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Overall Canadian physician mortality in 2022 was 53% higher than 2019, however, as with all excess mortality data in highly COVID-19 vaccinated jurisdictions, this mortality is heavily skewed towards the younger age groups, with the youngest doctors – medical students or medical residents under age 30 dying at a 900% higher rate in 2022, compared to the 2019/2020 average.

2021 sudden and unexpected Canadian doctors’ deaths:

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Michael for the tremendous work and hundreds of hours spent compiling this important data from official medical sources: (Canadian Medical Association, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Provincial Medical Associations, Canadian Medical University Alumni Associations, Provincial Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and online obituary aggregators), as well as Sonja, VA and everyone else who provided valuable contributions over time.

This data has been available to the Canadian Medical Association as well as the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.

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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.

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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The visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing and his face-to- face meeting with counterpart Xi Jinping is a groundbreaking affair in more ways than one.

Raisi, the first Iranian president to officially visit China in 20 years, led an ultra high-level political and economic delegation, which included the new Central Bank governor and the Ministers of Economy, Oil, Foreign Affairs, and Trade.

The fact that Raisi and Xi jointly supervised the signing of 20 bilateral cooperation agreements ranging from agriculture, trade, tourism and environmental protection to health, disaster relief, culture and sports, is not even the major take away.

This week’s ceremonial sealing of the Iran-China comprehensive strategic partnership marks a key evolution in the multipolarity sphere: two Sovereigns – both also linked by strategic partnerships with Russia – imprinting to their domestic audiences and also to the Global South their vision of a more equitable, fair and sustainable 21st century which completely bypasses western dictates.

Beijing and Tehran first established their comprehensive strategic partnership when Xi visited Iran in 2016 – only one year after the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iranian nuclear deal.

In 2021, Beijing and Tehran signed a 25-year cooperation deal which translated the comprehensive partnership into practical economic and cultural developments in several fields, especially energy, trade and infrastructure. By then, not only Iran (for decades) but also China were being targeted by unilateral US sanctions.

Here is a relatively independent analysis of the challenges and prospects of the 25-year deal. And here is an enlightening perspective from neighboring Pakistan, also a strategic partner of China.

Iran: gotta modernize everything

Beijing and Tehran are already actively cooperating in the construction of selected lines of Tehran’s subway, the Tehran-Isfahan high-speed railway, and of course joint energy projects. Chinese tech giant Huawei is set to help Tehran to build a framework for a 5G telecom network.

Raisi and Xi, predictably, stressed increased joint coordination at the UN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Iran is the newest member, as well as a new drive along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

While there was no explicit mention of it, underlying all these initiatives is the de-dollarization of trade – in the framework of the SCO but also the multipolar BRICS group of states. Iran is set to become one of the new members of BRICS+, a giant step to be decided in their upcoming summit in South Africa next August.

There are estimates in Tehran that Iran-China annual trade may reach over $70 billion in the mid-term, which will amount to triple the current figures.

When it comes to infrastructure building, Iran is a key BRI partner. The geostrategy of course is hard to match: a 2,250 km coastline encompassing the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, Sea of Oman and the Caspian Sea – and huge land borders with Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Every think tank in China sees how Iran is irreplaceable, not only in terms of BRI land corridors, but also the Maritime Silk Road.

Chabahar Port may be a prime Iran-India affair, as part of the International North South Transportation Corridor (INSTC) – thus directly linked to the Indian vision of a Silk Road, extending to Central Asia.

But Chinese port developers do have other ideas, focused on alternative ports along the Persian Gulf and in the Caspian Sea. That will boost shipping connections to Central Asia (Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan), Russia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan).

And that makes perfect sense when one combines port terminal development with the modernization of Iran’s railways – all the way to high-speed rail.

An even more revolutionary development would be China coordinating the BRI connection of an Iranian corridor with the already in progress 3,200 km-long China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), from Kashgar in Xinjiang to Gwadar port in the Indian Ocean.

That seemed perfectly plausible when Pakistani Prime Minister  Imran Khan was still in power, before being ousted by a lawfare coup. The key of the whole enterprise is to build badly needed infrastructure in Balochistan, on both sides of the border. On the Pakistani side, that would go a long way to smash CIA-fed “insurgents” of the Balochistan Liberation Army kind, get rid of unemployment, and put trade in charge of economic development.

Afghanistan of course enters the equation – in the form of a China-Afghan-Iran corridor linked to CPEC. Since September 2021, Beijing has explained to the Taliban, in detail, how they may profit from an infrastructure corridor – complete with railway, highway and pipeline – from Xinjiang, across the Wakhan corridor in eastern Afghanistan, through the Hindu Kush, all the way to Iran.

The core of multipolarity

Iran is perfectly positioned for a Chinese-propelled boom in high-speed cargo rail, connecting Iran to most of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan).

That means, in practice, cool connectivity with a major logistics cluster: the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Khorgos, only 330 km from Almaty on the Kazakh-China border, and only four hours from Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.

If China pulls that off, it would be a sort of BRI Holy Grail, interconnecting China and Iran via Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Nothing less than several corridors in one.

All that is about to happen as the Islamic Revolution in Iran celebrates its 44th year.

What is already happening now, geopolitically, and fully recognized by China, might be defined as the full rejection of an absurdity: the collective west treating Iran as a pariah or at best a subjugated neo-colony.

With the diverse strands of the Resistance embedded in the Islamic Revolution finally consolidated, it looks like history is finally propelling Iran as one of the key poles of the most complex process at work in the 21st century: Eurasia integration.

So 44 years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran enjoys strategic partnerships with the three top BRICS: China, Russia and India.

Likely to become one of the first new members of BRICS+, Iran is the first West Asian state to become a full member of the SCO, and is clinching a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

Iran is a major strategic partner of both BRI, led by China, and the INSTC, alongside Russia and India.

With the JCPOA all but dead, and all western “promises” lying in the dust, Tehran is consolidating its pivot back to the East at breakneck speed.

What Raisi and Xi sealed in Beijing heralds Chinese pre-eminence all across West Asia – keenly perceived in Beijing as a natural consequence of recognizing and honoring Iran’s regional centrality.

Iran’s “Look East” strategy could not be more compatible with BRI – as an array of BRI projects will accelerate Iran’s economic development and consolidate its inescapable role when it comes to trade corridors and as an energy provider.

During the 1980s Tehran was ruled by a “Neither East nor West” strategy – faithful to the tenets of the Islamic Revolution. That has now evolved, pragmatically, into “Look East.” Tehran did try to “Look West” in good faith, but what the US government did with the JCPOA – from its murder to “maximum pressure” to its aborted resuscitation – was quite a historical lesson.

What Raisi and Xi have just demonstrated in Beijing is the Sovereign way forward. The three leaders of Eurasia integration – China, Russia and Iran – are fast on their way to consolidate the core of multipolarity.

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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.

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Russia, China and South Africa Engage in Joint Naval Exercises

February 20th, 2023 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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The BRICS countries seem interested in advancing cooperation beyond mere economic partnership. Now, Russia, China and South Africa engage in joint naval exercises, taking a significant step towards the creation of an axis of military collaboration between the countries of the group. However, India and Brazil seem hesitant about the bloc’s direction, as they have interests and alliances that are still very much linked to the West.

South African, Russian and Chinese naval exercises, codenamed Mosi II, began in the Indian Ocean on February 17.

According to official information from the Russian Defense Ministry, the drills are to take place along the coast of the African nation for ten days. It was also reported that the drills are a platform for the three nations to share military knowledge, skills and operational experience, and prove that Moscow is not globally “isolated”, contradicting what the western media irresponsibly claims. During the exercises, navies will combine their operational naval systems and improve joint command and control systems.

It is important to remember that this is the second trilateral exercise between South Africa, Russia and China. The previous one was held in November 2019 near Cape Town, in the southwest of South Africa, in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The case demonstrates a constant interest on the part of these three countries in raising the intra-BRICS partnership to a military level, surpassing mere the economic alliance. This is extremely significant for the group to play a prominent role in the current process of geopolitical transition towards a multipolar world.

In January, the White House stressed that the US would always express “concerns” about any country training with Russia in the current context – where there is a strong effort on the part of NATO to “isolate” Moscow in the international arena. South Africa assures that it maintains neutrality in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, using the argument that it intermittently carries out similar maneuvers with other countries, including Russia’s rivals, such as the US and France. However, despite South African diplomatic discourse, there is an undeniable move towards the political and military cooperation among the BRICS being represented by the current drills.

The possibility of the BRICS becoming a military alliance has been discussed for a long time. Some pro-multipolarity experts suggest that this would be an important step to combat NATO interventionism and encourage the process of geopolitical decentralization. However, many challenges arise in the face of these attempts, such as Western sanctions and constant pressure from NATO countries for Moscow to be isolated and kept without international alliances.

Although the mere execution of military exercises does not mean a major geopolitical change, the mere fact that they are being operated at the moment of height of Western sanctions shows that these BRICS countries are solidly united in order to strengthen diplomacy with Russia. In practice, this shows the failure of attempts to make Moscow an international pariah, evidencing the victory of diplomacy over hostility.

Regrettably, however, Brazil and India remain the two most ambiguous countries in the group. Trying to maintain a strong dialogue with the West, Brasilia and New Delhi seem undecided about occupying their role within the BRICS. In fact, their absence from the current exercises shows how many opportunities are being lost due to this ambiguity.

Although India is cooperating strongly with Russia on economic issues and has even withdrawn troops from the border with China, there is still a kind of distrust in the country regarding the possibility of engaging in military cooperation projects that also involve Beijing. The country has largely evolved towards overcoming its alliance with Washington, but there are still some steps to be taken for New Delhi to definitively prioritize the BRICS in its foreign policy.

