whose aim was to ‘normalise’ Russia.”

The US was focused on “finding ways to help Yeltsin minimise the domestic damage which NATO enlargement would cause by letting him claim victory on the basis of what could be negotiated with NATO in 1997”.

It added: “Yeltsin would want to be able to tell the Russian people that Russian interests had been secured”. The newly appointed US ambassador to Russia, James F. Collins “believed the West should help Yeltsin find the right formula to use domestically.”

Collins thought this “was one reason why Yeltsin liked the idea of a Five Power meeting”, which would include France, Germany, Russia, the US and the UK. “It could”, he said, “provide a good platform for Yeltsin to explain the NATO/Russia deal to his domestic constituency.”

Warnings of NATO expansion

But Yeltsin’s position was not official Russian policy. Dire warnings about the dangers of NATO expansion were being communicated to the British at the time by other senior figures in the Russian government.

A private 1996 conversation between the Major and Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin gives a window into the risks NATO knew they were taking to move forward with post-Soviet expansion.

Russia’s prime minister told his British counterpart that NATO expansion “could explode” across Europe in a passionate diatribe against the policy.

The Cassandra-like warning offers a remarkable account of the dangers and risk for European security and domestic reform in Russia if NATO expansion was pursued.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stated that NATO’s eastward expansion is one of the reasons for his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which has been condemned as illegal and has involved extensive war crimes.

Chernomyrdin was Russian prime minister from 1992-98, and was seen as a force for moving Moscow closer to the West and forging a friendship with the US. The Yeltsin administration was highly regarded by the British.

The conversation with Major took place in the margins of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) summit on 2 December 1996. At the time Yeltsin was recovering from illness, but Chernomyrdin said he had been talking to him “almost every day”.

When Major asked Chernomyrdin what he thought of the OSCE summit, the Russian prime minister said the organisation’s “importance should be increased” as it could “lay the foundations for the new architecture of European security”.

He added: “It should be the pivotal organisation, rather than NATO, which had too obvious a military component to it.”

Nuclear ramp up

On NATO expansion Chernomyrdin conceded that Russia could not stop it but made clear “this would create a fragile situation which could explode”.

He added that “even those countries which wanted to join NATO could not explain why, and where the danger to them came from. Russia might have been seen as a danger in the past. This was no longer appropriate.”

But it was clear that NATO expansion was perceived as a significant threat to Russian security even by those in the Yeltsin administration prepared to acquiesce in that expansion. This meant that the scale down of nuclear weapons at the end of the Cold War would also be adversely affected by expanding NATO, Chernomyrdin said.

“If Russia had to face a unified Europe alone, she would need full nuclear protection, and nuclear reductions would no longer be appropriate,” he told Major.

Chernomyrdin warned that the proposed expansion would damage European security, which had been improving in the post-Soviet period.

“What would Europe and the new members gain in practice from NATO enlargement?” he asked Major. “Russia did not have a veto, but Russia was in danger of being vetoed by the rest of Europe. This would recreate volatility in Europe, just when peace and stability had been reestablished. Russia was not an enemy now but could become one.”

Damage to Russian reform

Major told Chernomyrdin: “We did not wish to do anything to unsettle Russia. The Russian leadership’s achievements of recent years were huge.”

But the Russian prime minister outlined the risks to the stability of the Yeltsin administration if new NATO members were invited in.

“The situation in Russia in those circumstances would not be controllable,” he said. “There would be a very negative reaction, as the public hostility – unifying Communists and fascists (Zhirinovksky) – to the latest decree on withdrawal from Chechnya had shown.”

Yeltsin had the previous month ordered the withdrawal of virtually all Russian forces in Chechnya. Vladimir Zhirinovsky was a Russian ultra-nationalist politician and the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.

The withdrawal from Chechnya “had produced calls for the impeachment of Yeltsin, so the reaction to NATO enlargement could easily be imagined,” Chernomyrdin added. “Russian patience should not be tested again.”

He concluded: “An extreme reaction to NATO enlargement would also damage democracy and economic reform in Russia.”

New cooperation

NATO was at the time trying to create a new cooperation framework to soften the impact of its expansion on Russian opinion. But Chernomyrdin said Russia “was not clear about the path of cooperation, unless the functional core of NATO was changed. Russia could not rush into a partnership with NATO unless the ways of working together had been properly defined.”

At the time, NATO was pushing a new Charter with Russia.

“Russia could not be bought by a Charter – that would not convince the Russian people that NATO enlargement was not dangerous,” Chernomyrdin said.

For his part, John Major “repeated that sincere Russian fears were well understood” and conceded that “enlargement was obviously a sensitive issue, on which discussions would need to continue. Russian fears were well understood. He certainly did not brush them aside.”

But, he added, “enlargement would be an evolutionary and transparent process, moving in parallel with a better and broader security relationship with Russia.”

The final note in the document notes that “Chernomyrdin’s comments on NATO enlargement were both longer and more emotional than the above account would suggest. He was beginning to work himself up into quite a lather when lunch finally intervened.”

*

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Matt Kennard is chief investigator at Declassified UK. He was a fellow and then director at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London. Follow him on Twitter @kennardmatt

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***

The Credit Suisse (CS) takeover by UBS, the largest Swiss bank, has taken place over the weekend, 18/19 March, when people are distracted and don’t focus on actions behind dark curtains. The merger was untransparent like in a dark room. See this on the build-up to the fusion to the UBS – CS fusion.

The Swiss bank, Credit Suisse (CS), Switzerland’s second largest bank, apparently one of the 30 most important players in international banking, which makes it a Too Big To Fail (TBTF) bank, has been in trouble for a while. Risky operations and several financial scandals around the world have eaten away on people’s trust in the bank. Billions of funds were withdrawn, and the share value plummeted from week to week, then from day to day.

International banking interlinkage and connectivity may only be challenged by international pharma. The duos dominance and control of worldwide business and people have never been stronger than it is today.

It’s frightening, when unbeknownst by most people, our very survival is exposed to the goodwill – or not – of these two economic monsters. Humanity needs food, water, and shelter to subsist. They control these too.

Given the global banking behemoth becoming more powerful by the day, is it wise to salvage a cog in the wheel of this financial predatory apparatus?

This is a fundamental question humanity must ask itself, when confronted with the collapse or saving of a TBTF bank. In the west such questions are not asked. They don’t even occur to the politicians. Private banking for the benefit of the shareholders, is widely overarching the need of the people, the needs of the real economy, as may be provided by public banking.

Private banking über alles!

Converting the failing CS, with a solid network of infrastructure, branch offices, sophisticated internal and external communication networks throughout Switzerland and abroad, into a public bank, belonging to the Cantonal (States) authorities, was never an option on the table for serious consideration.

The hundreds of billions that might have been saved, plus the infinitely more appropriate role for a potentially projected precarious economy ahead, was no consideration.

A Swiss sovereign, people-oriented solution was not even looked at. Instead, the Swiss Finance Minister consulted Washington on how to proceed.

Back to the UBS – CS merger

The Swiss banking “regulator”, FINMA – which is made up mostly of former bank and insurance execs – assured customers just a week before the alleged CS collapse that everything was fine. FINMA (Financial Market Supervisory Authority), is considered biased and lax towards the banking sector, when it comes to enforcing rules.

Over the past weekend – 18 / 19 March 2923 – the CS takeover by UBS, was brokered at ridiculous conditions, 3 billion Swiss francs (about US$ 3.2 billion). CS’s infrastructure throughout Switzerland alone is a worth a multiple of the take-over price.

Only about two weeks ago CS was assessed to be worth between 7 and 10 billion Swiss francs.

At the end of 2022, CS’s total assets were US$ 556.8 billion (CHF 531.4 billion 2022 end-year exchange rate); a decline of 32.7% from 2021. The bank’s liabilities were US$ 509.3 billion, a decline of 34.6% from 2021. Hence, CS’s net worth by end 2022 was US$ 47.5 billion (CHF 45.2 billion).

By the end of 2022, Credit Suisse had approximately CHF 1.3 trillion in assets under management.

It is true, with rumors of CS in crisis, combined with the memories of CS’s past 15 years of controversies and scandals in international banking, trust in the bank was fading. Here are some of the most talked about CS scandals:

  • 2007 mismarketing (over-valuing) of security positions;
  • 2009 assisting residents of sanctioned countries transferring money, an infraction against US and New York State laws;
  • 2013 illegal Forex (foreign exchange) manipulations
  • 2014 US tax fraud conspiracy;
  • 2015 Malaysia Development Berhad scandal (Berhad is a public limited-liability company – PLC);
  • 2017 Mozambique secret loan scandal;
  • 2018 US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violation;
  • 2018 Climate Controversy;
  • 2019 Espionage scandal;
  • 2021 Greensill Capital – a supply chain investment fund liquidation causing a US$ 3 billion loss to investors;
  • 2022 Drug money laundering scandal;
  • 2022 Swiss secrets leak; and
  • 2022 Russian oligarch loan-documents destruction after invasion of Ukraine – delinking them from their yacht properties.

For more details of CS scandals and controversies see this.

Until its acquisition by UBS this past weekend, CS was on Wall Street’s list as one of the largest and most profitable banks. It was considered one of the world’s most important banks, upon which international financial stability depends. The bank was also one of Fortune Magazine’s most admired companies.

Nevertheless, these larger and minor scandals have helped gradually nibble away on the public trust in the bank.

Finally, when in 2022 social media rumors projected the demise of the bank, stocks prices plunged. However, according to analysts, CS has a strong capital base and no liquidity problems.

Once a rumor takes hold about financial instability of an institution, the imagined “risk” factors explode exponentially. It has caused steady and ever-larger sums of fund withdrawals from the bank.

Yet, there was never a liquidity security risk, that the bank may collapse, cause a domino effect, and pull large segments of the worldwide international banking sector with it into the gutters.

On Friday March 17, the Swiss National Bank granted CS a “bail-out” line of credit of CHF 50 billion – which according to many analysts would have been enough to restructure and streamline the bank within a year or so into a new trustworthy financial institution.

Then suddenly, during the weekend 18 / 19 March, “the decision was taken” to force a marriage between UBS and CS. No transparent reason was given so far for this “fire sale” of a liquid bank with over a trillion dollars of asset management.

Strangely, there are no official figures available of CS net worth by 17 March 2022, when the heavily discounted price of CHF 3 billion was decided by the Swiss Government, led by Minister of Finance, imposed by decree, without any consultation with shareholders.

On Monday morning, 20 March, tumbling out of the black box, this and more aberrant decisions taken over the weekend were revealed. Minister of Finance, Ms. Karin Keller-Sutter, found an obscure law, “permitting” the government under certain emergency circumstances deciding on a take-over or merger by decree.

It was also revealed that before the UBS – CS take-over conditions were finalized, Ms. Keller-Sutter consulted with her US counterpart, Janet Yellen, Secretary of the Treasury.

Again, blowing Swiss sovereignty out of the window.

Here are some other facts that emerged since the coerced deal during the weekend:

  • The UBS – CS merger should be finalized by end 2023;
  • The Swiss Government (Swiss tax-payer) provides the UBS a loss guarantee of up to CHF 9 billion;
  • The Swiss National Bank (SNB) grants UBS and CS a liquidity line of credit – called by its true name, a “bail-out” – of CHF 200 billion, of which the Swiss Government (tax-payer) is guaranteeing any uncovered amount.
  • Compare the CHF 200 billion with the CHF 50 billion the SNB offered CS to restructure and sanitize itself – which a day earlier was assessed as being sufficient;
  • In the context of the huge “bail-out”, it may be worth mentioning that on 5 March, two weeks ago, the SNB announced one of its biggest losses in recent history, of CHF 132.5 billion;
  • The leadership of the merged banks will remain with UBS;
  • The volume of the combined UBS/CS-managed assets will be about US$ 5 trillion.
  • This banking giant is expected to gradually control 30% to 50% of the Swiss market and will become an important player in the international arena, next to BlackRock (US$ 10 trillion) and Vanguard (US$ 7.2 trillion).

The Bottom Line

Already on Day One, Monday 20 March, after the coerced shotgun-marriage of UBS and CS, Lawyers are preparing a Class Action Suit in favor of the non-consulted CS shareholders against the Swiss Government.

As reported by the Swiss Tages-Anzeiger, allegedly the world’s largest US-based business attorney’s office, Quinn Emanuel, is putting together a team to challenge the legality of the UBS take-over of CS. Similar steps were announced by the London-based attorneys, Pallas Partners.

It looks like this shady deal has not yet seen the end of the day.

In such cases, where shareholders rights are at stake, there is usually a delay of several weeks between the decision and the finalization of the action, for opponents to intervene.

Is there still time to change course and convert the wobbling Credit Swiss conundrum into a public banking institution, at a much lower cost, providing the current CS shareholders with a just compensation?

In the future the “new public CS” would be serving the people, rather than private shareholders – becoming especially useful for the economy, if the predicted rocky times are to play out. See Forbes about the highly successful public Bank of North Dakota (BND).

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

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Anti-War Views Criminalized in Germany. Diana Johnstone

March 24th, 2023 by Diana Johnstone

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***

Divide and rule is the eternal law of Empire.

Above all, don’t let other big guys get together. Keep them at each other’s throats.  Half a century ago, stuck in the unwinnable Vietnam war, President Richard M. Nixon heeded Henry Kissinger’s advice to open relations with Beijing in order to deepen the split between the Soviet Union and China.

But which big guys, and when? Priorities have evidently shifted. Eight years ago, America’s most influential, private geostrategic analyst, George Friedman, defined the current dominant U.S. divide et impera priority, at work in Ukraine.

“The primordial interest of the United States is the relationship between Germany and Russia, because united, they’re the only force that could threaten us,” Friedman explained.

Russia’s main interest has always been to have a neutral buffer zone in Eastern Europe. But the U.S. purpose is to build a hostile cordon sanitaire from the Baltic to the Black Sea, as a definitive barrier separating Russia from Germany.

“Russia knows it. Russia believes the United States intends to break the Russian Federation,” said Friedman, jokingly adding that he thought the intention was not to kill Russia but only to make it suffer.

Speaking to an elite group in Chicago on April 13, 2015, Friedman noted that the U.S. Army commander in Europe, General Ben Hodges, had just visited Ukraine, decorating Ukrainian soldiers and promising them trainers.  He was doing this outside NATO, said Friedman, because NATO membership required 100 percent approval and Ukraine risked being vetoed, so the U.S. was going ahead on its own.

What the U.S. has long dreaded, said Friedman, is the combination of German capital and technology with Russian resources and labor.  The Nord Stream pipeline was leading in that direction, toward mutual trade and security arrangements that would no long require either the dollar or NATO.

“For Russia,” said Friedman, “the status of Ukraine is an existential threat. And the Russians cannot afford to let it go.”  For the United States, however, it is a means to an end: separating Russia from Germany.

Friedman concluded that the big question was, how will the Germans react?

So far, German leaders have been reacting like the loyal managers of a country under U.S. occupation – which it is.

The German Peace Movement Threat

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during a virtual press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, D.C., Jan. 5, 2022. (State Department/Ron Przysucha)

Any sign of sympathy with Russia has been so demonized, repressed, even criminalized since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, that most German protests initially avoided taking any position on the war and focused on the economic hardships caused by sanctions.

But on Jan. 25 of this year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave in to U.S. pressure to send German Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, about the same time that German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, of the Green Party, casually told an international meeting that “we are fighting a war against Russia.”

This jolted people into action.

Spontaneous demonstrations broke out in large and small cities all over Germany with slogans such as “Ami (Americans) Go Home!”, “Greens to the Front!”, “Make Peace Without German Weapons.” Speakers condemned the tank deliveries for “crossing a red line,” accused the United States of forcing Germany into war with Russia, and called for Baerbock’s resignation.

The wave of demonstrations peaked one month later on Feb. 25 when up to 50,000 people rallied to the “Uprising for Peace” (Aufstand für Frieden) in Berlin, called on the initiative of two women, left politician Sahra Wagenknecht and veteran feminist writer and editor Alice Schwartzer.

Over half a million people signed their “Manifesto for Peace” calling on Chancellor Scholz to “stop the escalation of arms deliveries” and work for a ceasefire and negotiations.  Organizers called for reconstruction of a massive German peace movement, on the model of the anti-nuclear missile movement of the 1980s that led up to Russian acceptance of German reunification.

However, building a peace movement in Germany today faces many obstacles. Under U.S. military occupation since the end of World War II, German institutions and media are permeated with American influence, as is the legal order. Paradoxically, the trans-Atlantic American grip seems only to have tightened since German reunification.

Monitoring ‘Extremes’

Germany monitors political “extremism” through a domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz). Although strictly speaking Germany does not have a constitution, it has a strong Constitutional Court designed specifically to prevent any reversion to Nazi power practices.

Instead of a constitution, a transitional Basic Law approved by the Western occupying powers (the U.S., Britain and France) in 1949 enabled the Federal Republic to assume the government of West Germany. Upon reunification, the Basic Law was extended to all of Germany.

In the spirit of liberal “antitotalitarianism,” the BfV monitors both “left-wing extremism” and “right-wing extremism” as potential threats. “Islamic extremism” has more recently come under supervision. The underlying political implication is that “right-wing extremism” designates Nazi tendencies, while “left-wing extremism” leans toward Soviet-style communism.

This 20th century political topography implicitly establishes “the center” as an innocent middle-ground where citizens can feel at ease.  Even the most radical militarism is not “extreme” in this scheme of things.

Article 5 of the Basic Law grants individuals the right to express opinions, but there are numerous limitations in the Criminal Code, with punishment for “inciting hatred,” racism, anti-Semitism and prison terms for Holocaust denial.  Also prohibited are propaganda or symbols of “unconstitutional” organizations, disparagement of the State and its symbols, blasphemy against established religions and especially failure to respect “human dignity.”

Of course, what matters in all these laws is how they are interpreted.  The ban on “rewarding and approving crimes” (Section 140), that was originally intended to apply to convictions for violent civil crimes, has now been extended to the geopolitical sphere, namely, outlawing “approval or support” of what it terms “aggressive war.”

Antiwar activist Heinrich Bücker’s speech in Berlin last June 22 calling for good relations with Russia on the anniversary of the 1941 Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was condemned by a Berlin court for “approving Russia’s crime of invasion.” In practice, any effort to clarify the Russian position by referring to NATO expansion and Kiev regime attacks on Donbass since 2014 can be interpreted as such “approval or support.”

Needless to say, Germans were never threatened with criminal prosecution for approving the U.S. invasions of Vietnam, Iraq or Afghanistan, much less the totally aggressive and illegal 1999 bombing of Serbia, in which they enthusiastically took part.  Widely celebrated as a laudable act of humanitarianism, that bombing campaign, killing civilians and destroying infrastructure, forced Serbia to allow NATO to occupy its province of Kosovo, where the Americans built themselves a huge military base. Ethnic Albanian rebels declared independence and thousands of non-Albanians were driven out.

German Police Enforce Centrist Conformity

As demonstrators gathered for the “Uprising for Peace” demonstration in Berlin, an organizer appeared on the speakers’ platform to read out a long list of things banned by police.  The list included numerous symbols or signs related to the Soviet Union, Russia, Belarus or Donbass; Russian military songs; “endorsement of the war of aggression currently being waged by Russia against Ukraine,” etc.

The day before, Berlin police had delivered to the organizers a detailed explanation justifying these prohibitions, specifying that “public safety was in imminent danger.” Police said that according to their information, “the participants of your meeting will mainly consist of people with an old-left, pro-Russian basic attitude, who are against the arms deliveries of the German government to Ukraine, the geopolitics of the ‘West/the USA’ and against NATO in general.”

The police had reason to believe that the Feb. 25 meeting would attract “very heterogeneous” participants “with their own views (state delegitimizers, conspiracy believers, supporters of the Putin regime, etc.)” and therefore, precautions must be taken.

The Cross-Front Threat

Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany, or KPD, leader Ernst Thälmann, in center front, with raised clenched fist, and members of the Alliance of Red Front-Fighters or RFB, marching through Berlin, 1927. (Bundesarchiv, CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Police referred to a comparable meeting a month earlier, on Jan. 27, whose organizers were accused by leftwing and antifascist groups of having “tolerated cross-thinkers (Querdenker)and people of the right scene at their meeting.” A cross-thinker is one who crosses the enemy front lines between left and right, an offense called “cross-front,” also referred to as “red-brown”.

What is remarkable is that in Germany, the establishment, the media, the BfV and notably the police have taken up the term “cross-front” (Querfront) with the same opprobrium as the Antifa movement where it is used ostensibly to enforce the ideological purity of the left. Initially it meant a rightwing appropriation of leftwing themes intended to seduce and mislead leftists into fascist combinations. The historical basis of the term lies in unsuccessful coalition attempts of rightwingers in the late Weimar Republic in a context of intense rivalry between strong Nazi and Communist movements vying for working class support, totally unlike the political atmosphere of today.

In the absence of either a strong Nazi or Communist movement, the term is currently used to denounce any cooperation, or even contact, between leftists and movements or individuals described as “extreme right.”  This label is frequently based on not much more than opposition to unlimited immigration, denounced as racism.

By this standard, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) opposition party (with 78 out of 736 seats in the current Bundestag) is “extreme right.” Since most Bundestag members critical of arming Ukraine come either from Die Linke (Left) party or the AfD, the anti-crossfront vigilance condemns in advance a broad, open antiwar opposition.

Subjective Evaluations by Police

German riot police during 2017 protests in Hamburg against the G20 meeting. (t–h–s -, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)

According to the Feb. 24 Berlin police warning, “The approval of the war of aggression against international law, which the Russian Federation is currently waging against Ukraine, is punishable under Section 140 …”  Such approval can be expressed not only by words but by a number of signs and symbols.  In particular, the display of the letter “Z” (supposedly standing for the Russian expression za pobyedu – for victory) would constitute a criminal offense.

Even more far-fetched, the flag of the defunct U.S.S.R. is also criminalized, because, according to police: “the U.S.S.R. flag symbolizes a Russia within the borders of the former Soviet Union.” This, according to Berlin police, “is seen by experts as the actual desired goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin” and explains his attack on Ukraine.

“The present restrictions are expressly not directed against the content of expressions of opinion, which may not be prevented within the framework of Article 5 of the Basic Law, but are intended, from a contextual point of view, to prevent your assembly, in the manner in which it is conducted, from being suitable or intended for conveying a readiness to use violence and thereby having an intimidating effect, or from violating the moral sensibilities of citizens and fundamental social or ethical views in a significant manner.”

A Cautious Demonstration

The “Uprising for Peace” in the end provided no opportunities for police interventions or arrests.  Like the “Manifesto for Peace,” the German speeches largely avoided references to U.S. and NATO provocations leading to the war.

Only Jeffrey Sachs, whose opening speech in English was broadcast to the crowd on a screen, dared speak of the background to the Russian invasion: the 2014 Kiev coup, the U.S. arming of Ukraine, the U.S. opposition to peace negotiations, the likelihood that the U.S. was responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines and other facts susceptible of offending certain sensibilities.  But there was no chance that Berlin police would arrest Sachs, who was not in Germany.

The other speakers largely ignored the origins of the war, concentrating instead on fears of where it might lead: constant escalation of arms deliveries, even nuclear war. The huge crowd was bundled up against the icy cold and light snow.  Flags mostly portrayed peace doves and slogans called for diplomacy, for peace negotiations instead of arms deliveries, for avoidance of nuclear war.  Neo-Nazis and extreme rightists were declared unwelcome and must have come in disguise as they were scarcely visible.  The whole event could hardly have been more well-behaved and respectable.

Attacking Wagenknecht

Despite all this niceness, the demonstration and its organizers were fiercely attacked by politicians and media.  Sahra Wagenknecht is a popular figure, being pushed out of her dwindling Left Party (Die Linke) by leaders who tend to follow the increasingly bellicose Greens in the hope of being included in leftwing coalition governments.

Wagenknecht, married to Oskar Lafontaine, who as a leading Social Democrat was prominent in the antimissile movement of the 1980s, is rumored to be preparing to found a party of her own. This would fill a yawning gap in the current German political scene: an antiwar party firmly on the left. She must therefore be seen as the main political threat to the reigning coalition.

Thus Wagenknecht has been vehemently attacked for the fact that her antiwar speeches have been applauded in parliament by members of the AfD. And despite having repeatedly condemned the Russian invasion for breaking international law, other things she has said have been described as “close to the narrative” of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Despite her caution, she is blamed for “understanding” the Russian viewpoint, which is unacceptable.

In a major hit piece,  journalist Markus Decker called Wagenknecht the most influential enemy of democracy in Germany. Wagenknecht, he wrote, “is the personified embodiment of what intelligence officers have been warning about for years: the blurring of the boundaries between the political fringes and the extremes.”

[Translation of Sahra Wagenknecht’s tweet: “Rally at the BRB gate was a huge success & biggest #peace rally in years. Attempts to belittle or defame them will not work. Thanks to everyone who came! My speech at the rally:”]

In other words, she should be monitored by the BfV as a sponsor of the dreaded cross-front. “Wagenknecht, who has been systematically blurring the lines between dictatorship and democracy since the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine, is not about peace. It’s about destroying democracy. Wagenknecht is probably its most influential enemy in Germany,” Decker wrote.

In the past few years, as hostility toward Russia has been building in the West, the Antifa exclusionary dogma has strengthened within the left. The result is that the left is less interested in winning over conservatives than in excluding them.  This is a sort of essentialist identity politics: anyone “on the right” must be inherently an irreconcilable enemy.

There is no thought that perhaps some people may vote for the Alternative for Germany because they feel let down by other parties, for instance by the Left Party.   This could be especially true in East Germany, where both parties have roots.

Freedom of Opinion Under Threat

On March 15, a group of leftist artists and intellectuals released a petition calling for the defense of free expression. It reads:

 “Germany is in a deep crisis. … Disinformation and manipulation of the population largely determine the current media culture. Anyone who does not share the prescribed official opinion on the Ukraine war, criticizes it and makes this known publicly, is defamed, threatened and sanctioned or ostracized. … In such an atmosphere, open debates, the exchange and presentation of differing views in the media, science, art, culture and other areas are hardly possible anymore. A truly free formation of opinion by weighing different arguments is impossible. Bias and ignorance, but also intimidation, fear, self-censorship and hypocrisy are the consequences. This is incompatible with human dignity and personal freedom.”

Last month, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) introduced a new law making it possible to dismiss “enemies of the constitution” from the civil service by a simple administrative act.  “We will not allow our democratic constitutional state to be sabotaged from within by extremists,” Faeser said.  But in the view of the German Civil Servants’ Association, the bill “sends a message of mistrust to both employees and citizens.”

A war atmosphere is supposed to unite a nation. But imposed artificially, it exposes and creates deep divisions.

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Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools’ Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO, and Western Delusions. Her latest book is Circle in the Darkness: Memoirs of a World Watcher (Clarity Press). The memoirs of Diana Johnstone’s father Paul H. Johnstone, From MAD to Madness, was published by Clarity Press, with her commentary. She can be reached at [email protected].

Diana Johnstone is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

Featured image: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in Berlin, December 2022. (NATO)

Changing Society: Nature, Life, and Resistance in Culture Today

March 24th, 2023 by Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin

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“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free” ― Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Elective Affinities

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What kind of culture do we want? What kind of culture do we need? Our culture reflects our fundamental ideologies and these ideologies are rooted in patriarchal religion and neoliberal politics in the main.

It’s a culture that depicts the class system, war, and in general, people dealing with the system in its many different facets, through drama, adventure, comedy, terror, horror, etc.

The origins of our culture are thought to go back thousands of years when, for example, (in the ideas of James DeMeo) “climatic changes caused drought, desertification and famine in North Africa, the Near East, and Central Asia (collectively Saharasia) and this trauma caused the development of patriarchal, authoritarian and violent characteristics” about six thousand years ago.

The coming of the Kurgan peoples across Europe from c. 4000 to 1000 BC is believed to have been a tumultuous and disastrous time for the peoples of Old Europe. The Old European culture is believed to have centred around nature-based pagan ideologies.

Some believe the rise of patriarchy was due to the sexual division of labour about 2 million years ago, while others believe it was due to the later development of agriculture and private property.

Christ as Martyr and Master
Jan van Eyck (before c. 1390 – 9 July 1441)
Crucifixion and Last Judgement diptych, c. 1430–1440.

However, these changes led to the growth of patriarchal religions that underpinned the ambitions of warring rulers, for example:

“In Christianity the rulers had a religion that assured their objectives. The warring adventurism of the new rulers needed soldiers for their campaigns and slaves to produce their food and mine their metals for their armaments and wealth. Thus, Christ was portrayed as Martyr and Master. In his own crucifixion as Martyr he provided a brave example to the soldiers, and as Master he would reward or punish the slaves according to how well they had behaved.”

The privatisation of property, extractivism, the necessity for food-producing slaves and a warrior class sustained and further extended the aims of elites throughout feudalism and capitalism up to the wars of today, and who are now competing for power and resources on a global scale. The terminology has changed but the fundamentals have not.

The exploitation of nature continues unabated with the ongoing destruction of the Amazon and wildlife, the global and mass use and abuse of animals, transnational polluting industries, chemical-driven industrial crop land, and factory ship over-fishing emptying our seas. The wars have also gotten greater with two world wars in the twentieth century and a third one hanging over our heads constantly threatening our very existence. The elites are a smaller group of people now but control ever-growing global monopolies.

Thus, looking at culture in general from this perspective, there are two important aspects of modern culture: the destruction of nature combined with death (war) and a culture of slavery (escapism, diversion, etc.).

The antithesis of these two aspects are respect for nature and life, and resistance to slavery in all of its forms. While we are surrounded by the culture of war and escapism, it is not easy to find an oppositional culture.

Yet it does exist, and two good recent examples are the Korean TV series Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022) (pro-nature), and White Tiger (2021) (anti-slavery), a film based on an adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s 2008 novel of the same name. These two fine dramas show us that alternatives to the current system and ideology can be produced.

“Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.” ― George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron)

Nature and life – Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022)

Image: Promotional poster for Extraordinary Attorney Woo (2022) By Naver, Fair use.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo is the story of Woo Young-woo, an autistic lawyer who is raised by her single father. She finds it difficult to get a job despite graduating with the highest distinction. However, she eventually gets a job in a top Seoul law firm, Hanbada, using her father’s connections.

Over time she learns to become an excellent lawyer and her colleagues grow to respect her. The series becomes a platform for progressive social, political, environmental and ethical issues fought out through the courts. Furthermore, the environmental theme is highlighted by her love of whales and dolphins especially when she “analogizes situations she faces in her professional and private life with the lives and characteristics of whales and dolphins [that] often surprises and confounds the people who surround her.”

These situations are often combined with beautiful, if surreal, photography of whales swimming past windows or combined with court scenes. Woo is also seen demonstrating with a colleague against the treatment of dolphins in a local aquarium.

However, Attorney Woo’s fellow rookie colleague, Kwon Min-woo, approaches their supervising lawyer Jung Myung-seok, angry at her sometimes unorthodox behaviour which he feels she is getting away with because of her disability. Jung Myung-seok reacts in a slightly annoyed tone:

“Attorney Kwon, you must really like penalties. […] When you experience a difference of opinion or a conflict at work, you need to talk with your colleagues and solve it.  Giving rewards or punishment over who is right or wrong for every single thing, that’s not like how I like to work.”

Here Myung-seok advises that conflict in life must be resolved through discussion, not by ‘giving rewards or penalties’, moving away from the authoritarian methods of the master.

Attorney Woo naturally reacts to selfishness, corruption and discrimination but she gradually learns that the pursuit of truth is a difficult path to carve out. Apart from Woo being a symbol of logic and reasoning in the service of truth, her connection with nature is direct and not mediated by a negative, consumer-orientated culture.

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” ― Henry David Thoreau

Resistance to slavery – White Tiger (2021)

Image: Promotional poster for White Tiger (2021)

White Tiger tells the story of Balram Halwai who relates the ups and downs of his life in a letter to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao.

Balram was an intelligent young boy in an isolated village who aspires to work as a chauffeur for the son of the rich village landowner, Ashok, who has just returned from America with his American-Indian wife, Pinky. Ashok and Pinky go to Delhi to bribe politicians to reduce his family’s taxes and Balram joins them as their driver. Although they have liberal ideas about their servants, as soon as things turn bad they treat him like any other wealthy, entitled masters.

Balram is asked to drive Ashok with a huge sum of money for a bribe and then decides to escape his servitude by murdering Ashok and stealing the money to make a better life for himself. He then sets up a taxi company in a different city where he treats his drivers well and helps them when they get into the kind of troubles he experienced himself as a servant.

Balram believes “that the Indian underclass is trapped in a perpetual state of servitude, like chickens in a chicken coop.”

He states that “The greatest thing to come out of this country in its ten thousand year history: The Rooster Coop. They can see and smell the blood. They know they’re next. Yet they don’t rebel, they don’t try and get out of the coop.” He asks why the workers are so honest in their relations with their masters. “Why? Because Indians are the world’s most honest and spiritual people? No. It’s because 99.9 percent of us are caught in the Rooster Coop. The trustworthiness of servants is so strong that you can put the key of emancipation in a man’s hand and he will throw it back at you with a curse.” He describes the main problem of Indian society: “In the old days, when India was the richest nation on earth, there were one thousand castes and destinies. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies.”

The writer of the original novel (The White Tiger, p254, 2008) Aravind Adiga, noted in the novel that:

“I won’t be saying anything new if I say that the history of the world is the history of a ten-thousand-year war of brains between the rich and the poor. Each side is eternally trying to hoodwink the other side: and it has been this way since the start of time. The poor win a few battles (the peeing in the potted plants, the kicking of the pet dogs, etc.) but of course the rich have won the war for ten thousand years.”

Balram’s escape from slavery, his resistance to the master, comes with tragedy as his extended family is murdered by the village landlord. He believes that he is a White Tiger, a symbol of freedom, because he escaped slavery and ultimately encourages his own employees to do the same:

(monologue and description from the screenplay)

“Balram speaks directly to his Drivers as he gathers them and brings them outside to the front of his business.

BALRAM – Now, what happens in your typical Hindi film about murder? A poor man kills a rich man and then gets nightmares of the dead man pursuing him screaming: “Murderer! Shame!” It doesn’t happen like that. The real nightmare is the other kind – where you didn’t do it, that you didn’t kill your master, that you lost your nerve, and that you’re still a servant to another man. But then you wake up, the sweating stops, your heartbeat slows. The nightmare is over. You did do it. You killed your master.
Balram steps away from them and speaks directly into the camera:

BALRAM (TO CAMERA) – I have switched sides. I’ve made it. I’ve broken out of the coop.

He exits frame, leaving a wall of drivers, servants, perhaps new White Tigers, ready to strike, confronting the camera, confronting the audience…”

Balram takes chances and resists slavery. He may be wealthy now but he does not feel part of the wealthy class. He has broken out of the coop and ‘switched sides’, and he has no problem enlightening and even encouraging his drivers to do the same. In a way he plays the rich at their own game: using their tactics of murder and disloyalty to escape from their binds.

“Happy slaves are the bitterest enemies of freedom.” ― Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

Of diets and glaciers

Given the current state of the political and financial crises of late capitalism. i.e., the possibility of an all-out global war and the worsening destruction of the environment (upon which our sustenance is based), the constant re-examination of our culture is of utmost importance. For many people the movement for change seems glacial and leads them to live out their lives on the cultural diet created mainly by producers whose primary motive is profit, not social and political change.

However, the illusion of peace and freedom created by this timeless culture is situated in real historical conditions that are constantly changing.

Over time and with different forces underneath, even the slowest of glaciers can suddenly break apart and form cracks. The greatest aspiration of cultural producers today would be to show that happiness does not consist in diversion from worry but in confronting the sources of our current ills instead, and to remember what Leonard Cohen wrote, “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”

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Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin is an Irish artist, lecturer and writer. His artwork consists of paintings based on contemporary geopolitical themes as well as Irish history and cityscapes of Dublin. His blog of critical writing based on cinema, art and politics along with research on a database of Realist and Social Realist art from around the world can be viewed country by country here. Caoimhghin has just published his new book – Against Romanticism: From Enlightenment to Enfrightenment and the Culture of Slavery, which looks at philosophy, politics and the history of 10 different art forms arguing that Romanticism is dominating modern culture to the detriment of Enlightenment ideals. It is available on Amazon (amazon.co.uk) and the info page is here.

He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: Book cover of The White Tiger (2008)

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Bill Gates, writing in the NY Times, is worried that we’ll make the same mistakes again. What mistakes are those you ask? Lockdowns? Unnecessarily testing absolutely everybody? Quarantining the healthy? Of course not! Old Bill wants all of those things but more quickly and with a lot more money definitely not going through his pockets.

He likens the situation to a city with firefighters. With well trained and funded firefighters, if a fire breaks out, they respond quickly and they stop the fire from spreading. That all sounds reasonable but what happens if a fire only happens every hundred years or so? The firefighters will get restless and perhaps they might even start a fire or two to see some action. They signed up to be heroes, not to just sit around waiting for something that most likely will never happen in their working life times.

Even if the bored firefighters didn’t actually start a fire, they would certainly exaggerate the risks of one. And you can understand it from their point of view. They are constantly training to save people’s lives, they don’t want to have wasted their time pencil pushing.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), probably together with Mr Micro Soft, is trying to set up a ‘Global Health Emergency Corps’. This military sounding network will consist of the world’s top health emergency leaders, conducting drills to practice for pandemic outbreaks. And as with the bored firefighters, how long before new pathogens are exaggerated out of all proportions or worse?

Mr Gates wants all countries to have large-scale testing capabilities to check human waste for the latest virus. But the more we test and the more we look for new viruses, the more we will find and the more new pandemics there will be. Blamed on climate change of course, not the increased testing.

He says it’s important we look for lots of different types of pathogens too. However, over the last 20-30 years we have seen how many new viral scares there have been. Fortunately, none of them killed many people and there wasn’t much panic due to lack of social media and unrefined propaganda. Now, however, they have all the tools in place. They have seen what works and what doesn’t. What causes fear and what encourages others to prolong the panic. We will have a new global pandemic every five years if the same modellers and doomsters are in charge.

If a positive sample is found, Bill wants the Emergency Corps to deploy a rapid response team “to find people who might be infected”. You’ve been writing on Substack and you just sneezed, you might be infected, into quarantine prison for you.

Bill says we need professional corps from every country and region. They can’t be volunteers, they must be compensated for responding to transnational threats. It sounds more and more like an army the more he writes.

The Emergency Corps must be led by people like the heads of national public health agencies, he says. Because public health agencies have done such a great job this time round.

Emergency Corps will make sure countries and health systems are coordinated in advance of an emergency, so that everything runs smoothly during times of crisis. What he means here is that what he says goes and countries will no longer have sovereignty. You might have elected an anti-lockdown politician but Bill says we need a lockdown and the Emergency Corps will enforce that decision.

And obviously money is a key driver in all of this as well.

Bill says this is a trillion-dollar problem and we must invest in the Global Health Emergency Corps. Furthermore, wealthier countries need to step up and provide the funding. You will be paying for your own demise through further lockdowns and business closures. You won’t be able to afford your groceries but you’ve paid the wages of the Emergency Corps who are dragging you into quarantine after your neighbour ratted on you for coughing one too many times.

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Background

As reported by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, President Xi’s special plane arrived at the Moscow Vnukovo Airport around 13:00 local time. As he stepped out of the plane, President Xi was warmly greeted by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko and other senior Russian officials by the ramp.

The Russian side held a grand welcome ceremony at the airport. The military band played the national anthems of China and Russia. President Xi Jinping inspected the honor guard of the three services and watched the march-past.

President Xi Jinping delivered an arrival statement, extending warm greetings and best wishes to the Russian government and people on behalf of the Chinese government and people. He stressed that China and Russia are friendly neighbors connected by shared mountains and rivers. Our two countries have consolidated and grown the bilateral relationship on the basis of no-alliance, no-confrontation and not targeting any third party, and set a fine example for developing a new model of major-country relations.

The growth of China-Russia relations has not only brought tangible benefits to the people of our two countries, but also made important contributions to the development and progress of the world.

President Xi noted that both being major countries in the world and permanent members of the UN Security Council, China and Russia play important roles in international affairs.

In a world of volatility and transformation, China will continue to work with Russia to safeguard the international system with the UN at its core, the international order underpinned by international law, and the basic norms of international relations based on the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. China will work with Russia to uphold true multilateralism, promote a multi-polar world and greater democracy in international relations, and help make global governance more just and equitable. He is confident that the visit will produce fruitful results, and inject fresh impetus into the sound and steady growth of China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for the new era.

These are the PressTV questions.

PressTV: How important is this visit and what message is it sending?

Peter Koenig: It is important these days for the world to know that there is a close association between the two countries and close friendship by the two leaders.

It again signals that China and Russia are moving towards a multi-polar world and that China is cooperating with Russia in finding a solution of PEACE for Ukraine.

President Xi’s trip to Moscow is of further significance, because the global situation calls for an intensified understanding of the wider context of what is going on in the world. Sino-Russian relations are key for addressing the external challenges that both countries face.

In February 2022, Moscow launched military operation in Ukraine, seeking to eliminate the Nazi-regime, and the Nazi remnants in the country, widely called the Azov Battalions, who were fighting for Hitler’s Third Reich; as well as to defend and protect the self-declared independent Donbass Region which was under constant assault from Ukraine military and terror groups since the 2014 Maidan coup (more than 14,000 people were killed during this period, at least half of whom women and children); and finally, to show the world that President Putin was – and is – serious when he drew a red line with regards to NATO moving ever closer to Moscow.

In the course of the year this has turned out to become a proxy war between the US / NATO and Russia. The west, especially NATO countries is heavily involved by supplying Ukraine with by now close to 130 billion dollars-worth of weaponry and cash, supposedly to run the overly indebted and corrupt Ukraine Administration.

Never mind, that only about a third of the weapons supplied by the west are used at the front. The vast majority ends up on the black market. These weapons might eventually hunt the west in the form of “terrorist attacks”.

This is well-known by the west, since Ukraine has hardly any trained military personnel to handle these weapons, and simply because the country is so corrupt that the money generated on the black market with this weaponry will flow into the pockets of politicians and military cadre.

Nevertheless, the two leaders are also expected to talk about how to achieve a lasting peace in the region. China had proposed a comprehensive and valid 12-point Peace-Plan ready for negotiations, but Washington – yes Washington and NATO, not Ukraine leadership, have rejected the plan before it was even discussed.

The west does not want peace. They want to weaken Russia as much as possible, before possibly launching an all-out attack on Moscow. This is what the ten-year long “hidden war” (1991-2000) by father Bush did to Iraq. It weakened the country to pave the way for the 2003 criminal “shock and awe” attack.

Destroying Russia has been the plan for over a century, to take over and control Russia, an extremely resources-rich country.

WWI and WWII were made for it. Hitler was funded by Washington to invade and conquer Russia. Hélas, he failed, but the tragic result were 25 to 30 million Russian deaths.

PressTV: Before the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping met in the Chinese capital. The two pledged ‘no limits’ to the Russian-Chinese partnership. This partnership has grown over time but recently it has become even closer and stronger. How important of a moment is this for the two countries relations?

PK: Well – as stated above, this meeting between the two presidents is of utmost significance.

It sends a clear message to Washington but also to Europe that there is no limit to the cooperation between the two countries.

And it shows that there is an independent Powerhouse, without that powerhouse wanting to have supreme power over the world, as Washington pretends to have for itself.

Russia and China are not seeking hegemony, but are rather aiming at a multi-polar world. The nefarious neocon plan of a One World Order, propagated by the World Economic Forum (WEF) is the opposite of what China and Russia are aiming to promote: Peaceful cooperation among sovereign countries, aiming at using their own political, financial, and human resources to forge associations in trade, manufacturing, research, infrastructure development and more.

Many western countries are drifting eastwards, as we speak, with the idea of abandoning the western dominated, sanction-prone hegemonic, coercive, and war-mongering world.

Existing eastern organizations, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), are attractive and sought after for integration; case in point is Iran – and others.

BRICS-plus are strongly seeking integration into the eastern politico-economic fold. The “plus” stands first for Iran who is a prime candidate to join the BRICS alliance, as well as SCO. But it refers also to at least a dozen more western candidates.

These nations not only are intending to free themselves form Washington’s political hegemony, but also from the US-dollar dominance and dependence.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a President Xi idea, launched in 2013 in Kazakhstan and Indonesia – will be an excellent tool for eastern integration. China for the past year or so has reoriented BRI towards the BRICS countries.

It is likely that Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping will also talk about the process and development of BRI, in order to further Eurasia’s development and integration in a peaceful manner. In fact, it is likely that Eurasia – the largest contiguous landmass of 55 million square kilometers – an old / new market – may have a special place in the two leaders discussions.

It would fit their overall strategy – away from Globalization and towards a multi-polar world. How Europe, floating between west and east, will react, remains to be seen. If Europeans are interested in their survival, there is no other way than opening up and reestablishing strong relations with Russia and China – and becoming part of a new Eurasia market and socioeconomic development area.

PressTV: While western countries led by the United States have been pressuring and provoking Beijing and Moscow at increasing levels, it seems the two are moving closer together. Analysts believe that the US itself has invigorated this alliance, and the closer ties between Russia and China is a response to the Washington’s antagonizing behavior and is in competition with the US and its own alliances. Do you see in that light as well?

PK: Yes, I do believe that the western antagonism against Russia and China played an important role in bringing the two countries closer together. By now, however, their friendly and strategic relationship has generated its own dynamics, independent of western aggressions.

The ramifications of this strategic alliance and the personal friendship of the two leaders, generates motivation and trust of western countries to detach from the western warrior economy and join the east.

This trend becoming increasingly visible is a sort of competition between east and west. It is, however, not one based on aggression, but rather one that is evolving by its own.

PressTV: The meeting is focusing on bi-lateral ties, but much has been projected on China’s proposal for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. How much sway do you think Beijing has right now to effect negotiations regarding Ukraine?

PK: This is difficult to say. Russia has always expressed their willingness to negotiate.

On the other hand, NATO and Washington have just said within the last 48 hours that there should be no negotiations. It clearly shows who calls the shots on Ukraine. It is certainly not Zelenskyy. Ukraine has long ceased being a sovereign country. Since the Maidan Coup, in February 2014, instigated by Washington, NATO and the EU, Ukraine is no longer an independent nation.

Under these circumstances it is not easy to achieve peace.

To any thinking person, it is clear that Ukraine will never win this war, no matter how many arms they get from the west. In all this mega anti-Russia propaganda, the people of Ukraine are suffering. Especially those who do not have the means to leave the country. At the end of 2021, before the war began, Ukraine had a population of 43.8 million.

Today, there are barely more than 30 million left in the county. And it’s those left in the war-torn country, who are suffering from the conflict, and this not so much from Russia’s aggression, as President Putin has given clear instructions to Russia’s military, to avoid to the extent possible civilian targets, including people and infrastructure.

By independent journalists’ account, often Ukrainian troops destroy their own neighborhoods, including with Ukrainian casualties, to blame destruction and victims on Russia. Western media pick up the lie and propagate it in the west as truth about Russian aggression.

It would indeed be a miracle, if the two Presidents were to find a solution on how to embark on Peace negotiations. But sometimes miracles do happen.

PressTV: On the issue of Taiwan, under Joe Biden the US has been more vocal of military support in favor of Taiwan. What is Washington pursuing here? Is it trying to prod China into giving a dramatic response? What does China and Russia’s growing alliance mean for the US and its policies in South-East Asia?

PK: It is unlikely that Washington will begin supplying Taiwan with weapons. This would bring about a live confrontation. As retired U.S. Army Colonel, Douglas Macgregor has said on many occasions, the US cannot afford another war, not financially, not by military personnel, nor by war technology. So, whatever the US is saying and boasting about is probably nothing more than propaganda bluff.

Besides, what the western media never report on, is the close relationship the two parts of China already have, in terms of tens of thousands of Taiwanese regularly working in mainland China and vice-versa. Also, there is a massive exchange of investments on both sides which further links the two entities of the same nation together, so that Taiwan will eventually peacefully integrate into mainland China.

That’s what President Xi has often predicted, there will be a peaceful integration of Taiwan into the PRC –  the People’s Republic of China.

Joe Biden’s talk about an independent Taiwan, and his sending Congressional and business “missionaries” to Taiwan for holding “strategic talks” with Taiwan’s leadership, is nothing but provocation. Beijing is well-aware of it – taking such US “advances” with calm.

More worrisome may be the hundreds of US military bases surrounding Russia and China, especially in the South China Sea. Nevertheless, the South China Sea is still controlled by China, no matter how many US war vessels circulate on a regular basis through the South China waters.

PressTV: Having in mind the recent rapprochement between Iran and Saud Arabia that was mediated by China, will Beijing’s links with nations in the region begin to enhance?

PK: China’s diplomatic overture, bringing the two feuding nations, Saudi Arabia and Iran again together, is President Xi’s extraordinary diplomatic gain. We just hope it will last and that it will also bring lasting Peace to Yemen.

This success is also a sign that China is indeed well-seen in the Middle East, and, yes, it is well foreseeable that China will in the future have more impact in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world – also in Latin America – with her diplomatic approach – more so than the west.

China has clearly stepped on the world stage as a power that is trusted. Many countries, in the west, as well as in the east – trust China and are happy to be able to abandon their western allies to join the peaceful and cooperative east. Again, the Belt and Road is an excellent tool to bringing the world closer together, to bring about international cooperation, while maintaining each country’s sovereignty.

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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

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***

What if there was a new approach to global affairs where wars and regime change were a thing of the past and was replaced with diplomacy and respect?  Let’s face it, the last five centuries or so, European and American hegemonic ambitions have basically made the world a dangerous place.  From European colonialism in Latin America and Africa to the genocide of indigenous tribes in the Americas set the foundation of Western dominance for centuries to come.  Since the Spanish-American War of 1898, the US and in many cases, its NATO allies has started wars and even supported dictators and terrorists all over the world including Iraq, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Yugoslavia, Yemen, Lebanon, Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua and elsewhere.  They even imposed devastating economic sanctions, regime change against sovereign governments on a worldwide scale, in other words, Western dominance has been a global disaster.   

You can say what you want about China, it is true that the one-party system has many problems internally like many other countries, but when it comes to establishing peace among nations, China so far has been successful.  The normalization of ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a big deal, but anti-China hawks from both sides of the aisle in Washington and the Mainstream Media especially Fox News has downplayed the developments. In fact, skepticism has flooded the US mainstream media,

Fox news headlined with ‘China-brokered talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran a ‘troubling’ development, former DNI warns’ and ‘China denies hidden motives after brokering talks between Saudi Arabia, Iran’while CNN led with ‘Isolated Iran finds ally China reluctant to extend it a lifeline’ and MSNBC ‘The China-brokered Saudi-Iran deal has big repercussions for the Middle East — and the U.S.’  and of course, The New York Times with‘China-Brokered Deal Upends Mideast Diplomacy and Challenges U.S.’ in other words, the US establishment is in panic mode.  It’s hard for me to say this but the Associated Press (AP) had a more realistic view in an article with a headline that seems more rational, Iran, Saudi Arabia agree to resume ties, with China’s help’:

Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed Friday to reestablish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions. The major diplomatic breakthrough negotiated with China lowers the chance of armed conflict between the Mideast rivals — both directly and in proxy conflicts around the region

The developments do have implications on Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen:

The deal, struck in Beijing this week amid its ceremonial National People’s Congress, represents a major diplomatic victory for the Chinese as Gulf Arab states perceive the United States slowly withdrawing from the wider Middle East. It also comes as diplomats have been trying to end a long war in Yemen, a conflict in which both Iran and Saudi Arabia are deeply entrenched

This new development can lead to another peace deal that can end that horrific war which has claimed the lives of more than 130,000 Yemenis according to the United Nations estimates.  Yemen is also experiencing a hunger crisis with more than 23 million people who need food and medical supplies.  The US-backed Saudi war has destroyed Yemen’s infrastructure including hospitals, schools, factories, roads, and bridges.  It is fair to say that China’s peace initiative between Iran and Saudi Arabia is a positive development.

Regarding the Russia-Ukraine war, China has taken an important step in trying to establish a peaceful outcome with a 12-point plan published by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis’ which pinpoints key elements that includes respecting the sovereignty of all countries, abandoning the Cold War mentality, resolving the humanitarian crisis to stopping unilateral sanctions are the necessary steps needed to resolve the ongoing conflict.   

One other important element in the 12-point plan is to reduce the threat of a nuclear conflict between Russia and the US-NATO alliance, “nuclear weapons must not be used, and nuclear wars must not be fought. The threat or use of nuclear weapons should be opposed. Nuclear proliferation must be prevented, and nuclear crisis avoided. China opposes the research, development, and use of chemical and biological weapons by any country under any circumstances.”

These developments are important first steps in achieving peace and prosperity around the world.  A multipolar world order is taking place where new powers are trying to bring peace to a world where death and destruction has been the norm for the last five hundred years of European and American dominance.  Any new developments that can lead to peace should be welcomed with open arms, but Western powers, especially the US are committed to their endless wars, economic sanctions and their regime change agenda so that they can continue their drive to create a world order consistent with the absurd idea of the World Economic Forum’s plan to establish a Great Reset that will only benefit the globalist cabal.

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his own blog site, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Pilot Josh Yoder reports: “I’m being notified by passengers on a Southwest flight departing Las Vegas that the captain became incapacitated soon after takeoff this morning. He was removed from the flight deck and replaced by a non Southwest pilot who was commuting on that flight. This is now the fifth pilot incapacitation that I’m aware of in the past two weeks. I will post more details as they become available.” (click here)

Fifth pilot incident this month…

March 13, 2023 – Emirates Flight EK205 MXP-JFK diverted due to pilot illness hour and a half after take-off (click here)

March 11, 2023 – United Airlines Flight 2007 GUA-ORD diverted due to “incapacitated pilot” who had chest pains (click here)

March ?, 2023 – British Airways pilot collapsed in Cairo hotel and died, was scheduled to fly Airbus A321 from Cairo to London (click here)

March, 3, 2023 – Virgin Australia VA-717 flight Adelaide to Perth was forced to make an emergency landing after First Officer suffered heart attack 30 min after departure. (click here)

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Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

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***

“We are speaking now with thousands of those in the 9/11 truth movement who are waiting for somebody to stand up and run for president on this platform because we feel that it is the single most important issue of our time.” (Richard Gage)

***

Richard Gage: We have an incredible opportunity for you today, Emanuel Pastreich, who is running for president, and is a brilliant scholar. We are speaking with him today because he’s a 9/11 aware candidate – [with some very specific demands!].

Why does he claim that this is the time to push the ugly truth about 9/11 from the margins into the mainstream of American politics?

Who exactly was behind the 9/11 attacks?

We will ask what is his “Fear No Evil” campaign.

There are indeed some fearless leaders in the 9/11 truth movement. This one is running for president, the only candidate who made 9/11 truth a plank on his platform.

He got our attention right away and he’s earned my respect.

He’s president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Korea, Tokyo and Hanoi, and has been a university professor for two decades.

Pastreich declared his candidacy for President of the United States as an independent in February 2020.

Originally, a scholar of Asian studies, he writes on both East Asian classical literature and current issues in international relations and technology.

Emanuel suggests that COVID-19 will be replaced. This is not good news by the way, because he says it is already being replaced by artificial food shortages, planned inflation, the end of money, the promotion of mass surveillance, implementation of social credit and other totalitarian economics, and other strategies for control.

We’re very fortunate to have a deep thinker like Pastreich as our guest today, and we hope he lights away forward through the dark path that the deep state has paved with 9/11.

Emanuel Pastreich: Hello Richard and Gail, it’s an honor to be here.

Gail Gage: Thank you. The honor is ours.

Richard Gage: We want to hear from the mind that produced those statements. But first let us ask you a simple question.

Emanuel Pastreich: There are no simple questions.

Richard Gage: How did you become aware of the truth about 9/11, and when did that happen?

Emanuel Pastreich: Oh, well, I took two semesters of physics in high school.

Richard Gage: Oh, dear.

You never should have done that.

Emanuel Pastreich: That was my mistake, I guess. The very moment that I saw the crash on TV it clear to me that the mainstream narrative made no sense. But I was also aware of the struggles going on within the federal government at the time, that might have led to this act—so it wasn’t a total surprise.

Richard Gage: Let’s talk about your education and your profession.Take us a little deeper.

Emanuel Pastreich: So I was born in Nashville, grew up in Saint Louis. And I was a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, for about eight years.

I decided as an undergraduate at Yale that the future was going to be Asia and that we needed Americans who understood Asia well. So, I was trained in Chinese as an undergraduate; then I studied in Japan for six years, and then I studied it in Korea for many years as well. I wanted to understand Asia well, as a professor in the United States.

Bring on more 9/11-Aware Guests!

So that effort shaped me. I think it was good to be out of the corrupt stream of American culture for a few years in my life as well. That gave me a bit of distance from the collapse of American society. It’s often invisible to many people—unless you’re able to pull away from it for a while.

I had a very strong sense when professor at the University of Illinois that I had been so lucky to get such a good education. I come from, not a rich family, but a privileged family. I was able to attend Yale and Harvard. My father and my mother are intellectually oriented. So I felt a profound obligation to my society.

These things we get like education are not just entitlements, they’re privileges. It’s our responsibility, as intellectuals, to stand up, to take risks when we called upon to do so.

That sense of obligation is where all the trouble started. I was at University of Illinois during 9/11, and the other events, before and after (most of which people still are afraid to speak of).

Richard Gage: And you’re thinking that way. I mean, tell us when did your thinking diverge? When did you realize that your fellow schoolmates and graduates from these Ivy League colleges were not fulfilling the responsibilities that they had to society, as you write in your essay, “The Treason of the Intellectuals?”

Emanuel Pastreich: I think it’s an extremely serious issue because we cannot expect the working man, the working woman, to be able to understand complex issues of physics, or international relations, or economics. They depend upon educated people to play that role of interpreter, and so the decision of the intellectual elites, whether lawyers, diplomats, journalists, or professors, to side with the “powers that be,” the super-rich and against the working man, the working woman, in the United States, was a profoundly disturbing shift.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened.

9/11 was a critical historical moment in that process, but we can trace it back to Oklahoma.

There was a series of planned events from Oklahoma, through the December 2000 Supreme Court Ruling on the Bush-Gore election, that set the stage for 9.11.

And I felt, as a professor, I had to talk about this profound crisis. Needless to say, there was a price to be paid for that decision.

Richard Gage: Let us go back to the 2000 Supreme Court ruling.

Emanuel Pastreich: The Supreme Court ruling on the election of George W. Bush was a landmark in American institutional decay. The Supreme Court had no authority to make a ruling on the election in the first place.

It was an operation to seize control by appointing George W. Bush as President. Now, George W. Bush did not make all the decisions.

Hidden powers started to make day-to-day decisions behind the scenes as never before after that ruling.

Richard Gage: How was the United States run then?

Emanuel Pastreich: We are talking about, at the most fundamental level, a cultural decadence and indulgence, a decline in our civilization, that made it possible to push the envelope for criminal governance in the United States.

Now, humans are depraved creatures to start with, as we know from the Bible, but it got much, much worse, after that Supreme Court ruling–setting the stage for 9.11.

Richard Gage: We are speaking now with thousands of those in the 9/11 truth movement who are waiting for somebody to stand up and run for president on this platform because we feel that it is the single most important issue of our time.

Emanuel Pastreich: Absolutely.

Richard Gage: What result of 9/11 has caused you the greatest concern?

Emanuel Pastreich: I think the rise of invisible governance was the most serious result of it. We have a small group of private equity funds, the strategy teams and intelligence teams for various multi-billionaires, and those representing major multinational corporations who are behind everything. They have confused us profoundly by planting half true, half untrue, narratives about 9/11 to confuse us.

They knew from the beginning that they’re not going to be able to keep this secret. They had to create a whole series of conspiracy theories, all of which are partially true, but none of which really explains the bottom line.

Some say, “The CIA did it.” Well, I have no problem with that assumption. But what we want to know is which unit in the directorate of operations, which working group, which team, following which chain of command, was responsible. Who gave the orders to whom? If we don’t have the names, if it is still classified, then what possible configurations were there? It can only have been done in a very limited number of ways.

Those documents are still there. They haven’t disappeared. But most of the people in the discussion are not asking the right questions: who was it , in DoD and in CIA, who got which internal directive from which supervisors, and how were those directives linked to the lobbying efforts, the bribery, of multinational corporations, private equity funds, and a handful of multi-billionaires who hatched this scheme?

I am concerned about the vagueness with which people approach the question of 9/11.

Richard Gage: Well, let’s ask some sharper questions then.

Emanuel Pastreich: I don’t have all the answers, but we can put them together between us.

Richard Gage: What are you going to ask? Yeah, in a real investigation that you would run, I presume, as president.

Emanuel Pastreich: 9.11 truth is in my platform and I’ve given several speeches on the topic. It’s a gangrene that has infected our whole society. There are two issues. 9.11 was like a stiletto stab. It barely leaves a trace on the surface, and the skin heals up immediately so you cannot see the point of penetration. But beneath the surface, horrific, deadly infections are brewing.

Making the chain of command visible will require us to declassify a large number of documents, perhaps overnight. We do not have time to file hundreds of freedom information act requests over 20 years.

Our lawyers must take the strong position that because everything that was done was criminal, therefore everything must be declassified immediately.

The second part of the project is healing the American psyche, the American mind, the sick American culture.

That is the more important part because so many people know that there was something wrong about 9/11. The story doesn’t make sense; and yet they’re unable to address it.

When I bring up the topic in conversation, their response is silence. They don’t say I’m wrong; they’re just silent.

It is the intellectual or cultural equivalent of rape, child abuse, or incest in that we were violated. The government, the universities, the media, and the authority figures all around us like doctors, in the case of COVID-19, engineers, in the case of 9/11, all lied to us and they seduced us.

The resulting trauma, just like incest or rape, is so great that the individual is unable to come to grips with what has taken place. Therefore treating this trauma is the other key. We need to grasp the facts, reveal the chain of command, the specific chain of command through which the actions were taken. And then we must address the deep psychological trauma for Americans.

Richard Gage: Let’s jump into what you can actually accomplish as President. We have those who are calling you a vanity candidate. What is your response to them?

Get a Real 9/11 Investigation

Emanuel Pastreich: Right. Well, so I started this campaign back in 2020 when it became clear that in the Biden- Trump election there was not going to be a legitimate result, that it was going to be a “selection.”

I wanted to give Americans an alternative, a real one. So I addressed COVID-19 and 9/11, and other issues like money, that politicians will not touch.

I made my declaration on February 13, 2020, and then I was marooned in Korea, far from the United States, by February 23rd. So my real campaign in the United States didn’t last very long. There was a tremendous price to be paid for this act by me and my family.

I was basically unemployed for two out of the last three years, that made running for president more difficult–and people were afraid to support me directly–even if they secretly sympathized.

That is the price you must pay. I accept that.

The first six months in Korea I was completely unemployed. I lived in this temple in the mountains. And then I got a job working for a think tank focused on city planning. They tried to help me out but I was unemployed again after a year. So I moved to the countryside, got a tiny room, cut my expenses to nearly zero, and spent all my time writing speeches, reading, and thinking about what we need to do.

That was the best strategy for running for president possible. I never begged billionaires for anything.

Even though I was blocked out of the mainstream, even though I was not referenced anywhere by the newspapers, I believed then that if I continued to write speeches that were powerful, drawing on the tradition of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass, if I made my point in a succinct, logical, and rational manner, that there would be an audience and that I could get traction over time.

After 14 months, Global Research started publishing my speeches for a general audience and I got the attention that I needed to be a serious candidate.

My platform is not just about 9/11. But 9/11 cannot be separated from the attempt to dumb down people, to destroy our ability to think independently, to make us indulgent, to addict us to social media and to pornography, to create a stupid political discourse of fat cats and slices of chocolate cake.

Richard Gage: Well, let’s go to what you said in the article to those who accuse you of running a vanity campaign.

You said,

“To those who accuse me of running a vanity campaign I ask, I demand, of any of those politicians who think that they’re qualified to run for president,

“One, have you condemned the criminal operation that planned a false flag attack on the United States, known as the 9/11 event, as a means of dragging the United States into foreign wars and demolishing the republic? Have you asked for an international investigation?

(Of course the answer is no)

“Two, have you demanded the return to the Federal Reserve of the $10 to $15 trillion stolen between January and September of 2020? (And of course that number is even much, much higher now, of course, with COVID scam) by multinational investment banks and other global players. Have you demanded that the criminals behind the theft be jailed?”

(And of course they haven’t)

So you’re on top of them, you’re calling them out.

Emanuel Pastreich: All those interested can visit my website (emanuelprez.com) which presents my platform, positions and links to most articles and speeches.

I am in the process of rewriting the platform because we’ve gotten into so much trouble on this question of the term “climate change,” which I used back then. Because the real destruction of the environment has been co-opted and corrupted by the effort to control of human life by multinational investment banks and the super-rich, we need to rephrase the entire problem.

(noise)

I’m sorry, that was my mother trying to call me. I’ll call her later.

Richard Gage: Presidential candidates have mothers, too?

Emanuel Pastreich: My mother’s 93. I’m very, very blessed to still have her and her wisdom, but I also feel sad because I lost my wife a year ago, and my children lost their mother. My daughter was in her third year of high school. It feels so unfair that I have my mother to the age of 93.

Richard Gage: So how do we fix Washington?

Emanuel Pastreich: Obviously change starts with us. We have to first recognize that the gangrene is so deep that it’s going to require a revolutionary shift. Obviously I’m not going to become president by the Democratic or the Republican Party nominating me. Both of these organizations have degenerated into criminal syndicates that are pay-to-play.

So we have to go back to the Declaration of Independence, the first time we tried to break away from a corrupt global empire.

The Declaration of Independence makes it quite clear where we stand relative to the empire, and the Declaration of Independence is the primary law of the United States of America:

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is the citizens’ right, it is their duty, to throw off such a government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”

We must recognize the reality that things are so out of control that some difficult choices are going to have to be made, that we must “provide new guards for the future security.”

I said to a friend who wanted to end militarism and war, “Yeah, you and what army?”

It was a joke, but also serious.

I’m anti-war, anti-militarism. I feel that this inflated military buildup in the United States has done tremendous damage to our society and to our economy.

But if someone tells me we must stop these guys, the answer is “You and what army?”

I mean, these guys are mean and they are organized. They’re ready to kill. They’ve already killed large numbers of people, not just the truth tellers about 9/11, but lots of others who were interested in real politics not shows for entertainment.

We have a tiny handful of “whistle blowers” who show up on TV, but, they are just the surface. There are numerous people in DoD, in CIA, in State and throughout the federal government who took a stand against this corruption.

I know personally what happens. You are fired; you will never get a decent job again. You will live in the margins, and those “whistle blowers” on TV will never mention your name or lift a finger to help you.

A critical next step for 9/11 truth is recognizing that there was an organized effort to resist the takeover of the United States, February, 2001, by the globalists–after the Bush administration came to power.

There was organized resistance against the globalists in 2001 before 9.11. Most of it came from within the military and intelligence starting in earnest in April, 2001, because the professors, the politicians, and the media and NGO people ran away scared once a few people got killed.

We can interpret 9/11 in several ways. We can say that it was an effort to create these foreign wars, to make money off of wars, to transform the United States and to create this military dictatorship within the federal government.

Clearly this interpretation is accurate.

But you can also see 9.11 as a response to the growing opposition within the federal government, within the United States, to the globalist dictatorship that seized power in February, 2001. There was real push-back and as a result the globalists no longer controlled parts of the Federal government.

And that’s why 9/11 had to happen, to make sure that the domestic resistance was crushed.

The resistance was not crushed, it showed its power in the last-minute resistance to the invasion of Iraq from within DoD, and we see efforts at resistance today.

Richard Gage: Well, one of the things you call for, which might gather some attention, is an international 9/11 investigation because we don’t have much hope left inside the country for an impartial investigation. Tell us what you hope we can achieve through an international investigation?

Emanuel Pastreich: Right. I don’t rule out the role of Americans in that international investigation. We know from the 9/11 Commission report that Americans are incapable of basic logic. The report was so disgusting that I could not read it to the end.  I felt sick.

But obviously there are people like yourselves in the United States who are working hard, but for us to go to the next level we need to have to have support from around the world.

However, we should not be so naive as to think that China, or Russia, can help us out just by themselves. These big countries do some good things, and lots of bad things. The fact that the United States is a basket case does not mean that we should glorify them.

We must face the reality that, like COVID 19, most governments were corrupt and involved.

We have to be globally organized. And that’s the challenge for us: in order to respond to the globalists we have to become global ourselves. But we cannot become like them. Our movement has to be based on people, based on the rule of law and, above all, based on science.

Richard Gage: Well, how do we keep the powers that have all the money from taking over the science as they’ve done currently in the previous investigation? I mean, how do keep the international investigation from becoming co-opted?

Emanuel Pastreich: That is the million dollar question for us.

I’m not the first person to talk about an international investigation.

It hasn’t been done seriously in the way that we would like.

We have three people today here who are committed. That is enough. I have people I know in Asia, for example, who think 9.11 truth is critical. There are obviously people in the Middle East who are profoundly aware of the damage done by this.

But Americans are damaged by, to use Joost Meerloo’s term, “the rape of the mind.” I think that sums it up.

Our minds been violated, raped, so that we’re unable to respond anymore to the abuse. We have become passive like victims of sexual violence.

It is difficult to overcome that state of mind, but it’s not impossible.

I think it starts with a handful of people. Enough time has passed that we’re getting over that initial trauma and to the point where people are willing to talk more and more.

My writing on 9/11 doesn’t get taken down and more. I’m sure you remember the good old days, Richard. They used to shut us down immediately. Now, a lot of 9/11 stuff is out there. It is no longer completely under wraps.

I’m a serious candidate for president. I give serious speeches. I have the background for the job. I don’t want to boast about the privileges I’ve received, but I can be taken seriously.

9.11 is serious. 9/11, just like Oklahoma, or the Kennedy assassination, it’s not just for historians and conspiracy buffs. These actions profoundly corrupted the nature of governance.

They destroy the relationship between the citizens and the government and that allows the government to become a facade for the super-rich.

I used the term “Murder on the Orient Express” in my speech. Perhaps you’re familiar with that Agatha Christie novel.

Richard Gage: I saw the movie.

Emanuel Pastreich: Inspector Poirot is unable to crack the murder initially because everybody had a stab. If there had been just one person who’d done it, then it would be easy to figure it out. But the group anesthetized the victim and then each person came in and had one stab.

So my guess is that when we get to the next stage of the unraveling, that we’re going to find out that a lot of people were involved in 9.11, including some who don’t want us to know they were involved, including people who are promoting semi-conspiracy theories meant to mislead us.

Much of the conspiracy chatter leads us away from the question of who benefits, and who would have the capacity to do it.

The questions for the investigation are basic. In DoD, in the CIA, or in Mossad, which directorates, which units, would have the capacity to carry something out like this–it is not a whole lot.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the chain of command would be, where the orders would’ve come from.

So I think we need to get very technical about administrative procedure.

Institutions tied to Israel and the United States played a major role in 9.11–although others were involved too.

We need to understand the relationship between Israel and the United States, and I say that as someone whose father is Jewish, so I guess I am a self-hating anti-Semite.

The United States and Israel have become military allies without a formal alliance treaty–that is not good.

The result?

There has emerged this netherworld stretching from the Beltway, from Reston and Herndon, to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, an uncharted space wherein the two countries have merged together. That space is inhabited by a cancerous clump of private intelligence companies, political consulting firms, and weapons manufacturers.

We have to dig in there and to uncover what exactly happened: who did what.

I think it’s a mistake to launch a broad claim, that “It was the Zionists” or “It was Vatican,” or “It was the Masons.”

I’m not denying the possibility that these groups may be involved, but my guess is that actual operation was small and focused, but at the same time, behind the scenes it involved a far larger range of interest groups.

Richard Gage: I note your disappointment with your colleagues in Ivy League and in Washington DC then and again with the start of COVID-19. You write, “Then there I was again in January 2020, right there in Washington DC, watching in amazement as the utterly contrived and unconvincing COVID-19 pandemic was rolled out for mass consumption. I knew that my colleagues were smart enough to see through that circus from the start, but almost without exception they bought into the farce with enthusiasm, with pride and glee.” That was rather disappointing for you.

Emanuel Pastreich: Well, as I’m sure you know, Richard, the search for truth becomes personal. It involves family members. I’m very envious of you. You have your wife right there with you, but my wife, although she certainly was not naive about how the world works, was not interested in my getting involved. And I respected her position, but I felt I had no choice but to act.

Richard Gage: Yeah, it’s a mission. It comes to us.

You note that you were abandoned by those who, as you say, come from privilege, were are highly educated and then therefore had a duty to respond to society’s needs as they’re leading intellectuals. And yet they were bought and paid off, or their positions were threatened, such as your own, if they didn’t play along.

Emanuel Pastreich: Well, I’m a living proof of how that works. I’m very aware of how it works and there were people who suffered worse fates.

Richard Gage: You say bring the US military home and upgrade the United Nations. Why do we need the United Nations to be upgraded?

Emanuel Pastreich: I have revised my phrasing because the United Nations has become such a corrupt criminal syndicate that it cannot be reformed. Having a “United Nations” that can in a scientific and accountable manner deal with international issues is critical. I do carry on some of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s tradition. So, I’m a card carrying member when it comes to the need for some form of global governance to control multinational corporations and globalists.

But I do not accept what we have now. And I think the United Nations has to be, I don’t want to say, “subject to a controlled demolition,” but it has to be rebuilt from the bottom up.

Reinventing the United Nations cannot be separated from getting the US military out of the world. Now, there are certain parts of the military presence around the world that are necessary, but 90% of what we see now is leading us along the path of imperial decline.

There’s no way to recover except to take that brave step and say the United States is a republic, not an empire.

That’s what our constitution says. The tragedy started at the end of the Second World War; we were supposed to go back to a peacetime economy. And unfortunately, we didn’t do that.

At this point the United States military has to be pulled out of the world for a while.

We have to be engaged with people, not banks, around the world. And that effort in security must be focused on taking on terrorist groups like multi-billionaires and private equity funds, but also include coordinating with other countries and other institutions to promote peace, to save our oceans, to stop the spread of deserts, to end the dumping of plastic and chemicals in our water, and stop the deadly culture of consumption.

Richard Gage: You demand that trade must be ecological and truly free. What does that mean?

Emanuel Pastreich: Sadly, trade has become part of the scam carried on by the multinational banks. Increasingly, things are shipped to us from around the world in a polluting, costly, manner.

So you go to the store and buy stuff made in China, or Thailand, that could have been made in your neighborhood. This “trade” is not “free.”

If you or I want to open a trading company there are these tariffs that will crush you from day one. But if you’re a multinational corporation, not only do you pay minimal tariffs, but governments will give you billions of dollars in the form of low-interest or free loans.

Trade has been taken over, in terms of logistics, the supply chain nexus, distribution and retail sales, by these invisible masters of reporting to the bankers.

When you buy something, you have to pay 20%, 30% to these distributors. In addition, Walmart or Amazon take their pound of flesh.

And, of course, the plastic they put on it, the wrapping they put on it, the marketing for it– you have no choice but to pay for things because of these hidden forces within this corrupt trade system.

If products were produced locally, the money would stay in your community instead of being siphoned off by the banks.

You can say I’m a isolationist. You’re not going to hurt my feelings. I think trade should be what’s in the interest of the American people, and that we have no responsibility to help multinational corporations, much of whose stock is owned by people outside the US, to play any role in determining what we buy.

Richard Gage: Let us turn to COVID 19, the mask and vaccine regime. Where do you stand?

Emanuel Pastreich: COVID-19 was the inevitable next step after 9.11. I called it “Covid-911” in one of my early speeches.

9.11 induced this profound psychological trauma that made it difficult for Americans to comprehend what was going on and to address this attack scientifically and effectively–with some rare exceptions like the two of you, and our honored audience today.

COVID-19 was an obvious fraud from the start. There is a high probability that in the first six months various bio weapons were used in Germany, in China and elsewhere in order to kill people and make it look like it was a pandemic, but that the actual deaths from so-called COVID-19 were near zero.

You can debate whether COVID19 even exists, or it’s a common cold. I could not care less about that argument.

And the vaccine regime that forced people to take this bio-cocktail involuntarily, in violation of the Nuremberg Code, these injections of substances that they didn’t understand, that included dangerous substances, that was a massive criminal action.

I’m not interested, we are not interested in, declaring, “Oh, COVID-19 is over. Let’s go back to life as it was before.”

COVID-19 is not going to be over until the assets of all the individuals who backed this crime are seized, until the responsible people are in jail, and if it has to be the president or the entire Congress, that is fine with me–locking them all up will not hurt my feelings at all.

If we want a congressman to step down because he had an affair with his secretary, or he made some racist comment about African Americans, then yes, we should demand that every single member of congress step down for backing the 9.11 and COVID-19 scams. No question about it.

We’re not going to get to the bottom or end COVID-19 until we declassify all the records, release the information from DARPA and from the Gates Foundation, all these classified records.

We must seize the assets of these multi-billionaires. Which would be a nice move because if we seize their assets, they can no longer manipulate us in the way that they’re doing now.

Richard Gage: Do they go to jail?

Emanuel Pastreich: Oh, Richard, you’re a very forgiving man.

Richard Gage: So they will be held to the fullest account of the law, which for mass murder and treason accounts to, what do you call that, the death penalty?

Emanuel Pastreich: Well, there are two aspects to what I said.

First we have to recognize that we’re going to have to fight these people. They’re not going to just roll over belly up because we tell the truth.

We’re going to have to organize ourselves, and if necessary… You’re in Idaho, right? Go to their farms in Montana and Idaho, to their underground bunkers, wherever they are and get them.