In the same sense, the absence of Brazil arouses suspicion. When the military cooperation project between Russia, China and South Africa emerged, in 2019, Brasilia was under the most pro-US phase of the Bolsonaro government, when there was a policy of automatic alignment with Trump, which is why Brazil’s distance from BRICS initiatives was expected. Now, however, Lula is expected to take a more sovereign and pro-BRICS stance.

For Brazil, as well as for India, it would be extremely interesting to participate in the current military exercises, since a lot of combat experience would be passed on to soldiers, preparing them for an eventual conflict scenario in the future. However, more than a merely military issue, this is an essentially geopolitical maneuver. It is necessary that Brazil and India contribute more actively with the other partners, so that the BRICS take a step beyond mere economic collaboration.

If the BRICS start to engage in mutual military support projects, the greater will be the reciprocal trust between the members, as knowledge and data will be shared, making them equally strong to deal with common challenges. If the consolidation of a multipolar world is really an objective of all BRICS members, it is essential that internal rivalries and disagreements are overcome and that all cooperate for a common objective.

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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Although it has been only 16 years since President Putin’s historical speech at the 2007 Munich Conference, that event now seems like a distant past of a long-lost world. Back then, Russia was warning the political West that further NATO aggression would inevitably lead to the revival of the Cold War.

However, Washington DC and Brussels seem to have wanted exactly that. The political West has tried to present the 2023 Munich Security Conference as some sort of a groundbreaking global event that “sent a strong signal” and showed “just how isolated” Russia is. However, nothing could be further from the truth, given the comments of some of the most prominent participants, including NATO and EU member states.

For instance, during a Saturday meeting with US State Secretary Anthony Blinken, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that Beijing finds Washington DC’s attempts to threaten Sino-Russian relations completely unacceptable, emphasizing that the relationship between the two superpowers is their sovereign right and that it is not aimed against any third party.

“We will never accept the instructions of the United States and even threats to put pressure on Russian-Chinese relations,” Wang was quoted as saying in a statement published on Sunday by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “The Sino-Russian relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation are based on non-alignment, non-confrontation and non-targeting against third parties. They are within the framework of the sovereignty of two independent states,” he added.

The comments were made in response to US accusations that China will “increase its support for Russia”. Wang also warned his American counterpart against the continued melodramatic reaction to the “balloon controversy”, which the US has been (ab)using lately to ensure detente between the two countries is virtually impossible. Beijing said that American high-altitude balloons have illegally entered China’s airspace many times over the last several decades, but the government chose not to cause panic and simply used existing diplomatic channels to communicate with their US counterparts.

“If the US continues to use this as an excuse, to promote further escalation and aggravate the situation, then China will definitely go to the very end. All the consequences of this will be borne by the American side,” Wang said.

China also called on the US to stop escalating the Ukrainian crisis and start promoting a peaceful settlement. Wang said that “Washington DC should stop adding fuel to the fire”. He noted that China’s position is constructive and called for the negotiation process to continue.

“Being a great power, the United States should contribute to the political settlement of the crisis, and not add fuel to the fire and look for opportunities to extract its own benefits,” Wang was quoted as saying.

Hungary also called for the de-escalation of the crisis and insisted on maintaining economic relations with Russia. During the traditional annual address to his fellow citizens, Prime Minister Viktor Orban stated that “the only way for Hungary to live peacefully is to stay out of the conflict, as it is not our war”.

“We will maintain our economic relations with Russia, and we advise the entire Western world to do the same, because without relations there will be no ceasefire or peace talks,” Orban said.

On the other hand, the European Union is doing exactly the opposite. The bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrel called Russia “an existential threat” and urged all member states not to continue supporting the Kiev regime, but “help more”. He also insisted that “the EU should start an industrial techno-blitzkrieg to produce more weapons“, effectively nullifying the claim that the bloc was an economic union. Borrel added that member states will spend an additional €70 billion on defense by 2025.

“In the next two years, the EU countries intend to spend an additional €70 billion on defense. France will increase defense spending by 40%, while Poland will double it,” he stated.

Interestingly, India was also targeted. George Soros, a controversial oligarch infamous for providing financial backing for various groups responsible for destabilization and undermining of countries the political West sees as “uncooperative”, stated the following:

“India is an interesting case. It’s a democracy, but its leader Narendra Modi is no democrat. Inciting violence against Muslims was an important factor in his meteoric rise. Modi maintains close relations with both open and closed societies. India is a member of the Quad (which also includes Australia, the US, and Japan), but it buys a lot of Russian oil at a steep discount and makes a lot of money on it… …Modi and business tycoon Adani are close allies; their fate is intertwined. Adani Enterprises tried to raise funds in the stock market, but he failed. Adani is accused of stock manipulation and his stock collapsed like a house of cards. Modi is silent on the subject, but he will have to answer questions from foreign investors and in parliament. This will significantly weaken Modi’s stranglehold on India’s federal government and open the door to push for much-needed institutional reforms. I may be naive, but I expect a democratic revival in India.”

In response to the accusations, India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar brushed Soros off and (quite accurately) described him as “old, rich, opinionated and dangerous”.

In essence, the Munich Conference not only failed to produce the desired results (Russia supposedly isolated), but it even strengthened the multipolar world, as neither India nor China proved malleable in any way, showing their sovereignty is untouched by the political West’s pressure. On the other hand, many Europeans are extremely unhappy by the EU’s militarization. According to varying estimates, the huge crowd of protesters in Munich numbered up to 50,000 people. In conclusion, while there are massive differences between Munich 2007 and Munich 2023, the latest conference is somewhat similar to the 1938 Munich Agreement between Nazi Germany and Western allies. Considering how that ended (along with any other invasion of Russia), the political West’s prospects against Moscow look rather grim, to say the least.

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Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.

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China has made good on its prior threats to retaliate and introduce “countermeasures” against the United States following the ‘spy’ balloon shootdown incident a week-and-a-half ago, and has done so in relation to Washington arming Taiwan.

On Thursday Beijing has unveiled new sanctions against Lockheed Martin Corporation and Raytheon Missiles & Defense, a subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies Corp – both of which are now banned from either importing, exporting and investing in China.

They are now on China’s “unreliable entities list” of companies deemed a threat to national sovereignty and security, and so will have their activities restricted, along with punitive fines.

“Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Missiles will not be allowed to invest within China and they will be fined an amount equivalent to twice the value of their contracts related to the sale of arms to Taiwan island since the implementation of China’s Unreliable Entity List rules,” writes China Daily.

While the move is seen as most immediately connected with Raytheon and Lockheed’s major weapons contracts with the self-ruled island of Taiwan brokered under US government approval, the catalyst appears to be the US shootdown of the Chinese balloon off South Carolina on Feb.4 and ensuing war of words and accompanying accusations.

While neither companies have done military equipment deals with China, especially since the US long ago banned such transfers with China, the sanctions might be felt to a limited degree by the civilian aviation industry in China:

Raytheon Missiles and Defense, part of Raytheon Technologies Corp, was awarded a $412m contract in September to upgrade Taiwan’s military radar as part of a $1.1bn package of US arms sales to the island. Lockheed Martin has supplied Taiwan’s military with radar, helicopters and air traffic control equipment.

In China, Lockheed Martin has sold air traffic control equipment for civilian airports and helicopters for commercial use.

Last week, the US slapped punitive sanctions on six Chinese entities believed connected to the alleged Chinese spy balloon breaching American airspace.

China had promised to send a strong message back, while also pointing out that the US has breached Chinese airspace ten times in the last year with balloons. China’s foreign ministry has maintained the object was a weather balloon which blew off course, and that the situation is being exploited by the Biden administration to attack Beijing.

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This article was initially published in May 2022

The New York Times (NYT), citing senior US officials, (May 2022 Report) claimed that Washington provided Kiev with intelligence that led to the death of high-ranking Russian officers whose number is not specified.

The newspaper’s sources declined to specify how many Russian generals had been killed with US assistance.

But Ukrainian officials claim they have killed 12 Russian generals on the front lines, “a number that has astonished military analysts,” the NYT said, adding that the US is said to prohibit itself from providing intelligence on Russia’s “most senior” military leaders to Kiev.

According to the newspaper, the US and other NATO allies are secretly providing real-time battlefield intelligence to Ukraine.

That intelligence in particular includes anticipated Russian troop movements after the start of the second phase of the war in Ukraine.

While the United States focused on providing details about the Russian military’s mobile headquarters, Kiev combined the data with its own intelligence, including some intercepted communications, to deliver artillery strikes and conduct other attacks that have killed Russian officers, explained the NYT.

The report underlined that the US administration “has sought to keep much of the battlefield intelligence secret, out of fear it will be seen as an escalation and provoke President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia into a wider war.”

The NYT said that in fear of endangering their methods of collection, US officials would not explain how they gathered information on Russian troops’ headquarters, but indicated that US intelligence agencies “have used a variety of sources, including classified and commercial satellites, to trace Russian troop movements”

It is noteworthy that Pentagon Spokesperson John Kirby had mentioned that Washington provides Kiev “with information and intelligence that they can use to defend themselves.”

However, a National Security Council Spokesperson, Adrienne Watson, claimed in a statement that information provided to Ukraine is not “with the intent to kill Russian generals.”

But multiple US officials also claimed that not all Ukrainian strikes on Russian locations have been carried out based on US intelligence, saying that Washington “prohibits itself from providing intelligence about the most senior Russian leaders,” the NYT reported.

Nevertheless, the officials pointed out that US intelligence was “critical” in the deaths of other Russian generals.

In the same context, the NYT indicated that “The Biden administration is also supplying new weaponry that should improve Ukraine’s ability to target senior Russian officers.”

“The smaller version of the Switchblade drone, which is now arriving on the battlefield, can be used to identify and kill individual soldiers, and could take out a general sitting in a vehicle or giving orders on a front line,” the newspaper explained.

On Tuesday, General Mark Milley, the chairperson of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate panel that “There’s a significant amount of intelligence flowing to Ukraine from the United States.”

Al Jazeera Report

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Featured image: Russian President Vladimir Putin and General Valery Gerasimov (Source: Al Mayadeen English)

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I am pleasantly surprised to see the mainstream German publication Die Welt openly asserting that clinical trials of the “Pfizer COVID vaccine” were rife with fraud. (paywall-free German language link, PDF with English translation) What a change!

Again, click here for the English version saved as a PDF file.

The article explains that Pfizer unblinded and removed numerous patients who suffered adverse events from the Covid vaccine trial. It also gives examples of Pfizer subjects whose deaths were covered up. One of the victims described by Die Welt is Pfizer subject C4591001 1162 11621327, whose story I unearthed in July of 2022.

WELT has documents according to which patient no. 11621327 was found dead in his apartment three days after the 2nd dose, apparently a stroke. Patient #11521497 died 20 days after vaccination, diagnosis of cardiac arrest. “According to the current state of science, these two cases would be assigned to the vaccination,” says the Berlin pharmaceutical specialist Susanne Wagner, “especially since the US health authority CDC is currently investigating strokes in vaccinated people and it is known

As you remember, Pfizer’s investigators falsely ruled these deaths unrelated.

Die Welt also describes Argentine lawyer Augusto Roux, who remained alive, but whose sufferings were written off as “anxiety.”

Three weeks later, test candidate Roux received the second dose. He remained under observation for 40 minutes, then left the hospital feeling good. In the taxi home he felt uncomfortable, and later he had shortness of breath, burning chest pain, nausea and fever. His urine turned black like cola and he passed out. Three days later, Roux was in the Alemán Hospital, several PCR tests for Covid were negative. Senior physician Gisela di Stilio noted in the discharge report, which is available to WELT: “Adverse reaction to the coronavirus vaccine (high probability)”. The computer tomograph had provided images of fluid in Roux’s heart. A pericardial effusion.

Over the next few months, Roux lost 14 kilos, he had liver problems, and his heart sometimes beat irregularly. … The diagnosis for the symptoms after the second vaccination is very likely to be “pericarditis”, inflammation of the heart. All of this fits exactly with a clinical picture that the Paul Ehrlich Institute also has in its list of “rare side effects” for mRNA vaccines.

Note how Die Welt sarcastically puts “rare side events” in quotes.

… He found amazing things there. His story, one might think, should appear in Pfizer’s pivotal study papers, but it doesn’t. The pharmaceutical company’s papers say Roux informed the research team that he was hospitalized with pneumonia on both sides, following the initial report, which was classified as an “adverse event of toxicity level 1”. That could have nothing to do with the vaccine, the file goes on to say, it is probably a Covid infection. Not a word that Roux had tested negative for Corona in several PCR tests.

The paper finds more cases of Pfizer fraud:

Almost at the same time as the Roux case, there must have been an incident in the Buenos Aires test center. In one fell swoop, the test management said goodbye to 53 subjects on August 31, 2020. The test candidates were “unblinded”, which means they were informed about their vaccination status, a process that the Pfizer study protocol expressly only provides for “in emergencies”. But there is nothing about it in the approval study. In protocol documents that are available to WELT, and which are actually not intended for the public, those responsible get caught up in contradictions.

Pfizer Fraud Discussed in Mainstream Press.

While Die Welt does an excellent job at exposing Pfizer’s trial fraud, which the FDA wanted to hide for 75 years, most of what it discussed is not new to us. What is new is that mainstream newspapers are now discussing it.

Die Welt mentions that Pfizer’s contracts included a liability waiver even for Pfizer’s negligence and for “fraud or bad faith on the part of Pfizer itself.

I expect this “fraud waiver” will be litigated furiously in many countries. In the United States, liability for certain misdeeds, such as fraud, cannot be waived in advance because it would “violate public policy” and encourage fraud. Thus, I expect Ed Dowd’s “fraud vitiates all contracts” doctrine to prevail legally in many localities.

A “General COVID Reckoning” Will Follow!

A question that many of us are asking is, “will there be trials.” A friend of this substack, Eugyppius, concludes with regret that “there will be no Corona reckoning in Germany.”

I am not an expert on German politics, but I would like to make a statement: in more than one country, though possibly not in Germany, there WILL be Corona reckoning. A mini-reckoning is already happening in Florida, which gives us a hint of the future.

The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is a shrewd political operator who expects to benefit politically from defending the public from Covid vaccines.

I am optimistic that some reckoning and some punishments will happen. Consider this:

  • Almost everyone was affected by Corona vaccinations. People were either vaccinated or discriminated against, with the extent of discrimination varying from country to country.
  • [added a day later] A large fraction of vaccinated people were forced to vaccinate and are resentful of what happened to them.
  • Covid vaccination harmed a significant fraction of vaccine recipients.The harms are numerous. A Thailand study found 29% of young males having subclinical heart damage, for example. I discussed, numerous times, immune system damage affecting vaccinated people who suffer Covid reinfections and endless other illnesses.
  • While many vaccinated individuals do not realize that Covid vaccines affected them, they can be easily convinced that they are vaccine victimswhen presented with evidence.
  • Many vaccinated people had multiple COVID infections. If nudged, they will see the apparent disconnect between promises and the ugly reality.
  • Lawsuits against Big Pharma, and possibly against Google and Facebook, will, naturally, make many people consider whether they are also victims when financial compensation becomes a possibility.
  • People understandably fear death, and the excess mortality we are experiencing worldwide should unsettle any person whose risk of death is heightened in a mysterious, unknowable way.
  • Many political operators will realize they can build a career by being anti-Covid-vaccine and demanding retributions.
  • There is a possibility of mass hysteria created around “will the Covid vaccine kill me,” which the above-mentioned political operators can turn to their advantage. While this has the potential of turning ugly, it is an important factor.

The most important determinant of how much “Corona reckoning” we will see is the future fate of humanity and the disturbing trends of excess mortality and infertility.

I want these trends to reverse and mortality and fertility to return to normal. Such a fortunate turn of events would necessitate only a moderately serious reckoning.

In the highly undesirable case of the general public’s health trends taking a turn for the worse, stricter punishments against people who lied to us and forced the public to take the deadly experimental vaccines would be perfectly acceptable.

National laws may need to be revised to allow legal punishment of wrongdoers who participated in a novel global biomedical crime that harmed billions of humans. In plenty of precedents, crimes against humanity committed under the color of national laws were successfully prosecuted.

So… do you think at least one country will see any “Corona reckoning”?

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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.”

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Australia Hides Information on Child Deaths

February 20th, 2023 by Free West Media

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***

According to the Daily Sceptic, documents obtained by doctor Dr. Melissa McCann as part of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request were shared at a conference on Covid gene drugs held in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.

McCann reported on her extraordinary efforts to obtain these documents from the TGA which took six months. The doctor made the application after noticing an unexpectedly high number of patients with adverse events after a Covid injection at her clinic. She also noted a high number of reports of serious side effects in the official DEAN database, including the reported death of a 14-year-old in October 2021.

However, the TGA only published the case of a 21-year-old woman in the safety reports while some of the victims were as young as 7 years old. The reported deaths are listed in DEAN, but the assessment of causality is not visible to the public.

Australians have been falsely and misleadingly informed by the TGA that out of 973 reported deaths, only 14 have been linked as causally linked to the Covid shots. The causality assessment reports released as part of FOI prove this statement to be incorrect.

Lying to the public

The TGA safety report from November 2022 also stated: “There were no deaths in children or adolescents who were found to be related to the Covid 19 vaccination”. However, the assessment reports demonstrating the causal role of the Pfizer vaccine in cases of seven- and nine-year-old children were presented to McCann in July 2022. They prove that this statement is also incorrect.

McCann was surprised to find that 10 of the 11 documents received were not published by the TGA.

When questioned, the TGA responded: “The decision maker noted that disclosure of the documents could undermine public confidence and reduce the public’s willingness to report adverse events to the TGA.”

EuroMOMO also records rise in child deaths linked to jabs

Since the vaccines were approved by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2021, initially for 12-15 year olds and then even for 5 to 11 year olds, the excess mortality among children has increased massively. According to new studies, it rose by 1,580 percent.

According to calculations by the portal The Exposé, the increase in deaths among up to 15-year-olds is now around 1,580 percent compared to the average before the Covid vaccines were approved. The portal refers to current statistics from EuroMOMO, in which figures from 27 European countries were collected and evaluated.

Children: From zero to high excess mortality

According to this, in the first 21 weeks of 2021, when no vaccinations were administered to children and adolescents, there were 346 fewer deaths than expected within the relevant age group in the EU countries examined – specifically a low mortality rate of minus 346 cases (or “zero excess mortality”). In the first Corona year 2020, there were 466 fewer deaths among children than in the years before Corona.

This was at a time when Corona was said to be at its peak and the myth was being spread that children were even the “main drivers” of the virus. In fact, their risk of transmission and infection was minimal and the number of serious cases in this population group was practically below the detection limit.