They are well prepared. I see that taking them down will be a serious challenge–but not impossible.

And that’s why I’m not anti-military by any means. We need as many brave people who are willing to help us. We just have to get our enemies straight.

We have to sit down and talk about war, in a sense The nature of war never changes. But the means by which you fight wars keeps changing, and we have to keep up with it.

If you start swinging your sword, but you don’t know who your enemy is, then you’re going to get in serious trouble.

Richard Gage: Well, let’s see if our audience can help us out. Our viewers at RichardGage911:UNLEASHED! are here with us via Gail.

Gail Gage: We received some great questions.

This is the first one. “Some believe Trump is hated so vehemently by the establishment because he has questioned the official story of 911. Do you agree?”

Emanuel Pastreich: I wrote an article for Global Research in defense of Donald Trump on the occasion of his second impeachment in January, 2021, in which I listed seven major contributions he made.

I think he needs to be given credit. I included his willingness to engage with people committed to 9.11 truth. I don’t think he was a particularly good president, but certainly he was better than Obama.

Gail Gage: Next question. “Mr. Pastreich, do you have any plan or strategy on how to repel the media attacks who label us as conspiracy theorists where the MSM, mainstream media, unites to falsely claim our stance and has been completely debunked?”

Emanuel Pastreich: Well, I certainly have felt your pain over the last 22 years of this. I’m afraid that the whole system in which global finance is fused with media, like how the Washington Post is run by Jeff Bezos, like the New York Times is basically a propaganda piece for putting out corporate opinions, is deeply damaging.

So I think the solution is what you see right here, what we’re doing now. The real answer is this sort of engagement, this sort of broadcast.

This alternative media must become more convincing, more effective, so that people can just stop reading the other garbage.

We need alternative media that covers everything. Not just alternative media focused on 9.11 or COVID-19, or Ukraine. We need alternative media that also covers your local community and gives you the information you need.

I say, do not waste your time trying to engage with the mainstream media owned by multinational corporations. I think the best we can do is to wish them a peaceful death.

Gail Gage: Next question. Whether or not people like Trump, you have to admit he got the media coverage and probably has the corporate backing to become president. Do you have any chances of being in the TV debates?

Emanuel Pastreich: Well, obviously, I’m not Donald Trump. I’m not a billionaire. I ended up having almost no assets. So my strategy is to do the opposite.

I do not want to show how low I can bow before the false idols while getting to speak the truth on weekends. I would rather be one who starts out as the prophet in the wilderness, using “the Jeremiah strategy.”

Let us make up policy in response to the truth. I do not have to become president. I do not even have to stay alive.

I have always felt if someone else comes along and embraces this campaign, then I would be delighted to endorse that person. I’m not very good at kissing babies or drinking beer.

But I felt that it was critical to have somebody out there addressing real issues.

Richard Gage: Well, when you stepped forward to run for president, do you get any support?

Emanuel Pastreich: Oh, sure. I’ve had multiple Americans endorse me; some set up web pages describing me, and then they disappeared. After an initial flurry in March, 2020, I was not reported about for a long time in alternative media. When Global Research started to feature my speeches about a year and a half ago, I regained my traction.

And now thanks to you, I have a chance to go to the next level.

Gail Gage: Moving on to the next question. “Presidential Candidate Pastreich, what is your position on the release of classified documents related to 9/11, and what steps would you take to ensure that the public has access to this information?”

Emanuel Pastreich: I’ve written about this topic at length. First, we need a discussion about how to do this, and I welcome that debate.

I think that the only way to pull ourselves back from the edge is to set up the equivalent of a constitution-based provisional government to get us through the move from a deeply corrupted system to a law-based government that actually reflects the Constitution.

Support the 9/11 Truth Movement

There is danger in that move. It is not going to be easy.

There’s going to be heavy lifting required, and there will be risks if you empower some part of the population to serve as a provisional government so as to restore the Constitution.

We run the real risk that those people will seize that opportunity to carry on the same fun and games already taking place, maybe to make the situation worse.

But I think that the risk of doing nothing is even greater. We have to assume that we need a constitutional convention that will restore the Constitution.

But we have to act at that level of seriousness, to have real historical vision, to say, we’re going to set up a government–and we are not going to just make a few corrections to this current system.

Richard Gage: Is it safe to suggest that you do support the release of classified documents related to 9/11?

Emanuel Pastreich: I was explaining how we are going to do it.

First we are not going to waste a century filing “freedom of information act” requests for little scraps that bureaucrats might or might not give us.

The way we will get the documents released is this: we hold our own constitutional convention, and we declare that we have established a provisional government to restore the Constitution. Our group then issues orders to DoD, CIA and other organizations saying, “Release all these classified documents immediately.”

They respond, “Well, you have no authority to order us.”

And we say,

“Of course we have authority. We’re following the Constitution. These people in the White House or the top in DoD or at General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin, they have no authority.

“Our constitutional convention has empowered us in that it reflects the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the two documents that define what the Republic is, and what it is not.

“We are empowered by the constitution, and those who are telling you what to do, they do not have the authority to tell you what to do.”

We should take a strong position like that. This approach has been been employed out of sight for some time–so it’s not a totally new concept.

At some point we will have a breakthrough. The dam would burst and they will start to recognize our legitimacy and to release these documents. And once they’re released, it will be a game changer.

We won’t get to that point, however, until there is a fundamental shift in the chain of command.

We  who are –I hate to call them puppets– doing the bidding of globalist investors. They’re democratic in that they represent various multinational interests, and they have to pay attention to the House of Saud, to the Koch family, the Walton family, and to the DuPonts.

have a chain of command now in which you have President Biden, and the Speaker of the House McCarthy, and other members of the government

They have to tend to the needs of BlackRock, Vanguard, and Goldman Sachs. But the chain of command does not include the American people anywhere.

Gail Gage: Next question. “Given your emphasis on international diplomacy and security issues, how do you see the events of 9/11 as having impacted US foreign policy and relations with other nations and how would you work to address any ongoing repercussions from these events?”

Emanuel Pastreich: Thank you for the excellent question. So I would first say that I’m not a magician. I don’t pretend that if you support me, or even if I were elected, that I’m going to be able to transform a broken, rotten system.

The impact of 9/11 has been profound.

The first being the death of science and the destruction of governance, which means the death of rationality in government. The death of governance extends to international diplomacy and security. Decisions are made based on who gives you the most money. Basically it is “pay to play” in the worst sense.

That means we face a high level conspiracy. The heads of state of all the major countries in the world have bought into this fake narrative. That means that the multinational banks and other global financial players have unbelievable reach around the world.

So that is a profound transformation of the international community.

It’s not entirely because of 9/11 that this change took place. It is also a result of technology, of a decadence in our culture that allows the unlimited influence of consumption culture on us. We have ceased being citizens and became consumers.

Gail Gage: Another question: “As an independent, the public would want to know if you’re left, right, neutral or something else?”

Richard Gage: Yeah. How do you identify?

Gail Gage: Which party?

Emanuel Pastreich: Well, I’ve been more successful with conservatives overall, but my family were all Democrats. I was a Democrat in 1998–a long time ago. I am from what you would call a liberal establishment family. My father went to Yale and he was part of the system, and to a degree so was I then.

When I started to talk about independence, the need to follow the Constitution, the need to produce our own food, and to form independent communities, obviously I was walking away from a big government liberal perspective–and away from the money economy.

My stand on money also appeals to conservatives. Money today is not money at all. It’s a liquid ideology that’s being floated around. And now they want to force us into digital currencies and to centralize all the banks around the world; the Silicon Valley Bank bankruptcy, and other banks that will collapse, is part of a scheme to make money disappear, and then, lo and behold, the government is going to save you with a digital currency.

Clearly, we’re not really talking about money anymore. That position gave me appeal with real conservatives, not the fake conservatives of the Republican Party.

So I am not a Bernie Sanders, let us throw money at the problem, sort of guy.

Richard Gage: Back to the left, right issue. You have the same issue as Robert F. Kennedy. He is coming forward as a presidential candidate, and he’s a Democrat, and from a long line of Democrats But he is completely bucking the establishment, the Democratic establishment in calling for truth about Covid-19 and the vaccines. So I am all for him.

Emanuel. How do you feel about his candidacy?

Emanuel Pastreich: I have read many of his materials. His writings were very helpful to me, and many statements in my speeches were based on information that he was so good as to provide.

I guess my position is a practical one. I would say that we’re past that stage of getting out information now. And we are past the stage in which the Democratic Party can play any meaningful role in governance. The Democratic Party is a criminal syndicate. It’s largely owned by investors from around the world. It’s being used against the American people. And the Republican Party is similar.

20 years ago, we had a few good people in the Democratic Party like Dennis Kucinich, even though it was corrupt. Now, I’d say the Republican Party at least has a few good people, even though it’s corrupt.

I have great respect for Robert Kennedy Jr. and we should support him to the degree that we can. But I do not think that we can embrace   as our candidate, somebody who’s not willing to take on 9/11 or for that matter, to take on Covid-19, as a criminal action.

Covid-19 is not about treatment. It’s not about the technical aspects of vaccines. It’s about a massive criminal conspiracy to use bio-weapons to kill off tens of millions, hundreds of millions, of people around the world.

We cannot get away with a “mistakes were made” criticism.

I would just ask Mr. Kennedy to please extend his excellent work to openly address what was really was behind Covid-19.

I hope that he would be willing to support a  real investigation of 9/11. If he does so I would be happy to support him.

Gail Gage: New question, “What is your stance on patents, antitrust laws and the state of monopoly law? Also, how can we reverse the growing class inequality domestically?”

Emanuel Pastreich: Right. Well, let me first say that unlike many politicians, I did not start out as a lawyer. And there are many things I don’t know about the law.

I’m not going to pretend to know things that I don’t know.

What I do know about patents is that increasingly we have multinational firms buying up patents en masse and then using them to try and stop individuals from using their own know-how.

If you invent something, then some multinational is going to come along and say, “Oh, we owned some patent that we bought that covers what you are doing and we will throw a pile of lawyers at you.”

They buy thousands of patents so that they can claim that if you fry a burger or brush your teeth, that is an infringement on their patent. Patents are not used to protect the rights of the individual citizen to develop his own or her own ideas, but rather as a way to suppress innovation and make us dependent on multinational corporations.

Antitrust obviously originally had a positive meaning, going back to Theodore Roosevelt. A lot of positive reforms were carried out in the name of antitrust. Today antitrust is used in a extremely selective way to batter down the groups that the monopolies do not like.

If you’re Google, or Facebook, or Microsoft, blatant antitrust violations don’t exist for you. In fact, the blatant monopolies carried out by these corporations are whitewashed as being convenient for the public.

Google is one of the most offensive in that respect. Google’s takeover of Wikipedia, Youtube, and of much of American intelligence through privatization and outsourcing makes it the invisible empire controlling our minds.

Richard Gage: Give us the names.

Emanuel Pastreich: I want to recommend Peter Phillip’s book “Giants: The Global Power Elite” which lists the heads of major investment funds around the world.

The book does not list all of the super-rich investors behind the scenes, but it identifies the people who are making the calls on long-term investments for their clients.

Those asset managers are the ones who hired the consulting firms who cooked up, and then directed, operation 9.11 and operation COVID-19.

Let us face facts. The second generation of billionaires and multi-billionaires, the scions of super rich families, are often not that smart. They don’t do the thinking and the dirty work  themselves. They have teams for intelligence and strategy. We are talking about families like the Sauds, the Waltons, the Rockefellers, the DuPonts, etc.

The responsibility should be traced back to the deep pockets in the end, but at this point we have to focus on those who are making up the strategy.

And I also want to stress, and this point is important, that we cannot say that the government is going to pay for the damages from 9/11 or from Covid-19–even if government officials did the dirty work for the rich and powerful.

Why? Because if the government paying, that means that you are paying. Your tax dollars are going to pay for the mess the rich made, or deficit spending to pay will create massive inflation that will eat up your savings.

Under my administration, the government is not going to pay a penny for 9.11 or COVID-19. The assets of the powerful who set these criminal operations in motion are going to be seized and used to pay.

The people ultimately responsible, when we get to the bottom of it, will not be those in the directorate of operations at the CIA or at Mossad. It’s going to be these multi-billionaires who hide behind the investment funds, who hide behind intelligence.

I say, if we want to be serious about 9/11, then we must go for the money.

Richard Gage: Well, it’s been an incredible honor to have you with us, Emanuel. Final thoughts from you, sir. And leave us with some hope here as we face this incredible set of problems we’ve inherited.

Emanuel Pastreich: I’m honored to have had this opportunity to talk to you. And the campaign over the last three years has not been about me. It shouldn’t be about me. It should be the future of our country and the future of our world.

We have to start by looking ourselves in the mirror.

As I note in “The Treason of the Intellectuals,” I first had to recognize my own mistakes, what I did wrong, before I could go forward and admit to myself that I had let myself be duped, that I had bought into these fairy tales. It took 9/11 to shake me out of my sleep, but it should have been Oklahoma that woke me up.

I should have woken up then because I knew there was something fishy about Oklahoma. But I was still in a fog back then in 1995. So, we must be forgiving of those who are still in a fog today, but we will be uncompromising in our demand that they must wake up.

See original posting at: Richard 911 Substack

Original interview at Emanuel on 9.11 Truth 

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This article was originally published on Fear No Evil.

Emanuel Pastreich served as the president of the Asia Institute, a think tank with offices in Washington DC, Seoul, Tokyo and Hanoi. Pastreich also serves as director general of the Institute for Future Urban Environments. Pastreich declared his candidacy for president of the United States as an independent in February, 2020.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Greanville Post

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UK to Send Nuclear Weapon to Zelenskyy Regime

March 24th, 2023 by Kurt Nimmo

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On March 20, Annabel Goldie, a “Baroness-in-Waiting in the Royal Household,” currently “serving” as the minister of state at the UK Ministry of Defense, told House of Lords member Raymond Hervey Jolliffe, aka “Lord Hylton,” that indeed the UK will send a nuclear weapon to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s post-coup regime.

“Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium,” said Goldie. “Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles.”

Depleted uranium (DU) is a radiological warfare agent, thus it is fair to categorize it as a nuclear weapon. The National Nuclear Security Administration notes “the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile… needs a supply of depleted uranium metal… to manufacture nuclear weapon components.”

The use of DU in munitions endangers the normal functioning of the kidney, brain, liver, heart, and numerous other systems, according to the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health. DU was used extensively during the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

“Iraq is suffering from depleted uranium (DU) pollution in many regions and the effects of this may harm public health through poisoning and increased incidence of various cancers and birth defects,” reports the National Library of Medicine.

DU is a known carcinogenic agent. About 1200 tonnes of ammunition were dropped on Iraq during the Gulf Wars of 1991 and 2003. As a result, contamination occurred in more than 350 sites in Iraq. Currently, Iraqis are facing about 140,000 cases of cancer, with 7000 to 8000 new ones registered each year. In Baghdad cancer incidences per 100,000 population have increased, just as they have also increased in Basra. The overall incidence of breast and lung cancer, Leukaemia and Lymphoma, has doubled even tripled.

Grotesque birth defects resulted from the use of DU in Iraq, including anencephaly, lower limb anomalies, spina bifida, and a variety of other abnormalities. Photos posted on the Foreign Policy Journal website reveal the severity of these deformities (warning: the photos are extremely graphic and disturbing).

General Lord George Robertson, the secretary of NATO in 2000, admitted DU was used against the people of Serbia, then Yugoslavia, in 1999. Julie Hyland writes,

NATO pursued a strategy of “carpet-bombing” towns and cities across Yugoslavia during its offensive. Some 700 planes flew almost 35,000 sorties, destroying large parts of the country’s industrial and social infrastructure. During the latter stages of the air campaign, NATO moved to 24-hour bombing, targeting industrial plants, airports, electricity and telecommunications facilities, railways, bridges and fuel depots, schools, health clinics, day care centres, government buildings, churches, museums and monasteries… A comprehensive list of those areas targeted with DU ammunition would probably mean declaring much of Serbia and Kosovo contaminated, as well as raising serious concerns over the environmental and health dangers for surrounding countries.

In January, I quoted Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna Negotiations on Military Security and Arms Control. Gavrilov said if the regime in Kyiv “were to be supplied with such munitions for the use in western heavy military hardware, we would regard it as the use of ‘dirty nuclear bombs’ against Russia, with all the consequences that entails.”

Also in January, the Biden administration refused to say if Bradley Fighting vehicles scheduled to be sent to Ukraine will be equipped with DU munitions.

The psychopathy of peerage entitled “conservatives” in the UK, and their criminally insane neocon counterparts in America, represents a growing threat to humanity. The Russians realize the use of DU in eastern Ukraine, much of it now part of the Russian Federation (as the ethnic Russians there voted for unification in referenda), is a form of radiological, chemical (heavy metals), and biological warfare.

As Gavrilov warned, using DU against the people of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, and Donetsk will be considered a “dirty bomb” attack on Russia. He said Russia would respond accordingly, although he did not provide specific details.

However, last March, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia, if faced with an existential threat, would respond with nuclear weapons.

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From 2005 to 2016, under the helm of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad former Prime Minister of Malaysia, I served as member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) which coordinated the prosecution and led the indictments against: Bush, Cheney, Blair et al (May 2012). 

See excerpts of the KLWCT 2012 judgment below, which were barely acknowledged by the Western media.

***

The following Presentation, Kuala Lumpur, March 2015 focusses on the criminalization of war and US-NATO’s self proclaimed “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT).

I should mention that during his tenure as Vice President, Joe Biden was firmly supportive of the carpet bombing of Iraq ordered by President Obama starting in August 2014 under a “Fake” anti-terrorist operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL-ISIS-Daesh).

On August 7, 2014: “President Obama authorises the first air strikes to protect US diplomats and aid Iraqi government forces”.

What shear nonsense. Why is this anti-terrorist operation “Fake”? 

The Islamic State (ISIL-ISIS-Daesh) is an al Qaeda affiliate, a creation of US intelligence, financed and supported covertly by US-NATO. 

The operation was directed against Iraqi and Syrian civilians. It resulted in extensive destruction of the civilian infrastructure of both countries. ISIS was the pretext which was heralded by the media.

And in September 2014, Obama announced the formation of “an anti-ISIS coalition” with the participation of NATO member states as well as US allies in the Middle East (including Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, etc).

The incursion of the Islamic State (IS) brigades from Syria into Iraq starting in June 2014 was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation supported covertly by the US, NATO and Israel.

The counter-terrorism mandate was a fiction.

The Islamic State was protected by the US and its allies. If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June 2014. 

\

The  Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map below).

With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, CF-18) it would have been  -from a military standpoint-  a rapid and expedient surgical operation

The Obama administration’s carpet bombing operation against Iraq and Syria entitled Operation Resolve was carried out over several years.

Michel Chossudovsky on the Criminalization of War and America’s Fake “Global War on Terrorism”

In the Mobile version, the presentation commences: at 8’30” (terminates at 19′.01″)

***

ANNEX 

In May 2012, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal passed a historic judgment against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, et al: 

“After hours of deliberation, the tribunal, in the verdict that was read out by the president of the tribunal Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus Lamin, found that the prosecution had established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused persons, former President George Bush and his co-conspirators engaged in a web of instructions, memos, directives, legal advice and action that established a common plan and purpose, joint enterprise and/or conspiracy to commit the crimes of Torture and War Crimes, including and not limited to a common plan and purpose to commit the following crimes in relation to the “War on Terror” and the wars launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan and Iraq: 

(a) Torture;

(b) Creating, authorizing and implementing a regime of Cruel, Inhumane, and Degrading Treatment;

(c) Violating Customary International Law;

(d) Violating the Convention Against Torture 1984;

(e) Violating the Geneva Convention III and IV 1949;

(f) Violating the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of 1949.

(g) Violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter. 

The Tribunal finds that the prosecution has established beyond a reasonable doubt that the Accused persons are individually and jointly liable for all crimes committed in pursuit of their common plan and purpose under principles established by Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (the Nuremberg Charter), which states, inter alia, “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any person in execution of such plan.” 

Rage Against the War Machine: What Rage? ‘When will they ever learn?’

By Robert J. Burrowes, March 23, 2023

In his iconic 1950s anti-war hit song ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’, Pete Seeger posed the eternal question about war: ‘when will they ever learn?’ Of course, Seeger’s question was primarily directed at those individuals who choose to participate in the fighting. But it might equally have been directed at those in the ‘anti-war’ movement.

The U.S. Attempts to Mislead the World Into Thinking That India Is Its Ally Against China

By Andrew Korybko, March 23, 2023

The US’ soft power and strategic interests are served by manipulating the public’s perceptions about India’s emerging role in the global systemic transition, while that country’s own soft power and strategic interests are challenged by its partner’s latest information warfare campaign.

The World’s Largest CBDC Trial: A Preview of the Elite’s Cashless Vision for You

By Nick Giambruno, March 23, 2023

The eNaira is Africa’s first central bank digital currency (CBDC). Central bankers, academics, politicians, and an assortment of elites from over 100 countries hoping to launch their own CBDCs have closely followed the eNaira.

‘Mexico is not a US colony!’: AMLO Condemns Invasion Threats, Celebrates Nationalization of Oil, Lithium

By Ben Norton, March 23, 2023

Mexico’s leftist President AMLO condemned “hypocritical” Republicans who want the US military to invade, declaring “Mexico is an independent and free country, not a US colony or protectorate!” In a massive rally, López Obrador also celebrated the expropriation of oil and lithium, condemning exploitative foreign corporations.

NATO Pressuring Serbia “to Renounce Kosovo”. No to Capitulation! “Self-liberation” in NATO Occupied Belgrade

By Stephen Karganovic, March 23, 2023

The late Gene Sharp, ideological godfather of countless colour revolutions, probably would not be pleased to see his teachings posthumously hijacked by a most unconventional activist. Father Anthony is an  unyielding, pesky Serbian Orthodox cleric who gets high on driving his country’s authorities crazy, but has he heard of Gene Sharp?

Russia’s Economy Recovers While Dozens of US Banks Face Collapse

By Ahmed Adel, March 23, 2023

Although Western media were boasting about Sberbank’s 78% plunge in profit in 2022 due to US-led sanctions, with CEO German Gref acknowledging a “most difficult year”, it appears that the US economic system is the one actually on the brink as four banks have already collapsed, with dozens more expected to follow.

South Africa, Russia, China and the Shifting World Situation

By Abayomi Azikiwe, March 23, 2023

National Assembly Speaker of the Republic of South Africa, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, said publicly in a recent statement before the supreme legislative body in Cape Town that the African National Congress (ANC) led government would continue to support the people of the Russian Federation.

Imagine a Life Like This: The Relentless Persecution of Hassan Diab

By Hassan Diab Support Committee, March 23, 2023

Hassan Diab goes on trial in France (in absentia) on April 3, 2023. This is for a 1980 bombing in Paris, although Hassan was not even in France at the time! His ordeal has disrupted his life for nearly 15 years, including more than three years in a maximum-security prison in France. Imagine the terrible price paid, and is still being paid, by him and his family.

How to Reduce Military Spending

By David Swanson, March 23, 2023

With Afghanistan and Iraq it took a year-and-a-half each to get good U.S. majorities in polls saying the wars never should have been started. The war in Ukraine appears to be on the same trajectory. Of course, those who believed the wars shouldn’t have been started did not, for the most part, believe they should be ended.

America’s Vulnerable Energy Security

By Shane Quinn, March 23, 2023

In 1992 Dick Cheney, the US Secretary of Defense, issued a document which outlined that the main political and military aim of Washington is to prevent any rival power emerging in Europe, the former Soviet Union, and Asia. The ambition was to ensure America’s status as the global superpower.

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***

The US’ soft power and strategic interests are served by manipulating the public’s perceptions about India’s emerging role in the global systemic transition, while that country’s own soft power and strategic interests are challenged by its partner’s latest information warfare campaign. Presenting the aforesaid transition’s latest phase as a bipolar one between “democracies” and “dictatorships” instead of the tripolar phase that it truly is undercuts India’s claims to neutrality in the New Cold War.

The US commenced an information warfare campaign in the run-up to President Xi’s historic visit to Moscow aimed at misportraying India as its ally against China. The intention is to make the targeted audience think that International Relations aren’t about to trifurcate into the US-led West’s Golden Billion, the Sino-Russo Entente, and the informally Indianled Global South, but bifurcate into “democracies” and “dictatorships”, with the US and India against China and Russia in the New Cold War.

The first move in this direction occurred on 14 March when Republican Senator Bill Hagerty published a press release about the bipartisan resolution that he co-sponsored in mid-February reaffirming the US’ recognition of Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory and not Chinese. One day later on 15 March, former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was confirmed by the Senate to become the next US Ambassador to India, which finally filled this highly important diplomatic post after a two-year absence.

Then on 20 March, which was the same day that President Xi arrived in Moscow, US News & World Report cited an inside source who claimed that the US supplied intelligence to India prior to a border incident with China late last year, which enabled Delhi to thwart Beijing’s alleged incursion at the time. This sequence of events was arguably set into motion by the initial report on 7 March that President Xi planned to visit Russia on 21 March, which Beijing confirmed ten days later on 17 March.

Early February’s balloon incident ended prior hopes for a “New Détente” between China and the US, which in turn hardened their positions towards one another and thus made the intensification of their worldwide competition inevitable. Accordingly, China decided to solidify its nascent Entente with Russia by having President Xi travel to Moscow for that purpose, while the US sought to mislead the world into thinking that India had allied with it against the People’s Republic.

That second-mentioned response to the newfound military-strategic dynamics brought about by the balloon incident deserves to be analyzed more at length since everything isn’t at it seems. Upon learning in early March that President Xi was planning to visit Russia, the US decided to send three sequential signals for the purpose of manipulating public perceptions about the Indian-US Strategic Partnership, ergo the spree of developments that was described above.

The timing of Senator Hagerty’s press release about the bipartisan resolution that he co-sponsored the month prior wasn’t coincidental but the first salvo in this information warfare campaign. It was then followed by the Senate finally confirming Garcetti’s appointment as the next US Ambassador to India, which was a long time coming but was given an urgent impetus by reports about President Xi’s upcoming visit to Moscow.

The third and most recent step of this campaign, but certainly not the last one, was when the US decided to leak the report about their country’s intelligence assistance to India late last year on the exact day that President Xi arrived in Russia. This was meant to artificially manufacture the earlier described narrative relating to the false bifurcation of International Relations into “democratic” and “dictatorial” blocs instead of their trifurcation into the Golden Billion, the Entente, and Global South.

About that last-mentioned step, this report doesn’t in and of itself prove that India is the US’ military ally against China since that South Asian Great Power proudly practices a policy of multi-alignment between the world’s top players, which maximizes its hard-earned strategic autonomy in the New Cold War. India rightly eschews formal alliances since they’d impose limits on its foreign policy and burden it with uncomfortable obligations, thus reducing its sovereignty.

Moreover, observers should be informed that the US still dispatched senior diplomats to Beijing for talks with their Chinese counterparts in pursuit of their now-defunct “New Détente” immediately after the same Sino-Indo clash that their intelligence services helped Delhi prepare for ahead of time. Reports about that incident indicate that it took place on 9 December, while China’s Foreign Ministry disclosed on 12 December that their diplomats and the US’ held talks in Beijing over the past two days.

This proves that the US was double-dealing at the time. On the one hand, it reportedly shared intelligence with India to help it prepare for an impending incursion by China, while at the same time still dispatching its diplomats to Beijing in spite of the Sino-Indo clash that took place immediately prior. The signal sent to India was that the US tacitly had its back against China, while the one sent to China was that the US didn’t care enough about its reported incursion against India to call off their talks.

There’s no way to describe this approach other than emblematic of the US’ typical divide-and-rule agenda against Eurasia. If it and India had truly allied against China, then the US would have abruptly canceled its planned talks with China in protest after those two neighboring Asian Great Powers clashed. Instead, it went through with them anyhow since its strategists calculated that their country’s interests were best served by discussing a possible deal with China than standing in solidarity with India.

The above insight adds crucial context to the US’ newly commenced information warfare campaign aimed at misportraying India as its ally against China and compellingly discredits that false narrative. Quite clearly, while Delhi won’t ever decline Washington’s actionable intelligence that’s shared with it about Beijing’s military plans along their disputed border, this doesn’t mean that India will do the US’ bidding against China as proven by its continued restraint despite the incident late last year.

The US’ soft power and strategic interests are served by manipulating the public’s perceptions about India’s emerging role in the global systemic transition, while that country’s own soft power and strategic interests are challenged by its partner’s latest information warfare campaign. Presenting the aforesaid transition’s latest phase as a bipolar one between “democracies” and “dictatorships” instead of the tripolar phase that it truly is undercuts India’s claims to neutrality in the New Cold War.

It also implies that this South Asian Great Power has voluntarily surrendered its hard-earned strategic autonomy in that worldwide competition over the direction of the global systemic transition in order to voluntarily submit itself to becoming the unipolar-driven Golden Billion’s largest-ever vassal state. Neither of these narratives implied by the US’ latest information warfare campaign are true, but they’re being propagated in order to advance that declining unipolar hegemon’s interests at India’s expense.

*

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This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The eNaira is Africa’s first central bank digital currency (CBDC).

Central bankers, academics, politicians, and an assortment of elites from over 100 countries hoping to launch their own CBDCs have closely followed the eNaira.

They used Nigeria—Africa’s largest country by population and size of its economy—as a trial balloon to test their nefarious plans to eliminate cash in North America, Europe, and beyond.

Are you concerned about CBDCs?

Then you should be paying attention to what is happening in Nigeria.

That’s because there’s an excellent chance your government will reach for the same playbook when they decide to impose CBDCs in your area—which could be soon.

CBDCs enable all sorts of horrible, totalitarian things.

They allow governments to track and control every penny you earn, save, and spend. They are a powerful tool for politicians to confiscate and redistribute wealth as they see fit.

CBDCs will also enable devious social engineering by allowing governments to punish and reward people in ways they previously couldn’t.

CBDCs are, without a doubt, an instrument of enslavement. They represent a quantum leap backward in human freedom.

Unfortunately, they’re coming soon…

Governments will probably mandate CBDCs as the “solution” when the next real or contrived crisis hits—which is likely not far off.

That’s why you must pay attention to what is happening in Nigeria. That way, you can know what to expect and take preventative action.

Here are the top five insights from the eNaira.

Insight #1: Don’t Take the Bait… Reject CBDC Incentives

In Nigeria, the government implemented discounts and other incentives to increase the adoption of eNaira.

In North America and Europe, expect the government to require CBDCs to receive welfare payments, a potential universal basic income, so-called “inflation relief checks,” or whatever the next cockamamie scheme is.

Think of these incentives like the cheese in a mousetrap.

Insight #2: Simultaneous Moves To Eliminate Cash

To help boost eNaira adoption, the Nigerian government announced a plan to remove the legal tender status of various high denomination bills, rendering them worthless.

According to the World Bank, over 55% of the adult population in Nigeria does not have a bank account and is dependent on physical cash.

The Nigerian government must have known phasing out cash would be a disaster for a majority of the population, but they plowed ahead anyways—so much for democracy.

When your government imposes a CBDC, expect simultaneous measures to force people out of cash, regardless of the costs.

Those measures could come in many flavors, but I would bet they would first look to phase out large denomination bills by removing their legal tender status.

We’re already seeing this happen…

For example, the EU has already phased out the 500 euro note.

The $100 bill is the largest in circulation in the US, but that wasn’t always the case. At one point, the US had $500, $1,000, $5,000, and even $10,000 bills.

The government eliminated these large bills in 1969 under the pretext of fighting the War on (Some) Drugs.

The $100 bill has been the largest ever since. But it has far less purchasing power than it did in 1969. Decades of rampant money printing have debased the dollar. Today, a $100 note buys less than $12 in 1969.

Even though the Federal Reserve has devalued the dollar by over 88% since 1969, it still refuses to issue notes larger than $100.

With CBDCs on the horizon, I think the US government will not only never issue another bill higher than $100 but will probably look to phase out the $100 bill under various pretexts.

Insight #3: Bank Restrictions

Most people think of the money they deposit into the bank as a personal asset they own.

But that’s not true.

Once you deposit money at the bank, it’s no longer your property. Instead, it’s the bank’s, and they can pretty much do whatever they want with it.

What you really own is the bank’s promise to pay you back. It’s an unsecured liability, which makes you technically and legally a creditor of the bank.

And since the banking system is intertwined with the government everywhere, it’s only prudent to expect governments to place more restrictions on bank accounts as CBDCs debut.

This is exactly what happened in Nigeria.

Cash withdrawal limits and debit card transaction restrictions were imposed, among other measures. In addition, capital controls made it challenging to send money out of the country.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see the forced conversion of bank deposits into the eNaira—at an unfavorable rate.

Here’s the bottom line. Expect all sorts of restrictions—and possible confiscations—to be imposed on bank accounts when a CBDC is released.

Insight #4: Rising Inflation

Amid the eNaira rollout, Nigeria is experiencing some of the highest inflation levels in its history.

This is not surprising. CBDCs make it even easier for the government to debase the currency.

So, it’s reasonable to expect more inflation when CBDCs come to town.

Insight #5: Social Unrest

In another predictable development, frustrated Nigerians took to the streets over the government’s actions to restrict cash and bank accounts. There was a violent scramble to exchange old notes before the government deemed them worthless. Riots broke out in several locations.

There’s an excellent chance the destructive restrictions imposed alongside CBDCs could create social unrest anywhere.

Conclusion

To summarize, here are the top five insights from Nigeria’s CBDC experience.

Insight #1: Don’t Take the Bait… Reject CBDC Incentives

Insight #2: Simultaneous Moves To Eliminate Cash

Insight #3: Bank Restrictions

Insight #4: Rising Inflation

Insight #5: Social Unrest

As CBDCs come to your neighborhood, you now know what to expect.

Governments will probably mandate CBDCs as the “solution” when the next real or contrived crisis hits—which is likely not far off.

There’s an excellent chance more inflation and financial chaos is coming soon.

Are you ready for it?

That’s why I just released an urgent PDF guide, “Survive and Thrive During the Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 Years.” Download this free report to discover the top 3 strategies you need to implement today to protect yourself and potentially come out ahead.

With the global economy in turmoil and the threat of a “Great Reset” looming, this guide is a must-read. Click here to download it now.

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***

In the immediate aftermath of Norfolk Southern’s train derailment in East Palestine in early February, reporters, first responders and officials seemed confused about exactly what chemicals were even in the train’s burning cars. Yet, right on cue, despite not knowing what effects the various chemicals could have within an explosive situation, the EPA reported that the surrounding air and water was safe to breathe and drink. 

As more reports trickled out, we learned the train cars were carrying at least five toxic chemicals: vinyl chloride, ethylene glycol monobutyl ether, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, and isobutylene.

According to government and scientific data, exposure to these chemicals can cause multiple forms of cancer and other serious health issues. But Norfolk Southern failed to initially disclose those chemicals as highly hazardous, and first responders — not to mention the public — had little idea what they were dealing with.

Three days after the derailment, on Feb. 6, we watched as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, in consultation with Norfolk Southern representatives, greenlighted a plan to blow holes in five of the cars containing toxic chemicals, which would lead to a ​controlled release,” and residents in nearby communities were ordered to evacuate. This decision to release and burn off the chemicals was defended by public officials and Norfolk Southern as the ​safest way” to handle the situation. The resulting fire’s black plume of smoke, ash and debris, created a toxic pall that hung over the communities for days. EPA tests found the air contaminated with phosgene, hydrogen chloride, VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and particulate matter.

We can’t turn back time, but we can change this disastrous system so no company can harm communities in this way ever again.

By Feb. 7, according to a Norfolk Southern service alert, trains were running through East Palestine again. As thousands of dead fish floated in local waterways, as nearby residents were reporting sickness and dying pets, as untold long-term health and environmental problems lurked in the hazy future, the railroad chugged back to business as usual.

We basically nuked a town with chemicals so we could get a railroad open,” said hazardous materials expert and retired Youngstown, Ohio Fire Chief Sil Caggiano.

Norfolk Southern did not respond to a request for comment.

Every environmental disaster impacts us all, but this one struck closer to home for both of us: Chad lives an hour southeast of East Palestine and Tish an hour northwest. There’s a temptation to dismiss this tragedy as a one-off, unparalleled accident — but it’s not.

Rolling catastrophes like this derailment are all too familiar to us at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), which has been fighting for the rights of communities to protect themselves from this sort of corporate abuse for over 25 years.

As it unfolded, we felt like we were trapped in the movie Groundhog Day, watching in East Palestine the latest cycle in a never-ending replay of similar events we have observed year after year in hundreds of other communities across the nation.

Disasters like these keep happening because the system — the train — keeps rolling, exactly as it was designed to, foisting the consequences onto communities and their environments and hoarding the spoils for the economic elites, while government regulatory agencies issue permits and legalize it all.

Since this country’s founding, our system of government has placed profits and property interests over people and planet. The derailment in East Palestine illustrates this clearly. For over 150 years, railroad workers have been telling employers like Norfolk Southern and the government that their working conditions are deplorable and dangerous.

With deregulation of the industry in the 1980s, which included Wall Street mergers and ​short term profit imperatives,” trains have been getting longer and longer while the number of train workers gets smaller and smaller. Cost cutting by Norfolk Southern and other carriers has, according to Railroad Workers United, ​eliminated many of the critical mechanical positions and locations necessary to guarantee protection against these kinds of failures.” Railroad corporations, meanwhile, continue to rake in piles of cash: In 2022, Norfolk Southern reported a record $4.8 billion in income. Compare that to the $3.4 million the company has offered to residents of East Palestine.

Governmental fines are laughable when compared to the corporation’s profits. In industries like these, it’s easier, and more profitable, to first act recklessly and ask for forgiveness later. For example, regulators fined oil and gas company Seneca Resources Corporation $377,000 in 2013 for 59 violations at its Pennsylvania oil wells. That year, the company reported revenues of $428 million.

And whatever the fines assessed or community payouts offered, the fallout from such corporate-made disasters is rarely contained. Both residents and nature continue to suffer the consequences for years and sometimes generations.

At his Feb. 6 press conference in East Palestine to inform the community and the media about the controlled burn, Gov. DeWine showed a map of the area with two circles, one red and one orange. If you were in the red circle, you were told it was a matter of life and death that you leave. If you were in the orange circle, it was recommended that you leave. Most humans heard the message, but did anyone notify the birds, the fish, the animals and all other life in those areas?

The consequences for humans and nature of Norfolk Southern’s disaster continue to sprawl far beyond those circles on the map. Over 2,980 tons of contaminated soil and 4.85 million gallons of contaminated water have already been removed from the site and sent to dumping grounds that will affect other communities somewhere else. Recently, the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to stop removing contaminated soil due to increasing concerns from communities located near sites where the toxic waste was being dumped. Then, a few days later, EPA announced that the contaminated water and soil will be sent to four locations in Indiana, Ohio, Texas and Michigan, instructing us to trust their years of experience in handling toxic waste.

On Feb. 17, Gov. DeWine spoke about a plume of butyl acrylate—a chemical known to cause skin rashes and lung damage — that the derailment released into the Ohio River (already the most polluted river in the United States, according to the EPA). The plume has ​completely dissipated,” DeWine said. ​We do believe that there’s no reason to be concerned about water from the Ohio River and there’s never really been a reason to be concerned.” Even so, he noted, some municipal water systems will close off their intakes. The fish, birds, plants and other wildlife, however, have no valves to close.

There is, of course, still a lot we don’t know, and we doubt we’ll learn much more from the final government reports on the derailment.

As people develop illnesses and maybe even die, will anyone notice? Maybe in a decade or so courageous community activists will start to put the pieces together and fight for the government agencies to do studies to connect the dots. Maybe the area will be declared a ​cancer cluster” or maybe a ​superfund site,” of which we already have so many.

The railroad corporation is currently saying all the right things to try and diffuse the bad publicity. The corporate executives promise to ​make this right,” and provide whatever it takes to make the community safe again, including monetary support. Lawyers and NGOs are also swooping into the community, picking at the debris with promises of class action lawsuits and big settlements. Lawsuits have already been filed, so there may be other information we receive, though likely years down the line. Many of those lawsuits, though, will also likely be settled, which means that evidence, depositions, and other information that comes out through court proceedings will likely be sealed.

These lawsuits and monetary reparations are essential, but no matter how much money is distributed in the end, Norfolk Southern has already done tremendous harm and the long-term consequences are difficult to assess. We can’t turn back time, but we can change this disastrous system so that neither Norfolk Southern nor any other company can harm communities in this way ever again.

Maybe East Palestine will be just another story added to the long list of other government-permitted corporate homicides, which includes (among many, many others): Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York; Times Beach, Missouri; Middlefield, Ohio; Flint, Michigan; and the Gulf Coast of Louisiana.

As community rights and rights of nature activists and organizers, we hope not. We hope that instead the East Palestine derailment is remembered as the last straw — the moment we decided to collectively abandon this track and come together to lay a new one that makes people, communities, and nature its highest priority.

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Tish O’Dell is a Senior Staff member at the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund. She has assisted communities throughout the United States organize and pass laws for community rights and rights of nature for over 12 years. Tish began organizing in her hometown of Broadview Heights, Ohio, which successfully campaigned to adopt the first Home Rule Charter amendment in Ohio, creating a Community Bill of Rights banning new gas drilling, fracking and injection wells in 2012. Tish has also been featured in the documentary We the People 2.0, appeared on the Thom Hartmann Show and The Daily Show and is one of the editors of the 2021 book Death by Democracy: Protecting Water and Life — Frontline stories from Ohioans fighting corporate and state power. She has written articles published in the Ecologist, TruthOut, Common Dreams, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Columbus Free Press and appeared on many podcasts and webinars, including Damages, The Julie Rose Show (NPR), Living on Earth, and a four-part European Parliament webinar ​Towards a European Recognition of the Rights of Nature.”

Chad Nicholson is a Senior Staff member for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and is based in Pennsylvania. Chad’s work with Grant Township, Penn. has included assisting with drafting the first-in-the-nation rights-based local constitution, and the first law legalizing nonviolent direct action to protect rights. Chad has also appeared in a Rolling Stone article on Grant Township, as well as a recent documentary, Invisible Hand. In the last legislative session, Chad worked with members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives to introduce an amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution that would guarantee the right of local community self-government. With colleague Ben Price, Chad has co-authored the Pennsylvania Community Rights Cookbook, a 700-page volume on the history of people’s movements, and the tragic rise of corporate power, in Pennsylvania. Chad began rights-based organizing in Spokane, Wash. in 2009.

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Mexico’s leftist President AMLO condemned “hypocritical” Republicans who want the US military to invade, declaring “Mexico is an independent and free country, not a US colony or protectorate!” In a massive rally, López Obrador also celebrated the expropriation of oil and lithium, condemning exploitative foreign corporations.

Mexico’s leftist President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) organized a massive rally in the heart of the capital, honoring the anniversary of the country’s nationalization of its oil reserves and expropriation of foreign corporations.

AMLO also used the demonstration as an opportunity to publicly condemn US politicians who have proposed militarily invading Mexico to combat drug trafficking.

“We remind those hypocritical and irresponsible politicians that Mexico is an independent and free country, not a colony or a protectorate of the United States!” López Obrador declared.

“They can threaten us with committing some kind of abuse, but we will never, ever allow them to violate our sovereignty and trample on the dignity of our homeland!” he asserted.

AMLO added,

 “I want to make it clear that this is no longer the time of [Felipe] Calderón or [Genaro] García Luna, that it is no longer the time of the shady links between the government of Mexico and the agencies of the US government”.

The Mexican leader then led a chant: “Cooperation? Yes. Submission? No! Interventionism? No!”

AMLO delivered this fiery speech on March 18 in the Zócalo, the plaza in the heart of Mexico City.

His government officially convened the event to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the 1938 oil nationalization by revolutionary former President Lázaro Cárdenas.

López Obrador dedicated half of his hour-long speech to discussing the history of the Cardenista revolution, and the lessons it provides for today.

AMLO praised Cárdenas for challenging foreign corporations and defending national sovereignty, while redistributing land to the poor, protecting labor rights, encouraging unions, and forming an alliance with workers and peasants against the “conservative oligarchy” that had ruled Mexico during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, before the 1910 revolution.

The speech was one of the most passionate examples of López Obrador’s left-wing nationalist ideology.

AMLO made clear parallels between the government of Cárdenas and his own government today, between Cárdenas’ oil nationalization and López Obrador’s nationalization of Mexico’s lithium reserves.

Far-right Republicans call for the US military to invade Mexico

This March, a series of far-right US politicians from the Republican Party have called for the military to invade Mexico, in the name of supposedly fighting drug cartels.

Extreme-right Congressmember Marjorie Taylor Greene falsely claimed in a March 15 tweet that Mexican cartels “are planting bombs on our land in our country”. (She posted a photo which did not show a bomb, according to US Border Patrol, but rather “a duct-taped ball filled with sand that wasn’t deemed a threat to agents/public”.)

“Our US military needs to take action against the Mexican Cartels”, she insisted. “End this Cartel led war against America!”

Greene is a Donald Trump loyalist and supporter of the neo-fascist QAnon cult. She ran for office inciting violence against the left, shooting and blowing up the word “socialism” in her campaign ads.

But Greene is far from alone.

Republican Congressmember Dan Crenshaw has introduced multiple bills to authorize the US military to attack cartels in Mexico.

Legislation that Crenshaw introduced in January cites the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which was passed a week after the 9/11 attacks, in order to justify the US military to invade Mexico.

In an op-ed, Crenshaw compared Mexican drug cartels to ISIS, al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein.

The Republican lawmaker also called for the US to impose sanctions on Mexico – one of its top three trading partners.

Greene wrote that she is “proud to co-sponsor Rep. Dan Crenshaw’s legislation to declare WAR on the Mexican cartels”.

“We must authorize the use of military force to eliminate the thugs who are smuggling drugs and illegal aliens across our southern border”, Greene insisted.

The far-right Republican also suggested that Washington should impose sanctions on Mexico.

“There is a war going on that affects every single American, but it’s not in Ukraine or the Middle East, it’s on our Southern border”, Greene declared.

In the US Senate, another Trump ally, Lindsey Graham, wants the US military to intervene in Mexico.

“We are going to unleash the fury and might of the U.S. against these cartels”, Graham proclaimed in a March 8 press conference.

Graham compared Mexican drug cartels to ISIS and al-Qaeda, referring to them as “narcoterrorists” and calling to “give the military the authority to go after these organizations wherever they exist”.

Trump’s former CIA director and secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, published an article declaring, “It Is Time for America To Declare War on the Drug Cartels“.

“As Secretary of State, I suggested we use drones to strike the cartels”, he boasted.

With blatantly neocolonial rhetoric, Pompeo claimed that Mexico has a “total lack of sovereignty”. (In his memoir, Pompeo admitted that the Trump administration tried to overthrow Venezuela’s government because it supposedly put “out the welcome mat for Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and the cartels in a twenty-first-century violation of the Monroe Doctrine“, referencing the 200-year-old colonial doctrine.)

Borrowing George W. Bush-era “war on terror” rhetoric, Pompeo referred to the cartels as “narco-terrorist entities”, and insisted that “the U.S. government should designate the major drug cartels – the Gulf Cartel (responsible for the recent kidnapping and murders), the Cartel Del Noreste, the Cartel de Sinaloa, and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion to name a few – as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO)”.

Pompeo also tried to link China to Mexican drug cartels as well, without any evidence. He asserted that the US war on cartels “will require going after the Chinese Communist Party-backed entities that are funneling precursor compounds to cartels”.

AMLO condemns US threats: “Mexico is not a colony!”

In his March 18 speech, López Obrador declared:

Friend, I cannot forget to mention that, in recent days, some legislators from the United States, who are accustomed to hypocritically throwing stones while forgetting that they live in glass houses, have a propagandistic plan. As we say here, in popular language, they are scheming. And for electoral purposes, political operatives are saying that, if we don’t stop the traffic of fentanyl to the northern border, they are going to propose in Congress that North American soldiers occupy our territory, to fight organized crime.

First, I want to make it clear that this is no longer the time of [Felipe] Calderón or [Genaro] García Luna, that it is no longer the time of the shady links between the government of Mexico and the agencies of the US government.

The most important thing is that, from here, from this Zócalo, the political and cultural heart of Mexico, we remind those hypocritical and irresponsible politicians that Mexico is an independent and free country, not a colony or a protectorate of the United States, and that they can threaten us with committing some kind of abuse, but we will never, ever allow them to violate our sovereignty and trample on the dignity of our homeland!

Cooperation? Yes. Submission? No! Interventionism? No!

AMLO then shouted out the following words, and the audience replied: “Oligarchy? No! Corruption? No! Classism? No! Racism? No! Freedom? Yes! Democracy? Yes! Honesty? Yes! Social justice? Yes! Equality? Yes! Sovereignty? Yes!”

The president concluded his speech chanting: “Long live the oil expropriation! Long live the workers and technicians, of before and today, in the national oil industry! Long live General Lázaro Cárdenas del Río! Long live Mexico! Long live Mexico! Long live Mexico!”

Cardenas Mexico nationalization railroads 1937

Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas declaring the nationalization of the railroads in 1937

AMLO honors Lázaro Cárdenas’ revolutionary legacy

AMLO spent the first half of his speech discussing the legacy of leftist former President Lázaro Cárdenas.

He explained:

General Lázaro Cárdenas did not hesitate to rely on those below to carry out his transformation. The general’s strategy can be summarized in three important, consecutive actions. First, he gave land to the peasants and helped the workers. Then, he motivated them to organize. And finally, with that social base, he was able to carry out the expropriation of the oil and other national resources, which Porfirio Díaz had given away to individuals, fundamentally to foreigners.

In the Cardenista strategy, the most important thing was meeting the economic and social demands of the peasants and workers.

It is undoubtable that the peasants saw in Cárdenas a faithful representative of the revolutionary cause. The agrarian reform ensured that many people were loyal to the Cardenista government, and from then on, there was an alliance between the peasants and the state.

Moreover, during Cardenismo, the workers felt that their labor rights were guaranteed, with strict adherence to the law. Cárdenas respected the economic struggle of workers for better salaries and better labor conditions.

The organization and political mobilization of the masses advanced the goal of valuing the economic independence of our country.

Thereby, with the expropriation of the oil corporations, national goods and resources were returned to the nation, which since the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz had been in the hands of foreigners.

There has not existed in Mexico a president as close to humble people as General Cárdenas, nor a president as dedicated to the cause of social justice.

For example, already as president, in power in 1935, he wrote in his notes the following: “Ending the miseries that the people suffer from is above all other interests”.

I quote General Cárdenas; he says: “We made considerations of the circumstances that could arise if governments like those of England and the United States, in the interest of supporting the oil companies, pressured the government of Mexico with violent measures. But we also took into account that there is already the threat of a new world war with the growing provocations of Nazi-fascist imperialism, and that this would stop them from attacking Mexico in the case of the expropriation, among other reasons”.

And taking advantage of this circumstance, on March 18, 1938, the oil expropriation was carried out.

He then made known, by radio, to all of the nation, the step taken by the government, in defense of its sovereignty, reintegrating into its domain the oil wealth that, as the same general said, “Imperialist capital has been taking advantage of to keep the country in a humiliating situation”.

In response to Cárdenas’ expropriation of Mexico’s oil wealth, AMLO explained, “The millionaires requested a US [military] intervention. They complained to the United States”.

He then added with a sarcastic tone, “That sounds familiar, that sounds familiar, that sounds familiar”.

The millionaires “went and complained so that [the United States] would come here to protect their companies”, AMLO added.

But the threat of Nazi Germany and the clear signs that World War Two was coming prevented the US from militarily intervening to stop the nationalization, López Obrador argued.

He also noted that the US leader at the time was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whom AMLO referred to as “one of the best presidents that that country has had in all of its history”.

“But the corporations were not as conscious and respectful” as FDR, López Obrador continued.

Foreign corporations thought that “Mexicans were born to enrich foreigners”, he said, “and that God put important natural resources below Mexico’s soil to increase the fortunes in the treasure chests of the exploiters and concessionaires”.

AMLO recalled that Cárdenas’ government was forced to “confront a boycott, pressures, and acts of sabotage promoted and funded by the foreign oil companies in our country”.

The Mexican president continued:

The oil expropriation caused deep discomfort among a minority, above all among the wealthy at the time, in sectors of the middle class, and in the majority of the media.

It is interesting, and this is a lesson, to highlight that, historically, the right wing always regroups when a democratic change is trying to be carried out, and it becomes plainly intolerant, and even violent when it comes to social demands in favor of the people and the control of the nation.

López Obrador discussed the example of Francisco Madero, a leader of the Mexican Revolution who governed as president from 1911 to 1913, but who was toppled and murdered in a coup d’etat sponsored by the United States and carried out by the right wing.

AMLO emphasized:

Let us remember that the overthrow of President Madero, our apostle of democracy, relied on the intervention of the US ambassador, but that overthrow was carried out by internal right-wing groups that had previously promoted a campaign of hatred and smears, consisting of ridiculing the leader, President Madero, in their newspapers, to the point of treating him as crazy and spiritualist.

As an example of the long history of Mexico’s right-wing elites betraying their country’s national interests in collaboration with foreign corporations, AMLO pointed out that the country’s right-wing party PAN, which governed from 2000 to 2012, had been created in 1939 as a representation of the wealthy oligarchic forces that opposed Cárdenas’ oil expropriation.

The Mexican president finally summarized his discussion of Cárdenas: “In this brief history, there are greater lessons. The main one is that only with the people, only with the support of the majority, is it possible to carry out a popular transformation to guarantee justice and confront the reactionaries who don’t want to lose their privileges”.

AMLO boasts of unprecedented government spending on social programs to help working-class Mexicans

Later in the March 18 speech, AMLO boasted of the unprecedented social spending his government has carried out:

All of the [government’s] savings are used to finance social programs, such as pensions for the elderly, support for people with disabilities, single mothers, peasants and fishermen; with scholarships for students from poor families; internet for everyone; programs to build and improve housing; favorable loans; fertilizers and guaranteed prices for small producers in the country; the Wellness Bank; the drive for public education and health care, universal and free.

This year, more than 25 million people will receive direct support totaling 600 billion pesos. In other words, out of the 35 million homes that there are in the country, 71% are already benefiting from at least one of the social programs.

With this policy of attention to the neediest, the most vulnerable, and especially the youth, we have also been able to reduce crime

]These policies] have allowed us to avoid more debt. We have not requested additional debt since we are in government.

The price of gasoline, diesel, gas, and electricity has not increased.

Also, public investment has increased, which did not happen for many years. This year, more than 1 trillion pesos will be spent on public works. That is to say, we are going to keep building roads, bridges, trains, airports, hospitals, universities, markets, sports facilities, piers, and natural, recreational, and ecological parks.

In the time that we have been in government, the minimum wage has increased by 90% in real terms, and more than double at the border.

Do you remember what the lying technocrats said about raising the salary, that there was going to be inflation? Pure nonsense! That is not true.

Of course we have to increase wages in a responsible way, to strengthen the internal market, as we are doing, and thereby to achieve well-being for our people.

“We have also directed our resources and efforts toward achieving food self-sufficiency and energy self-sufficiency.

We can ensure that we are guaranteed to have oil sovereignty. Next year, we are not going to buy gasoline, diesel, or other oil products abroad. We are going to process all of our raw materials.

And recently, the lithium was nationalized, strategic minerals used in making batteries, for electric cars and the storage system for clean energy. It fills me with pride to remember that.

While listing the accomplishments of his government, López Obrador also referenced the negotiations in 2018 and 2019 that led to replacing NAFTA with the new United States – Mexico – Canada Agreement (USMCA).

AMLO said with pride:

We were able to remove from the free trade agreement a broad chapter that compromised our oil in that agreement and put in its place a small paragraph that I am going to read to you.

It says that the United States and Canada recognize that “Mexico reserves its sovereign right to reform its Constitution and its domestic legislation; and Mexico has the direct, inalienable, and imprescriptible ownership of all hydrocarbons in the subsoil of the national territory”.

The Mexican president added:

We are going to continue with that collective conscience. We are going to continue pushing back against the dirty war, the smear campaigns, and the manipulation attempts that they will continue to carry out because they have no other choice, our adversaries and their media outlets, sold out, bought up, in the hands of members of the corrupt conservative bloc.

But at the same time, we must have faith in the wisdom and loyalty of the people.

I maintain that, whatever they do, the oligarchs will not return to power. An authentic and true democracy will continue to prevail in our beloved Mexico.

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Dr. William Makis and Dr. Paul Alexander discuss mature minors given COVID shots in Canada with no parental consent, pilots collapsing in flight due to possible vaccine induced myocarditis, one pilot disaster and many high school students having heart attacks post COVID gene shot and needing defibrillators.

My content is available for free. I have lost extensive income due to my advocacy for early treatment and my stance against the COVID vaccines, especially for children. Your kindness and generosity is very much appreciated in my sharing of research and the fight against scientific censorship where several good and brilliant doctors and scientists are silenced and cancelled, including myself.

To support William Makis, click here

It is absolutely imperative that people/populations are given accurate information about the benefits and harms of societal restrictions or medical interventions such as vaccines. Only then can people make informed decisions about what is best for them.

 

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The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

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The publicity for the Ukraine war has been handled far more successfully by the US, NATO and allies than the campaign to justify the 2003 US war on Iraq. The Ukraine news is pervasive. It comes from the front, from anchors in Kyiv, from interviews with victims, medical staff and politicians. Moscow-based Western correspondents who dominate the airwaves, television and print media provide unenlightening input from Russia. The war is being won for hearts and minds while bloody battles rage in eastern Ukraine. Blanket efforts to influence global public opinion in favour of the war will go on long after the war ends.

This is true of this week’s 20th anniversary coverage of George W. Bush’s deadly and destructive war on Iraq which afflicted chaos, anarchy and sectarianism on the core country of the Eastern Arab World (Mashreq) and shook the region. By repeating the three false pretexts for launching the war, the media gives them currency and some credibility. Few commentators state the fact that the US “lied” by saying Iraqi president Saddam Hussein retained banned weapons of mass destruction (WMD), had ties to Al Qaeda which attacked the US in 2001, and, the most farfetched of all, posed a threat to the US. “Lied” is a leaded word which conveys the accusation that the US intended to mislead the global public even this was true.

On the issue of WMD, on the website of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, ex-UN nuclear inspector Robert Kelley wrote, “The UN Special Commission on Iraq [UNSCOM] and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] Action Team carried out hundreds of person-days of inspections in Iraq [in 1992-1993]. We discovered nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes and methodically destroyed them, even to the extent of blowing up entire factories and laboratories and bringing special nuclear materials out of the country.” A US expert, Kelley also wrote the report to the IAEA on inspections carried out ahead of the war found no evidence of nuclear material or equipment. His report was ignored in Washington and London.

The Saddam Hussein-Al Qaeda connection was invented by US officials with the aim of providing Bush with justification for his war but was dismissed by the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2006. Al Qaeda made its appearance in Iraq after the US occupation when Abu Musab Al Zarqawi was tasked by Usama Bin Laden to establish cells in Iraq. Saddam Hussein had neither the aspiration nor possibility to mount strikes on the US which is more than 11,000 kilometres distant from Baghdad.

On April 9, 2007, former director of Central Intelligence George Tenet said on a 60 Minutes television interview, “We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, complicity with Al Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America, period.”

Twenty years on lies and misrepresentations continue to be adopted by today’s politicians and commentators. The most common is that Saddam Hussein established “a minority Sunni regime”. This, somehow, justified its removal.

Although Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, appointed relatives to senior posts, the government was secular and included Christian, Kurdish and Shiite ministers in key roles. Deputy prime minister and foreign minister Tareq Aziz was a Christian. Defence industry and industry minister Amr Al Sadi — who built weapons used by Iraq during the Iran war and liaised with UN weapons inspectors — is a Shiite. He was not a member of the ruling Baath Party. His brother was a high ranking official in the oil ministry. An early Baathist who reached the top ranks of the party, Saadoun Hammadi, another Shiita, was oil minister, prime minister, and foreign minister. Mohammed Saeed Al Sahhaf, a Shiita born in Karbala like Hammadi, served as information and foreign minister. Iraq’s health minister in the 1990s was a Kurd whom I met in Baghdad in 1992 or 1993 during a conference convened by a Jordanian doctors’ association. The majority of members in the Baath and Communist parties were Shiitas who made up about 55 per cent of the population.

Two examples of Monday’s 20th anniversary coverage are revealing.

Commenting in The Washington Post about US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s pre-war statement on WMD to the UN Security Council, Ishaan Tharoor said that he “would lament the defects in the US intelligence process” which gave Bush the pretext to wage war. There were no “defects” just lies which were recognised as lies at the time by opponents and critics of the war.

Beating around the bush, Tharoor admitted that “Saddam’s regime” was “nominally secular” although it was, in fact, “secular” and inclusive. Tharoor also wrote that the “regime ..presided over a united sense of Iraqi identity that was, to a certain extent, broken up by the US invasion and its aftermath”. There was an Iraqi identity before the war and, there was no “certain extent” about the US effort, launched in May 2003, to destroy the Iraqi identity. The US imposed a divide-and-rule system of governance based on ethnic — Arab-Kurd — and sectarian — Shiite and Sunni — identity. Instead of democracy, this system has produced sectarian and ethnic cleansing and rule by expatriate pro-Iranain Shiita militia leaders turned politicians.

In her 50-minute BBC documentary, “A Choice of Horrors”, Caroline Wyatt interviewed a number of academics, journalists and ex-officials on the whys and wherefores of the war. The programme was divided between interviews with proponents and opponents of the war. Pro-ponents relied on non-existent WMD and Saddam Husein’s repression. Wyatt argued correctly that the end of the Cold War left the US as the global hyperpower which, after 2000, had the muscle to conduct “humanitarian interventions” although the Iraq war was a straightforward war of conquest and not a “humanitarian intervention”. While opponents spoke of US hubris and argued Iraq emerged from the US war broken, violent and impoverished, they were overshadowed by proponents who spoke first. This weakened the conclusion that the US intervention was worse than non-intervention. The war of words over the US war on Iraq continues unabated.

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The British Empire: Culture War and Actual War

March 23rd, 2023 by Andrew Murray

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The flurry of criticism and counter-outrage over the classical colonial era is no mere academic matter, warns ANDREW MURRAY: what is being debated is whether fresh imperial slaughter can be sold to the public

The British empire is one of the front lines in the culture war. Few things make Establishment academics and pundits angrier than the critical scrutiny British imperialism is increasingly subjected to, particularly by scholars that aren’t white, male and privileged, the characteristics hitherto regarded as essential for holding an opinion on the subject.

Historians like Niall Ferguson and Robert Tombs argue that the empire wasn’t such a bad thing overall, a few undeniable excesses notwithstanding, or, as a fallback, too complex to pass judgement on. They are keener on emphasising Britain’s role in abolishing slavery than its prior record of promoting and profiting from it, and its foundational part in the development of capitalism.

They also disdain the intrusion of new scholars onto their terrain. In one especially unpleasant article, Tombs singled out three for the sin of exploiting “the fashionable theme of ‘anti-colonialism’,” as if hostility to colonialism was a priori a historical disability.

The impertinent trio were Afua Hirsch, David Olusoga and Kehinde Andrews, all of whom are black writers of distinction. Not particularly subtle, I would say.

Most recently, the imperial case has been set out by Nigel Biggar, a moral philosopher no less, who finds the record of the empire broadly congenial in a new book. He regards a reappraisal of the empire as threatening to the present social order since any critique has to foreground issues like racism, exploitation and state violence, essential components of Britain best left unexamined lest they undermine the bromides of liberal capitalist democracy.

This is the critical point. History isn’t over and, in particular, the history of British imperialism is a story without an ending so far.

When Ferguson wrote his pro-imperial history of the British empire 20 years ago, he wasn’t shy about proclaiming his purpose. It was to encourage a revival of imperial methods for governing the world, on the part of the US above all, since Britain was no longer equipped to go it alone.

The “bring back the empire” brigade had its way with Afghanistan and Iraq. Twenty years on from the start of the Afghan occupation it ended in utter ignominy.

And 20 years after the Iraq invasion, a bleak anniversary marked this week, no-one can be found to excuse the aggression.

Not even the Times. Like every other newspaper worldwide in the Murdoch empire, it cheered on the Bush-Blair invasion. Yet this week it editorialised that the war was “an unmitigated disaster” and “a hubristic act of overreach, a reckless product of the American ‘unipolar moment’ that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“For those responsible, including in Britain, the verdict of history grows only more damning with the passage of time… We all now live with its legacy: a less stable, more dangerous world than at any time since the second world war.”

The article could have been a Stop the War Coalition leaflet, in fact. Although there was no acknowledgement that the war was a disaster fully endorsed by the Times and its proprietor at the time. Anyway, imperial misadventures now turn sour even faster than they did in Queen Victoria’s days.

Yet still today, the preservation of a benign understanding of the British empire seems essential to the present system: the idea that it is, and always has been, pretty much the best people could aspire to.

Its propagandists realise that when the Colston statue was pulled down, for example, this was not just a matter of an image of a notorious slave trader being removed, it was the desecration of a central prop of contemporary politics.

The whole British bourgeoisie has at least one foot on the Colston pedestal. The sanctity of our past, in the Ferguson-Tombs historical telling, is the blank cheque written to today’s imperialists, cashable in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria and Ukraine in this century alone.

The legacy of the empire also legitimises authoritarianism, racism, and sundry other maladies, including the supremacy of the City of London in economic counsels and the overweening influence of the arms and energy monopolies.

To deride “anti-colonial” history is to sustain 21st-century neo-colonialism and the brutalisation of Iraq with its million dead, torture, sectarian strife and despoliation.

If we take one lesson from this anniversary week, let it be the importance of anti-imperialism to any serious socialist politics, from Iraq to Ukraine to Britain itself.

Obstructed: we are now as free as South Africa, Poland and Hungary

The latest figures show that real living standards for working people in Britain have now stagnated for 15 years. This is a slump entirely unprecedented in its duration.

At the same time, Britain has been downgraded in a global ranking of freedom, on account of “increasingly authoritarian” legislation, according to Civicus Monitor. New powers that restrict the right to protest have led to us being downgraded from “narrowed” to “obstructed.” We are now only one level above “repressed.”

“Narrowed,” the next level up, is a description which fits the democracy which allowed Tony Blair to take us into a war of choice ignoring public opinion. The rot runs deep.

The laws include those clamping down on the right to protest and giving police sweeping new powers — just what the Met doesn’t need this week — as well as the government’s drive to undermine civil organisations, like charities, critical of its policies.

To that could be added the fresh attack on the right to strike and legislation aimed at driving down electoral participation by the poor and the young.

It is impossible to see these developments as unrelated. As bleak economic circumstances undermine the consent of the people to capitalist class rule, coercion is intensified. Witness President Emmanuel Macron — a darling of all centrists — imposing the degradation of French pensions by decree rather than a parliamentary vote.

And Britain is in a worse state than France.

Can democracy survive capitalism in more-or-less unending crisis and the risk of a war of the great powers? This is being debated in Establishment circles, which would rather squeeze civil rights than profit margins.

The left must join the discussion and mobilise for the defence of democracy. At the moment, we are as frogs in water gradually coming to the boil.

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The late Gene Sharp, ideological godfather of countless colour revolutions, probably would not be pleased to see his teachings posthumously hijacked by a most unconventional activist. Father Anthony is an  unyielding, pesky Serbian Orthodox cleric who gets high on driving his country’s authorities crazy, but has he heard of Gene Sharp? Or ever read Sharp’s classical color revolution manual, “Self-liberation,” even more suggestively subtitled

“A guide to Strategic Planning for Action to End a Dictatorship or Other Oppression”?

Perhaps he and Sharp simply arrived at similar conclusions independently.

Be that as it may, internal tensions in Serbia are rising, fuelled by popular suspicion that NATO is strong-arming the vacillating government to renounce Kosovo.

Concomitantly, the charismatic monk’s visibility and credibility have also been rising steadily.

Hardly a day goes by that he is not harassed by the police or arrested on some imputation of “disorderly conduct.” He is held in jail until he scrapes together roughly 1000 euros to pay the brutal fine meted out for such “misconduct.” A pattern is emerging. It seems that the authorities typically stage incidents for the principal purpose of keeping Father Anthony off the streets of Belgrade as much as possible.

With a small band of devout supporters, he has been at it since 2016, when local oligarchs in the provincial town of Valjevo, possessed by a sense of impious impunity, decided to inundate the 13thcentury monastery of Saint Archangel Michael nearby. The medieval shrine stood in the way of their artificial lake project, conceived brazenly so they could enjoy sail boating. That is when Father Anthony’s righteous indignation boiled over, and a modern Savonarola was born. He has been relentlessly haunting the powers that be ever since.

Following that initial protest, the good father’s public rhetoric expanded noticeably beyond theological matters and futile appeals in neo-liberal Serbia for the preservation of religious and cultural monuments. Every Saturday in Belgrade he leads a religious procession, a litany, making the rounds of what he regards as the nodal points of the occupation system that holds Serbia in subjection: the Patriarchal headquarters of the silenced Church, the national television broadcasting facility, and the parliament building, with the Presidential office close by, situated on the other side of the park. At each of these locations, Saturday after Saturday Anthony delivers scorching homilies on a wide range of sensitive topics that are certainly on everyone’s mind but are rarely whispered by his fellow-citizens, and even then by only a few audacious lips. Today in Serbia, that sort of preaching is offensively annoying. Clearly it does not have the effect of winning friends or influencing people, especially not in the dark corridors of power.

The fact that Anthony has no friends in the aforementioned quarters has been particularly evident over the past several weeks. He has been continuously caught in a revolving door, as he is sprung in and out of jail for his impassioned street denunciations of what he sees as betrayal to NATO and its regional vassals of Serbia’s spiritual and cultural heartland, Kosovo. As of this writing, he is still incarcerated on the other side of the revolving door, where he was safely tucked away to prevent him from adding his unique imprint to the “No to capitulation” mass rally in Belgrade in opposition to EU’s harsh ultimatum to Serbia to supinely accept NATO orchestrated secession of Kosovo.

Image: Anthony preaching with NATO bombed building in the background (Source: Stephen Karganovic)

Over the past week, Father Anthony demonstrated once more his brilliant capacity to mock and annoy, as should be expected from a student of Gene Sharp. On the day of his latest arrest on March 16th, he   further unnerved the jittery authorities by nonchalantly taking a provocative, although perfectly legal, stroll in the park between the   National Assembly building and the President’s office [at 16:36 minutes]. He knew that the police would frown on his unpredictable presence in that public space, but decided with a handful of supporters to test the effectiveness of his civil rights anyway. Permission for a public gathering, defined by law as nineteen or more persons, was not received and pointedly not solicited. The authorities’ already rattled nerves were tried additionally when his followers separated into small groups of two and three, each clearly under the legal threshold, while disingenuously pretending that they congregated by pure chance and were not even acquainted with each other.

Whether intentionally designed or not, it turned into a classical Gene Sharp performance. The freaked out police, who had orders to disperse them, technically were in a legally untenable position [at 21:31 minutes]. Eventually, exactly as Sharp’s manual predicts they would, they solved the “rule of law” problem by crudely brushing all formalities away. They settled the matter Balkan style, the only method they know. An officer approached the monk, no court order or any such nonsense in hand of course, and peremptorily ordered Anthony to vacate the public area where he was legally entitled to be. Refusing to budge, Father Anthony preached and argued with the stone faced praetorians and finally he was rewarded with his Gene Sharp (or, if one prefers, Ghandi) moment. As the conversation was getting nowhere, he deliberately collapsed to the ground [at 33:02 minutes] forcing police officers to physically carry him off to a waiting vehicle [at 34:01 to 36:40 minutes]. In plain sight and for the obvious edification of the citizenry, Father Anthony was carted off to an undisclosed location. On best available information, he still remains there, incommunicado.

At last report, for this playful caper he was sentenced to five days in jail; there is no official word whether or not he offered to pay the fine, or the offer was refused.

Regrettably, neither Amnesty International nor the International Criminal Court, which lately purports to have been busy investigating human rights violations, have expressed the slightest interest in Father Anthony, the treatment he habitually receives, or his whereabouts. Nor have inquiries been made by international dignitaries who have been flocking to Belgrade to finalise with their local lackeys the handover of Kosovo to NATO occupiers and their Albanian minions. It seems to suit everybody perfectly that the monk has vanished.

For all we know, Father Anthony may be somewhere sharing a jail cell with incarcerated journalist Dejan Zlatanovic, comforting another forlorn prisoner of conscience in this dark night of the soul for the entire Serbian nation.

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Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image: Serbian Monk Anthony defying the police (Source: Stephen Karganovic)

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***

Twenty years ago on this coming weekend, I was in Mongolia as the Deputy US Ambassador. After writing a Dissent Cable in early March 2003 on the pending US war on Iraq to my boss Secretary of State Colin Powell, I made the decision to resign from the US government as it was poised to invade, occupy and destroy the sovereign state of Iraq. I was one of three US diplomats who resigned – Brady Kiesling and John Brown resigned before me.

For months, the Bush administration attempted to get the US public to believe that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction and therefore was a threat to the United States and the international community. Colin Powell’s February 5, 2003 briefing on weapons of mass destruction to the U.N. Security Council was a bust and the Bush administration was unable to get the necessary votes for the UN to authorize military operations in its name. Nor did millions of ordinary citizens around the world believe Bush and Powell’s justification for war and they were marching against the war in numbers never seen in the recorded history of our planet.

As a reminder of the events leading up to the war on Iraq and the complicity of the media in providing the Bush administration all the coverage it wanted, The Dissenter is publishing the daily history of the Bush administration’s lies and the media cover-up. On March 16, 2023, The Dissenter posted the twenty-year old March 16, 2003 Washington Post article by Walter Pincus on his investigation of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s claims of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in his infamous February 5, 2003 speech at the UN Security Council. Pincus’ investigation revealed that “US intelligence agencies have been unable to give Congress or the Pentagon specific information about the amounts of banned weapons or where they are hidden.” Pincus highlighted how US officials “repeatedly have failed to mention the considerable amount of documented weapons destruction that took place in Iraq between 1991 and 1998.” The Post buried this small article on page A17, instead of on the front page where it belonged. Pincus wrote, “The front pages of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times are very important in shaping what other people think. They’re like writing a memo to the White House,” and that’s why the Post buried his critical article.

Tragically and criminally, the Bush administration went ahead and attacked Iraq and in the next decade created massive instability in the Middle East and the conditions for the rise of violent militia groups that are still terrorizing the region and the world. In the next two decades, the US continued its war mongering in Europe, Africa and North East Asia.

Today, twenty years after the beginning of the disastrous war on Iraq, the world is faced with the US war mongering in two major areas and several smaller ones. In Ukraine, the US is providing weapons for the US proxy war to “weaken” Russia..at the terrible expense of the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians and the destruction of a large amount of housing and national infrastructure in Ukraine.

In the Pacific and Asia, the US has encouraged NATO, the NORTH ATLANTIC treaty organization to expand its area of concern/influence halfway around the world with NATO country ships and ground personnel in military war maneuvers to threaten China’s remarkable economic rise and modest military increase – in China’s own front yard. The US and South Korea are having the largest war maneuvers in decades on the border with North Korea.

In these dangerous actions with Russia, China and North Korea, the US and European media have been cheerleaders for military confrontation, just as they were for the US war on Iraq. Only this time, the US is challenging large, nuclear weapons countries, not a small country that the US knew had already destroyed its weaponry.

We are facing the same desire in the US and European media to bow to the wishes of the governments rather than the media being investigative journalists to give the public the honest truth about what is happening in a current brutal war in Ukraine and the lead-up to military actions in the Western Pacific and Northeast Asia.

Having served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retiring as a Colonel and 16 years as a US diplomat in US embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia, all I can say is “Don’t believe everything the US government says or the US media writes.”

No one wins when diplomacy is shot dead by military actions. Keep talking instead of shooting.

The future of our planet will depend on it!!

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Ann Wright is a retired US Army Colonel and a former US diplomat who resigned from the US government in March 2003 in opposition to the US war on Iraq. She had served in US embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Since her resignation 20 years ago this weekend, she has worked for peace with CODEPINK: Women For Peace, Veterans For Peace and many other peace organizations. She has travelled to Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba and other countries under U.S. sanctions to write about U.S. imperialism. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.

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***

In a follow-up to his explosive story accusing U.S. President Joe Biden of ordering the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, veteran U.S. journalist Seymour Hersh charged Wednesday that the White House—in collaboration with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz—is attempting a “cover-up of its operation” by “feeding” false alternative narratives to the press, most prominently The New York Times.

Hersh’s initial reporting, which was based on anonymous sourcing, was quickly dismissed by the Biden administration, with State Department Spokesperson Ned Price calling the detailed February account “false” and suggesting that those who believe its version of events are “naive” and “gullible.”

Hersh, who famously exposed U.S. forces’ massacre of Vietnamese civilians in My Lai and the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, forcefully hit back at the Biden administration on Wednesday and criticized the American press for failing to push the White House on the September attack, which has major geopolitical implications.

“Press aides for the White House and Central Intelligence Agency have consistently denied that America was responsible for exploding the pipelines, and those pro forma denials were more than enough for the White House press corps,” Hersh wrote on his Substack.

“There is no evidence that any reporter assigned there has yet to ask the White House press secretary whether Biden had done what any serious leader would do: formally ‘task’ the American intelligence community to conduct a deep investigation, with all of its assets, and find out just who had done the deed in the Baltic Sea,” the journalist continued. “According to a source within the intelligence community, the president has not done so, nor will he. Why not? Because he knows the answer.”

Officials from Norway, Germany, and Sweden told the United Nations last month that they are still investigating the explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream pipelines, setting off an environmental nightmare and immediate speculation as to who was responsible. Such speculation is ongoing, with both official and unofficial probes attempting to determine the perpetrator.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline—which Biden vocally opposed—never became operational, as the German government put it on hold just ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

During a press briefing late last month, Price said the U.S. “is not a party to this investigation because there are countries on whose sovereign territory this attack occurred, and we’re deferring it to them to conduct this investigation.”