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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.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

Swedish Prosecutors Destroyed Assange Documents

February 20th, 2023 by Kevin Gosztola

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***

Swedish prosecutors destroyed copies of email correspondence related to the extradition case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi.

The documents were destroyed while Maurizi was litigating her freedom of information request, making it “highly suspicious.”

Maurizi uncovered this major revelation during a hearing in her lawsuit against the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in the United Kingdom, the very agency that is representing the United States in its effort to bring Assange to trial on Espionage Act charges.

So far, both CPS and the Swedish Prosecution Authority have blocked the release of any documents between UK authorities and US authorities or Swedish authorities and US authorities.

In particular, the correspondence stems from the time period, where Assange was faced with extradition as part of a Swedish investigation into sexual assault allegations.

“From 2010 to 2015, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Swedish Prosecution Authority exchanged between 7,200 and 9,600 pages of correspondence,” Maurizi reported for the Italian daily newspaper il Fatto Quotidiano.

“Over the last 8 years of our FOIA battle, we have obtained just 551 pages from the CPS and 1373 pages from the SPA,” Maurizi added. “Of these, 1373 pages of documents from the SPA, only 310 pages represent correspondence between the SPA and CPS. Which means we have barely obtained the tip of the iceberg.”

Hiding FBI Correspondence

Maurizi also reported, Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny deleted an email from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in March 2017. The Swedish Administrative Court of Appeal confirmed it was sent by an FBI executive and “reached a chief prosecutor.”

The appeals court peculiarly claimed an FBI executive sought information that Swedish prosecutors told the FBI was available on the SPA’s website.

Maurizi chronicles her effort to obtain documents in Secret Power: WikiLeaks and Its Enemies. She said in an interview for The Dissenter, “Why did the Swedish prosecutor destroy this correspondence with the FBI?” And what else did they destroy? “Because they claim there was no further correspondence, but how can we believe them?”

Up until the latest proceeding, the Swedish Prosecution Authority (SPA) had denied that such correspondence between Swedish prosecutors and US authorities existed.

In 2015, Maurizi obtained a small number of documents from Swedish prosecutors in response to her freedom of information request that exposed how Paul Close, a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division, had advised prosecutors in Sweden not to question Assange while he was living under political asylum in the Ecuador embassy in London.

As Maurizi puts it, the division that was responsible for prosecuting high-profile cases advised Swedish prosecutors “against the only legal strategy that could have brought the case to a rapid resolution.”

Keir Starmer, the Labour Party leader who is part of a powerful faction that purged Jeremy Corbyn and other left-leaning Labour Party members from leadership positions, led the CPS Prosecution Service from 2008 to 2013.

“Critical decisions and advice on the Julian Assange case were provided by the Crown Prosecution Service between 2010 and 2013, when it was headed by Keir Starmer,” Maurizi declared. “What role, if any, did Starmer play in the case?

The truth may never be known. Back in 2015, Maurizi “discovered that the Crown Prosecution Service had deleted all data associated with Paul Close’s email account, which cannot be recovered.”

The UK judge presiding over the freedom of information litigation, according to Maurizi, said “there was nothing untoward,” and would not order an investigation into CPS’s destruction of documents.

Human rights attorney Michael Ratner, who represented WikiLeaks until he died in 2016, maintained from 2012 to 2016, “If Julian Assange were to go to Sweden, he would be put in jail immediately. He is not allowed to get bail in Sweden. Let’s understand that. He would be in prison in Sweden, and he could no longer apply for asylum.”

“At that point, the US files its extradition request. Julian Assange never sees the light of day and winds up going to the United States.”

The destruction—and concealing—of documents by Swedish prosecutors appears to further demonstrate how correct Ratner was in his advice to Assange to seek political asylum from Ecuador and not go to Sweden for questioning.

‘In Cahoots’ With Nils Melzer

Since 2017, Maurizi has been fighting in court for documents. She said this hearing was the first time a Crown prosecutor chose to question her.

“[The prosecutor tried] to put me in a light that I was basically in cahoots with the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer,” Maurizi recalled.

British authorities maintain the correspondence should only be released while the extradition case is still unfolding if it would reveal “serious misconduct” committed by the state requesting Assange. Maurizi’s lawyer Estelle Dehon argued that is clearly the case and referred to the evidence that Melzer compiled.

This evidence was laid out for the world in Melzer’s acclaimed book, The Trial of Julian Assange: A Story of Persecution.

“At this point, the Crown Prosecution Service tried to make the argument that Nils Melzer is biased, and of course, is in contact with Maurizi, with me, because he endorsed my book. In his endorsement, he said that my investigative work contributed to his investigation,” Maurizi said.

This is not the first time Crown prosecutors have tried to diminish the credibility of individuals who may undermine their effort to secure Assange’s extradition.

During a month-long extradition trial in September 2020, Crown prosecutor James Lewis QC sought to discredit the assessments of psychiatrist Michael Kopelman by accusing him of relying on Melzer’s work, which he maintained was “neither balanced nor accurate.”

Even more bizarre is the fact that Maurizi’s attorney asked the Crown Prosecution Service’s head of extradition if they were involved “directly in the extradition of Assange.” They claimed they were not part of any “operative” decision-making and then described Maurizi’s book as “very powerful and moving.”

Maurizi wondered, why has the Crown Prosecution Service proceeded with the case if the head of extradition finds my book to be moving?

In the US, Maurizi’s attorney is representing her pro bono in her freedom of information case against the US State Department.

“They told me that our legal fees have reached hundreds of thousands of dollars in two years.”

“They use all sorts of delay tactics and obstruction in order to make the process as expensive as possible, as long as possible,” Maurizi described. “So that, even if you win, you obtain this documentation after years and years, and maybe, sometimes it’s still relevant.”

Maurizi reminded readers that the “highly anomalous handling of the Swedish case by prosecutor Marianne Ny resulted in justice for no one, contributed to the devastation of Assange’s health, cost British taxpayers at least 13.2 million pounds [$16 million] to keep the Ecuadorian embassy under siege by Scotland Yard from 2012 to 2015.”

It also “resulted in the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention decision that Sweden and the United Kingdom had arbitrarily detained Assange since 2010, in the case of Sweden the first time the UN Group had ever made such a decision in the country’s history.”

Below is a 35-minute interview with Stefania Maurizi for The Dissenter:

*

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***

US officials acknowledged the Chinese balloon they shot down on February 4 had likely been blown off course by unexpected weather. The US Air Force later spent $2 million using missiles to blow up what appeared to be a $12 hobbyist balloon.

A Chinese balloon that the US military shot down had likely been pushed off course by unexpected weather conditions, according to multiple officials in Washington.

This is according to numerous reports in major US media outlets, including the Washington Post and CNN.

In response to hysteria surrounding the Chinese rubber object, the US Air Force subsequently spent roughly $2 million to destroy what appears to have been a hobby group’s $12 balloon.

On February 1, a large Chinese balloon was first seen over the US state Montana.

On February 4, US military fighter jets shot down the rubber object, off the coast of South Carolina.

Washington accused Beijing of using the balloon to spy on US territory.

China adamantly denied that the rubber object was a surveillance device, instead maintaining that it was used for weather research.

There are legitimate reasons to take Beijing at its word. The Washington Post had acknowledged on February 3, “Experts in national security and aerospace said the craft appears to share characteristics with high-altitude balloons used by developed countries around the world for weather forecasting, telecommunications and scientific research”.

The Pentagon itself said that “the payload wouldn’t offer much in the way of surveillance that China couldn’t collect through spy satellites” and that “the balloon posed no serious physical or intelligence threat”.

— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) February 4, 2023

The newspaper quoted an anonymous US “senior defense official” who “said the payload wouldn’t offer much in the way of surveillance that China couldn’t collect through spy satellites”, stating, “I wouldn’t characterize it as revolutionary”.

Even the bellicose right-wing think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) – which is funded by the US government and weapons industry and is notorious for its anti-China bias – called for caution early on, conceding in a February 3 article: “China has not used balloons for spying before, and using a balloon would be a step back. The most likely explanation is that this is an errant weather balloon that went astray—lost weather balloons are the basis of many ‘UFO sightings’”.

It was clear from the beginning that the Chinese balloon was part of a manufactured crisis, and its significance, like the rubber object itself, was being blown out of control.

But the media’s hot air had the effect of ratcheting up tensions with China, creating fear among the US public, and leading Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel a diplomatic trip to Beijing.

Hawkish US politicians from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, along with neoconservative think tanks, capitalized on the bubble to portray China as a dangerous threat.

Slate reported that Republican Congressman James Comer, who chairs the US House Oversight Committee, warned that the balloon could have “bio-weapons” made in Wuhan, while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich insisted it “could be trial runs for low-visibility deliver[y] of devastating EMP weapons”.

CNBC declared that the balloon “threatens NATO members”, citing the Western military alliance’s bellicose Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who denounced the rubber object as a sign of a dangerous “pattern of Chinese behavior”, insisting, “We need to be aware of the constant risk of Chinese intelligence and step up what we do to protect ourselves”.

US Air Force spent $2 million to shoot down hobbyists’ $12 balloon

From February 10 to 12, Air Force fighter jets shot down three objects. At first, US government officials and Western media outlets implied that Washington had targeted more Chinese surveillance devices, but they actually appeared to have been civilian balloons.

The website Aviation Week reported that an amateur balloon belonging to a hobbyist group called the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade went missing in the same place at the same time as one of these Air Force bombings.

Aviation Week noted: “The descriptions of all three unidentified objects shot down Feb. 10-12 match the shapes, altitudes and payloads of the small pico balloons, which can usually be purchased for $12-180 each, depending on the type”.