On March 7, nearly a month after Hersh published his report, The New York Times ran a story—also based on anonymous sourcing—alleging that “new intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials” indicates “a pro-Ukrainian group carried out the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines last year.”

The Ukrainian government has denied any involvement in the attack.

“U.S. officials said there was much they did not know about the perpetrators and their affiliations,” notes the Times report, which makes brief mention of Hersh’s story and quotes unnamed U.S. officials denying any Biden administration involvement.

The same day as the Times published its story, the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit ran a report alleging that German investigators “succeeded in identifying the boat that was allegedly used for the secret operation” to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines.

“It is said to be a yacht rented from a company based in Poland, apparently owned by two Ukrainians,” Die Zeit reported. “According to the investigation, the secret operation at sea was carried out by a team of six people. It is said to have been five men and one woman.”

In his Wednesday piece, Hersh contended that the message of the Times and Die Zeit stories—both of which emphasized that much of the sabotage operation remains shrouded in mystery—”was that the press and the public should stop asking questions and let the investigators unravel the truth.”

“Holger Stark, the author of the report in Die Zeit, went a step further and noted that there were some ‘in international security services’ who had not excluded the possibility that the yacht story ‘was a false flag operation.’ Indeed, it was,” Hersh alleged, citing an anonymous source inside the U.S. intelligence community.

That source told Hersh that the yacht narrative reported by Die Zeit “was a total fabrication by American intelligence that was passed along to the Germans, and aimed at discrediting your story.”

Hersh went on to add that

“the disinformation professionals inside the CIA understand that a propaganda gambit can only work if those on receiving are desperate for a story that can diminish or displace an unwanted truth.”

“And the truth in question is that President Joe Biden authorized the destruction of the pipelines and will have a difficult time explaining away his action as Germany and its Western European neighbors suffer as businesses are shuttered amid high day-to-day energy costs,” wrote Hersh, citing an energy expert who argued that the damage to the Nord Stream pipelines “led to a further surge of natural gas prices.”

According to Hersh, the “most telling evidence” of the “weakness” of the Times reporting can be found in a podcast interview featuring Julian Barnes, one of three reporters whose bylines appeared on the March 7 story.

Barnes told podcast host Michael Barbaro that “we know really very little” about the pro-Ukrainian group that the Times reporting alleges may have been behind the Nord Stream attack.

“This group remains mysterious,” Barnes said. “And it remains mysterious not just to us, but also to the U.S. government officials that we have spoken to. They know that the people involved were either Ukrainian, or Russian, or a mix. They know that they are not affiliated with the Ukrainian government. But they know they’re also anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine.”

In response, Hersh wrote that “the Times reporters in Washington were at the mercy of White House officials ‘who had access to intelligence.'”

“But the information they received,” he added, “originated with a group of CIA experts in deception and propaganda whose mission was to feed the newspaper a cover story—and to protect a president who made an unwise decision and is now lying about it.”

Hersh also alleged that while it remains an “open question” whether Scholz was aware of the planned pipeline sabotage in advance, the German leader has “clearly been complicit since last fall in support of the Biden Administration’s cover-up of its operation in the Baltic Sea.”

Hersh wrote:

In early March, President Biden hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington. The trip included only two public events—a brief pro forma exchange of compliments between Biden and Scholz before the White House press corps, with no questions allowed; and a CNN interview with Scholz by Fareed Zakaria, who did not touch on the pipeline allegations. The chancellor had flown to Washington with no members of the German press on board, no formal dinner scheduled, and the two world leaders were not slated to conduct a press conference, as routinely happens at such high-profile meetings. Instead, it was later reported that Biden and Scholz had an 80-minute meeting, with no aides present for much of the time.

Citing an anonymous official with “access to diplomatic intelligence,” Hersh wrote that “certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2.”

“In the words of the intelligence community,” Hersh continued, “the agency was ‘to pulse the system’ in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.”

From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

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Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams.

Featured image is from Freenations

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***

Although Western media were boasting about Sberbank’s 78% plunge in profit in 2022 due to US-led sanctions, with CEO German Gref acknowledging a “most difficult year”, it appears that the US economic system is the one actually on the brink as four banks have already collapsed, with dozens more expected to follow.

CNN described the Russian bank’s drop in profit as a “collapse” in its headline, but then had to admit in the article that “Sberbank’s resilience in the face of sanctions helped Russia’s banking sector recover from a loss-making first half in 2022.”

This is in line with Gref’s belief that this year’s profits should be close to the record 1.25 trillion rubles ($16.5 billion) earned in the “pre-crisis year.” “Our business model passed another strength test,” he added.

It is recalled that Russian Presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on March 14 that there is “practically” no risk of Russia facing a fallout from the SVB collapse, adding that: “Our banking system has certain connections with some segments of the international financial system, but it is mostly under illegal restrictions.”

Despite alarmist headlines from US media and experts, Peskov was proven correct as no Russian bank has collapsed despite Western sanctions. Meanwhile, the full repercussions of SVB’s downfall are yet to be felt, with former Lehman Brothers executive Lawrence McDonald believing that up to another 50 American banks could collapse if structural problems are not fixed.

“So Lehman failed and then it forced this too-big-to-fail system, and then, now this interest rate shock to the regional banks is moving hundreds of billions of dollars out of regional banks into the big banks… So you could have another 50 bank failures… unless they fix the structural problem,” said McDonald on March 22.

“There’s going to be further damage. They have to cut rates and then they have to have a deposit guarantee, a larger one, that’s what they’re going to come up with… That’s a bailout. That’s basically the federal government taking on bank deposit risk,” he added.

By being cut-off from the Western banking system, Russia is effectively protected from the series of bank collapses that are expected to follow. Russia faced a credit crunch due to the fallout from the US subprime mortgage crisis in 2008, which ultimately led to the Global Financial Crisis, a demonstration of how it too was exposed to weaknesses in the US economy.

Although Russia was cut-off from SWIFT only two-days after the special military operation began, in addition to many other Western restrictions, including a $60 per barrel oil price cap, President Vladimir Putin boasted about the resilience of the Russian economy.

The IMF reported that Russia’s economy contracted by 2.2% in 2022 and will start growing again in 2023, expanding by 0.3%, and then 2.1% in 2024. This is impressive when considering that fellow European countries, which are not sanctioned, will be struggling immensely. The UK is expected to contract by 0.6% and Germany will have a growth of only 0.1%.

At the same time, the OECD forecasts that US economic growth would slow from 1.5% this year to 0.9% next year. This is due to higher interest rates slowing down demand. Bloomberg on March 21, citing sources, reported that the US Treasury Department is studying the possibility of guaranteeing all bank deposits in the event of a recession in the banking sector.

The current banking crises has forced economists, including from the esteemed JPMorgan Chase, to make new recession forecasts after any hopes of recovery were snuffed away.

“The Fed is facing a difficult task on Wednesday, but it is likely already past the point of no return,” JPMorgan strategists wrote in a note to clients on March 22. “A soft landing now looks unlikely, with the airplane in a tailspin (lack of market confidence) and engines about to turn off (bank lending).”

Goldman Sachs also echoed JPMorgan and said in mid-March that the banking crisis could deliver a severe blow to economic growth.

For his part, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has warned multiple times, including as recently as March 9 but even from before the banking crisis, that the economy could be heading for a “Wile E. Coyote moment,” referencing a Looney Tunes character who was always blissfully unaware that he was about to hit the ground after running off the edge of a cliff.

However, the expected collapse of many banks in the US and the impending economic crisis has not deterred the determination of the Biden administration to fanatically arm, fund and train the Ukrainian military and regime. With millions of Americans on the verge of dropping out of the Middle Class, Washington continues to send tens of billions of dollars to Ukraine, and all the while Western sanctions are now beginning to have a minimum effect on the Russian economy, thus effectively rendering them nearly useless.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

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Weather Man Who Makes It Rain in Australia

March 23rd, 2023 by Cairns News

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***

Meet the People controlling your weather sitting in their Command and Control Centers in Jordan, Switzerland and Germany.

Dr Helmut Fluhrer claims he has produced tons of rain under Government contract for Australia, Switzerland, UAE and Jordan.

His company WeatherTec works for governments only.

Ionization Technology is based on charging aerosols in the atmosphere and WeatherTec Emitter Stations are based on the ground.

WeatherTec’s description is

“Charge humidity and clouds with ions; Reduce required humidity to generate rainfalls”

Its strengths are reputed as “Rainfalls cover large areas (>1000 km2); Most environmentally friendly technology”. See this.

Its key limitation is stated as “Requires areas with > 40% humidity”.

So now we know why it’s been raining since April in Melbourne and MSM tells everyone that it will be a wet Spring and someone cited, a wet Summer!

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Russia slammed the UK on Wednesday for its plan to supply Ukraine with shells containing depleted uranium. 

In a statement on its website, the Russian Foreign Ministry said the initiative was “further proof of London’s intention to aggravate the confrontation” and contradicted the UK’s claim of being “committed to the post-conflict rebuilding of that country.”

“London has apparently forgotten about the well-known serious consequences of the use of toxic and radioactive munitions by the West during the conflicts in Yugoslavia and Iraq. A desire to increase the suffering of civilians and to do irreparable environmental damage shows that the British have no regard whatsoever for the Ukrainian people,” it stressed.

The ministry called the British policy “openly cynical,” showing “who the real aggressor and warmonger in Ukraine is.”

“London must know that it will bear full responsibility for violating the fundamental norms of international law…We will respond to such actions accordingly,” it said.

Click here to read the full article.

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National Assembly Speaker of the Republic of South Africa, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, said publicly in a recent statement before the supreme legislative body in Cape Town that the African National Congress (ANC) led government would continue to support the people of the Russian Federation.

This proclamation came amid a highly-publicized visit by People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping to Moscow where the strategic partnership between the two countries was further solidified.

The administration of President Joe Biden along with the entire ruling class of the United States are quite concerned about the three-day visit of President Xi to Russia where he held extensive discussions with his counterpart Vladimir Putin. Both China and Russia are principal adversaries of the U.S., the European Union and the entire North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance.

Russians welcome Xi Jinping (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

At present a protracted conflict is underway in Ukraine where the U.S. has prompted and continued a proxy war against Moscow and its allies in the region. Since February 24, 2022, the Biden administration has sent emissaries across the globe in an effort to build support for the NATO position in Eastern Europe.

Nonetheless, among many states and peoples within the Global South, there has been a lack of enthusiasm for the U.S. stance in the war. In many cases in Africa, Latin America, Asia and some European states, there is considerable solidarity with the Russian aims and objectives in what Moscow describes as a “special military operation.” For those who have followed and studied the geostrategic situation in Ukraine, the entire process of staging a coup in February 2014 with the ultimate desire to incorporate even more states into NATO can only be viewed by Russia as well as the anti-imperialist, socialist and non-aligned states with suspicion and trepidation.

In regard to the comments from the South African National Assembly Speaker Mapisa-Nqakula, the Eyewitness News website said that:

“She was delivering the closing remarks at the second Russia-Africa parliamentary conference in Moscow over the weekend (March 18-19). The gathering was also addressed by Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has pledged ongoing support to African nations in the fields of nuclear energy, training, and education. Mapisa-Nqakula has appealed to Russia to help Africa obtain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council. ‘If that does not happen, we will continue to have the kinds of conflicts we are seeing on our continent,’ she added. She said that South Africa would continue to look to Russia for support in the quest for economic and political prosperity. ‘We will continue to lean on you, and you can rest assured that, as a country and as a people of South Africa, we will continue to support the people of Russia,’ she said. Mapisa-Nqakula also offered for South Africa to host peace talks between Russia and Ukraine while attending the inter-parliamentary union in Bahrain. She said that sanctions imposed by the Western world on African nations as a result of conflict on the continent, was a human rights violation.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly urged the resolution of the Ukraine crisis through internationally-mediated negotiations. The desperate posture of the Biden administration and its Democratic and Republican colleagues in both branches of Congress has resulted in the drafting of legislation which would punish AU member-states that maintain cordial diplomatic and economic relations with Russia.

Ramaphosa in a state visit to the U.S. during late 2022, urged the abolition of the draft bill which is described as curtailing Russia’s malign influence in Africa. The AU member-states as a whole have rejected the rationale behind such proposed legislation.

Joint Naval Exercises Draw the Ire of Washington

In late February, the military forces of the Republic of South Africa, Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China held joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean. The decision by these three states represented a repudiation of the foreign policy orientation of Washington towards all three countries.

Despite the diplomatic maneuvers of the Biden administration, Africa’s most industrialized state has engaged in these naval exercises with the two governments which represent the major impediments to Washington’s military and diplomatic status. Consequently, there is a sequential trajectory related to the denunciation of the anti-Russia in Africa bill of the U.S. Congress, the call for an end to the war in Ukraine and the burgeoning relations between Moscow, Pretoria and Beijing.

All three states are members of the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) Summit which holds regular meetings. The concept behind BRICS is to build economic links between these countries, among others, outside the influence and control of Washington and Wall Street. There are proposals for the expansion of BRICS to encompass the entire AU region along with countries within Latin America.

One observer of the rapidly changing dynamics of international diplomacy and economics was quoted in an article published by the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Finance Prof. Lemma W. Senbet of the University of Buffalo, State University of New York, noted that the declining influence of the U.S. as it relates to the blatant disregard for its foreign policy interests must be taken into consideration by the State Department and the Pentagon. Smith cites BRICS as one forum which can enhance the capacity of the Global South to loosen its dependence upon the former colonial and present neo-colonial centers of dominance.

This opinion piece published by newswise.com emphasized:

“Senbet says that [this] relationship (BRICS) is in the background of the naval exercises. He indicates it’s not just about South Africa’s relations with Russia, but with China and India as well. ‘China is the largest trading partner in Africa. Tourism is also a big deal in South Africa.’ China is a huge tourism market for the country, as is India. And this is in addition to China’s trade and investment. ‘So, the extent to which they (South Africa) could suffer economic consequences is mitigated by their participation in this economic partnership.’ The western response to the invasion of Ukraine is mainly about protecting the international order, according to Senbet. But he says, ‘there are many countries, especially in the Global South, that think the order doesn’t work for them.’ South Africa is not the only African country to take a neutral stance in the Russia-Ukraine war. Several others have. ‘The U.S. and EU need to pay more attention to the rest of the globe, who are the lower-income, lower-developed economies that actually feel left out of the order. The order has to be inclusive.’”

Consequently, Washington will inevitably depend more on its military prowess to advance an imperialistic political and economic agenda around the globe. This creates a dangerous international scenario for billions of people to contemplate. As the financing of the Ukraine war continues under the Biden administration, several analysts of the war see a strong possibility for a broader engagement by NATO forces.

As the Ukrainian troops suffer greater casualties and setbacks on the battlefield, provocative military actions will escalate. The recent downing of a Pentagon predator drone over the Black Sea has frustrated the White House which falsely claims that these surveillance weapons are operating in “international airspace”.

Any attempt to widen the Ukraine war would prove disastrous for the majority of working and oppressed peoples living in various geopolitical regions including inside of Western Europe and North America. Within the U.S., the economy has suffered tremendous shocks during the month of March where several high-profile bank collapses have compounded the impact of ongoing layoffs of hundreds of thousands of workers employed in the technological and service sectors of the economy. These developments have precipitated a crisis of confidence in the capitalist and imperialist systems.

As Russia and China have written off tens of millions of dollars in loans to African states during 2022-2023, the U.S.-based International Monetary Fund (IMF) is imposing draconian conditionalities on several countries on the continent including, Egypt, Ghana and Zambia. These African states are severely impacted by the rising interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve of the U.S. and other central banks in the capitalist states.

Moreover, the imperialist proxy war against Russia and the rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, are hampering the free flow of agricultural products and other commodities from Russia and Ukraine to the African continent as well as other geopolitical regions. Rather than address the need for a peaceful settlement of the Ukraine conflict, Washington and Wall Street are leading the world into a possible nuclear confrontation along with a worldwide economic depression.

What is needed at this conjuncture is a broad-based antiwar and anti-imperialist movement in the Western industrialized states which could place political pressure on their governments to end the war in Ukraine and redirect the trillions in military expenditures to social spending and the rebuilding of infrastructure in a way which benefits the working class and oppressed throughout the globe.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: South Africa, Russia and Chinese flags during joint naval exercises (Source: Abayomi Azikiwe)

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***

“It is with profound sadness, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) announces the passing of Constable Corinne Kline. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends during this difficult time. We will miss her dearly.” EPS wrote on Twitter (click here)

“Corinne Kline: A true gem, a leader, a parent, a wife, a friend, a community member & a colleague has departed and we mourn. We will always remember her positive spirit for her family, the service and the community she loved.” (click here)

Police did not announce her cause of death, but CTV News Edmonton confirmed she had a medical condition and was hospitalized last week. (click here)

COVID-19 vaccination status

My Take…

If Constable Corinne was triple COVID-19 vaccinated in March 2022, and was immunocompromised, it is highly probable that her doctor would have urged her to stay uptodate on her vaccines (every 6 months), and she most likely would have had five COVID-19 vaccines in total before she was hospitalized last week.

In addition to that, she had COVID-19 infection at least twice.

I believe most doctors in Canada had no idea that the COVID-19 vaccines damage the immune system and cause immune dysfunction or immunosuppression.

I don’t know the source of her immunocompromised status, but the COVID-19 vaccines would have only made her situation that much worse.

Edmonton Police Service had a COVID-19 vaccine mandate in place, and announced that more than 95% of EPS employees were fully vaccinated by Nov.30, 2021 (click here)

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All images in this article are from the author


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

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Imagine a Life Like This: The Relentless Persecution of Hassan Diab

March 23rd, 2023 by Hassan Diab Support Committee

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***

1. Hassan Diab Support Event, Ottawa, March 26, 2:30 pm

Hassan Diab goes on trial in France (in absentia) on April 3, 2023.

This is for a 1980 bombing in Paris, although Hassan was not even in France at the time! His ordeal has disrupted his life for nearly 15 years, including more than three years in a maximum-security prison in France. Imagine the terrible price paid, and is still being paid, by him and his family.

For a good review of his ordeal, check out this short video:

Please join students from Carleton University’s Department of Sociology and the Justice for Hassan Diab Support Committee to show support for Hassan and get the latest information about the upcoming trial.

SUPPORT HASSAN DIAB

SUNDAY MARCH 26, 2:30 – 4:30 PM ET

at CARLETON DOMINION-CHALMERS CENTRE (355 Cooper Street, Ottawa, Ontario)

Speakers:

  • Michelle Weinroth with Raphael Weinroth-Browne (Cellist): Opening
  • Hassan Diab: Welcome
  • Roger Clark: Where we are now
  • Lawyer Don Bayne: What to expect at the trial
  • Dr. Deborah Conners and students: Importance of support for Hassan.
  • Ria Heynen: Closing

Free Admission

  • Silent Auction
  • Live Music
  • Free Food and Drink
  • Caricaturist

The event will be live streamed here starting at 2:30 pm ET, Sunday March 26

If you can, please come in person to show Hassan your support.

This event has been organized by Carleton University Students along with the Hassan Diab Support Committee.

2. Amnesty International Calls on France to Halt its Case against Hassan Diab 

“Amnesty International has called on the French government to halt its ‘groundless’ prosecution of Diab and to find those responsible for the Oct. 3, 1980, attack on a Paris synagogue that killed four people and injured 40 others.

The renewed prosecution of Hassan Diab risks substituting the necessary pursuit of truth and accountability … with another travesty of justice,” Amnesty International said in a recent statement…

I think it’s important for Canada to signal to the French authorities that Canada does not accept this is a fair trial,” said Clark, former secretary general of Amnesty International (Canada). “This, I think, is part of Canada’s obligation to protect its citizens.”

Read the full article by Andrew Duffy in The Ottawa Citizen.

3. Sign the Petition to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must honor his words from June 2018 and refuse any future request from France for the extradition of Hassan Diab. Your support is vital to protect the rights of people in Canada against unjust prosecution and violation of fundamental rights.

We would like to reach at least 10,000 signatures on the petition before delivering it to PM Trudeau. Please sign the petition, if you haven’t done so already, and share it with at least 5 people you know. We need a groundswell of support to protect Hassan from a second wrongful extradition!

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“The Covid States Project” Gives New Hope to Unvaccinated

March 23rd, 2023 by Dr. Peter McCullough

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***

The CDC has indicated on their website for months that 92% of adults have taken at least on shot of a COVID-19 vaccine. Yet a prior surveys Zogby and Rasmussen indicated that fraction may only be two thirds.

Now a recent, independent report from Northeastern University has found that the proportion of unvaccinated is not 8% but more like 25%. This agrees separately with a Kaiser Family Foundation report. Apparently the CDC vaccination administration system is not accurately identifying each person by a unique identifier and linking each injection to that code. Therefore, if a patient does not have the prior vaccine card or goes to a different vaccines center with slightly different name spelling, then the encounter is counted as a brand new person coming forward. This is leading to double-counting of “vaccinated” in CDC records.

CDC=Centers for Disease Control, CS=COVID States Project, KFF=Kaiser Family Foundation

These findings give new hope to the unvaccinated that they are not alone in holding strong against the adverse safety profile of the COVID-19 vaccines and standing up for the preservation of good health and right to decide what is injected into their bodies.

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate This Article button below the author’s name.

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***

This clip is adapted from the critically acclaimed documentary “War Made Easy,” produced in 2007 by the Media Education Foundation at the height of the Iraq war. “War Made Easy” takes a blistering look at how U.S. media outlets from Fox News to MSNBC enthusiastically disseminated Bush administration propaganda and helped sell a war that would kill thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the Iraq War, the RootsAction Education Fund will be hosting a virtual screening of “War Made Easy” on Monday, March 20, at 6:45 pm ET., followed by a live panel presentation at 8 pm ET.

Panelists will include Kathy Kelly, President of the Board of World BEYOND War and co-coordinator of Ban Killer Drones; Dennis Kucinich, former U.S. Congressman; David Swanson, campaign coordinator of RootsAction and Executive Director of World BEYOND War; Norman Solomon, national director of RootsAction and author of “War Made Easy,” the book that the documentary was based on; India Walton, senior strategic organizer with RootsAction Education Fund and director of Roots Action Civic Engagement in Buffalo; and Marcy Winograd, coordinator of CodePink Congress and co-chair of the Peace in Ukraine Coalition.

You also have the option to watch the documentary online any time before March 24, courtesy of the Media Education Foundation, here.

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Featured image is a screenshot from the video

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***

Iraq and Libya were both targeted by the U.S. in the month of March. The anniversaries of these war crimes must be commemorated, and the nature of the US/EU/NATO war machine must be understood.

“The International Criminal Court should uphold an objective and impartial stance, respect the jurisdictional immunity enjoyed by the head of state in accordance with international law, exercise its functions and powers prudently by the law, interpret and apply international law in good faith, and avoid politicization and double standards.” (Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin)

This commentary really should be part two from the piece I wrote last week in the run-up to the anti-war mobilization that took place March 18th which commemorated the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. In that article I made a similar argument about why the U.S. should be seen as the greatest threat to the survival of collective humanity on our planet.

That point, however, needs to be reinforced because in typical arrogance, on the eve of that mobilization and the official March 20th date of the U.S. invasion, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Russia President Vladimir Putin while Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Barack Obama, responsible for horrific crimes against humanity and literally millions of deaths combined in Serbia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria, walk around as free individuals.

It would be comical if it was not so deadly serious and absurd. Just a couple of years ago when the ICC signaled under the leadership of the Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda wanted to conduct an investigation into possible crimes in Afghanistan by the U.S. state, the Trump Administration told the court in no uncertain terms that the Court would be subjected to the full wrath of the U.S. government and the Court quietly demurred in favor of a national probe that everyone knew was a sham.

This is just part of the infuriating double standards that Chinese spokesperson Wang Wenbin refers to. For many in the global South, the “neutral” international mechanisms and structures created to uphold international law have lost significant credibility outside of the West.

The politicization of the ICC on the Ukrainian war and the unprincipled participation of the United Nations that provided political cover for the invasion and occupation of Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010 are just two examples of how international structures ostensibly committed to upholding international law and the UN Charter are now seen as corrupt instruments of a dying U.S. and Western colonial empire.

How did we get here?

It is not a mere historical coincidence that the world became a much more dangerous place with the escalation of conflicts that threatened international peace in the 1990s. Without the countervailing force of the Soviet Union, the delusional white supremacists making U.S. policy believed that the next century was going to be a century of unrestrained U.S. domination.

And who would be dominated? Largely the nations of the global South but also Europe with an accelerated integration plan in 1993 that the U.S. supported because it was seen as a more efficient mechanism for deploying U.S. capital and further solidifying trade relations with the huge and lucrative European Market.

Central to the assertion of U.S. global power, however, was the judicious use of military force. “Full Spectrum Dominance” was the strategic objective that would ensure the realization of the “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC ). There was just one challenge that had to be overcome. The U.S. population still suffered from the affliction labeled the “Vietnam syndrome .” Traumatized by the defeat in Vietnam the population was still reticent about giving its full support to foreign engagements that could develop into a possible military confrontation.

How was this challenge overcome? Human rights.

Humanitarian interventionism ,” with its corollary the “responsibility to protect” would emerge in the late 90s as one of the most innovative propaganda tools ever created. Produced by Western human rights community and championed by psychopaths like Samantha Power, the humanitarianism of the benevolent empire became the ideological instrument that allowed the U.S. to fully commit itself to military options to advance the interests of U.S. corporate and financial interests globally while being fully supported by the U.S. population.

With this new ideological tool, the Clinton Administration bombed Serbia for 78 days in 1999 without any legal basis but with the moral imperative of the “responsibility to protect.” By the early 2000s it was obvious that the U.S. was not going to be bound by international law. Operating through NATO and with the formulation of a “rules based order” in which the U.S. and its Western European allies would make the rules and enforce the order, the world has been plunged into unending wars, illegal sanctions, political subversion and the corruption of international structures that were supposed to instrumentalize the legal, liberal international order.

But white supremacist colonial hubris resulted in the empire overextending itself.

Twenty years after the illegal and immoral attack on Iraq where it is estimated that over a million people perished and twelve years after the racist attack on Libya where NATO dropped over 26,000 bombs and murdered up to 50,000 people, the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination is in irreversible decline but the U.S. hegemon, like a wounded wild beast is still dangerous and is proving to be even more reckless then just a few years ago.

The disastrous decision to provoke what the U.S. thought would be a limited proxy war with Russia that would allow it to impose sanctions on the Russian Federation will be recorded in history, along with the invasion of Iraq, as the two pivotal decisions that greatly precipitated the decline of the U.S. empire.

However, with over eight hundred U.S. bases globally, a military budget close to a trillion dollars and a doctrine that prioritizes a “military-first strategy,” the coming defeat in Ukraine might translate into even more irresponsible and counterproductive moves against the Chinese over Taiwan in the Pacific and more aggressive actions to maintain U.S. hegemony in the Americas through SOUTHCOM and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

Global polls of international opinion continue to reflect that the peoples’ of our planet see the U.S. as the greatest threat to international peace . They are correct.

The commemoration of the attacks on the peoples of Iraq and Libya is an act of solidarity not only with the peoples of those nations, but with the peoples and nations suffering from the malign policies of this dying empire today. It is a time of rededication to peace and to justice, two elements that are inextricable. In the Black Alliance for Peace, we say that peace is not the absence of conflict, but rather the achievement by popular struggle and self-defense of a world liberated from global systems of oppression that include colonialism, imperialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy.

This understanding is the foundation for why we are launching with our partners, an effort to revive the call to make the Americas a Zone of Peace on April the 4th, the day the state murdered Dr. King and the date that the Black Alliance for Peace was launched in 2017.

For Africans and other colonized peoples, the task is clear. The U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination embodies the anti-life structures of colonial/capitalist oppression and must be seen as the primary contradiction facing global humanity. We recognize that other contradictions exist. We are not naive. But for the exploited and colonized peoples of this planet, until there is a shift in the international balance of forces away from the maniacs in the “collective West,” the future of our planet and collective humanity remains imperiled.

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Ajamu Baraka is Chairman of the Coordinating Committee of the Black Alliance for Peace and an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report. Baraka serves on the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council and leadership body of the U.S. based United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC) and the Steering Committee of the Black is Back Coalition.

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***

In his iconic 1950s anti-war hit song ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’, Pete Seeger posed the eternal question about war: ‘when will they ever learn?’ Of course, Seeger’s question was primarily directed at those individuals who choose to participate in the fighting. But it might equally have been directed at those in the ‘anti-war’ movement.

A few years later in 1963, Native Canadian Buffy Sainte-Marie penned the equally iconic ‘Universal Soldier’ to draw attention to ‘individual responsibility’ for war.

The question ‘Why war?’ has troubled human beings for millennia and individuals of conscience have long resisted it, sometimes paying a heavy price for doing so. And back in 1932, two of humanity’s giants – Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud – grappled with the question, exchanging letters on the subject.

See ‘Why War?’

Beyond war, a great deal of effort has gone into understanding conflict and violence, including their structural and cultural components, and I have noted some of these efforts, including my own, in a wide range of documents such as these:

‘Why Violence?’,

‘Comforting a Baby is Violent’,

‘The War to End War 100 Years On: An Evaluation and Reorientation of our Resistance to War’ and

‘Einstein and Freud’s ‘Why War?’

Revisited: Why Anti-War Efforts Go Nowhere’.

Four things fundamentally missing from all previous efforts to halt a particular war or to end war generally, however, are these:

  1. a serious effort to understand the dysfunctional psychology, and what causes it, that drives human violence generally,
  2. a serious effort to analyse war as a system of power: Who is causing it, why and how? (This is important because understanding how power works in the world system as well as who, precisely, is driving what is happening, why, and how they are doing it are crucial prerequisites for developing an effective strategy to resist, or end, war.)
  3. a sophisticated nonviolent strategy based on this understanding and analysis that is thoughtfully designed to address each of the foundational components of war, and
  4. sufficient courageous people committed to implementing this strategy by participating in it themselves and mobilizing others to do so too.

Consequently, to say that anti-war efforts lack sophistication is to put it mildly in the extreme. As the very long history of ‘anti-war’ struggle clearly demonstrates.

Source: Rage Against the War Machine

And so it was listening to the anti-war speeches delivered in Washington DC at the Rage Against the War Machine rally on 19 February 2023. You can watch whole or abridged versions of these speeches here: Rage Against the War Machine.

Rage might give a person power in some contexts but, in itself, rage has zero strategic value. And are these people really feeling ‘rage’ about the ongoing war all over the planet or even the war in Ukraine? And acting on it? Of course not. Even if they were, as mentioned ‘rage’ is no substitute for acting powerfully (that is, strategically) to end war.

Moreover, there is a simple reason for this. Most anti-war activists do not feel rage against the war machine for the simple reason that they are terrified of it.

And this fear incapacitates them, leaving most anti-war activists too scared to seriously commit themselves to doing what is necessary to end war. Again, as the record demonstrates.

Hence, they complain powerlessly, rather than analysing, devising strategy and then acting powerfully knowing that their actions will contribute to the long-term struggle to end war once and for all.

So let me go back a step and analyze why the anti-war movement is so frightened and powerless and why it cannot learn from its own history of failure.

Why do most people complain?

In essence, this happens because when they were children, their parents interfered with their emotional expression which, in turn, stifled those innate behaviors bestowed by evolution to ensure that the baby, and later the child and then adult, acted to have their needs met. Usually by a young age, the child will learn to complain powerlessly when they do not get what they want. But complaining, rather than acting, does not meet their needs.

Thus, just as the child, endlessly thwarted by a parent who ignores the child’s genuine needs and then ignores their pleas to have these addressed, is trapped in the mode of complaining, most activists never learn that the role of politicians is to ignore them too. Of course, the value in this for those who genuinely wield power in society and whose aim is to facilitate perpetual war to achieve a variety of Elite ends (notably including the ongoing consolidation of Elite power and the maximization of corporate profits by financing both sides in any war) is that efforts of this nature, such as public protests against ‘government policies’ absorb and dissipate dissent, as intended.

And so it was on 19 February 2023 when a list of anti-war speakers echoed the eternal cries of powerlessness at one of the latest manifestations of an anti-war street protest:

‘Enough is enough! We demand change! Do the right thing! Implement ceasefire in Ukraine!’ See ‘Twenty Years after the Start of the War in Iraq, People Around the World are still Raging Against the War Machine’.

Really?

As even former US Secretary of State Alexander Haig once noted about a massive anti-war demonstration: ‘Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes.’ See Alexander Haig. As a four-star general, Haig, not regarded as the most intelligent Secretary of State in US history, certainly understood that tactical choice is a question of strategy. Most activists have no idea.

So What Must We Do to End War?

Earlier in this article I identified four elements missing from the anti-war movement’s efforts. Let me restate them and offer my own learning in relation to these points.

  1. a serious effort to understand the dysfunctional psychology, and what causes it, that drives human violence generally.

As the final stage of more than four decades investigating the cause of violence, I spent 14 years living in seclusion with Anita McKone. You can read what I learned in the document ‘Why Violence?’, in which I explain the destructive impact of the ‘visible’, ‘invisible’ and ‘utterly invisible’ violence that adults relentlessly inflict on children – resulting in the bulk of the adult human population being unconsciously terrified, self-hating and powerless, with Anita’s description of our process in:

‘Fearless Psychology and Fearful Psychology: Principles and Practice’.

If you like, you can also read other articles I have written such as

‘The Psychology of Projection in Conflict’ and

‘Challenges for Resolving Complex Conflicts’.

  1. a serious effort to analyse war as a system of power: Who is causing it, why and how? This is important because understanding how power works in the world system as well as who, precisely, is driving what is happening, why, and how they are doing it are crucial prerequisites for developing an effective strategy to resist, or end, war.

I made considerable effort to explain this as part of a wider study identifying the Global Elite and how its power is exercised in the world system. This included explaining why the Elite has a vested interest in ensuring that war continues. For more than 200 years, members of this Elite have carefully facilitated the precipitation of war and then profited immensely from financing both sides in any war of significance as well as the rebuilding of infrastructure and the care of injured soldiers in its aftermath. Hence, preparations for war, the conduct of war and the rebuilding/healing necessary post-war is the most profitable economic venture, by far, conducted on Planet Earth and it greatly enriches Elite families, such as the Rothschilds and Rockefellers, as well as their agents.

See Historical Analysis of the Global Elite: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing.’

  1. a nonviolent strategy based on this understanding and analysis that is thoughtfully designed to address each of the foundational components of war.

First, this requires a completely different approach to parenting if we want to raise powerfully nonviolent children.

See ‘My Promise to Children’ and

‘Do We Want School or Education?’

And given that strategy has long been a passion of mine and nonviolent strategy particularly, I investigated this thoroughly when I wrote The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach.

But for the simplest explanation of nonviolent strategy to end war, you can read it on this website starting with the list of ‘Strategic Goals for Ending War’.

  1. sufficient courageous people committed to implementing this strategy by participating in it themselves and mobilizing others to do so too. This is important because nonviolent activism to end war has a price, measured in jail terms, adverse psychological assessments from people intent on stopping you, and a myriad other penalties depending on the legal jurisdiction in which the activist operates.

But if the antiwar activist is not willing to pay the price of their nonviolent activism, then the victims of wars in other places will pay the price of war with their lives.

Source: Rage Against the War Machine

Clearly, identifying sufficient courageous people is a primary challenge and the obvious shortage of courageous and tenacious people committed to strategically resisting war is just another outcome of our violently dysfunctional parenting of children mentioned in the first point above.

So if we are going to mobilize sufficient people willing to act powerfully over an extended period to resist all of those foundational elements that make war possible, we must profoundly alter our parenting model to produce powerful children and offer adults a chance to heal from the violence they suffered as children as well.

See ‘Putting Feelings First’ and ‘Nisteling: The Art of Deep Listening’.

Otherwise we are condemned to watch people speak against war and march up and down in ‘anti-war’ rallies (or employ other tactics devoid of strategic impact) until the world is blown up.

An Obvious Criticism

An obvious criticism of the approach I have outlined above is that it is ‘too slow’. It offers no quick solution to deal with the immediacy of the threat we face at the current moment with the proxy war being fought by the US and NATO through Ukraine against Russia which includes the risk of the war ‘going nuclear’.

See ‘The Dire Significance of Putin’s Feb 21 Speech’.

And I am well aware of the many calls for negotiations on the one hand – see, for example, ‘The Ukraine War: Think Deeper Or We Shall All Lose’ – and long-standing US war-fighting policy on the other as routinely explained in a plethora of US Government ‘defense strategy’ documents.

See, for example, ‘2022 National Defense Strategy of The United States of America’ and a thoughtful discussion of US nuclear strategy by Professor Michel Chossudovsky in

‘“Preemptive Nuclear War”: The Historic Battle for Peace and Democracy. A Third World War Threatens the Future of Humanity’.

I am also aware of calls, such as that by Scott Ritter, for US anti-war activists to focus on nuclear arms control as the highest priority for now.

See ‘Scott Ritter on the War Machine and the Future of the Antiwar Movement’.

And other perspectives and proposals besides.

But the obvious response to the ‘too slow’ criticism of my longer-term proposals above is simple: The result of the current crisis is so far beyond the existing anti-war movement to realistically influence, it is laughable. And so, in my view – which is consistent with my research into, and analysis of, what has transpired historically:

see Historical Analysis of the Global Elite: Ransacking the World Economy Until ‘You’ll Own Nothing.’ – the war will most probably end when Russia has defeated the Ukrainian state but only after the war has been dragged on for as long as it can be conducted profitably, from an Elite perspective.

And while there is undoubtedly considerable risk of the war ‘going nuclear’ through policy or strategic miscalculation – see ‘Stanislav Petrov, “The Man Who Saved The World,” Dies At 77’ – accident – see Command and Control – or rogue local ‘initiative’, the Elite will ‘gamble’ against these possibilities while (presumably) constraining it at policy level, as has most likely occurred throughout the nuclear age.

Insane? Of course, it is insane. See ‘The Global Elite is Insane Revisited’. It’s just that, in my view, there is nothing new to observe here: Just repetition of what we have seen before, which includes being taken to the brink of nuclear war and relying on ‘unknown factors’ – including, but not exclusively, background control by the Elite – to avoid it.

Conclusion

War is brutal. The Elite perpetuates war endlessly to capture control of people and resources to maintain the existing system of world power and make monumental profits. It will not be stopped because we make fine speeches, chant anti-war slogans at rallies or call for negotiations.

The human world is a system of power. And we need to understand how that system of power works to understand, and change, the world. This applies particularly when dealing with systems, structures and processes at the heart of Elite power, such as economics and war.

But underlying even this we need to understand the psychology of human violence because this also enables us to understand why the Elite controls world affairs to precipitate war (among a vast range of other violent and exploitative outcomes) as well as why ‘ordinary’ people fight in wars and the vast bulk of people who identify as ‘anti-war’ are so powerless.

In essence, war will be ended by analysing and understanding what makes it all happen and taking action intelligently, courageously and tenaciously to change what makes it possible; that is, by resisting in strategically appropriate ways the foundational components on which the entire system of war is built.

And given the ultimate foundation of the war system is our violent parenting model that renders virtually all humans into a state of fearful submission to violence, we haven’t even started the long journey to end war yet.

Nevertheless, while my own lifetime of effort has failed to remedy anything significant about the war system, out of love for my uncles, great uncles and humanity generally – see ‘Who Am I?’ – I continue to focus my own attention on undermining its foundations as documented above. It is slow, ‘unrewarding’ work in the short term.

But my hope is that some future generations of humans, assuming we effectively resist a myriad of current and future threats notably including the vast range of threats we all face at the hands of the Elite now – see ‘We Are Being Smashed Politically, Economically, Medically and Technologically by the Elite’s “Great Reset”: Why? How Do We Fight Back Effectively?’ – will live in a world without violence and war.

Obviously, given the precarious state of the world in many respects, a tremendous amount of intelligent, strategically-oriented action will be needed for this hope to be realized.

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Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of ‘Why Violence?’ His email address is [email protected] and his website is here. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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How to Reduce Military Spending

March 23rd, 2023 by David Swanson

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***

It ought to be easy. Open bank vault, remove weapons dealers, close bank vault. In reality, we need a ton of tools, work, and luck.

In constant dollar terms, after Korea, Vietnam, Reagan’s second term, and Obama’s first term U.S. military spending went down, just never as much as it had gone up. So, ending wars, including Cold Wars, may help.

We now have a war underway in which the U.S. participation is understood as primarily spending money. Ending that spending could be expanded into reducing military spending more broadly.

With Afghanistan and Iraq it took a year-and-a-half each to get good U.S. majorities in polls saying the wars never should have been started. The war in Ukraine appears to be on the same trajectory. Of course, those who believed the wars shouldn’t have been started did not, for the most part, believe they should be ended. The wars had to be continued for the sake of the troops, even if the actual troops were telling pollsters they wanted the wars ended. My hope is that U.S. opposition to the war in Ukraine may grow in the absence of troopist propaganda, as U.S. troops are not involved in large numbers and not supposed to be involved at all.

We also have the U.S. media looking back, with some glimmers of honesty here and there, at 20 or so years of disastrous war spending. Some of those wars have already been ended without the appropriate reductions in military spending. We can point out that U.S. military spending is now about double what it was in 2000.

We can also point out that the Democratic Party Platform of 2020 promised what we’re demanding, and that once elected Biden and the Democrats did the opposite of what they’d promised. That platform tied reducing military spending to ending the wars on Afghanistan and Yemen. They’ve actually ended one of those and pretended to end the other, while increasing military spending. Actually ending the war in Yemen via the War Powers Resolution might help us cut military spending — not that ending that war is any easier. But there is an active movement working on it, and a zoom call this Saturday about it with several Congress Members expected to take part.

People have generally caught on that when a bank or a corporation or a disease epidemic that impacts rich people needs money, somebody simply invents unlimited money out of nowhere. So our constant demand that military spending go down so that human and environmental spending can go up may be less persuasive. We may be giving ourselves two incredibly difficult tasks rather than making one of them easier. If the U.S. government were willing to fund education or housing or the environment, it would simply do so. Reducing military spending wouldn’t compel it to do so. I conclude that we should not shy away from all the usual comparisons of what we could get for what is spent on militarism, nor from comparing the U.S. military with those of other countries, but that there may be something else that’s more important.

I mean the evil of war. The moral case against war, and against the spending that generates more wars. Looking back at our efforts to end the war on Iraq, we never did even really try to teach the public that modern wars are one-sided slaughters. The fact that well over 90% of the deaths were Iraqis never got through, nor the fact that they were disproportionately the very old and young, nor even the fact that wars are fought in people’s towns and not on 19th century battlefields. Today the very best Congress Members will tell you the war was a mistake and cost money and so forth. But just image on a smaller scale murdering a bunch of your neighbors and then saying it was a mistake and you’re sorry the bullets cost so much, even while buying twice as many bullets every day. The point of teaching people the immorality of war is not to feel good or to make someone feel bad, but to mobilize action. People care. People will act and fund efforts to help distant strangers if someone tells them about the need.

Here’s how military spending has gone the past few times through. Biden proposes a massive increase in military spending — above and beyond both what he proposed the year before and what the Congress increased that to.

The corporate media reports on the budget proposal mostly as if the single item that takes up more than half of it doesn’t even exist. Nobody is asked for a preferable budget proposal, just as no presidential or congressional candidates ever are. The basic facts discoverable from a simple pie-chart are kept secret from most people.

Zero Democrats object or encourage No votes or vote-withholding threats or even state that they will personally vote No. (But the Congressional “Progressive” Caucus publishes a so-called “explainer” with three sentences at the end vaguely objecting.)

Congress, with Republicans in the lead, proposes a massive increase over and above Biden’s massive increase.

“Progressive” Democrats whimper about the Republican increase, suggesting through omission that it was the only increase.

But, zero Democrats object or encourage No votes or vote-withholding threats or even state that they will personally vote No (the one exception I know of was in the Senate one year, and not exactly a Democrat: Bernie Sanders once said he would vote No).

The bill passes both houses and is signed into law.

“Progressive” Democrats tell people they voted No, and moreover they’ve cosponsored the People Over the Pentagon Act.

But that’s a bill to reduce a bit the military spending that has gone through the roof during the years they’ve been proposing that bill, a bill that won’t pass the House but if it did would have to pass the Senate and the President, and then military spending could simply be increased by the $100b that bill reduced it by.

If a Congress Member or a caucus thereof were serious, they would do what the Progressive Caucus did to oppose the Manchin dirty oil deal. They withheld their votes from a Democrats-only procedural vote to bring a bill to the floor unless that deal was left out. They got what they wanted. But that bill was last year’s military authorization act. Never once have they organized and withheld their votes to reduce military spending. This should be our primary demand to them:

Will you speak out about the need for your colleagues to join you in voting No on military spending unless it is significantly reduced — doing so on every relevant vote, whether or not you expect to succeed, but even if you might?

A caucus of Congress Members in a single House can change policy by withholding votes — depending how many of them there are, how many are in on the vote, and what other members are voting with them for their own reasons — and I don’t think many Congress Members believe that many of their constituents know that.

Might they risk making it worse? Worse than the current course of destroying all life on Earth? Perhaps. But they’d make an actual effort and we’d see who did, and who didn’t and needed pressure.

A single Congress Member can force a swift debate and vote on ending a war, such as Yemen or Syria. I know that most Congress Members are confident their constituents have never heard of that. Not one Democrats spoke in support of a recent resolution to end U.S. warmaking in Syria. How many of them have heard from us that we want that war ended, troops brought home, troops brought home from everywhere, foreign bases closed, and military spending slashed?

The media’s biggest lie on military spending is that of omission. Our job is to make it a story.

The media’s biggest lie overall is that of powerlessness. The reason the government spies on and disrupts and constrains activism is not that its pretense of paying no attention to activism is real, just the opposite. Governments pay very close attention. They know damn well that they cannot continue if we withhold our consent. The constant media push to sit still or cry or shop or wait for an election is there for a reason. The reason is that people have far more power than the individually powerful would like them to know. But we only have it if we exercise it.

Here’s the video:

Video by CODEPINK

President Biden has proposed a record $886 billion military budget for 2024. This budget includes $170 billion for new bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines; $30 billion for missile defense, $11 billion for hypersonic weapons and long range missiles; $13.5 billion for cyber activities, etc. –and this doesn’t even include $$$ to fund the war in Ukraine! Join us as we break down the military budget and explore opportunities to oppose these weapons systems. In addition to examining the budget as a moral document, we will also learn about CODEPINK’s Ground the F-35 campaign and how the F-35 Coalition is building the anti-war movement as it plans for protests. CODEPINK will host Ground the F-35 actions in New York City, Chicago, Nova Scotia, Washington DC, Madison, Philadelphia, Burlington, the Bay Area, Massachusetts and Seattle to demand Congress defund the F-35 fighter jet, capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear weapons.

Featuring

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host of Talk World Radio. He is Executive Director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. David’s books on war and peace include Leaving World War II Behind (an argument against the use of WWII as reason for more wars) and War Is A Lie (a catalog of the types of falsehoods regularly told about wars). David Swanson was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. David Swanson is on the advisory boards of: Nobel Peace Prize Watch, Veterans For Peace, Assange Defense, BPUR, and Military Families Speak Out.

Danaka Katovich is National Co-Director of CODEPINK, overseeing a myriad of issue campaigns, including the Ground the F-35 campaign. Danaka graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor’s degree in political science in November 2020. Since 2018, Danaka has been working towards ending US participation in the war in Yemen. At CODEPINK, Danaka works on youth outreach as a facilitator of the organization’s Peace Collective, a cohort focused on anti-imperialist education and divestment.

Lindsay Koshgarian is the Program Director for the National Priorities Project. Lindsay’s work and commentary on the federal budget and military spending has appeared on NPR, the BBC, CNN, The Nation, U.S. News and World Report, and others. At NPP, her work is at the intersection of military and domestic federal spending.

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This article was originally published on WorldBeyondWar.Org.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk World Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and U.S. Peace Prize recipient. Longer bio and photos and videos here. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswansonand FaceBook, and sign up for: Activist alerts. Articles. David Swanson news. World Beyond War news. Charlottesville news.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

Below is a video of Christopher Black in the 2014 Rhodes Forum, “Dialogue of Civilizations”. 

He talks about the Rwanda Tribunal and the criminal methods used in the Tribunal to control the trials and come up with fixed outcomes. 

He argues that the war in Rwanda is used, time and again, by the US in its propaganda to justify its wars of interventions. 

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In Moscow, Xi and Putin Bury Pax Americana

March 23rd, 2023 by Pepe Escobar

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***

What has just taken place in Moscow is nothing less than a new Yalta, which, incidentally, is in Crimea. But unlike the momentous meeting of US President Franklin Roosevelt, Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in USSR-run Crimea in 1945, this is the first time in arguably five centuries that no political leader from the west is setting the global agenda.

It’s Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin that are now running the multilateral, multipolar show. Western exceptionalists may deploy their crybaby routines as much as they want: nothing will change the spectacular optics, and the underlying substance of this developing world order, especially for the Global South.

What Xi and Putin are setting out to do was explained in detail before their summit, in two Op-Eds penned by the presidents themselves. Like a highly-synchronized Russian ballet, Putin’s vision was laid out in the People’s Daily in China, focusing on a “future-bound partnership,” while Xi’s was published in the Russian Gazette and the RIA Novosti website, focusing on a new chapter in cooperation and common development.

Right from the start of the summit, the speeches by both Xi and Putin drove the NATO crowd into a hysterical frenzy of anger and envy: Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova perfectly captured the mood when she remarked that the west was “foaming at the mouth.”

The front page of the Russian Gazette on Monday was iconic: Putin touring Nazi-free Mariupol, chatting with residents, side by side with Xi’s Op-Ed. That was, in a nutshell, Moscow’s terse response to Washington’s MQ-9 Reaper stunt and the International Criminal Court (ICC) kangaroo court shenanigans. “Foam at the mouth” as much as you like; NATO is in the process of being thoroughly humiliated in Ukraine.

During their first “informal” meeting, Xi and Putin talked for no less than four and a half hours. At the end, Putin personally escorted Xi to his limo. This conversation was the real deal: mapping out the lineaments of multipolarity – which starts with a solution for Ukraine.

Predictably, there were very few leaks from the sherpas, but there was quite a significant one on their “in-depth exchange” on Ukraine. Putin politely stressed he respects China’s position – expressed in Beijing’s 12-point conflict resolution plan, which has been completely rejected by Washington. But the Russian position remains ironclad: demilitarization, Ukrainian neutrality, and enshrining the new facts on the ground.

In parallel, the Russian Foreign Ministry completely ruled out a role for the US, UK, France, and Germany in future Ukraine negotiations: they are not considered neutral mediators.

A multipolar patchwork quilt

The next day was all about business: everything from energy and  “military-technical” cooperation to improving the efficacy of trade and economic corridors running through Eurasia.

Russia already ranks first as a natural gas supplier to China – surpassing Turkmenistan and Qatar – most of it via the 3,000 km Power of Siberia pipeline that runs from Siberia to China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province, launched in December 2019. Negotiations on the Power of Siberia II pipeline via Mongolia are advancing fast.

Sino-Russian cooperation in high-tech will go through the roof: 79 projects at over $165 billion. Everything from liquified natural gas (LNG) to aircraft construction, machine tool construction, space research, agro-industry, and upgraded economic corridors.

The Chinese president explicitly said he wants to link the New Silk Road projects to the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU). This BRI-EAEU interpolation is a natural evolution. China has already signed an economic cooperation deal with the EAEU. Russian macroeconomic uber-strategist Sergey Glazyev’s ideas are finally bearing fruit.

And last but not least, there will be a new drive towards mutual settlements in national currencies – and between Asia and Africa, and Latin America. For all practical purposes, Putin endorsed the role of the Chinese yuan as the new trade currency of choice while the complex discussions on a new reserve currency backed by gold and/or commodities proceed.

This joint economic/business offensive ties in with the concerted Russia-China diplomatic offensive to remake vast swathes of West Asia and Africa.

Chinese diplomacy works like the matryoshka (Russian stacking dolls) in terms of delivering subtle messages. It’s far from coincidental that Xi’s trip to Moscow exactly coincides with the 20th anniversary of American ‘Shock and Awe’ and the illegal invasion, occupation, and destruction of Iraq.

In parallel, over 40 delegations from Africa arrived in Moscow a day before Xi to take part in a “Russia-Africa in the Multipolar World” parliamentary conference – a run-up to the second Russia-Africa summit next July.

The area surrounding the Duma looked just like the old Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) days when most of Africa kept very close anti-imperialist relations with the USSR.

Putin chose this exact moment to write off more than $20 billion in African debt.

In West Asia, Russia-China are acting totally in synch. West Asia. The Saudi-Iran rapprochement was actually jump-started by Russia in Baghdad and Oman: it was these negotiations that led to the signing of the deal in Beijing. Moscow is also coordinating the Syria-Turkiye rapprochement discussions. Russian diplomacy with Iran – now under strategic partnership status – is kept on a separate track.

Diplomatic sources confirm that Chinese intelligence, via its own investigations, is now fully assured of Putin’s vast popularity across Russia, and even within the country’s political elites. That means conspiracies of the regime-change variety are out of the question. This was fundamental for Xi and the Zhongnanhai’s (China’s central HQ for party and state officials) decision to “bet” on Putin as a trusted partner in the coming years, considering he may run and win the next presidential elections. China is always about continuity.

So the Xi-Putin summit definitively sealed China-Russia as comprehensive strategic partners for the long haul, committed to developing serious geopolitical and geoeconomic competition with declining western hegemons.

This is the new world born in Moscow this week. Putin previously defined it as a new anti-colonial policy. It’s now laid out as a multipolar patchwork quilt. There’s no turning back on the demolition of the remnants of Pax Americana.

‘Changes that haven’t happened in 100 years’

In Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350, Janet Abu-Lughod built a carefully constructed narrative showing the prevailing multipolar order when the West “lagged behind the ‘Orient.’” Later, the West only “pulled ahead because the ‘Orient’ was temporarily in disarray.”

We may be witnessing a similarly historic shift in the making, trespassed by a revival of Confucianism (respect for authority, emphasis on social harmony), the equilibrium inherent to the Tao, and the spiritual power of Eastern Orthodoxy. This is, indeed, a civilizational fight.

Moscow, finally welcoming the first sunny days of Spring, provided this week a larger-than-life illustration of “weeks where decades happen” compared to “decades where nothing happens.”

The two presidents bid farewell in a poignant manner.

Xi: “Now, there are changes that haven’t happened in 100 years. When we are together, we drive these changes.”

Putin: “I agree.”

Xi: “Take care, dear friend.”

Putin: “Have a safe trip.”

Here’s to a new day dawning, from the lands of the Rising Sun to the Eurasian steppes.

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This article was originally published on The Cradle.

Pepe Escobar, born in Brazil, is a correspondent and editor-at-large at Asia Times and columnist for Consortium News and Strategic Culture. Since the mid-1980s he’s lived and worked as a foreign correspondent in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Singapore, Bangkok. He has extensively covered Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia to China, Iran, Iraq and the wider Middle East. Pepe is the author of Globalistan – How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War; Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad during the Surge. He was contributing editor to The Empire and The Crescent and Tutto in Vendita in Italy. His last two books are Empire of Chaos and 2030. Pepe is also associated with the Paris-based European Academy of Geopolitics. When not on the road he lives between Paris and Bangkok. 

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Cradle

From Hegemony to Multipolarity: How Post-Cold War U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Russia Is Creating a Modern Eurasia

By Adeyinka Makinde, March 22, 2023

The present conflict between Russia and Ukraine is arguably the culmination of the foreign policy pursued by the United States of America since the ending of its ideological Cold War with the Soviet Union.

California Farmers: “We’ve Lost Everything” – $ Billions of Food Lost in Floods in State that Produces Half of America’s Agriculture

By Brian Shilhavy, March 23, 2023

The emphasis today is still on saving people’s lives as the rain and flooding continue, and nobody knows yet what the final damages will be to America’s richest farmlands and how that will impact food security in the United States, and the nation’s already fragile economy. Almost half of California’s agricultural products are exported to other countries.

“Market Socialism” and the Destruction of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović, March 22, 2023

It will pass 33 years since the first post-WWII “democratic and multiparty” elections in all six Yugoslav republics in 1990. Next year, however, not only that this country did not exist anymore but the Yugoslavs have been faced with a civil war as a result of the post-Cold War “democratization process”.

‘Smart’ Masks for Cows? Bill Gates Invests $4.7 Million in Data-Collecting “Faceware for Livestock”

By Dr. Suzanne Burdick, March 22, 2023

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this month awarded a $4.8 million grant to a company that sells “smart” face masks for cows. ZELP, which stands for Zero Emissions Livestock Project, claims its artificial intelligence (AI) mask technology for livestock will reduce methane emissions — considered to be a main greenhouse gas — and curb climate change.

For Second Time, US Seeks to Sabotage a Russo-Ukraine Negotiated Peace

By Walt Zlotow, March 22, 2023

A year ago when NATO member Turkey neared a 15 point negotiated settlement, the US and UK each sent a top official to Kyiv not to request, but demand that Ukraine President Zelensky walk away to keep fighting. That grotesque demand led to over 100,000 unnecessary Ukraine deaths over the next year. A third of the Ukraine economy vanished. Six million left Ukraine and another six million relocated.

Forever Wars vs. Armageddon

By Ann Garrison, March 22, 2023

While the world’s attention is focused on the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, 900 US troops continue to occupy Syria, as they have since 2017 , and 2,000 remain stationed in Iraq, 20 years after the US attacked, overthrew its government, and hung its president. Around 500 have been in Somalia since Biden redeployed them in June 2022.

The Lord of Chaos. “The Politicians Who Lied to Us Extinguished Millions of Lives”. Chris Hedges

By Chris Hedges, March 22, 2023

The politicians and shills in the media who orchestrated 20 years of military debacles in the Middle East, and who seek a world dominated by U.S. power, must be held accountable for their crimes.

When Will We Profess the Unity of the Human Race?

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel, March 22, 2023

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find one’s way through the jungle of lies and half-truths. More and more contemporaries therefore do not want to hear anything more from politicians. Personally, the alternative media keep me “afloat” because they still “pay tribute to the truth” due to their independence from government.

Georgia College Student on Life Support with Brain Bleed After Trip to Mexico. Just Like Brain Aneurysms, AVMs Are Also at Risk for Rupture & Bleed from Pfizer & Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines

By Dr. William Makis, March 22, 2023

Liza Burke, a UGA senior, was in Cabo San Lucas with a “big group of friends” for her “last spring break” when, on March 10, she complained of a headache at breakfast. “A few hours later, her friends called the doctor because they couldn’t wake her. She was immediately rushed to the hospital where she was diagnosed with Arteriovenous malformation (AVM) which cause her brain to hemorrhage.”

Transition from Year 1 B.C. (Before Corona). Secrecy and the New Zealand Government in the “Year of Our Democide”

By Dr. Emanuel Garcia, March 22, 2023

In the year 1 B.C. (Before Corona), we here in New Zealand were getting along rather well. Despite the exorbitant cost of food and housing, the majestic and available beauty of the physical country gave us  immeasurable comfort. Our government, we thought, might not have been the most efficient one in the world, nor the one most populated with high intelligence, but it seemed to make an effort to represent its citizenry and to provide basic services.

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Almost half of America’s agriculture is produced in the State of California, producing over 50 $BILLION annually in revenues.

Source.

Now, with recent historical and unprecedented flooding, many farmers in California are reporting that they have “lost everything.”

And it is not over yet, as the rains continue, and record amounts of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains still need to melt, which will flow into farmlands that are already devastated in California’s Central Valley. See: California snowmageddon: Now the second snowiest winter ever on record and still MUCH MORE TO COME!

The emphasis today is still on saving people’s lives as the rain and flooding continue, and nobody knows yet what the final damages will be to America’s richest farmlands and how that will impact food security in the United States, and the nation’s already fragile economy. Almost half of California’s agricultural products are exported to other countries.

Tulare County in Central California is the county that is suffering the most, and it is also the second largest county in the U.S. in terms of food production, producing over $8 BILLION annually, with sales of dairy products making up almost one fourth of those sales, followed by citrus and nuts. (Source.)

Kern County, just to the south of Tulare County, is the nation’s #1 county in agricultural production, and Fresno County, just to the north of Tulare County, is the nation’s 3rd largest producer of agriculture, and both of those counties have also seen devastating floods in the Central Valley of California.

Monterey County on the Central Coast of California, is the 4th largest county in the U.S. in terms of agriculture production, and they too have been hit with devastating floods, wiping out most of the vegetable and strawberry farms.

I have put together a video report that is just under 15 minutes. I have friends and family members who live in Tulare County, so I can confirm from first hand experiences that none of this is exaggerated. It is real.

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It’s been six weeks since I published a report, based on anonymous sourcing, naming President Joe Biden as the official who ordered the mysterious destruction last September of Nord Stream 2, a new $11-billion pipeline that was scheduled to double the volume of natural gas delivered from Russia to Germany. The story gained traction in Germany and Western Europe, but was subject to a near media blackout in the US. Two weeks ago, after a visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Washington, US and German intelligence agencies attempted to add to the blackout by feeding the New York Times and the German weekly Die Zeit false cover stories to counter the report that Biden and US operatives were responsible for the pipelines’ destruction.

Press aides for the White House and Central Intelligence Agency have consistently denied that America was responsible for exploding the pipelines, and those pro forma denials were more than enough for the White House press corps. There is no evidence that any reporter assigned there has yet to ask the White House press secretary whether Biden had done what any serious leader would do: formally “task” the American intelligence community to conduct a deep investigation, with all of its assets, and find out just who had done the deed in the Baltic Sea. According to a source within the intelligence community, the president has not done so, nor will he. Why not? Because he knows the answer.

Sarah Miller—an energy expert and an editor at Energy Intelligence, which publishes leading trade journals—explained to me in an interview why the pipeline story has been big news in Germany and Western Europe. “The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines in September led to a further surge of natural gas prices that were already six or more times pre-crisis levels,” she said. “Nord Stream was blown up in late September. German gas imports peaked a month later, in October, at 10 times pre-crisis levels. Electricity prices across Europe were pulled up, and governments spent as much as 800 billion euros, by some estimates, shielding households and businesses from the impact. Gas prices, reflecting the mild winter in Europe, have now fallen back to roughly a quarter of the October peak, but they are still between two and three times pre-crisis levels and are more than three times current US rates. Over the last year, German and other European manufacturers closed their most energy-intensive operations, such as fertilizer and glass production, and it’s unclear when, if ever, those plants will reopen. Europe is scrambling to get solar and wind capacity in place, but it may not come soon enough to save large chunks of German industry.” (Miller writes a blog on Medium.)

In early March, President Biden hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington. The trip included only two public events—a brief pro forma exchange of compliments between Biden and Scholz before the White House press corps, with no questions allowed; and a CNN interview with Scholz by Fareed Zakaria, who did not touch on the pipeline allegations. The chancellor had flown to Washington with no members of the German press on board, no formal dinner scheduled, and the two world leaders were not slated to conduct a press conference, as routinely happens at such high-profile meetings. Instead, it was later reported that Biden and Scholz had an 80-minute meeting, with no aides present for much of the time. There have been no statements or written understandings made public since then by either government, but I was told by someone with access to diplomatic intelligence that there was a discussion of the pipeline exposé and, as a result, certain elements in the Central Intelligence Agency were asked to prepare a cover story in collaboration with German intelligence that would provide the American and German press with an alternative version for the destruction of Nord Stream 2. In the words of the intelligence community, the agency was “to pulse the system” in an effort to discount the claim that Biden had ordered the pipelines’ destruction.

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First published on October 6, 2022

***

Abstract

We make a quantitative comparison between the COVID-19 mortality statistics of the Government of Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada; managed by the Chief Public Health Officer) and calculated total excess all-cause mortality (ACM) (deaths from all causes) for the Covid period. The claimed “COVID-19 deaths” mortality is almost double the total excess ACM for the same period, which we find to be irreconcilable with reality. We describe how these numbers have been uncritically used in public Government communications, by leading media, and in a recent scientific article co-authored by Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer, which claims that “without the use of restrictive measures and without high levels of vaccination, Canada could have experienced […] almost a million deaths.” We conclude that the COVID-19 mortality statistics are unreliable at best, and possibly meaningless.

Introduction

In Canada and in the world, there were virtually no reported deaths assigned to COVID-19 prior to the 11 March 2020 World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of a pandemic. Likewise, no anomaly in all-cause mortality by time (day, week, month) can be detected prior to the said declaration.1

The Government of Canada records “COVID-19 deaths” and reports the cumulative value on a weekly basis, at its Public Health Agency of Canada “COVID-19 epidemiology update” dashboard.2

Government of Canada officers and employees use the same cumulative “COVID-19 deaths” data in their peer-reviewed scientific articles (see below).

This brief report is about the irreconcilable discrepancy between the Government of Canada’s numbers of “COVID-19 deaths” and rigorous evaluations of excess total all-cause mortality (ACM) for the same time periods.

What the Canadian Government and legacy media say

Table 1 presents statements made by the Government of Canada and by leading media, reporting cumulative “COVID-19 deaths”. The list is incomplete.

Table 1. COVID-19 death count statements

Clearly, these numbers are an integral part of the Government of Canada’s communication campaign during the Covid period.

In addition, countless audio and video recorded interviews have media interviewers and commentators advancing these and comparable large cumulative numbers of “COVID-19 deaths”, typically to emphasize the seriousness of the declared pandemic, and always implying that infection with the presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus was the dominant or only medical factor causing the deaths.

The detailed time evolution of the cumulative number of “COVID-19 deaths” is available at the Government of Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada) dashboard and its csv-file download,17 and is represented in the following graph (Figure 1), in which the time axis starts on 1 February 2020.

Figure 1. Time evolution of the cumulative number of “COVID-19 deaths” for Canada. The vertical line marks the week of 11 March 2020, when a pandemic was declared by the WHO. Data is from the Government of Canada (accessed on 3 October 2022).18

The same data as in Figure 1, viewed in terms of weekly new “COVID-19 deaths”, for the same time period (February 2020 to present), is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Time evolution of the weekly new number of “COVID-19 deaths” for Canada. The vertical line marks the week of 11 March 2020, when a pandemic was declared by the WHO. Data is from the Government of Canada (accessed on 3 October 2022).19

There is a consensus in the Government of Canada and the major media outlets that these numbers of “COVID-19 deaths”, reviewed above, represent true and reliable mortality caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, since COVID-19 is uniquely ascribed to this virus.

We were not able to find any Government of Canada sources or publications that suggested that the presumed virus could have played an insignificant or minor role in causing the deaths in some of the deaths attributed to or associated with “confirmed” COVID-19; nor were we able to find any Government (or investigative media) effort to estimate the fraction of any such “false positive” attributions of cause of death.

What the all-cause mortality says

All-cause mortality by time is the most reliable data for detecting and epidemiologically characterizing events causing death, and for gauging the population-level impact of any surge or collapse in deaths from any cause. Such data is not susceptible to reporting bias or to any bias in attributing causes of death. More and more researchers are recognizing that it is essential to examine ACM by time, and excess deaths from all causes compared with projections from historic trends, to help make sense of the events surrounding COVID-19: See Rancourt et al. (2022)20 and references therein.

Before we describe the quantification method, it is instructive to examine the ACM by time in Canada over the last three decades. Figure 3 shows ACM by month for Canada, from January 1991 through December 2020. Contrary to usual practice, we use the full y-scale, showing the zero, so that one may evaluate the relative importance of the seasonal variations and of any other changes compared to numbers of all the deaths in the country. This provides a reference to ascertain the degree to which the declared pandemic caused a notable excess in mortality after 11 March 2020.

Figure 3. All-cause mortality (ACM) by month for Canada, from January 1991 to December 2020, inclusive. The data is from StatCan.21 There are characteristic dips in February, due to the known artifact arising from February typically having only 28 days. The March-May 2020 peak that occurs immediately following the pandemic announcement of 11 March 2020 is historically anomalous, and we have discussed it previously.22

Next, we apply similar quantitative methods that we applied recently for the USA23 to the case of Canada, to quantify excess total ACM for the Covid period, which started on 11 March 2020. By “excess” we mean in addition to the expected mortality for the Covid period, based on the historic trend prior to 11 March 2020. As such, the expected mortality for the Covid period is the mortality that one would predict if the Covid period were just like recent prior periods, in terms of the factors that determine mortality.

We use the StatCan data of ACM by week,24 which starts at the week ending Saturday 9 January 2010, and ends at the week ending Saturday 14 May 2022. Although StatCan refers to this data as “provisional weekly death counts”, we have observed that successive updates for this product (their Table 13-10-0768-01) do not change the previously released data to a degree that could significantly change our calculations or conclusions. The last values in the dataset for May do not appear to be anomalous.

Given the end date of the data and given the start date of 11 March 2020 of the declared pandemic, the Covid period used in our calculation (the “defined Covid period”) is the 114-week period between the week ending Saturday 14 March 2020 and the week ending Saturday 14 May 2022, inclusive. We sum ACM over this 114-week period. We define non-overlapping 114-week periods of summation of ACM, which immediately precede the defined Covid period. Four such consecutive periods prior to the defined Covid period can be accommodated by the data.

We plot the resulting sum of ACM values versus time, along with the ACM by week (on a different y-axis), in Figure 4.

Figure 4. All-cause mortality (ACM) by week, 2010-2022, left y-axis (light blue continuous curve) for Canada; and ACM sums over the five 114-week non-overlapping consecutive periods described in the text, right y-axis (dark blue dots, joined by line segments). The ACM sums are positioned in time on the x-axis at the first week of the respective summation period. The last 114-week period is our operational Covid period (the defined Covid period). The orange straight dashed line is the least-squares best fit to the four ACM sums prior to the defined Covid period. The sharp spike occurring in the summer of 2021 corresponds to the heat wave that occurred in British Columbia (and the north-western USA).

We make a least-squares fit of a straight line to the four ACM sums of the 114-week periods prior to the defined Covid period (shown in Figure 4). Taking “x” to be the week number, where x=1 is the first week in the StatCan data, the resulting fitted line has slope = 264.5 ACM-sum-on-114-weeks per week, intercept = 516,400 deaths in 114-week period, and Pearson correlation coefficient r = +0.9989.

Therefore, the expected 114-week ACM sum for the defined Covid period, based on the least-squares fitted straight line, is (657.1 ± 1.3) x 103 deaths, where the uncertainty is estimated as the mean of the four absolute values of the deviations of the observed values from the fitted line; whereas the measured ACM sum for the 114-week defined Covid period is 679,645 deaths.

This means that the excess mortality for the 114-week defined Covid period ending on the week ending on Saturday 14 May 2022, is:

679,645 − (657.1 ± 1.3) x 103 = (22.5 ± 1.3) x 103 deaths, which is seen in Figure 4.

Covid-assigned deaths versus all-cause mortality

The thus obtained excess ACM for the 114-week defined Covid period ending on 14 May 2022 can be compared to the cumulative “COVID-19 deaths” on 14 May 2022.

The latter official value for 14 May 2022, from the Government of Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada), is: 40,684 “COVID-19 deaths”.25

Therefore, we have:

This means that there were 18,200 more “COVID-19 deaths” than the 22,500 excess all-cause deaths (up to 14 May 2022).

The “COVID-19 deaths” mortality, in magnitude, is 181% of the calculated total excess ACM (up to 14 May 2022).

If the same ratio were applied to the USA, there would have been 1.81 x 1.27M26 = 2.30M “COVID-19 deaths” in the USA, more than double the official USA number (998,587 “COVID-19 Deaths” on 14 May 2022, CDC).27

It is inconceivable that a virus killed this many more people than the total excess ACM, because this would imply that in the absence of the presumed virus there would be a large deficit of ACM. Alternatively, one would need to believe that Covid measures (masking, social distancing, isolation, shutting down economic sectors, etc.) cause a net reduction of deaths from all other causes; such as not causing any deaths while more than eliminating “influenza and pneumonia”, which in Canada have reported deaths in the range 6.2 to 8.6 K/year for 2016 through 2019.28

The presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus would have killed approximately twice as many people as the calculated excess ACM. This means that, in addition to presumably being the cause for all the excess ACM (which is implausible), the presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus would have also had to rush in and kill 18,200 people, in the same time period and before they could die of other causes, who most certainly would have died without the Covid circumstances. What is the meaning of a presumed virulent virus that kills people who would have died, when they would have died? Alternatively, for example, the Covid measures would have saved 18,200 people from “influenza and pneumonia”, say, while the presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus killed them.

More realistically, if approximately half of the excess deaths were due to the aggressive measures (including: harmful medical treatment, neglect of vulnerable individuals, social and physical isolation, and loss of regular occupation and care protocols), then at most 10,000 or so deaths could have been caused by the presumed SARS-CoV-2 virus, in this period, and the reported number of “COVID-19 deaths” is inflated by a factor of approximately 4, if the cause-of-death determinations can be taken to be meaningful.

Discussion: What does the Government of Canada say?

Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Chrystia Freeland29 has stated that if Canada had the same “COVID-19 deaths” rate per capita as the USA, then there would have been 70,000 more COVID-19 deaths in Canada.30 Freeland referred to a study by Naylor and other academics as her source. Razak et al. (including Naylor) make their analysis up to or near 12 February 2022 when the reported cumulative “COVID-19 deaths” for Canada were at 35,268. For this date, they report “COVID-19 deaths” rates per capita (per million) of 919 for Canada and 2,730 for the USA (their Figure 1C).31 The USA rate would produce 105,000 deaths in Canada, which is 70,000 more than 35,000.

This statement by Freeland has a “COVID-19 deaths” rate for the USA, which is 3.0 times larger than for Canada, but Freeland does not mention two important factors:

(1) the USA has an excess-ACM death rate (per capita) that is 6.5 times larger than for Canada [(1.27M/22.5K)(38M/330M) = 6.5], and

(2) the Covid-measures stringency index (Oxford Stringency Index) is statistically indistinguishable for the USA and Canada [Figure 2 in Razak et al.32].

Freeland’s attention should have been turned instead to a metric that takes into account the different health statuses of the vulnerable populations in the two countries.33 Freeland could have asked herself: “Why is the ratio of ‘COVID-19 deaths’ to excess ACM deaths [(40.7K/22.5K)/(0.999M/1.27M)] some 2.3 times larger in Canada than in the USA?” This contextualized comparison would mean a relative (compared to the USA) catastrophic failure of the Covid measures intended to prevent spread of the disease in Canada, in which the presumed infection appears to have disproportionately devastated those close to death in Canada. Freeland misled herself in her use of the USA regarding comparative efficacy of Covid measures in Canada.

Discussion: What do the Government scientists say?

Ogden et al. (with Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam), publishing in the peer-reviewed journal Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) in July/August 2022 wrote:34

“Together, these observations show that without the use of restrictive measures and without high levels of vaccination, Canada could have experienced substantially higher numbers of infections and hospitalizations and almost a million deaths.”

One million added “COVID-19 deaths” in Canada corresponds to adding approximately 150% of the baseline total (not excess) ACM deaths for the Covid period. This would increase the Covid-period total (not excess) ACM from approximately 680,000 deaths (Figure 4) to approximately 1,680,000 deaths. One can gauge what that would look like on Figures 3 and 4.

To make it more visual and concrete, we simulate the ACM by week for Canada with the added said “almost a million deaths” in Figure 5. Here, for the sake of illustration and simplicity, we add the one million deaths to the defined Covid period uniformly to each of the 114 weeks in the period (1M/114 = 8,772 deaths added to each week in the defined Covid period; keeping in mind that the Ogden et al. article uses data up to 20 April 2022, which is close to our defined Covid period end date).

Figure 5. Simulated all-cause mortality (ACM) by week, 2010-2022, for Canada, using the proposal of Ogden et al. (red line), as explained in the text. The original data for the Covid period is shown by the dashed grey line.

Figure 5 suggests that the proposal made by Ogden et al. is not compatible with any reasonable view.

The theoretical notion that one million deaths were averted by the Covid measures in Canada is incredible on its face, but also contrary to reality. It would correspond to 210 million deaths globally [(1M/38M) x 8B]; and to 8.7 million deaths in the USA [(1M/38M) x 330M].

This conclusion by Ogden et al. (including Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam) is not connected to reality because, in addition to relying on reported “COVID-19 deaths” numbers, it is a product of their theoretical modelling exercise. All such models applied to nations have been shown to often be grossly unreliable. Arguably the most renowned epidemiologist (cited >450K times),35 Stanford University’s Professor of Medicine John Ioannidis and co-authors had this to say about the models:36

“Epidemic forecasting has a dubious track-record, and its failures became more prominent with COVID-19. Poor data input, wrong modeling assumptions, high sensitivity of estimates, lack of incorporation of epidemiological features, poor past evidence on effects of available interventions, lack of transparency, errors, lack of determinacy, consideration of only one or a few dimensions of the problem at hand, lack of expertise in crucial disciplines, groupthink and bandwagon effects, and selective reporting are some of the causes of these failures. Nevertheless, epidemic forecasting is unlikely to be abandoned.”

At this point, readers have a choice of preferring to side more with one of two end-point views. Either:

(a) the Government of Canada saved one million lives, and thereby brought down mortality coincidentally to virtually the same level as in the pre-Covid periods (Figures 3 and 4); within 22,500 deaths, which is approximately +3% of expected mortality in the absence of Covid circumstances; or

(b) there was no such contagious and virulent pathogen present, and, if anything, the Covid measures may have caused net harm.