The founder of a company that makes pico balloons for hobbyists told Aviation Week, “I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down”.

British newspaper The Guardian followed up on this report, in its own article amusingly titled “Object downed by US missile may have been amateur hobbyists’ $12 balloon“.

Guardian balloon $12 hobbyist

Researcher Stephen Semler estimated that the Pentagon spent around $2 millionin this operation to shoot down the hobbyists’ balloon over Lake Huron.

The Air Force used two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles in the attack, which cost more than $440,000 each and are manufactured by the arms corporation Raytheon.

Immediately after the attacks, the Democratic majority leader of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, had insisted without evidence that the three objects were spy balloons, declaring, “The Chinese were humiliated – I think the Chinese were caught lying… It’s a real setback for them”.

But the US National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, revealed on February 14 that the three objects destroyed by the US military were likely balloons “tied to some commercial or benign purpose”.

“We haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of [China’s] spying program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts”, Kirby added.

President Joe Biden himself admitted on February 16 that the three objects the military blew up were “most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research”.

US intelligence officials acknowledge the Chinese balloon may have been blown off course by weather

Ten days after the Air Force shot down the Chinese balloon, US officials conceded that the rubber object had probably been blown off course by weather.

The Washington Post acknowledged in a February 14 report that the Chinese balloon “may have been diverted on an errant path caused by atypical weather conditions”.

The newspaper reported that the balloon “took an unexpected northern turn, according to several U.S. officials, who said that analysts are now examining the possibility that China didn’t intend to penetrate the American heartland with their airborne surveillance device”.

US “intelligence analysts are unsure whether the apparent deviation was intentional or accidental”, the Post wrote.

“This new account suggests that the ensuing international crisis that has ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Beijing may have been at least partly the result of a mistake”, the newspaper said.

CNN also cited numerous anonymous sources and reported, “US intelligence officials are assessing the possibility that the suspected Chinese spy balloon was not deliberately maneuvered into the continental US by the Chinese government and are examining whether it was diverted off course by strong winds“.

The major US media outlet stated that the balloon took “a path that US officials are not sure was purposeful, and may have been determined more by strong winds than deliberate, external maneuvering by Beijing”.

“Weather modeling done by CNN suggests it is plausible that the wind currents at the time diverted the balloon northward toward Alaska”, the network wrote.

CNN added, “US officials have acknowledged that the balloon’s maneuverability was limited”.

In a speech at the Munich Security Conference on February 18, top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi said Washington’s response to the balloon was “absurd and hysterical“.

He added, “It does not show the US is strong; on the contrary it shows it is weak”.

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***

The Kremlin’s top diplomat has warned that Western involvement in Ukraine is nearing “the point of no return,” accusing the United States and the NATO bloc of attempting to transform the country into a “Russophobic military stronghold.” Meanwhile, Moscow’s UN envoy declared that all of Russia’s “red lines” have already been crossed. 

Addressing lawmakers at Russia’s State Duma on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov outlined the causes of the current conflict in Ukraine and the deterioration of US-Russia relations, saying Washington has a “maniacal desire to revive the neo-colonial unipolar world order.”

“An integral part of this policy is the long-term containment of Russia, including through the expansion of NATO towards our borders, as well as the transformation of fraternal Ukraine into a Russophobic military stronghold,” he said. “In recent years, this line of Washington and its European satellites has reached the point of no return.”

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Washington and several other Western states gave assurances to Moscow that the NATO alliance would not expand beyond Germany. However, in the years since, Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have each allowed new members to join the alliance, all of them inching closer to Russia’s borders.

Starting in 2008, NATO has repeatedly declared its intention to someday allow Ukraine to become a member, again reiterating that pledge at a recent alliance summit. The move would cross the “brightest of all red lines” for Moscow, as was previously noted by then-State Department official and current CIA Director William Burns, who penned a 2008 memo warning of the geopolitical perils of extending membership to Kiev.

Still, President Joe Biden has refused to change course, insisting it is up to Ukraine whether it would like to join the US-led military bloc while effectively making Kiev a de facto member in the meantime.

In an interview with Newsweek on Tuesday, Russia’s UN envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy argued that the West has not respected Moscow’s core security concerns, and has become directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.

“All the red lines have already been crossed by Western countries. There is already semi-direct involvement of NATO in the conflict because it’s not only weaponry but it’s intelligence,” he said. “It’s the situation when the targets of certain artillery systems, in particular HIMARS, these targets can be hit only with the coordination with Washington.”

Last week, the Washington Post reported that Ukraine relies on American intelligence for selecting targets. Since the start of the year, the White House has authorized the shipment of main battle tanks and long-range rockets to Kiev. Additionally, NATO appears to be preparing to send Western-made warplanes to Ukraine.

”It means that NATO is not only providing weapons but also are choosing the targets for Ukrainian strikes,” Polyanskiy continued.

He went on to allege that citizens from NATO countries are already fighting – as well as getting captured and killed – in Ukraine.

”We know this from the people that we capture and from the bodies that we see on the battlefield.”

The ambassador said Western weapons would only escalate the conflict, even warning that foreign intervention could eventually trigger a nuclear war.

“It’s absolutely clear that any deliveries of weapons to the zone of conflict, of course, is like pouring oil into the fire,” he said, adding “If you are dealing with a nuclear power and if you are citing the goal of inflicting defeat to this nuclear power, you should have all the options in mind of our possible response.”

In their remarks, both diplomats also pointed to potential American involvement in the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. Last week, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a bombshell report claiming that Washington planned to bomb the pipelines. The White House has denied that it had any part sabotaging the line, though Senator Mike Lee later acknowledged that it was possible.

On Wednesday, Polyanskiy said that Moscow requested a UN meeting next week to address Hersh’s reporting.

Lavrov rejected denials from the Biden administration, saying the West is “lying, hiding the truth about the terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream-2 gas pipelines, just as they lied about the Minsk agreements.”

Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel claimed the Minsk agreement, which ostensibly was meant to end the civil war in Ukraine, was really intended to give Kiev time to build up its military. In a December 1 interview with Der Spiegel, Merkel said that she believes that during the Minsk talks, she was able to buy the time Ukraine needed to better fend off a Russian attack.

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Kyle Anzalone is the opinion editor of Antiwar.com and news editor of the Libertarian Institute.

Will Porter is the assistant news editor of the Libertarian Institute and a staff writer and editor at RT.

Kyle Anzalone and Will Porter host Conflicts of Interest along with Connor Freeman.

Featured image: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and President Vladimir Putin are seen during a meeting with Germany’s foreign minister in Moscow, Russia, March 23, 2016. (Credit: Kremlin)

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***

By stating that the US will support Ukrainian attacks on Crimea, Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland confirms beyond doubt that Washington encourages Kiev’s aggression and escalation of war. However, a possible attack on Crimea will not only fail because the peninsula is well protected, but it will lead to a more devastating retaliation by Russia against the ruling regime in Kiev.

“I’m not going to prejudge where the Ukrainians choose to fight or how they choose to deal with Crimea over the short term, medium term, or long term. We recognise Crimea as Ukraine,” Nuland said during an online discussion organised by Carnegie Endowment on February 16.

“Those [Russian military installations in Crimea] are legitimate targets, Ukraine is hitting them, and we are supporting that,” she continued, adding that Ukraine will not be safe unless Crimea is demilitarized as a minimum.

Nuland is effectively inciting Kiev to a new escalation in the conflict even though it will bring more suffering to ordinary Ukrainians. None-the-less, by Ukraine being at war with Russia, it has brought great benefit to the US as their ultimate goal is to weaken the Eurasian Giant. By giving Kiev the false belief that it can conquer Crimea, Washington is effectively emboldening the Ukrainian military to continue their futile war effort.

The US overlooks that Crimea became part of the Russian Federation in accordance to international norms and standards. Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to leave Ukraine and join Russia, and this is a harsh reality that the West refuses to acknowledge.

Denial of this reality is seen with the fact that Nuland is encouraging Ukraine to bring terror to Crimea. Effectively, she is not only advocating for the violation of Russia’s sovereign territory, but given her position and the fact that there is no denial or rejection from her superiors, she is expressing the official opinion of the Biden administration.

Washington does not only provide rhetorical encouragement for Ukraine though. The US has delivered billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the Ukrainian military and American instructors are training new soldiers and are active on the battlefield. Moscow has repeatedly warned that military aid to Ukraine will only escalate the conflict further.

Nuland is fully aware that if there was an attack on Crimea, there would be powerful strikes on Ukrainian facilities. Besides this fact, Crimea is well protected and is effectively a fortress with an abundance of anti-aircraft defence systems, ship systems, fighter jets and a many troops. In fact, the bulk of Russia’s military forces in the Black Sea region is concentrated in the Crimean Peninsula.

It should be noted that the Russian Embassy in the United States also responded to Nuland’s statement. The embassy emphasized that Nuland’s statement only confirms US involvement in the conflict.

“It should finally become obvious to the entire international community that the United States is the actual instigator of confrontation in Ukraine. However, Washington’s attempts to use the Ukrainians to inflict a strategic defeat on us are doomed. No one can have the slightest doubt that Russia will protect its citizens and territory,” the embassy warns.

Although President Joe Biden and his administration are undoubtedly provoking further war in Ukraine, not everyone within his party are convinced with the strategy. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said that most people accept that Ukraine will never retake Crimea.

“I think there’s more of a consensus out there that people realize that Ukraine is not going to militarily retake Crimea,” he said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, adding that at some point there will be a negotiated end to the war.

It is recalled that Pentagon officials told the House Armed Services Committee in a classified briefing in January that Ukrainian forces are unlikely to be able to recapture Crimea from Russian troops in the near future. This is of course a reality that any sensible person would conclude, but by Nuland doubling down that Ukraine could recapture Crimea, a core goal of Kiev’s war with Russia, it serves to only prolong the conflict and the suffering in the country.

As Politico highlighted, the comments by Smith “reflect what appears to be a growing view in Washington that after a year of heavy fighting, some kind of agreement will need to be realized to end the war.”

Albeit, it should not be considered surprising that negotiations need to occur after nearly a year of the conflict, especially if Ukraine wants to quickly make an economic recovery. However, the comments by Nuland demonstrates that although Washington begrudgingly accepts that Moscow will win the war, it is prepared to fully exhaust Ukraine in the hope of weakening Russia.

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

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The Antiwar Movement. Demonstrate Together.

February 20th, 2023 by Diana Johnstone

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If the Feb. 19 rally to end the war in Ukraine fails it will not be a success for other antiwar organizations that disagree with the Libertarian Party. It will only show that internal divisions can unravel every hope.

A bunch of people who disagree with each other on a lot of things have actually gotten together to organize a big antiwar rally in Washington next Sunday.  I say, Bravo!

In a nation as divided as the United States is today, a large rally of people who agree with each other on everything is hardly imaginable.

A rally by people who disagree with each other gives hope that a movement to stop war can grow, and even shake the political system paralyzed by the military industrial congressional complex and confusion spread by its servile media.

Abroad, the United States has exploited deep political enmities to provoke a war in Ukraine intended to split Europe definitively, cutting Russia off totally from Germany and the EU, cementing permanent U.S. control of Western Europe.

This divisive policy is pursued in all sorts of sneaky ways that make it hard to uncover and explain. The war in Ukraine creates division between those who have understood what it’s all about and those who haven’t. A large movement is needed to spread discussion, understanding and opposition.

While supporting the war machine’s foreign policy of divide and rule, in recent years the American political class has also fostered internal divisions to an unprecedented extent — some of them real, some of them more or less artificial.

The degree of internal animosity echoes the international hatred fostered by U.S. President Joe Biden’s geopolitical mindset.  WE are the GOOD (democracy), THEY are BAD (not communism any more, rather, “autocracy”).

At home, Democrats and Republicans, left and right are two different species, one species born good and the other bad.  The bad are inherently bad, with a contagious badness, so we must not meet and try to persuade them.  We must have nothing to do with them, and a political apartheid might be the solution. A sort of moral/political racism, creating total division between US and THEM reigns both at home and abroad.

In such an atmosphere, it is no wonder that the Feb. 19 rally “Rage Against the War Machine,” its organizers and its speakers, are being attacked for not being good enough.

Organizers & Speakers

The main announced organizers of the Rage rally are two relatively weak political organizations: the People’s Party and the Libertarian Party.  Their weakness should be a positive signal. Inasmuch as neither has the strength to manage a really significant antiwar movement alone, these sponsors are voluntarily offering the movement as a gift to all who take it up. So grab it!

Inevitably, however, the rally itself is being attacked, even by some opponents of the current war, on grounds of the political deficiencies of the organizers.

Could veteran activists be so petty as to be jealous that somebody else got there first?  I hope not.

Veteran socialist and antiwar militant Jeff Mackler has strongly condemned the rally as “reactionary” mainly because it is backed by the Libertarian Party. Its success would be a defeat for all enemies of the capitalist system, he has claimed.  At one point he observes:

“The Libertarians’ call for a return to a capitalist society where ‘free competition’ prevails is pure fantasy.”

For one thing, that policy has nothing to do with the demands of the rally.  For another, if Libertarian Party socio-economic policies are indeed pure fantasy, totally inapplicable in today’s world, they are nothing to worry about.

Come to the rally, try to find a Libertarian and argue. Libertarians are against spending billions for war, this is a point of agreement that could start a fruitful discussion.

Leftist militants who believe a man can be transformed into a woman should have no trouble believing that a libertarian might be transformed into a socialist.  Such miracles do occur.

Guilt by Association  

Besides that, the presence of the People’s Party makes it clear that the Libertarians’ extreme free market policies are irrelevant to the rally.

The Libertarian Party quickly demonstrated its incapacity to lead the movement very far by its failure to support an important announced speaker against personal attacks — to the dismay, incidentally, of leading libertarians.  But the bandwagon rolls on.

Some critics of the rally trot out a favorite cliché of the self-righteous left according to which we must stay away in order not to “legitimize” rightwing participants. This “legitimize” threat is merely the other side of the “guilt by association” coin. Both are used to evade discussion of serious matters by treating political convictions as if they were incurable contagious diseases.

It is perfectly childish to claim that anyone is “legitimized” (or guilty) by random association, such as participation in an antiwar demonstration.

The Feb. 19 speakers’ list is very long, perhaps even too long for the time allotted. But the point is precisely to show a range of viewpoints.

However much I may disagree with this one or that one on somethings, or even on everything else, I am glad to see them getting together to stop the rush toward World War III.

When the subject is WAR, if you can join in opposition only with people who agree with you about everything else, you have lost the sense of common humanity.

The organizers’ list is short, too short.  It would be great to see ANSWER, Black Alliance for Peace, Code Pink and other longstanding antiwar organizations involved. No single one of them is strong enough to build a major mass movement alone — at least, so far, none of them have proposed anything as promising as Feb. 19.

The failure of Feb. 19 would not be their success. It would be a failure for all who oppose the war, showing that internal divisions can unravel every hope.

The rally is open. Everyone can share its success by crashing the party, arousing their supporters and friends, turning the rally into the broad, wide-open mass movement that can really begin to challenge the war machine. The need for peace is nobody’s private property.

Wherever you see popular resistance to war begin to come to life, go to it and make it belong to everybody.

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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].

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

Featured image: Winter sun over Lincoln Memorial, planned focal point of the Feb. 19, 2023, Rage Against the War Machine rally for ending the war in Ukraine. (Tim Brown/GPA Photo Archive, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

The US Corporation as Psychopath

February 20th, 2023 by Dr. Gary G. Kohls

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This was originally published on GR in August 2013.

“Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property. Corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.” — Anonymous

The infamous NeoConservative, anti-democratic Roberts’ Supreme Court 5/4 decision in the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling (granting personhood to corporations) has emboldened the already powerful and very corruptible multinational corporations (that have already achieved dominion over politics and the economy in the United States) to “buy” any number of politicians and brain-wash many voters in many state and national elections.. The US Supreme Court has made legal the absurd notion that inanimate corporations deserve the same rights (but not the same responsibilities) as living humans.

Soberingly, after the ruling came down, there was only a brief bit of anger and outrage from our national leadership over this democracy-threatening decision, and the outrage was quickly drowned out of the public consciousness by a well-timed, mainstream media-orchestrated “tempest in a teapot” – Toyota’s recall of tens of thousands of accelerator pedals (that apparently had only infrequently been the cause of significant accidents).

The following question must be asked:

If corporations have the privileges of personhood shouldn’t they also bear the same responsibilities and incur the same punishments as individuals do when they commit crimes?

Peace and justice activists briefly applauded when the citizens of Shapleigh, Maine protected their water rights last March from the insatiable water-extracting corporate giant Nestle. (See video and more information on this episode)

Nestle, one of the most infamous of the countless multinational corporate exploiters, has no allegiance to Maine or Wisconsin or any other locality where they try to extract relatively non-polluted water; but when the water is gone, so will be Nestle, and so will be Coca-Cola and Perrier or whatever other corporate intruder that extracts the people’s resources for the benefit of their shareholders and their predatory corporate executives. The good citizens of Maine recognized the foxes that tried to get inside their henhouse, and they did the right thing by resisting, and little David and his slingshot won another rare victory against the evil giant Goliath.

This small victory for justice should illustrate what must be done if the disastrous Citizens United decision is allowed to stand. The future of the nation, the future of the children and the future of the planet is at stake. And corporations don’t seem to care.

It is important to understand that the allegiance of corporations is to its shareholders, executives and management teams, and not to the people whose lives and health depend on the sustainability of the land, water, air and food supplies. Most corporate shareholders and executives are motivated by profits/greed and are not affected when local resources are used up and the struggling local communities (that placed their trust in untrustworthy corporations) are degraded.  

The hollow “promises” of conscienceless megacorporations to “trust us” to un-poison the poisoned environment aren’t revealed as the cunning disinformation it is until it is too late and the mess that is left behind is no longer the sneaky corporation’s problem. What was promised prior to the pull-out or the bankruptcy or the merger was designed by clever corporate lawyers to legally go back on the promises that had been made during the conniving “courtship” phase of the deal.

One of the many tax avoiding American megacorporations is Wal-Mart. Most of its profits go to a handful of Walton family billionaires in Arkansas. WaMart tries hard not to pay for healthcare insurance and other benefits for their exploited and underpaid employees, who are victims of WalMart’s union-busting policies.

US taxpayers are left holding the bag while Wal-Mart legally avoids what should ethically be their corporate responsibility to support their workers. Wal-Mart is notorious for not hiring workers for full-time work and then paying the part-timers below-subsistence level wages that force many of them to apply for welfare benefits – a cunning cost-shifting tactic that places economic burdens on the tax-paying public.

Another example is Coca-Cola. Coke depends on water that it extracts from anywhere the corporation can suck it out, including, as a particularly egregious example, from the aquifers that are situated beneath struggling, starving (and then suicidal) farmers who are losing their farms in drought-stricken India. Millions of gallons of water, that has traditionally been used for farmland irrigation systems, are being ruthlessly used up by Coca-Cola in order to meet the artificial demand that has been created for the sweet, addictive, nutritionally useless, sickness-inducing and obesity-producing soft drink that contains two cents worth of ingredients but is being sold to poor people everywhere for as much as the market will bear.