In making this evaluation, readers should keep in mind that the article by Ogden et al. (including Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam) is written by the architects of the Covid measures in Canada, and of the COVID-19 testing and vaccination campaigns. It is published by the Government. And it constructs a theoretical justification for unprecedented harsh nation-wide Government measures. It cannot be viewed as unbiased.

Conclusion

We determined the expected defined Covid period mortality (nominally from 11 March 2020 to 14 May 2022), in the absence of the Covid period circumstances to be: (657.1 ± 1.3) x 103 deaths.

The actual defined Covid period mortality was 679,645 deaths.

Therefore, the defined Covid period excess mortality is (22.5 ± 1.3) x 103 deaths, which is significantly smaller than the Government’s reported “COVID-19 deaths” number of 40,684 for the same period.

These numbers (22.5K vs 40.7K) cannot be reconciled by any reasonable explanation, which we have explored.

The recent suggestion by Ogden et al., derived from using the Government-reported “COVID-19 deaths” mortality, that “without the use of restrictive measures and without high levels of vaccination, Canada could have experienced […] almost a million deaths.”, appears to be palpably disconnected from reality (Figure 5).

In conclusion, our analysis overall leads us to suggest that the COVID-19 mortality statistics collected and presented by the Government of Canada (Public Health Agency of Canada) are unreliable at best, and possibly meaningless.

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This report was published by Correlation Research in the Public Interest.

Notes

1 Rancourt, D.G. (2020) “All-cause mortality during COVID-19: No plague and a likely signature of mass homicide by government response”, ResearchGate, 2 June 2020. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.24350.77125 | archived at: https://archive.ph/PXhsg

2 Government of Canada (2022) “COVID-19 epidemiology update”. Updated: 2022-10-03. https://health- infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/ (accessed on 3 October 2022).

3 Ogden NH, Turgeon P, Fazil A, Clark J, Gabriele-Rivet V, Tam T, Ng V. “Counterfactuals of effects of vaccination and public health measures on COVID-19 cases in Canada: What could have happened?” Canada Communicable Disease Report (CCDR) 2022;48(7/8):292–302. https://doi.org/10.14745/ccdr.v48i78a01

4 https://health-infobase.canada.ca/src/data/covidLive/Epidemiological-summary-of-COVID-19-cases-in- Canada-Canada.ca.pdf (accessed on 27 September 2022).

5 Ibid. (accessed after 4 April 2022)

6 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/canada-covid-cases.html | Archived: https://archive.ph/puy6S (accessed on 27 September 2022).

7 https://globalnews.ca/news/6649164/canada-coronavirus-cases/ (accessed on 27 September 2022).

8 https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/covid-19-hospitalizations-down-by-42-in-quebec-1.6053545 (accessed on 27 September 2022).

9 https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2022/08/25/did-a-conservative-leadership-hopeful-compare- covid-19-vaccines-to-nazi-atrocities-leslyn-lewis-rejects-cowardly-accusation.html | Archived: https://archive.ph/iTEjc (accessed on 27 September 2022).

10 https://globalnews.ca/news/9084719/covid-deaths-hit-one-million-who/ (accessed on 27 September 2022).

11 https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/tracking-every-case-of-covid-19-in-canada-1.4852102 (accessed on 28 September 2022).

12 https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-maps/countries-and-territories/canada/ (accessed on 28 September 2022).

13 https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/kaplan-myrth-ontario-election-covid-19-isnt-over-vote-for-the-party- that-will-act-on-this-reality (accessed on 28 September 2022).

14 https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-canada-40000-covid-19-deaths/ | Archived: https://archive.ph/v3w1r (accessed on 28 September 2022).

15 https://globalnews.ca/news/8834765/covid-canada-40k-deaths-6th-wave/ (accessed on 29 September 2022).

16 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-million-covid-deaths-1.6150574 (accessed on 28 September 2022).

17 See Footnote 2

18 See Footnote 2

19 See Footnote 2

20 Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M., Mercier, J. “COVID-Period Mass Vaccination Campaign and Public Health Disaster in the USA – From age/state-resolved all-cause mortality by time, age-resolved vaccine delivery by time, and socio-geo-economic data”, Research Gate, 2 August 2022, DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.12688.28164, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362427136_COVID- Period_Mass_Vaccination_Campaign_and_Public_Health_Disaster_in_the_USA_From_agestate- resolved_all-cause_mortality_by_time_age-resolved_vaccine_delivery_by_time_and_socio-geo- economic_data | archived here: https://archive.ph/lFNwK

21 StatCan (2022) “Deaths, by month”. Release date: 2022-01-24. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310070801 (accessed on 6 June 2022).

22 Rancourt, D.G., Baudin, M. and Mercier, J. (2021) “Analysis of all-cause mortality by week in Canada 2010-2021, by province, age and sex: There was no COVID-19 pandemic and there is strong evidence of response-caused deaths in the most elderly and in young males”. ResearchGate, 6 August 2021, https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.14929.45921 | archived here: https://archive.ph/CYA20

23 Rancourt et al. (2022): Footnote 20.

24 StatCan (2022) “Table 13-10-0768-01 Provisional weekly death counts, by age group and sex”. Release date: 2022-09-08. https://doi.org/10.25318/1310076801-eng | also: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310076801 (accessed on 12 September 2022)

25 See Footnote 2

26 Rancourt et al. (2022): Footnote 20.

27 “COVID Data Tracker – Trends in Number of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths in the US Reported to CDC, by State/Territory”, CDC, https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_totaldeaths_select_00 (accessed on 2 October 2022).

28 “Leading causes of death, total population, by age group”, Table: 13-10-0394-01 (formerly CANSIM 102-0561), Release date: 2022-01-24, Statistics Canada, https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=1310039401 (accessed on 2 October 2022).

29 https://deputypm.canada.ca/en | archived: https://archive.ph/uyAHz (accessed on 1 October 2022).

30 Video: “All-cause deaths continue to skyrocket in Canada”, Rebel News, 26 September 2022. https://rumble.com/v1lmo2p-all-cause-deaths-continue-to-skyrocket-in-canada.html (at 4:12).

31 Fahad Razak, Saeha Shin, C. David Naylor, Arthur S. Slutsky. “Canada’s response to the initial 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic: a comparison with peer countries” CMAJ Jun 2022, 194 (25) E870-E877; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.220316 . See also the 27 June 2022 Globe&Mail opinion piece by Razak, Slutsky and Naylor: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-we-need-new-strategies-to- tackle-covid-this-fall/ | archived: https://archive.ph/moeYs .

32 Ibid.

33 Rancourt et al. (2022): Footnote 20.

34 Ogden et al. (2022): Footnote 3.

35 Google Scholar authenticated profile of John P.A. Ioannidis: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JiiMY_wAAAAJ&hl (accessed on 1 October 2022).

36 Ioannidis JPA, Cripps S, Tanner MA. “Forecasting for COVID-19 has failed”. Int J Forecast. 2022 Apr- Jun;38(2):423-438. doi: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2020.08.004. Epub 2020 Aug 25. PMID: 32863495; PMCID: PMC7447267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2020.08.004

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Dieser Artikel wurde von der Autorin erstmals 2018 veröffentlicht.

Mehr als eineinhalb Jahrzehnte nach dem völkerrechtswidrigen Angriffskrieg der US-geführten NATO gegen die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien (SRJ) unter Einsatz hochgiftiger und radioaktiver Uran-Geschosse wird das ungeheure Ausmaß dieses Kriegsverbrechens deutlich.

In Serbien haben die aggressiven Krebserkrankungen bei Jung und Alt in den letzten Jahren ein epidemisches Ausmaß erreicht. Das Leid der Menschen schreit zum Himmel. Besonders betroffen sind der Süden Serbiens und das Kosovo. Nach Angaben des serbischen Gesundheitsministeriums erkrankt jeden Tag ein Kind an Krebs. Das gesamte Land ist verseucht. Durch die Schädigung des Erbgutes (DNA) werden Generationen um Generationen missgebildeter Kinder zur Welt kommen. Wissentlich und willentlich wurde ein Völkermord begangen.

Bis vor kurzem hat die Politik unter Mithilfe der Medien den verunsicherten Bürgern Serbiens auf Druck der Verursacher des Genozids die Wahrheit vorenthalten. Mutigen und verantwortungsbewussten Ärzten, Ex-Militärs, Ex-Politikern und Wissenschaftlern ist es nun gelungen, diese Mauer des Schweigens zu durchbrechen – zum Wohle des serbischen Volkes und der vielen anderen Völker dieser Welt, die sein Schicksal teilen.

Uranwaffen sind Massenvernichtungswaffen

Als die USA in Vietnam das Entlaubungsmittel “Agent Orange” und Napalm eingesetzt hatten, war die Welt entsetzt. Das war nicht mehr Krieg, das war Schlächterei an der Zivilbevölkerung und nachhaltige Zerstörung der Natur. 50 Jahre danach kommt dort Generation um Generation schwer behindert zur Welt – zum Sterben geboren. Doch die Waffenindustrie, auch die Atomwaffenindustrie, hat seit Vietnam ihr Geschäft zügig weiterentwickelt. Alle Kriege sind nach den Rechtsnormen des Nürnberger Tribunals illegale Angriffskriege und sie werden immer mörderischer, hinterhältiger, flächendeckender, genozidaler. So auch der erste Krieg der US-geführten NATO auf europäischem Boden gegen die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien 1999.

Hier setzte die US-Armee unter stillschweigender Duldung der NATO-Verbündeten – darunter auch Deutschlands – Massenvernichtungswaffen ein, die sie im 2. Golfkrieg 1991 und in Bosnien-Herzegowina 1994/95 bereits erprobt hatte: hochgiftige und radioaktive Uranwaffen. Die NATO selbst hat zugegeben, dass sie 30.000 Geschosse mit abgereichertem Uran (Depleted Uranium; DU) abgefeuert hat, das Militär Serbiens spricht von 50.000 Geschossen. Das entspricht 10 bis 15 Tonnen Uran.

Da bereits umfangreiche wissenschaftliche Literatur und Filmmaterial (“Deadly Dust”) zu diesem Kriegsverbrechen in deutscher, englischer und serbischer Sprache zur Verfügung stehen, hier nur einige Anmerkungen:

Wegen des langen Abbauprozesses der Radioaktivität und ihrer Toxizität werden Abfälle der Uran- und Atomindustrie – vorwiegend DU des Isotops 238 – für einen sehr langen Zeitraum in gesicherten Deponien gelagert. Zur Verringerung des damit verbundenen hohen Kostenaufwands wird DU daher gerne kostenfrei an Interessenten wie das Militär abgegeben. DU besitzt Charakteristika, die vor allem für die Rüstungsindustrie sehr attraktiv sind.

Die nach einer deutschen Technologie entwickelten DU-Geschosse – so Professor Dr. med. Siegwart-Horst Günther – haben wegen der hohen Dichte des metallischen Urans (1,7 Mal größer als die von Blei) eine hohe Durchschlagskraft und sind speziell zum Brechen von Stahlpanzerungen und unterirdischen Beton-Bunkern geeignet. DU ist zudem ein brennbares Material, das sich beim Durchschlagen einer Panzerplatte von selbst entzündet, bei 3.000 Grad Celsius zu Uranoxidstaub verbrennt und dabei hochtoxische und radioaktive Stoffe (Uranoxid) freisetzt.

Dieses Uranoxid-Aerosol mit Partikelgrößen im Nanobereich gelangt über die Atemluft, das Wasser und langfristig auch über die Nahrungskette in den menschlichen Körper.

In der Lunge werden die DU-Staubteilchen auch an die roten und weißen Blutzellen angelagert und gelangen so in alle Organe des Körpers, auch ins Gehirn, in die Niere und in die Hoden, so dass in vielen Organen Krebs entsteht und die Erbsubstanz (DNA) irreversibel geschädigt wird. Die starke Kanzerogenität des DU ist darauf zurückzuführen, dass die Chemo- und die Radiotoxizität synergetisch wirken.

Über die Placenta kann DU auch ein ungeborenes Kind erreichen und ihm schweren Schaden zufügen. Mögliche Langzeitschäden sind genetische Defekte bei Säuglingen, Kinderleukämien, Krebserkrankungen und Nierenschädigungen. Da die Uranoxid-Partikel durch die Verbrennungshitze die Eigenschaft von Keramik angenommen haben, sind sie wasserunlöslich, sitzen in dieser Form im Körper fest und können über Jahre ihre radioaktive Wirkung (Alpha-Strahlung) entfalten.

Krieg mit Uranwaffen ist wissentlich und willentlich herbeigeführter Völkermord

Für den Biochemiker Albrecht Schott ist DU ein Beispiel für Eingriffe in die Schöpfung, die diese existenziell gefährden und damit keine Waffe gegen Staaten, sondern eine Waffe gegen den Planeten. Der bekannte deutsche Journalist und Filmemacher Frieder Wagner bezeichnet Uranwaffen als “Ausrottungswaffe” und die Opfer dieser mörderischen Waffen als die “Toten des stillen Sterbens”. Uranwaffen sind die “perfekte Waffe”, um massenhaft Menschen umzubringen, das heißt, einen Völkermord zu begehen.

Seit der UN-Konvention über die Verhütung und Bestrafung des Völkermordes von 1948 ist der Genozid ein Straftatbestand im Völkerstrafrecht, der nicht verjährt. Gekennzeichnet ist er durch die spezielle Absicht, auf direkte oder indirekte Weise eine nationale, ethnische, rassische oder religiöse Gruppe als solche ganz oder teilweise zu zerstören. Deshalb wird der Völkermord auch als “einzigartiges Verbrechen”, als “Verbrechen der Verbrechen” (englisch “crime of crimes”) oder als “schlimmstes Verbrechen im Völkerstrafrecht” bezeichnet.

Die australische Ärztin, Atomwaffenspezialistin und Friedensaktivistin Helen Caldicott schreibt in ihrem Buch “Atomgefahr USA”:

Es ist klar, dass das Pentagon schon lange vor der Operation Wüstensturm [2. Golfkrieg 1991; der Verfasser] um die gesundheitlichen Risiken wusste, die von uranhaltiger Munition ausgehen. In zahlreichen Militärberichten wird eingeräumt, dass Uran-238 Nierenschäden, Lungen- und Knochenkrebs, (nicht bösartige) Erkrankungen der Lunge, Hauterkrankungen, neurokognitive Störungen, Chromosomenschäden und Geburtsfehler verursachen kann.

Aus diesem Grund sind Kriege unter Einsatz hochgiftiger und radioaktiver Uranwaffen sowohl Kriegsverbrechen als auch wissentlich und willentlich herbeigeführter Völkermord – so auch der Krieg gegen die Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien 1999. Gemäß der UN-Konvention gegen Völkermord verpflichten sich die Vertragsparteien, Völkermord beziehungsweise Personen, die einen solchen begehen, zu bestrafen, unabhängig davon, ob sie regierende Personen, öffentliche Beamte oder private Einzelpersonen sind.

Aggressive Krebserkrankungen in Serbien erreichen epidemisches Ausmaß

Die Bombardierung Serbiens dauerte 78 Tage. Dabei wurden 1.031 Soldaten getötet, 5.173 Soldaten und Polizisten verwundet, 2.500 Zivilisten starben – darunter 78 Kinder – und über 6.000 Zivilisten wurden verwundet. Neben den Projektilen mit DU, die zudem Spuren hochgiftigen Plutoniums aufwiesen, sind auch andere explosive Kombinationen und Raketenkraftstoffe mit bestimmten chemischen Verbindungen zum Einsatz gekommen, die bei Explosionen sehr giftig wirken und Krebserkrankungen bewirken. Die Zahl dieser Krebserkrankungen wuchs von Jahr zu Jahr. Auch stiegen die Zahl der Neugeborenen mit Missbildungen und jene aggressiver Leukämieerkrankungen bei Kindern.

Vor über einem Jahr wurden Schätzungen des serbischen Verbands zur Krebsbekämpfung bekannt: Studien hätten gezeigt, dass der Einsatz der Uranwaffen zwischen 2001 und 2010 zu 15.000 Krebserkrankungen und 10.000 Toten geführt habe, so der Verbandsleiter und Onkologe Prof. Dr. med. Slobodan Cikaric. Insgesamt habe es in diesem Zeitraum 330.000 Krebserkrankungen in Serbien gegeben. Die Todesrate habe seit dem Jahr 1999 jährlich um 2,5 Prozent zugenommen.

Bereits im Jahr 2013 äußerte Professor Cikaric in der serbischen Zeitung Blic, dass Serbien 14 Jahre nach der Bombardierung mit DU eine Explosion von Krebserkrankungen aller Art erwarte. Er sollte Recht behalten. Übermittelt sind Zusammenbrüche des Immunsystems mit ansteigenden Fällen von Infektionskrankheiten, schwere Funktionsstörungen von Nieren und Leber, aggressive Leukämien und andere Krebserkrankungen (auch Mehrfachkrebs), Störungen im Knochenmark, genetische Defekte und Missbildungen sowie Aborte und Frühgeburten bei Schwangeren wie nach der Tschernobyl-Katastrophe.

Liest man heute eine serbische Zeitung oder geht über einen serbischen Friedhof, dann fällt einem in den seitenlangen Todesanzeigen oder Grabinschriften die kurze Lebenszeit vieler Verstorbener ins Auge. Es müsste jeweils heißen: “Gestorben an den Folgen von DU-Vergiftung und Verstrahlung”.

Viele Bürger Serbiens sind aufgrund ihres jahrelangen Mitleidens mit kranken Angehörigen und infolge des ängstlichen Abwartens, ob und wann auch sie eventuell von einer der schrecklichen und meist tödlich verlaufenden Krankheiten eingeholt werden, psychisch stark belastet. Auch wenn die meisten von ihnen die Ursache der schweren Erkrankungen erahnen, bleibt trotzdem eine große Verunsicherung, die anhaltende Stressgefühle auslöst.

Von politischer Seite hat man sowohl in Serbien wie auch in den anderen mit DU verseuchten Ländern im Nahen und Mittleren Osten und in den NATO-Ländern selbst die Bevölkerung bewusst nicht aufgeklärt. Man wollte sich unter anderem Regressforderungen entziehen und das mörderische Handwerk ungestört weiterführen. Stress, Ängste wie auch Depressionen schwächen das bereits belastete Immunsystem zusätzlich und führen zu einer höheren Infektionsanfälligkeit. Das zeigen Forschungsergebnisse des interdisziplinären Forschungsgebiets der Psycho-Neuro-Immunologie (PNI).

Volk hat Recht auf Wahrheit

Um das eigene Leben und das der Familie befriedigend gestalten, Vorsorge für die Zukunft treffen oder als Ehepaar entscheiden zu können, ob man Kinder in die Welt setzen will oder nicht, dafür muss jeder Bürger die wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und politischen Gegebenheiten in seinem Land realistisch einschätzen können. Das kann er aber nicht, wenn ihm die Wahrheit über Vorkommnisse vorenthalten wird, die sein Leben stark beeinträchtigen können. Deshalb ist es eine moralische Verpflichtung all derer, die sich mit dem Problem der Verseuchung des Landes auseinandergesetzt haben – Ärzte, Wissenschaftler, Journalisten, von Kontamination betroffene Militärs und Zivilisten –, die Mitbürger aufzuklären und ihnen beizustehen.

Hinzu kommt, dass die Identität eines Volkes auf dem Recht der Bürger auf Wahrheit und das Wissen um ihre Geschichte gründet. Historiker und Vertreter weiterer Wissenschaften haben dazu einen wichtigen Beitrag zu leisten. Die Auseinandersetzung darf aber nicht ihnen allein überlassen werden. Die Suche nach der Wahrheit und die Aufklärung des Volkes ist auch eine politische Aufgabe, die von politischen Verantwortungsträgern zu lösen ist und unter keinen Umständen von ihnen unterbunden werden darf. Regierung und Parlament haben sich zu positionieren. Wie können Bürger einer Regierung oder Volksvertretung vertrauen, die ihnen die Wahrheit über ein Problem vorenthält, das sie existenziell betrifft?

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.

Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.

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Preface

It will pass 33 years since the first post-WWII “democratic and multiparty” elections in all six Yugoslav republics in 1990. Next year, however, not only that this country did not exist anymore but the Yugoslavs have been faced with a civil war as a result of the post-Cold War “democratization process”.

For two decades before 1980, Yugoslavia was prospering with a GDP of 6,1%, a decent standard of living, free medical care, and education guaranteed the right to a job, affordable public transportation housing, and utilities, a literacy rate over 90%, life expectancy 72 years. Most of the economy was in the public not in the profit sector. It was a different case because it had established its form of the social model of economic activity which was the mixed economy with private-sector enterprise and state-run industry. It was considered to be a success story of market socialism (with huge international loans and donations by the West!) it had higher rates of growth than more of the Western countries.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had an advanced welfare state and it was a multiethnic society (it was populated by Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, Hungarians, Albanians, and many others) which lived in harmony under the communist pressure and dictatorship and, therefore, in many regards it was a (wrong) model of development. The outsider can say that it was something special about this land, and the question is why did people spill so much blood over there in the 1990s? Who was to blame for that?

Before WWII

The Serbs, the most numerous Yugoslav nation, lost their freedom after the Ottoman Turks attacked them in 1389 in the field of Blackbirds which is called Kosovo. The Serbs lost their statehood which lasted several centuries produced a strong encouragement in the myth of Kosovo. For standing up against the Turks Serbs were prosecuted and invented torture devices were implemented. Serbs lived under terrible prosecution, Serbs were wiped, Serbs were lynched except the matter that they were lynched by impalement. It means that the sharp stick is put up in your anus and driven through your body and exits through your back without harming vital organs. The Ottoman Turkish army was an expert in doing it. There was however a way to avoid all this – converge to Islam. And many did, many had no choice. This made a part of the Slavic population Muslim while the rest is Christian Orthodox.

On the other hand, the state religion of the Austrian Empire was Roman Catholic from which the large Croatian population got a great influence. When Austria-Hungary illegally annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina (breaking the decisions of the 1878 Berlin Congress) and a large population fell under it in 1908, the Yugoslav dream (coming from outside of Serbia) was never more threatened. A group of young Yugoslav nationalists called “Young Bosnia” which included Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims decided that enough is enough. A Bosnian young man Gavrilo Princip (having a Roman Catholic-Latin origin surname) shot and killed the Austrian warmonger-archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28th, 1914 (the day of the 1389 Kosovo Battle). After he was quoted as saying “I am a Yugoslav nationalist, aiming for the unification of all Yugoslavs, we must be free from Austria” the Austrians used this event as the reason to attack the last Slavic stronghold after Russia: Serbia.

This was, however, not the real reason for the attack. The Austrians and Germans had the plan to expand their common Pan-Germanic Empire in the east and the war was the only way at that time they could do it. During the early period of WWI, a group of Yugoslav politicians fled from Austria-Hungary and formed the Yugoslav Committee in London which was collaborating with the Government of Serbia in exile (in Greece). In July 1916, on the Corfu Island in Greece, the Yugoslav Committee (composed mainly of the Croats) together with the Serbian Government declared that the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians are “the same by the blood, by the language, by the feelings of their unity, by the integrated territory which they inhabited undividedly, by the common vital interests of their national survival and many developments of the material life.”

It happened to the thing which the Ottoman and the Austrian-Hungarian authorities were afraid of the most. After WWI, the Yugoslavs had a country of their own mainly built on Serbian blood. The interwar royal Yugoslav state was short-lived because another world war came soon in April 1941. In the hope to keep Yugoslavia out of the war, the Yugoslav regent Prince Paul signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan on March 25th, 1941. However, British diplomacy did not like such political development in the Balkans and, therefore, they encouraged the anti-German military coup in Belgrade and brought the Serbian people against the pact. The Brits were very happy with the new pro-British Yugoslav Government established on March 27th, 1941 but the Germans were not anymore. A. Hitler decided to wipe Yugoslavia off the map together with Greece. Yugoslavia was attacked from all sides together with Greece on April 6th, 1941.

At that time, Yugoslavia was divided into 12 pieces and some of them went to fascist Italy, some of them to Hungary, some of them to Albania while Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were united in the Croatian fascist state under the Ustasi regime which was called Independent State of Croatia (concerning its internal affairs, the ISC was, really, independent especially regarding the policy of genocide on the Serbs, Jews, and Roma). Croatian fascists were quick to destroy all the not fascist (i.e., not Croatian) elements in the state primarily the Serbs. And that meant that A. Hitler’s final solution (of the Jewish question) applied here as well (as the final solution of the Serb question). Hundreds of thousands of Serbs (at least 700.000) but also Jews and Roma were killed most of them in the 4th largest concentration camp in Europe called Jasenovac on the Sava River. And one important detail is that the Croatian political fascist regime was fully integrated with the Roman Catholic clergy and even some of the priests (Franciscans) were the heads of the concentration camps and executors.

During the war, there was one real anti-fascist movement, a nationalist Yugoslav Royal Army in the Homeland (the Ravna Gora movement or the Chetniks of General Draža Mihailović) and one quasi anti-fascist movement – the communists (the Partisans) led by Josip Broz Tito (according to V. Molotov, he was a Jew from Odessa). Although when the war began, these two movements cooperated to a certain extent, the mutual conflict soon occurred due to the Partisan’s attacks on the Chetniks followed by the civil war till May 1945. During the second part of the war, the Western allies (especially W. Churchill) betrayed Serbian nationalists and Serbian people by making political trade with J. V. Stalin – in fact, they crucially supported the Yugoslav communists after the Tehran Conference in November 1943.

On November 29th, 1943, J. B. Tito declared a new Yugoslavia and two years later the country was occupied by his partisans who officially called it liberation. Skilled in his political games he was a worldwide accepted leader who was not only a leader but a brand as well and above all the dictator. He was one of the three founders of the non-alignment movement in 1961 (the first conference was in Belgrade) sponsored by the West to play the game of middle ground between great powers, between East and West in international relations during the Cold War.

After WWII

At the end of WWII, the communists conducted the federalization of the new socialist Yugoslavia. After the genocide against the Serbian people who were killed by the nationalist Ustasi movement (the Croats and Bosnian Muslims) in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and everything that happened during the war, the communists attempted to align it with a policy of national reconciliation in the conditions of a totalitarian regime by establishing a state in which there would be an internal balance of the six federal units. Those were Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia.

People who lived in these federal units suddenly started to be deemed as different nations according to their republic’s belonging. For example, in Yugoslav Macedonia (there are three parts of historical-geographic Macedonia: the Serbian/Yugoslav, Bulgarian, and Greek) there was a specially developed national consciousness to be Macedonian, as well in Montenegro to be Montenegrin. Moreover, some historically artificial nations within republics became created allegedly on an ethnic basis. For instance, suddenly, 20 years after WWII, the Muslim nation of ethnic Serbs who were Islamized during the 500 years of the Ottoman occupation was formed (however, the Catholic or Orthodox, or Christian nations have not been ever created). Later and today, they gained Bosniak or Bosnian identity primarily based on their religion combined with the republic’s identity. Nevertheless, such division and the increasing power of federal units later in the 1990s demonstrated expulsion and migration of the population to the “mother” countries, and more or less division among the population within the country.

When Josip Broz Tito (officially) died on May 4th, 1980, many Yugoslavs were crying not for him as much as for Yugoslavia itself. His (official) funeral was the largest statesman funeral in recorded history.

Internal tensions in the country, from 1981, grew steadily, reinforced by the economic slowdown and high debt to foreign investors. Debt, inherited from J. B. Tito’s time, was further increased. In 1984, the (USA President at that time) Ronald Reagan’s administration was specifically targeting Yugoslavia’s economy in the secret memo, National Security Directive 133 which stated that the US policy will be promoting the trend towards a market-oriented Yugoslav economy structure. And it was in line with previous decision directives which advocated expanded efforts to promote revolutions to overthrow communist Governments. It triggered the whole series of other initiatives which of course were not published. What the USA wanted is that Yugoslavia quit being a socialist (command) market economy and become a free-market economy, modelled on the Western pattern.

The destruction of the Yugoslav economy

While the Soviet system was starting to collapse in 1980s, Washington wasted no time and was sending advisors to Yugoslavia from the non-profit organization called National Endowment for Democracy (the NED). Allen Weinstein, who planned the NED, told Washington that “a lot what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA”. So the NED became the CIA’s satellite. And what did it do? It started financing opposition groups, young journalists, trade unions, and other pro-open market economists and NGOs. The NED financed the so-called G17 in Serbia – a notorious pro-Western colonial political group.

And who were they? Those were the NGOs made up of 17 free-market economists which after became a political party and had after the Western-sponsored revolution of October 5th, 2000 in their hands Ministry of Finance and Economy. They were working closely with the IMF and the World Bank, and a coordinator of the G17 Plus Professor Veselin Vukotić, who was the minister of privatization in the Yugoslav Government of the (Croat)

PM Ante Marković just before the destruction of Yugoslavia, was in charge of the World Bank’s bankruptcy program for Yugoslavia during 1989 and 1990 which let off the devastation of the Yugoslav economy. So this was not simply a group of economists, it was a network and the IMF and the World Bank use this network to impose their policies on Yugoslavia, or now on Serbia.

And how do they do it? They did it in three stages:

  • They force the Government to stop subsidizing domestic production (food, medical means), transportation, free medical care, and so on. In other words, you cut public sector spending, you cut wages, cut employment, you abolish working management enterprises, and as a result, you force your people to work harder for lesser.
  • They use laws to force public (state) businesses to go into bankruptcy. And the World Bank uses this mechanism which is called a trigger, they use this term to describe the process ” to trigger the bankruptcy of the Yugoslav industry”.
  • Then these businesses are bought from foreign speculators and other interested foreign groups. Creditors could take these businesses during the 45 days and either the businesses are sold (privatized) or canceled. This is called privatization through liquidation! Evidence from the World Bank confirms that under V. Vukotić’s intervention from 1989 till 1990 (still Yugoslavia existed) more than 1100 industrial firms were wiped out!

The standard of living declined by 18% from January to October 1990. At the same time, unemployment rose to 20% and thus increased tension between the Yugoslav republics. So, usually, when you have this kind of unsatisfactions everybody is looking for a guilty party.

When a man has nothing and he is not aware in the existential sense, he clings to those types of ideas that awake the human inside him, and those are usually national or religious stories. Suddenly he feels more important when someone tells him “yes it is their fault, not yours”. In desperation, PM A. Marković visited his bosses in Washington essentially to meet with President Bush Senior, when he said that rising tensions between the Yugoslav republics and nationalities would be a consequence of these austerity measures and privatization plan and he asked for another loan because otherwise there would be troubles.

And we all know that the American administration did not want any trouble in the Balkans so President Bush in November of 1990 went to Congress and pushed them to pass the law which demanded that if any republic of Yugoslavia wanted further US aid, they would have to break away from Yugoslavia and proclaim their independence. It is a public law! It required that republics do not hold national elections but only the elections in their own republics! And when the financial aid went to Yugoslavia, it went only to those parts controlled by radical ultranationalists and even fascist parties (like the HDZ in Croatia or the SDA in Bosnia-Herzegovina) which the USA officially considered as democratic and supported them as such.

The destruction of Yugoslavia was not the result of the preexisting internal divisions. Those internal divisions were exacerbated as the result of an outside (Western) intervention.

By 1991 the inflation was 200%. The central Federal Government of Yugoslavia could not repay the state (public) debt and could not even buy the raw material for domestic industrial production. The economic cooperation between the republics stopped existing. The republics did not get any money from the Federal Government, but neither sent the money from the taxes to the federal budget. As a consequence, the whole fiscal structure soon collapsed. The republics were left at their own “devices” and then it appeared a new form of nationalism. However, the republican political leaders did not work on calming people down, but, actually, they have been doing quite opposite. People were going in the street protesting with the message “do not sacrifice peace for the political aims”.

The political destruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina

The Yugoslav republics on the election in 1990 got the people who were far away from calming down inter-republican economic and political tensions. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, President Alija Izetbegović (who, in fact, lost the elections as being a vice-winner) was propagating the ideas from the 1970 nationalistic Islamic Declaration, as he said, for instance, “there can be neither peace nor coexistence between the Islamic religion and non-Islamic social and political institutions”. He emphasized the percentage of religion over ethnicity. In fact, there was a moment when he could prevent the war when he signed the 1992 Lisbon Agreement which would make Bosnia-Herzegovina a confederation of three ethnic regions (Muslim, Croat, and Serbian).

However, Alija Izetbegović did not like such a solution at all as he wanted whole power for himself and his Bosnian Muslims, and luckily for him, the USA did not like it as well (the Croat and Serb political representatives from Bosnia-Herzegovina agreed about the Lisbon Agreement and signed it). On May 2nd, 1992 Alija Izetbegović was kidnapped at the Sarajevo airport by the Yugoslav People’s Army (the YPA) as he returned from the European Community talks in Lisbon. He is exchanged for the YPA’s prisoners the next day. That weekend (May 2‒3rd, 1992) was up to that time the most violent in both Sarajevo and the rest of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

However, the last US ambassador in Yugoslavia, V. Zimmermann, did not like it much more. As he said “If you don’t like it, why sign it?”, So, after the consultations with him in Belgrade in the US embassy, Alija Izetbegović simply withdraw his signature from the agreement and, therefore, opened a door to the bloody war! The Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina was constituted as a federal unit in which three ethnic nations were equal: the Serbs, Croats, and Muslims (no majorization). These three groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina were constituents that means in terms of resolving their status outvoting was legally impossible. Bosnia’s secession would be possible only if the political representatives of these three agree on secession, and was legally impossible to agree for the Muslim and the Croatian representatives to overrule the Serbs (what in practice happened). Since they could not agree on the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the war started on a dispute in religious terms and territorial division.

Ethnic divisions in Yugoslavia in 1991

As it became clear that the European Community was going to recognize on April 6th, 1992 the independence of Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed earlier by Bosnian Muslims and Croats, a night before (between April 5−6th,) in Banja Luka, the Assembly of the Serbian People of Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence for the Serbs in this ex-Yugoslav republic (the Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The name was changed on August 12th, 1992 into the Republic of Srpska). The next separatists in Bosnia-Herzegovina have been the Roman Catholic Croats who on July 5th, 1992 proclaimed the independence of their controlled region called the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia (Western Herzegovina), headed by the leader of the ultranationalistic Croatian HDZ party (Croatian Democratic Union) for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mate Boban, who favored the partition of the republic between Croatia and Serbia (according to the oral agreement by Croatian President Franjo Tuđman and Serbian President Slobodan Milošević reached in Karađorđevo in 1991). The capital of this republic was multiethnic Mostar. Mate Boban was allied with Franjo Tuđman, whereas other Bosnian Croat leaders, including Stjepan Kljuić and Jovan Divjak, opposed F. Tuđman and the declaration for the partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina. However, on July 7th, the Croatian President officially stated he does not support the formation of Herzeg-Bosnia as a Croatian independent state. Rather, he said Herzeg-Bosnia will help administer the area amid wartime chaos while the integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina formally remained his chief concern.

In the end, after 4 years of civil war on the territory of ex-Yugoslavia, much inspired and fuelled by Washington, the US administration designed the Dayton Peace Accord in December 1995. According to the accord, Bosnia-Herzegovina gained the status of an independent country but was divided into two political entities: the unitary Republic of Srpska (49%) and the ethnically cantonized Muslim-Croat Federation (51%). However, the division lines between these three main ethnic communities still exist today with the constant Croat struggle for the status of the third political entity based on ethnic belonging.

The Bosnian conflict (of 3,5 years) was a tragedy for all those involved – the Muslims/Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. However, the international Western focus of guilt was laid overwhelmingly on the Serbian side from the very beginning (Slovenia in June 1991), mainly because the Serbian side presented well-organized armed resistance to the destruction of Yugoslavia in order not to be repeated the genocide over the Serbs from WWII in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation this month awarded a $4.8 million grant to a company that sells “smart” face masks for cows.

ZELP, which stands for Zero Emissions Livestock Project, claims its artificial intelligence (AI) mask technology for livestock will reduce methane emissions — considered to be a main greenhouse gas — and curb climate change.

Cows and other ruminant animals emit methane in the process of digesting their food.

The mask goes around the cow’s head and captures the methane gas exhaled by the animal, oxidizing it and then releasing it into the air as carbon dioxide and water vapor, according to ZELP.

It also has sensors that continuously collect millions of data points on the animals that are processed by machine learning algorithms.

“Our AI is trained to detect heat, flag welfare conditions, and identify the most efficient animals with a high-level of accuracy,” ZELP said.

But critics, including third-generation farmer Howard Vlieger, said the Gates-funded venture is illogical and driven by greed.

Vlieger, who advises crop and livestock farmers across the U.S., said, “This is what you would get when you combine greed and stupidity.”

Commenting on the news, Will Harris — a fourth-generation regenerative farmer who runs his family’s farm White Oak Pastures, told The Defender all he could say was, “Surely this is a hoax.”

Critical Sway, a researcher and investigator, tweeted, “You couldn’t make this stuff up. … We’re living in ridiculous times my friends.”

ZELP — which collaborates with the agricultural giant Cargill — makes its money by leasing the smart masks out to farmers and by selling carbon offset credits, Critical Sway said.

“History will show that the vast majority of so-called environmentally beneficial projects like this are going to make Bernie Madoff look like an altar boy,” Vlieger said.

Madoff, whose name became synonymous with financial fraud, was behind the $20 billion Ponzi scheme that CNN called the largest financial fraud in history.

Gates’ love affair with techno-fixes

Smart masks for cows aren’t the first money-making tech fix Gates has attempted to apply to a natural problem.

Last year, the billionaire partnered with Samsung in an attempt to make a toilet that would turn human feces into ash.

And Gates recently claimed his genetically altered seeds were necessary for solving world hunger because climate change alters growing conditions.

He also promotes AI-driven digital agriculture that relies on large-scale monocultures and is “basically a surveillance agriculture,” according to environmental activist Vandana Shiva, Ph.D.

The technology forces farmers “to get addicted to chemicals and chemical fertilizers” that harm the planet and people while reducing natural biodiversity, Shiva said.

Shiva said Gates’ solutions ignore obvious natural remedies for environmental problems, such as the regenerative agriculture practices of managed grazing and natural soil enrichment.

Industrial farming practices — not cows — are the problem

ZELP’s design was one of four winners last year in the Terra Carta Design Lab, an environmental sustainability competition for cutting methane emissions.

Prince Charles — who launched the competition as part of his Sustainable Markets Initiative — praised the mask design as “fascinating,” reported Business Insider in April 2022.

But according to Vlieger, ruminant animals in their natural habitat are not the key drivers of environmental problems.

smart masks cows bill gates feature

Source: Children’s Health Defense

“When the settlers worked their way across the plains, there were millions of buffalo,” Vlieger said. “If ruminant animals were the problem, why didn’t we have climate change problems then?”

Techno-fixes like ZELP’s smart masks ignore the issue of where and how the animals graze, Vlieger and others said.

Conventional livestock production — which includes confining large numbers of animals in concentrated animal feeding operations, more commonly known as factory farms — “manipulates pieces of the ecosystem in an effort to maximize production and profits, thereby leading to the complication and expense of dealing with unintended consequences,” according to a 2015 report by the Savory Institute, a regenerative agriculture organization that promotes wholistic management of livestock.