Coke’s predation of poor people in India and elsewhere brings to mind another corporate crime that has never been brought to justice. The infamous 1984 Union Carbide/Bhopal cyanide catastrophe that killed 25,000 slum-dwellers, left 100,000 permanently poisoned, and has left uncounted numbers of people living on poisoned soil, drinking contaminated water and breathing poisoned air.

Every person that has been exposed to the Bhopal plant environs since 1984 is chronically ill; and Indian mothers are still delivering malformed babies and dead fetuses because of the pesticide residues that cannot be detoxified. Union Carbide, the American corporation responsible for the disaster, has consistently shirked its moral responsibilities to the suffering victims. Carbide eventually sold itself to the equally infamous Dow Chemical, the company that brought us Agent Orange, immune-destroying silicone breast implants and a multitude of other highly profitable and very poisonous products.

Union Carbide’s corporate executives have been subpoenaed to appear in Indian courts for their crimes. But the US has not honored the extradition treaties it has with India. These executives have repeatedly refused to appear and are therefore in contempt of court. There are warrants out for their arrests in India, just as there are warrants out for the arrest of citizen Henry Kissinger for his part in international war crimes in Chile, East Timor, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc. All remain at large, harbored by America’s big Business-friendly, corporate-controlled nation.

There are a number of common denominators that link human criminals and corporate criminals that populate the Fortune 500 list (like Union Carbide, WalMart, Dow, Monsanto, Merck, Nestle, Enron, British Petroleum, Halliburton, etc, etc). For one, the corporations, being just as afraid of facing the music as were Henry Kissinger, Bernie Madoff, Ken Lay and the multitude of others of their ilk, will use any means necessary to evade or delay justice. Similarly, none of them will admit their guilt and none of them can be expected to show any genuine remorse for the massive human suffering their actions have caused.

There are checklist diagnoses for various personality disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel (DSM), the recipe book and billing manual for psychiatrists. One of these disorders, antisocial personality disorder (301.7), describes pathological cheaters, liars and abusers whose lack of morals, ethics and consciences often enables them to avoid being caught or punished for their crimes and misdeeds. These sociopaths (aka psychopaths) refuse to take the blame or accept responsibility for their actions.

The quasi-humans who meet the full criteria for this diagnosis are incapable of showing genuine remorse if or when they are caught, convicted or punished for their crimes. Below are seven diagnostic criteria that are used to diagnose antisocial (aka, sociopathic or psychopathic) personality disorder (be mindful that only three of the seven are needed for a positive diagnosis):

  1. callous disregard for the feelings of other people,
  2. the incapacity to maintain human relationships,
  3. reckless disregard for the safety of others,
  4. aggressiveness,
  5. deceitfulness (repeated lying and conning others for profit)
  6. incapacity to experience guilt, and
  7. the failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law.

Other common traits include these:

  • No conscience
  • Lack of remorse for evils done to others
  • Indifferent to the suffering of its victims
  • Rationalizes (makes excuses for) having hurt, mistreated or stolen from others
  • Willingness to exploit, seduce or manipulate others
  • No sign of delusional or irrational thinking.
  • Cunning, clever
  • Commonly above average intelligence
  • Always looking for ways to make money or achieve fame or notoriety
  • Willing to cause or contribute to the financial ruin of others
  • Untrustworthy
  • Cannot be trusted to adhere to conventional standards of morality.

 We are talking about criminality in otherwise sane individuals. Sadly, psychopaths are, for all intents and purposes, incurable. These disordered individuals (as are their sociopathic corporate counterparts) never truly feel guilty about their misdeeds, and therefore they never truly try to change; nor do they even ask for help.

When court-ordered to submit to “treatment”, they usually only pretend to change until the pressure is off and criminal activities look doable again. History tells us that rehabilitation for full-fledged sociopaths is useless, although the often charming, charismatic sociopath will commonly fool the treatment team into thinking progress is being made.

By and large, most criminally-minded sociopaths have to be locked away to protect society from them. So another set of questions needs to be asked: “what needs to be done with sociopathic corporations when they lie, cheat, commit crimes or otherwise act unethically?”

Given the Supreme Court ruling granting personhood to corporations, shouldn’t they be treated like their human sociopathic counterparts, perhaps with long prison sentences, confiscation of property or even capital punishment? (I hasten to add that I am against capital punishment for humans, but corporations are not human (despite the Citizens United ruling), don’t bleed and don’t cry out in pain during the execution process, although they may plead for mercy.)  Capital punishment for corporations, contrary to the data on capital punishment for humans, would prevent a lot of sociopathic behaviors from multinational corporations.

What about the crime of rape as applied to corporations? Rape has several definitions, including the following ones that are in my dictionary: 1) Any violent seizure or hostile action against a weaker opponent; 2) to rob or plunder; 3) the act of seizing and carrying off by force; and the common one most people think of, 4) the crime of having forcible sexual intercourse without consent.

Corporations who plunder Mother Earth meet most of the definitions of rape. Should our society punish corporate rapists as severely as we punish human rapists? And what about the serial corporate killers of the creation and the creatures that have every right to co-exist on our increasingly poisoned planet?

What about the known lethal poisons that thousands of unregulated chemical companies knowingly discharge into the water, air, soil? Should their acts of desecration be regarded as premeditated murder? Their murderous actions have already caused a multitude of dead zones in our aquifers, oceans, lakes and rivers.

What about the extractive mineral companies that blow the tops off mountains in Appalachia or the Philippines (or in the Penokee Mountain range of northern Wisconsin) to extract the resources beneath and then claim innocence when living things downstream die off from the poisoned water and toxic sludge that contaminates previously pristine streams that previously provided safe drinking water, irrigation water for farming and a healthy natural environment for fish and wildlife?

How many strikes should any corporate predator be allowed before they are called out and thrown off the land and out of the game? Shouldn’t exploitive intruders be stopped before they despoil even one more aquifer, one more lake, one more mountain or just one planet? Shouldn’t cunning, politically-connected corporate exploiters be banned, arrested, tried and punished just like the human predators that civilized people despise? And shouldn’t there be generous monetary restitution to the victims of their crimes?

Shouldn’t corporate thieves and liars and rapists and killers be treated the same as human thieves and liars and rapists and killers? Shouldn’t we refuse to trust untrustworthy corporations that are lying to us or poisoning us?

 And shouldn’t some of the most dangerous – albeit legal – of the thousands of toxic synthetic chemicals so cavalierly marketed by BigPharma, be recalled just like Toyota’s occasionally dangerous accelerator pedals? BigPharma’s drugs cause many more deaths than do design problems of automobiles. Shouldn’t the pharmaceutical manufacturers, marketers, suppliers and sellers of such potentially lethal substances be stopped just like the street corner pushers of illicit drugs? What about the corporate pushers of the cocaine-like drug Ritalin and the amphetamine Adderall that are being dispensed so cavalierly to inattentive or active little children whose brains haven’t been hard-wired yet?

 What about corporate junkies, those companies and executives that are addicted to their profits, their prestige, their corporate jets, their vacation homes and their quarterly bonuses? We regularly intervene for some of society’s human addicts, who are on the road to ruin and damnation and a danger to themselves and others. Shouldn’t there be interventions planned for these wealth, power and greed addicts before they kill again?

The answer, in a fair society, should be yes to all these questions, no matter how often the smiley-faced, well-dressed corporate CEOs or their well-paid spokespersons, in their most cunning damage-control mode, try to convince us that their companies are “responsible citizens”. We star-struck celebrity-worshippers of Fortune 500 companies seem to sucker for that line again and again – but the stakes are higher this time.

Deep down, all fair-minded Americans know that corporations are NOT people, despite what the corrupted and co-opted Roberts’ Supreme Court so shamefully ruled back in 2010. I wonder if the best approach for society in dealing with those shady inanimate corporate entities, is to, rather than applying the standard constitutional guarantee of being innocent until proven guilty, we should judge these often ruthless corporations as being guilty until they are proven innocent.

 I like that notion. I have often advised my psychologically traumatized patients who were physically, sexually or emotionally abused in childhood by parent figures to only give respect and forgiveness to them when they have truly earned it and therefore deserve the respect and forgiveness. Psychologically speaking, not obeying – and also not respecting one’s victimizers should be the norm in interpersonal relationships. Psychologically speaking, and in my considered opinion, parental neglect or abuse negates the 4th commandment that commands children to honor their father and mother. Likewise, we should only do business with companies that have earned and therefore truly deserve our respect.

Being suspicious of psychopathic entities is an important strategy to follow if one is to protect oneself from getting cheated or otherwise victimized. Staying out of a sociopath’s grasp is the proper thing to do, even if the person or corporation seems to be charming. Staying clear of anybody or anything that you suspect has no conscience makes tremendous sense, since conscienceless entities are also likely to be liars and thieves and are fully capable of rape, pillage and murder if they feel that there is a chance of getting away with the crime.

Staying away from (boycotting) corporations that have behaved unethically is the best strategy to combat corporate criminality. Corporations hate it when the nonviolent tactic of boycott is used, but in our largely brainwashed, advertised-into-submission citizens, only small minorities of people recognize that they are being victimized by psychopaths. Many victims of corporate crimes seem to be unaware of their victimhood, probably too distracted to understand that they are being cleverly conned.