An intact ecosystem effectively balances ruminant methane production and breakdown, the report authors said.

Indeed, researchers — including W. Richard Teague, Ph.D., professor emeritus and grazing ecologist at Texas A&M AgriLife Research & Extension Center — found that with appropriate regenerative crop and grazing management, ruminant animals not only reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions but also provide essential ecosystem services that increase soil carbon sequestration and reduce environmental damage.

Teague and his colleagues said in a 2016 article published in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation that “to ensure long-term sustainability and ecological resilience of agroecosystems, agricultural production should be guided by policies and regenerative management protocols that include ruminant grazing.”

Allowing cows to open graze “under appropriate management results in more carbon sequestration than emissions,” Teague told Successful Farming.

Grazing systems that are regenerative cause soil microorganisms to increase, which helps drive carbon sequestration and methane oxidization, Teague added.

‘This is wrong in so many ways’

Vlieger said ZELP’s smart mask would generate electromagnetic radiation that could harm the animals.

“Many years ago when the USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture] was talking about the electronic ID ear tags for cattle, I wrote an article about the dangers of the electromagnetic frequencies — and that was way before we had a fraction of the information that we have today,” he said.

“The potential for tumors and other ill health effects are significant,” Vlieger added.

Blogger Tessa Lena also criticized the cow smart mask because it is a step in normalizing “smart” facewear for both animals and humans — something that is “a win-win for all fascists,” she said in a March 14 Substack post.

Lena said:

“It’s a very lucrative ‘product adoption curve for Big Tech — and extremely consistent with how they’ve been going about their ‘product adoption curves’ since day one of the industry’s existence.”

Smart faceware is also “useful to the totalitarian types in the government” and a “treasure trove of yummy ‘new oil’ biometric data for the delight of all fascists,” Lena added.

Her solution?

People must wake up and refuse to do this, she said.

*

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Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.

Featured image is from SHTFPlan.com

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***

As Ukraine sinks into collapse from Russia’s invasion the US provoked, the death and destruction has made no dent on Uncle Sam’s inhumane conscience.

A year ago when NATO member Turkey neared a 15 point negotiated settlement, the US and UK each sent a top official to Kyiv not to request, but demand that Ukraine President Zelensky walk away to keep fighting. That grotesque demand led to over 100,000 unnecessary Ukraine deaths over the next year. A third of the Ukraine economy vanished. Six million left Ukraine and another six million relocated.

The US didn’t blow up a negotiated peace to inflict this carnage on Ukraine. They simply wanted, in the words of US war emissary, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, to keep the war going to “weaken Russia”. That was an abomination that should shame every peace loving American.

Today begins US sabotage 2.0 of a new Russo Ukraine peace proposal. Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Moscow to meet with Russian President Putin and virtually with Ukraine President Zelensky to possibly negotiate peace. War weary Zelensky expressed openness to Xi’s 12 point peace proposal.

President Biden should be thrilled that peace in the war may be at hand. Instead he’s apoplectic. His national security spokesman John Kirby offered,

“We don’t support calls for a ceasefire right now. We certainly don’t support calls for a ceasefire that would be called for by the PRC in a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia.”

Once again it’s not about ending a war destroying Ukraine as a functioning state. And God forbid peace be brokered by our other arch enemy China in America’s 21stcentury Cold War that could quickly go nuclear. Outside of the US and Australia, the rest of the world in cheering on China’s peace efforts. Even European NATO countries are likely tho silently on board. They’re not thrilled about the US blowing up the Nord Steam pipeline and tripling their energy costs to degrade Russia.

By preventing a March, 2022 peace agreement, the US blew a chance for an agreement that would have reverted to the pre-invasion territorial lines. An easily prevented year of war means any new peace agreement will likely see the annexation of the Donbas provinces and the Ukrainian oblasts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Once again the US has overplayed its hand, ensuring, it we don’t stumble into nuclear war, the utter ruin of Ukraine and the demise of US unipolar dominance.

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Featured image: Graffiti “Stop War” on Russia’s war in Ukraine in the Mauerpark in Berlin, Germany. Image taken on March 11, 2022. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

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***

The BoerBurgerBeweging (Farmer-Citizen Movement) was founded to represent the interests of Dutch farmers facing severe difficulties or being closed down altogether as a result of Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s efforts to implement European Union-mandated curbs on the use of nitrogen fertilisers, in order to serve the bloc’s climate change green agenda.

Initially a protest movement, the BBB has been involved in many major demonstrations, often involving tractors, in the Netherlands — but it arrived as a political force in the country’s recent regional government elections for the first time, which also determine the make-up of the First Chamber of the States General — the upper house or senate of the Dutch legislature.

As the results of the election become clearer, it now appears to scale of the Farmer-Citizen Movement’s success was greater than polls initially suggested, with it being due to claim 17 seats in the Senate and become by far the largest party there, according to pro-farmer campaigner Eva Vlaardingerbroek.

The precarious four-party coalition government of the supposedly “centre-right” Prime Minister Mark Rutte, meanwhile, appears to have suffered somewhat worse losses than expected, with Vlaardingerbroek suggesting they will be unable to achieve a majority even with the support of the Labour Party and the Greens.

Vlaardingerbroek has previously alleged that her country is being used as a “pilot” for a broader agenda, with Prime Minister Rutte “very deeply involved in the World Economic Forum [and] a great proponent of all the ideas laid out in the 2030 Agenda and the Great Reset.”

“It’s all related, all these policies are out of those institutions and they are being implemented in our country first, we are sort of the pilot country together with Canada for this agenda,” she added, lamenting the impact of the scheme on farmers targeted by the EU’s Natura 2000 scheme who have in many cases been tending their land and livestock for generations, but now face being forced out of business by state power.

Some members of the Dutch Cabinet have been giving pause by the bloody nose the BBB inflicted on them in the elections, however, with Wopke Hoekstra, who leads the supposedly Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party which is in coalition with Prime Minister Rutte’s People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), warning the government can no longer simply “move on to the order of the day”.

Regardless of the unease on the government benches, however, Dutch politics will not change overnight, given the somewhat labyrinthine mechanism by which the composition of the Dutch Senate is decided.

The Senate’s makeup is determined indirectly by the elections for regional governments — the States-Provincial — whose members then select Senators with the assistance of four electoral colleges representing former Dutch colonies in the Caribbean and Dutch expatriates.

As with U.S. presidential elections, there is a delay between the people casting their votes and their will being implemented by their institutional representatives, but with 99 per cent of votes counted in the provincial elections the seat projections for the formal appointment process for Senators — scheduled for May — are now near-certain to hold true.

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Forever Wars vs. Armageddon

March 22nd, 2023 by Ann Garrison

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***

While the world’s attention is focused on the US proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, 900 US troops continue to occupy Syria, as they have since 2017 , and 2,000 remain stationed in Iraq, 20 years after the US attacked, overthrew its government, and hung its president. Around 500 have been in Somalia since Biden redeployed them in June 2022.

On March 8, the House and Senate Foreign Relations Committees voted for resolutions to repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations of Military Force (AUMFs) against Iraq, but that was hardly a victory for the antiwar community because US troops remain with the acquiescence of the current Iraqi government, and even so, it’s not clear that the House and Senate will pass the resolutions.

Also on March 8, the House voted down House Concurrent Resolution 21 to withdraw all US troops from Syria within 180 days in accordance with the 1973 War Powers Act, which states that US armed forces cannot be sent to war unless Congress declares war or unless a national emergency is created by attack on the US.

The resolution’s advocates argued that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed 22 years ago, after 9/11, does not legally justify ongoing US wars. Opponents of the resolution argued that ISIS remains a threat and the 22-year-old AUMF is still legally valid.

According to the “Costs of War Project” at Brown University, the US has invoked the post-09/11 AUMF as the legal basis for air strikes and operations in eight countries, detention in 1 (Guantanamo, Cuba), and support for “counter terrorism partners” in 13.

Resolution 21

In the debate preceding the vote on Resolution 21, no one mentioned the military industrial motive for continuing the war, but South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson did note that withdrawal would mean losing the Al-Omar oil field, the largest in Syria and the site of the largest US base there. Of course, Wilson didn’t say that would mean returning Syria’s oil to Syria. He said, “Upon withdrawal terrorists will also have unfettered access to the Omar oil field.”

No one pointed out that Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,” making the US occupation an international crime, because US officials don’t talk about that. International law is for other nations to obey.

Florida Republican Matt Gaetz explained why he had introduced the resolution:

“Most Americans don’t know a single Syrian. And so people watching this debate might wonder how has it come to be that Syria has become the great platform of great power competition in the world. It begins in 2011, during the Arab Spring, when Assad, who is undeniably a madman, and a despot, opens fire on his own people protesting. Then part of the Syrian army defects, they engage in warfare against Assad, and all of a sudden, they’ve got a whole lot of weapons and money being sent from the rich Gulf monarchies through Jordan, in Syria.

“So Iran is not just going to watch this Assad’s their ally, they activate Hezbollah, they then invade Syria. So now you’ve got Jordan, the Gulf monarchies, Iran, but wait, Russia is pitching their vision of the world as a regime preservation force, whether you’re Maduro or Assad, so they get involved, and what do they get for their time, a warm water port in the eastern Mediterranean.

“So we’ve got Russia, the Gulf monarchies. Israel starts to get worried about Hezbollah and Iran. So Israel cuts a deal with Russia to keep Iran out of southern Syria. And if it doesn’t get any worse than that. Now, all of a sudden, you’ve got the Kurds who declare war on Syria. And it makes it a little messy, that the Kurds are also in conflict with Turkey, which is a NATO ally.

“And then somehow, the United States in 2015 says, ‘You know what, we need to get involved in this mess in Syria.’ And since we’ve been there, we have seen Americans die, we’ve seen 10s of billions of dollars wasted.

And what is hilarious about the 2001 AUMF that the neoconservatives wave around like some permission slip for every neoconservative fantasy of turning an Arabian desert into a Jeffersonian democracy, is that that very 2001 AUMF would justify attacking the people that we’re fighting against, and the people we’re funding, because both have ties to al Qaeda, and of course, the 2001 AUMF dealt with al Qaeda, all this talk about a reemergence of ISIS.

“I would encourage my colleagues to go read the Inspector General’s report of the last quarter that indicates that ISIS is not a threat to the homeland. And with the Turks conducting operations in Syria, against ISIS, with Assad and Russia having every incentive to create pressure on ISIS. I do not believe that what stands between a caliphate and not a caliphate are the 900 Americans who have been sent to this hellscape with no definition of victory, with no clear objective, and purely existing as a vestige to the regime change failed foreign policies of multiple former presidents.”

Gaetz introduced the 2016 LA Times article headlined, “In Syria militias armed by the Pentagon, fight those armed by the CIA .”

Montana Democrat, Ryan Zinke, responded that we have to fight ISIS in Syria, or fight them in the streets here:

“But there is no doubt that Syria also remains a center for radical Islamic forces and terrorism, like ISIS, like PKK. These are organizations that will never stop ever. They are committed to destroy this nation and our allies, and we should be aware of their objectives. Lastly, the hard truth is this. Either we fight him in Syria, or we’ll fight them here, either we fight and defeat them in Syria, or we’ll fight in the streets of our nation.”

Gaetz’s argument for withdrawal was hardly ideal, but his response to Zinke was apt:

“My patriotic colleague, Mr. Zinke of Montana gave up the game when he said ISIS will never be gone. So presumably the position of those holding that viewpoint is that we have to stay in Syria forever, maybe make it the 51st state.”

In the most disturbing and ominous moment of the hearing, Florida Republican Anna Polina said we need all the troops we’ve got to go up against China:

“We need to be focusing on his bigger issues like China. Make no mistake if we take China at their word, a peer to peer fight is coming, and it will require 100% of our military.”

In other words, we have to get out of all these “forever wars” to prepare for Armageddon. That sentiment was confirmed in a report in the military publication Task and Purpose headlined, “Military buying more missiles and other weapons to fight China, Russia .”

The House ultimately voted the resolution down 103 to 321, with 47 Republicans voting yes, 171 no, while 56 Democrats voted yes, 150 no, and 11 congresspersons did not vote. The Democrats’ House Progressive Caucus reportedly endorsed a yes vote, but the caucus claims 101 members, so barely more than half, at best, actually voted for the resolution.

Some resistance to some US wars is better than none, but in Congress, for now, that’s as good as it gets.

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Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize   for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann(at)anngarrison.com. 

Featured image is from BAR


The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9879389-0-9

Year: 2015
Pages: 240 Pages

Price: $9.40

Click here to order.

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***

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow on Tuesday that a 12-point peace plan put forward by Beijing could be the “basis” for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine.

“We believe in many of the points on the peace plan put forward by China,” Putin said. Beijing’s proposal calls for the cessation of hostilities and for both sides to resume peace talks.

Putin expressed doubt that Kyiv or its Western backers were ready for negotiations, saying the Chinese proposal could be used as a foundation when “the West and in Kyiv are ready for it.” The Biden administration has come out strongly against China’s mediation efforts, as the White House has said it’s against calls for a ceasefire.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is open to discussing the issues with China, and Xi is expected to call him following his trip to Moscow, which wraps up on Wednesday. Zelensky said Tuesday that he has asked Beijing for talks on a “peace formula” for Ukraine.

Zelensky has put forward his own peace proposal, which calls for the withdrawal of Russian troops and for war crimes tribunals.

“We offered China to become a partner in the implementation of the peace formula. We passed over our formula across all channels. We invite you to dialogue. We are waiting for your answer,” Zelensky said.

After holding hours of talks on Tuesday, Putin and Xi put out a joint statement that said China believes Russia is ready to restart peace talks.

“The Chinese side positively assesses the willingness of the Russian side to make efforts to restart peace talks as soon as possible,” the statement said.

The statement also said that Russia welcomes “China’s readiness to play a positive role in a political-diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis and the constructive ideas set forth in the document drawn up by the Chinese side.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday doubled down on the Biden administration’s opposition to a ceasefire, saying the world must “not be fooled” by China’s efforts. The position follows a pattern of the US discouraging peace talks throughout the war.

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

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***

Tensions are dramatically escalating on the Korean Peninsula, after a series of missile tests from Pyongyang in 2022. The United States and South Korea have responded to these threats with military maneuvers of their own, raising the stakes even further. But this is a recipe for disaster: To avoid an all-out war on the Korean Peninsula, the United States must stop the muscle-flexing, commit to diplomacy instead, and adopt a peace-first strategy.

North Korea’s progress in weapons development should come as no surprise; in 2021, Kim Jong-un announced that North Korea would expand its nuclear weapon capabilities in order to deter what they perceive as hostility and aggression from the United States. This perception by Pyongyang is a direct result of the Biden administration’s continuation of decades of failed policies—consisting of isolation, sanctions, and military threats—all these dotted with occasional flurries of diplomacy. To have even a chance of halting the expansion of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and preventing a conflict that crosses the nuclear threshold, the United States must address the root cause of tensions: the unresolved Korean War.

An enduring conflict. While an armistice signed in 1953 halted fighting between the United States and North Korea, the Korean War never legally ended; neither country signed a formal peace agreement. This 70-year state of war has ingrained mutual distrust between North Korea and the United States—which, since North Korea developed nuclear weapons, has cemented even further.

After the United States expanded its nuclear presence in Korea, introducing tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea in 1958, North Korea pursued technology capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. Tensions boiled over in the 1990s, with North Korea announcing its intention to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in response to United States-South Korea joint military exercises as well as the United States’ push for inspections of suspected military facilities in North Korea. The Agreed Framework of 1994, in which North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium-production complex in exchange for light-water reactors from the United States, simmered tensions. However, the deal collapsed in 2002 when the Bush administration confrontedNorth Korea over fears of a clandestine uranium enrichment program. North Korea then restarted plutonium production and withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—leading to its first nuclear test on October 9, 2006.

Since then, time and time again, the United States has insisted on North Korea’s unilateral and complete denuclearization without first reducing tensions and building trust. Continuing to press North Korea to dismantle arguably its most effective deterrent without resolving its underlying contentious relationship with the United States is certain to fail: North Korea will continue to see such demand for unilateral denuclearization as a non-starter in negotiations.

For example, during the first round of the six-party talks in August 2003 (involving belligerents of the Korean War—the United States, South Korea, North Korea, and China—as well as Japan and Russia), the United States rejected North Korea’s calls for normalizing relations and a non-aggression pact. Instead, the United States demanded that North Korea completely dismantle its nuclear arsenal before providing diplomatic or other incentives. To this demand, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye-gwan responded, “The United States wants North Korea to drop its pants and be naked and humiliated before the United States is prepared to improve relations. We are technically at war with the United States. You want us to surrender unconditionally.”

During the fifth and sixth rounds of the talks, the United States and North Korea agreed that Pyongyang would “provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs” by end of 2007. But once the deadline arrived and the United States inquired about North Korea’s actual number of nuclear weapons, Kim Gye-gwan said, “We’re still technically at war with you. It would be inappropriate for us to discuss weapons with an enemy state.”

Demanding again North Korea’s unilateral denuclearization was also responsible for ending without a deal the 2019 talks in Hanoi between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump. North Korea had offered to dismantle all its nuclear production facilities in Yongbyon in exchange for partial sanctions relief. But, maintaining its all-or-nothing stance, the United States countered by demanding that North Korea fully dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

Former US officials who had made progress on freezing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program from 1994 to 2002 agree that security guarantees are necessary for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. Former US Secretary of Defense William Perry argued that since North Korea views its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent against a possible US invasion, South Korea and the United States should address North Korea’s security concerns and normalize relations first before seeking its denuclearization. Former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Siegfried Hecker, who visited the Yongbyon nuclear site four times, also said that he believes North Korea “will not give up its weapons and weapons program until its security can be assured.”

Unsustainable status quo. Despite these calls, the Biden administration—like the three US presidential administrations before—remains entangled in the failed policy of up-front denuclearization, like when the US State Department’s Press Secretary Ned Price recently rolled back Under Secretary for Arms Control Bonnie Jenkins’ comments on pursuing an arms control and risk reduction approach to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. While the administration’s North Korea policy review released in 2021 claims to strike a balance between President Donald Trump’s “grand bargain” diplomacy and President Barack Obama’s “strategic patience” approach, in practice, both approaches maintain the status quo of maximum pressure—through sanctions and military exercises—without putting anything on the negotiating table.

The status quo in US-North Korean relations will only worsen the security of the Korean Peninsula.

Diplomacy is the only option. To truly improve the security of the Korean Peninsula, the Biden administration should trade its bold approach for a strategy of diplomacy toward North Korea. An effective diplomacy must be fourfold. First, the United States should emphasize it is willing to resume diplomacy, focusing on immediate de-escalation of tensions and restoration of communication channels. Second, it should prioritize formally ending the Korean War with a peace agreement with North Korea. Third, the Biden administration should rebuild trust by offering to lift sanctions, especially those that impact the North Korean population. Fourth, it should also take steps to reduce tensions such as scaling down or ceasing joint military exercises with South Korea, especially since joint military exercises do not deter North Korea but rather provoke a cycle of tit-for-tat provocative rhetoric and actions.

Diplomacy has been the most successful method of making progress toward denuclearization. In 1994, the Clinton administration successfully persuaded North Korea to freeze plutonium production at the Yongbyon complex in the Agreed Framework. The 2018-2019 summits between the United States and North Korea resulted in several tension-reducing measures, including the repatriation of US soldiers’ remains, reunions of Korean families separated by the war, landmine clearance in the demilitarized zone, North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing, and suspension by the United States of joint military exercises with South Korea. However, while past talks aimed solely at North Korea’s denuclearization, future negotiations should instead first address the root cause of the security crisis to build toward longer-lasting agreements and mutual trust.

Amid heightened tensions with other nuclear-armed powers, including Russia and China, the United States must do everything it can to diffuse the situation with North Korea through peaceful and diplomatic means. The potential for escalatory responses heightens the risk of a catastrophic war that would put millions of lives at risk of death, suffering, and displacement. Decades of pressure-based tactics have failed to make progress on North Korea’s denuclearization and only worsened global security. It’s time to try something different.

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Colleen Moore is the director for advocacy at Women Cross DMZ, a non-profit organization of women mobilizing for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Moore is a policy, advocacy, and campaign strategy professional, with expertise in progressive foreign policy and national security, particularly focusing on East Asia, peacebuilding, and nuclear disarmament. She previously held positions at Beyond the Bomb, Global Zero, Win Without War, Seeds of Peace, and East Timor and Indonesia Action Network.

Featured image: US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shake hands at the Hanoi Summit in Vietnam on February 27, 2019. The summit ended without a deal after the United States demanded again North Korea’s unilateral denuclearization. (Credit: White House)

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***

The politicians and shills in the media who orchestrated 20 years of military debacles in the Middle East, and who seek a world dominated by U.S. power, must be held accountable for their crimes.

Two decades ago, I sabotaged my career at The New York Times. It was a conscious choice. I had spent seven years in the Middle East, four of them as the Middle East Bureau Chief. I was an Arabic speaker. I believed, like nearly all Arabists, including most of those in the State Department and the CIA, that a “preemptive” war against Iraq would be the most costly strategic blunder in American history. It would also constitute what the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg called the “supreme international crime.” While Arabists in official circles were muzzled, I was not. I was invited by them to speak at The State Department, The United States Military Academy at West Point and to senior Marine Corps officers scheduled to be deployed to Kuwait to prepare for the invasion.

Mine was not a popular view nor one a reporter, rather than an opinion columnist, was permitted to express publicly according to the rules laid down by the newspaper. But I had experience that gave me credibility and a platform. I had reported extensively from Iraq. I had covered numerous armed conflicts, including the first Gulf War and the Shi’ite uprising in southern Iraq where I was taken prisoner by The Iraqi Republican Guard. I easily dismantled the lunacy and lies used to promote the war, especially as I had reported on the destruction of Iraq’s chemical weapons stockpiles and facilities by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspection teams. I had detailed knowledge of how degraded the Iraqi military had become under U.S. sanctions. Besides, even if Iraq did possess “weapons of mass destruction” that would not have been a legal justification for war.

The death threats towards me exploded when my stance became public in numerous interviews and talks I gave across the country. They were either mailed in by anonymous writers or expressed by irate callers who would daily fill up the message bank on my phone with rage-filled tirades. Right-wing talk shows, including Fox News, pilloried me, especially after I was heckled and booed off a commencement stage at Rockford College for denouncing the war. The Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial attacking me. Bomb threats were called into venues where I was scheduled to speak. I became a pariah in the newsroom. Reporters and editors I had known for years would lower their heads as I passed, fearful of any career-killing contagion. I was issued a written reprimand by The New York Times to cease speaking publicly against the war. I refused. My tenure was over.

What is disturbing is not the cost to me personally. I was aware of the potential consequences. What is disturbing is that the architects of these debacles have never been held accountable and remain ensconced in power. They continue to promote permanent war, including the ongoing proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, as well as a future war against China.

The politicians who lied to us — George W. BushDick CheneyCondoleezza RiceHillary Clinton and Joe Biden to name but a few — extinguished millions of lives, including thousands of American lives, and left Iraq along with Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Libya and Yemen in chaos. They exaggerated or fabricated conclusions from intelligence reports to mislead the public. The big lie is taken from the playbook of totalitarian regimes.

The cheerleaders in the media for war — Thomas FriedmanDavid RemnickRichard CohenGeorge PackerWilliam KristolPeter BeinartBill KellerRobert KaplanAnne ApplebaumNicholas KristofJonathan ChaitFareed ZakariaDavid FrumJeffrey GoldbergDavid Brooks and Michael Ignatieff — were used to amplify the lies and discredit the handful of us, including Michael MooreRobert Scheer and Phil Donahue, who opposed the war. These courtiers were often motivated more by careerism than idealism. They did not lose their megaphones or lucrative speaking fees and book contracts once the lies were exposed, as if their crazed diatribes did not matter. They served the centers of power and were rewarded for it.

Many of these same pundits are pushing further escalation of the war in Ukraine, although most know as little about Ukraine or NATO’s provocative and unnecessary expansion to the borders of Russia as they did about Iraq.

“I told myself and others that Ukraine is the most important story of our time, that everything we should care about is on the line there,” George Packer writes in The Atlantic magazine. “I believed it then, and I believe it now, but all of this talk put a nice gloss on the simple, unjustifiable desire to be there and see.”

Packer views war as a purgative, a force that will jolt a country, including the U.S., back to the core moral values he supposedly found amongst American volunteers in Ukraine.

“I didn’t know what these men thought of American politics, and I didn’t want to know,” he writes of two U.S. volunteers. “Back home we might have argued; we might have detested each other. Here, we were joined by a common belief in what the Ukrainians were trying to do and admiration for how they were doing it. Here, all the complex infighting and chronic disappointments and sheer lethargy of any democratic society, but especially ours, dissolved, and the essential things — to be free and live with dignity — became clear. It almost seemed as if the U.S. would have to be attacked or undergo some other catastrophe for Americans to remember what Ukrainians have known from the start.”

The Iraq war cost at least $3 trillion and the 20 years of warfare in the Middle East cost a total of some $8 trillion. The occupation created Shi’ite and Sunni death squads, fueled horrific sectarian violence, gangs of kidnappers, mass killings and torture. It gave rise to al-Qaeda cells and spawned ISIS which at one point controlled a third of Iraq and Syria. ISIS carried out rape, enslavement and mass executions of Iraqi ethnic and religious minorities such as the Yazidis. It persecuted Chaldean Catholics and other Christians. This mayhem was accompanied by an orgy of killing by U.S. occupation forces, such as as the gang rape and murder of Abeer al-Janabi, a 14-year-old girl and her family by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne. The U.S. routinely engaged in the torture and execution of detained civilians, including at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca.

There is no accurate count of lives lost, estimates in Iraq alone range from hundreds of thousands to over a million. Some 7,000 U.S. service members died in our post 9/11 wars, with over 30,000 later committing suicide, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project.

Yes, Saddam Hussein was brutal and murderous, but in terms of a body count, we far outstripped his killings, including his genocidal campaigns against the Kurds. We destroyed Iraq as a unified country, devastated its modern infrastructure, wiped out its thriving and educated middle class, gave birth to rogue militias and installed a kleptocracy that uses the country’s oil revenues to enrich itself. Ordinary Iraqis are impoverished. Hundreds of Iraqis protesting in the streets against the kleptocracy have been gunned down by police. There are frequent power outages. The Shi’ite majority, closely allied with Iran, dominates the country.

The occupation of Iraq, beginning 20 years ago today, turned the Muslim world and the Global South against us. The enduring images we left behind from two decades of war include President Bush standing under a “Mission Accomplished” banner onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier barely one month after he invaded Iraq, the bodies of Iraqis in Fallujah that were burned with white phosphorus and the photos of torture by U.S. soldiers.

The U.S. is desperately attempting to use Ukraine to repair its image. But the rank hypocrisy of calling for “a rules-based international order” to justify the $113 billion in arms and other aid that the U.S. has committed to send to Ukraine, won’t work. It ignores what we did. We might forget, but the victims do not. The only redemptive path is charging Bush, Cheney and the other architects of the wars in the Middle East, including Joe Biden, as war criminals in the International Criminal Court. Haul Russian President Vladimir Putin off to The Hague, but only if Bush is in the cell next to him.

Many of the apologists for the war in Iraq seek to justify their support by arguing that “mistakes” were made, that if, for example, the Iraqi civil service and army were not disbanded after the U.S. invaded, the occupation would have worked. They insist that our intentions were honorable. They ignore the hubris and lies that led to the war, the misguided belief that the U.S. could be the sole major power in a unipolar world. They ignore the massive military expenditures spent annually to achieve this fantasy. They ignore that the war in Iraq was only an episode in this demented quest.

A national reckoning with the military fiascos in the Middle East would expose the self-delusion of the ruling class. But this reckoning is not taking place. We are trying to wish the nightmares we perpetuated in the Middle East away, burying them in a collective amnesia. “World War III Begins With Forgetting,” warns Stephen Wertheim.

The celebration of our national “virtue” by pumping weapons into Ukraine, by sustaining at least 750 military bases in more than 70 countries and by expanding our naval presence in the South China Sea, is meant to fuel this dream of global dominance.

What the mandarins in Washington fail to grasp is that most of the globe does not believe the lie of American benevolence or support its justifications for U.S. interventions. China and Russia, rather than passively accepting U.S. hegemony, are building up their militaries and strategic alliances. China, last week, brokered an agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia to re-establish relations after seven years of hostility, something once expected of U.S. diplomats. The rising influence of China creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who call for war with Russia and China, one that will have consequences far more catastrophic than those in the Middle East.

There is a national weariness with permanent war, especially with inflation ravaging family incomes and 57 percent of Americans unable to afford a $1,000 emergency expense. The Democratic Party and the establishment wing of the Republican Party, who peddled the lies about Iraq, are war parties. Donald Trump’s call to end the war in Ukraine, like his lambasting of the war in Iraq as the “worst decision” in American history, are attractive political stances to Americans struggling to stay afloat. The working poor, even those whose options for education and employment are limited, are no longer as inclined to fill the ranks. They have far more pressing concerns than a unipolar world or war with Russia or China. The isolationism of the far right is a potent political weapon.

The pimps of war, leaping from fiasco to fiasco, cling to the chimera of U.S. global supremacy. The dance macabre will not stop until we publicly hold them accountable for their crimes, ask those we have wronged for forgiveness and give up our lust for uncontested global power. The day of reckoning, vital if we are to protect what is left of our anemic democracy and curb the appetites of the war machine, will only come when we build mass anti-war organizations that demand an end to the imperial folly threatening to extinguish life on the planet.

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Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.

Featured image: We’re Number One – by Mr. Fish

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A Highway to Peace or a Highway to Hell?

March 22nd, 2023 by William J. Astore

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***

In April 1953, newly elected President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a retired five-star Army general who had led the landings on D-Day in France in June 1944, gave his most powerful speech. It would become known as his “Cross of Iron” address. In it, Ike warned of the cost humanity would pay if Cold War competition led to a world dominated by wars and weaponry that couldn’t be reined in. In the immediate aftermath of the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, Ike extended an olive branch to the new leaders of that empire. He sought, he said, to put America and the world on a “highway to peace.” It was, of course, never to be, as this country’s emergent military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC) chose instead to build a militarized (and highly profitable) highway to hell.

Image: President Dwight D. Eisenhower (National Archives)

Eight years later, in his famous farewell address, a frustrated and alarmed president called out “the military-industrial complex,” prophetically warning of its anti-democratic nature and the disastrous rise of misplaced power that it represented. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry, fully engaged in corralling, containing, and constraining it, he concluded, could save democracy and bolster peaceful methods and goals.

The MICC’s response was, of course, to ignore his warning, while waging a savage war on communism in the name of containing it. In the process, atrocious conflicts would be launched in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia as the contagion of war spread. Threatened with the possibility of peace in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the MICC bided its time with operations in Iraq (Desert Storm), Bosnia, and elsewhere, along with the expansion of NATO, until it could launch an unconstrained Global War on Terror in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001.  Those “good times” (filled with lost wars) lasted until 2021 and the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Not to be deterred by the fizzling of the nightmarish war on terror, the MICC seized on a “new cold war” with China and Russia, which only surged when, in 2022, Vladimir Putin so disastrously invaded Ukraine (as the U.S. had once invaded Afghanistan and Iraq). Yet again, Americans were told that they faced implacable foes that could only be met with overwhelming military power and, of course, the funding that went with it — again in the name of deterrence and containment.

In a way, in 1953 and later in 1961, Ike, too, had been urging Americans to launch a war of containment, only against an internal foe: what he then labeled for the first time “the military-industrial complex.” For various reasons, we failed to heed his warnings. As a result, over the last 70 years, it has grown to dominate the federal government as well as American culture in a myriad of ways. Leaving aside funding where it’s beyond dominant, try movies, TV shows, video games, education, sports, you name it. Today, the MICC is remarkably uncontained. Ike’s words weren’t enough and, sadly, his actions too often conflicted with his vision (as in the CIA’s involvement in a coup in Iran in 1953). So, his worst nightmare did indeed come to pass. In 2023, along with much of the world, America does indeed hang from a cross of iron, hovering closer to the brink of nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Updating Ike’s Cross of Iron Speech for Today

Perhaps the most quoted passage in that 1953 speech addressed the true cost of militarism, with Ike putting it in homespun, easily grasped, terms. He started by saying, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” (An aside: Can you imagine Donald Trump, Joe Biden, or any other recent president challenging Pentagon spending and militarism so brazenly?)

Ike then added:

“This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.”

He concluded with a harrowing image: “This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

Ike’s cost breakdown of guns versus butter, weapons versus civilian goods, got me thinking recently: What would it look like if he could give that speech today? Are we getting more bang for the military megabucks we spend, or less?  How much are Americans sacrificing to their wasteful and wanton god of war?

Let’s take a closer look. A conservative cost estimate for one of the Air Force’s new “heavy” strategic nuclear bombers, the B-21 Raider, is $750 million. A conservative estimate for a single new fighter plane, in this case the F-35 Lightning II, is $100 million. A single Navy destroyer, a Zumwalt-class ship, will be anywhere from $4 to $8 billion, but let’s just stick with the lower figure. Using those weapons, and some quick Internet sleuthing, here’s how Ike’s passage might read if he stood before us now:

“The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick-veneer and reinforced concrete school in 75 cities.  It is five electric power plants, each serving a town with 60,000 inhabitants. It is five fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 150 miles of pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with more than 12 million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 64,000 people.”

(Quick and dirty figures for the calculations above: $10 million per elementary school; $150 million per power plant [$5,000/kilowatt for 30,000 homes]; $150 million per hospital; $5 million per new mile of road; $8 per bushel of wheat; $250,000 per home for four people.)

Grim stats indeed! Admittedly, those are just ballpark figures, but taken together they show that the tradeoff between guns and butter — bombers and jet fighters on the one hand, schools and hospitals on the other — is considerably worse now than in Ike’s day. Yet Congress doesn’t seem to care, as Pentagon budgets continue to soar irrespective of huge cost overruns and failed audits (five in a row!), not to speak of failed wars.

Without irony, today’s MICC speaks of “investing” in weapons, yet, unlike Ike in 1953, today’s generals, the CEOs of the major weapons-making corporations, and members of Congress never bring up the lost opportunity costs of such “investments.” Imagine the better schools and hospitals this country could have today, the improved public transportation, more affordable housing, even bushels of wheat, for the cost of those prodigal weapons and the complex that goes with them. And perish the thought of acknowledging in any significant way how so many of those “investments” have failed spectacularly, including the Zumwalt-class destroyers and the Navy’s Freedom-class littoral combat ships that came to be known in the Pentagon as “little crappy ships.”

Speaking of wasteful warships, Ike was hardly the first person to notice how much they cost or what can be sacrificed in building them. In his prescient book The War in the Air, first published in 1907, H.G. Wells, the famed author who had envisioned an alien invasion of Earth in The War of the Worlds, denounced his own epoch’s obsession with ironclad battleships in a passage that eerily anticipated Ike’s powerful critique:

The cost of those battleships, Wells wrote, must be measured by:

“The lives of countless men… spent in their service, the splendid genius and patience of thousands of engineers and inventors, wealth and material beyond estimating; to their account we must put stunted and starved lives on land, millions of children sent to toil unduly, innumerable opportunities of fine living undeveloped and lost. Money had to be found for them at any cost—that was the law of a nation’s existence during that strange time.  Surely they were the weirdest, most destructive and wasteful megatheria in the whole history of mechanical invention.”

Little could he imagine our own era’s “wasteful megatheria.” These days, substitute nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles, strategic bombers, aircraft carriers, and similar “modern” weapons for the ironclads of his era and the sentiment rings at least as true as it did then. (Interestingly, all those highly touted ironclads did nothing to avert the disaster of World War I and had little impact on its murderous course or ponderous duration.)

Returning to 1953, Eisenhower didn’t mince words about what the world faced if the iron cross mentality won out: at worst, nuclear war; at best, “a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system, or the Soviet system, or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.”

Ike’s worst-case scenario grows ever more likely today. Recently, Russia suspended the START treaty, the final nuclear deal still in operation, that oversaw reductions in strategic nuclear weapons.  Instead of reductions, Russia, China, and the United States are now pursuing staggering “modernization” programs for their nuclear arsenals, an effort that may cost the American taxpayer nearly $2 trillion over the coming decades (though even such a huge sum matters little if most of us are dead from nuclear war).

In any case, the United States in 2023 clearly reflects Ike’s “cross of iron” scenario. It’s a country that’s become thoroughly militarized and so is slowly wasting away, marked increasingly by fear, deprivation, and unhappiness.

It’s Never Too Late to Change Course

Only Americans, Ike once said, can truly hurt America.  Meaning, to put the matter in a more positive context, only we can truly help save America. A vital first step is to put the word “peace” back in our national vocabulary.

“The peace we seek,” Ike explained 70 years ago, “founded upon a decent trust and cooperative effort among nations, can be fortified, not by weapons of war but by wheat and by cotton, by milk and by wool, by meat and timber and rice. These are words that translate into every language on earth. These are the needs that challenge this world in arms.”

The real needs of humanity haven’t changed since Ike’s time. Whether in 1953 or 2023, more guns won’t serve the cause of peace. They won’t provide succor. They’ll only stunt and starve us, to echo the words of H.G. Wells, while imperiling the lives and futures of our children.

This is no way of life at all, as Ike certainly would have noted, were he alive today.

Which is why the federal budget proposal released by President Biden for 2024 was both so painfully predictable and so immensely disappointing. Calamitously so. Biden’s proposal once again boosts spending on weaponry and war in a Pentagon budget now pegged at $886 billion. It will include yet more spending on nuclear weapons and envisions only further perpetual tensions with “near-peer” rivals China and Russia.

This past year, Congress added $45 billion more to that budget than even the president and the Pentagon requested, putting this country’s 2023 Pentagon budget at $858 billion. Clearly, a trillion-dollar Pentagon budget is in our collective future, perhaps as early as 2027. Perish the thought of how high it could soar, should the U.S. find itself in a shooting war with China or Russia (as the recent Russian downing of a U.S. drone in the Black Sea brought to mind).  And if that war were to go nuclear…

The Pentagon’s soaring war budget broadcast a clear and shocking message to the world. In America’s creed, blessed are the warmakers and those martyrs crucified on its cross of iron.

This was hardly the message Ike sought to convey to the world 70 years ago this April. Yet it’s the message the MICC conveys with its grossly inflated military budgets and endless saber-rattling.

Yet one thing remains true today: it’s never too late to change course, to order an “about-face.” Sadly, lacking the wisdom of Dwight D. Eisenhower, such an order won’t come from Joe Biden or Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or any other major candidate for president in 2024. It would have to come from us, collectively. It’s time to wise up, America. Together, it’s time to find an exit ramp from the highway to hell that we’ve been on since 1953 and look for the on-ramp to Ike’s highway to peace.

And once we’re on it, let’s push the pedal to the metal and never look back.

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William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and professor of history, is a TomDispatch regular and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is Bracing Views.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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