The concept of corporate power and privilege – to the point of being above the law – has massively benefited Big Businesses at the expense of the “consuming” public, but the reality is that it has been going on for generations. Multinational corporations are increasingly in control of the White House, the US Congress and the federal courts. Both political parties are guilty of being seduced by corporate campaign money/bribes, although it appears that, whereas  the Republicans have been 100 % guilty of facilitating attempted corporate takeovers of the US government for a long time, the Democrats still have had a courageous, though very small minority that are resistant to being seduced by obscenely wealthy corporations and assorted greedy billionaires.And now, sadly, it appears that all three branches of the federal government have been totally bought by big money – and it appears that they are staying bought. It is not just politicians that are controlled by corporations anymore.

The mythical “unbiased” US Supreme Court has, in reality, always been heavily influenced by corporate power. After all, throughout US history, it has been wealthy businessmen, wealthy politicians, wealthy judges and wealthy attorneys that have been the ones to be nominated by wealthy presidents that are all members of the same bipartisan “old boy’s club”. So the court has always had sizable numbers of crony capitalists, racist, anti-union justices, depending on which political party was in control of the White House when an old Supreme Court justice retired or died and a new replacement was to be added.

Mussolini wrote that “fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power:” He should know, he invented it.

Fascism is a far right-wing nationalistic political ideology that controls its population by a controlled and censored media, powerful military and police systems that are backed up by a secretive national security state. Fascist nations commonly violate the human rights of its citizens and try to unify the population by creating enemies and scapegoating them. Oftentimes there is a quasi-merger of church and state, anti-intellectual attitudes and corrupt crony capitalism. Always there is an obsession with law and order (with police state tactics), fraudulent elections and a suppression of trade unions.

 The pro-Big Business billionaire’s club called the GOP has succeeded in installing all the right-wing, anti-democracy, anti-worker’s rights justices while the decidedly more pro-democracy, pro-small business and pro-labor (but corruptible and bribable) Democratic Party has accounted for the rest; but the current right-wing court has a solid 5-4 majority now.

But it appears that there has been a slow bloodless corporate coup d’etat that has finally overthrown our one person/one vote democracy in America. We are now a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy class).The coup was accomplished gradually – death by a thousand cuts – and it appears now to be in place, never to be declared officially. Wealthy corporations and their billionaires are in charge of everything now, and they have their privatizing eyes on our drinkable water, our breathable air, our arable land and our nourishing food (as Bob Dylan sang in Union Sundown, “I can see the day coming when even your home garden is gonna be against the law”.).

Elections, fooling us to believe that we still live in a democracy, will continue, although the “debates” and speechifying and small monetary donations will be increasingly meaningless. There will be no viable, courageously anti-establishment candidates like Paul Wellstone (or a Green Party or a Democratic Socialist Party) for whom to cast votes. The American dream (that you have to be asleep to believe in, as George Carlin often told us) is gone, and we sheeple were predictably and apathetically snoozing when it disappeared.

By exercising the privileges of corporate personhood while simultaneously refusing to accept the responsibilities of personhood, corporate greed will accelerate the loss of non-renewable resources that will worsen the disappearances of arable land, drinkable water, breathable air and non-renewable energy sources.

It is the greedy, non-human, conscienceless corporations (and NOT “man”) that have positioned the planet to the verge of extinction. The guilty unregulated multinationals are the ones that cause economic crises, and, because there are no consequences for their misdeeds, they are getting away with murder and don’t seem to care. Their motto seems to be: “grab everything you can steal; pay your spokespersons, lawyers and lobbyists well; cleverly bribe your legislators; wine and dine your judges and media collaborators don’t get caught; and let the devil take the hindmost.”

We all know that most of the acts of out-and-out criminality of powerful corporations are rarely punished commensurate with the crime. Wrist slaps are the norm for corporations and the superrich when they are “brought to justice” in front of conservative judges. If there are any consequences for reckless or destructive business practices at all, the company will usually just pay a relatively small, very affordable fine. At worst, it will threaten to move its corporate headquarters and its manufacturing facilities off shore, leaving their smelly messes to be cleaned up by somebody else, just as one would expect of a conscienceless psychopath.

The brazen action of the Roberts’ court in Citizens United might be one of the final nails in the coffin of America’s mortally wounded democracy. Given the fact that the myth of corporate personhood is now legal, it is past time that we of the 99% majority insist that the transnational corporate 1% minority be treated as severely as human criminals are treated. The 99% needs to exercise its duty to preserve and defend the planet from all enemies, foreign or domestic, human or corporate.

And we can’t fail to identify the many domestic enemies that are members of the executive, judicial or legislative branches of our federal and state governments. We need to name the evil and the evil-doers in order to effectively confront them, and, simultaneously, we need to demand that our human rights to healthy water, soil, air, food supplies and affordable health care be safe-guarded from the exploiters in the ruling classes. The future of our children, grandchildren and planet Earth depends on it.

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Please join the effort to urge Congress to pass legislation to reverse the Citizens United ruling and correct the damage done. (See www.movetoamend.org for more)

Dr. Kohls is involved in peace, nonviolence and justice issues and therefore resists fascism, corporatism, militarism, racism and other movements that are anti-democratic.

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Medical Marvel or the Second Coming of Al Capone? Pfizer’s Sins and Crimes. “We have a vaccine which is killing people”

By Michael Welch, Prof Michel Chossudovsky, and Johnny Vedmore, February 18, 2023

In a recent report, Albert Bourla, the chairman and chief executive of the global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc accepted the prestigious Genesis award for his work leading to the very first vaccine for COVID-19 to be authorized for distribution in the U.S. and Europe.

Crisis in Intelligence and the Way Forward

By Emanuel Pastreich, February 19, 2023

The crisis in intelligence in the United States has reached an extreme today as the multitude of contractors that feed on massive, and often obscure, budget, clamor to be fed without any concern for the long-term interests of the citizens of the United States, the constitution that defines that nation, or the security of our brittle planet.

Megalomania – Privilege of the Rich and Powerful? The World Government Summit

By Peter Koenig, February 19, 2023

In his as always exuberant presentation with his signature accent reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Schwab bragged, “I wrote in 2015 the book, ‘The Fourth Industrial Revolution’. I mentioned 23 or 25 technologies that will change the world.” He went on mentioning some of them. And continued, “The book was considered science fiction, but all those technologies have become realities.”

American Presidents Renege on Agreements with Russia Opening Its Border to NATO

By Renee Parsons, February 19, 2023

A week  after Sy Hersh’s expose on the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, there is still no word that President Biden who denies any knowledge or involvement in causing an Act of War in the Baltic Sea has yet to offer an explanation to the American public or reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin  – but what possible explanation could be offered when the Biden co-conspirators, millions of  Americans and Putin’s Security Council all know the truth.

“Terrorist groups in Syria receiving earthquake aid from the US and EU,” Interview with Kari Jaquesson

By Kari Jaquesson and Steven Sahiounie, February 19, 2023

The massive earthquake on February 6 devastated parts of the northwest of Syria, including the last remaining terrorist occupied area of Idlib.  While Latakia and Aleppo were damaged more than Idlib, they are not receiving any aid from the US, EU are other US allied countries because they are under the central government of Damascus.

The World Wants to be Deceived

By Edward Curtin, February 19, 2023

My title comes from a 19th century author whose name does not matter nor would it mean much if I mentioned him.  It’s an old truth that has not changed a bit over the centuries.  I think, however, it would be more linguistically accurate to say that most people want to be deceived, for the world, the earth doesn’t give a damn, as the French poet Jacques Prévert reminds us in “Song in the Blood”.

The Great Western Crusade Against “Evil”

By Manlio Dinucci, February 19, 2023

On the stage of the Sanremo Festival, after reading Zelenski’s message the Kyiv band Antytila performed to “transmit a strong message on the Ukrainian resistance to the Italian public”. Shortly before in Brescia and Bergamo, the concerts of the Russian pianist Denis Matsuev scheduled for the International Piano Festival had been cancelled.

A US-Led ‘Coalition of the Willing’ Foreshadows the Splintering of NATO

By Mike Whitney, February 19, 2023

The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was a gangster act that reveals the cancer at the heart of the “rules-based order”. How can there be peace and security when the world’s most powerful nation can destroy the critical infrastructure of other countries without deliberation or judicial proceedings?

“Propaganda Attacks”: How NATO Is Committing “Cyber Warfare” Against the Global Masses

By Dan Fournier, February 18, 2023

In a previous article – which was republished in ActivistPost, and The Burning Platform – readers were introduced on how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, better known as NATO, have created a fifth operational domain (the first four being air, land, sea, space) called cyber which they use with great success to propagandise and brainwash the masses around the globe, particularly on social media, as an instrument to gain support for their war follies.

The Bayer/Monsanto Tie-up: Is the Marriage Over?

By Paul Anthony Taylor, February 17, 2023

Rumors are growing that the corporate marriage between German drug firm Bayer and American agrochemicals goliath Monsanto may be heading for divorce. Under increasing shareholder pressure following a dramatic slump in Bayer’s stock price over the past 8 years, the German company’s notorious CEO Werner Baumann is set to be replaced with the former head of Swiss drugmaker Roche, Bill Anderson.

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ICAN’s attorneys demand the CDC and FDA explain the alarming results of an audit of VAERS which found major issues with 42% of the reports reviewed.

React19, a patient advocacy organization that represents thousands of people injured following COVID-19 vaccines, recently conducted an audit of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database. It shared the results of this audit with ICAN and its legal team. The results are shocking.

As most of you know, VAERS is the database designed to monitor the safety of vaccines in the United States through vaccine injury reports submitted by patients and doctors. VAERS is  used by individuals inside and outside the government to assess vaccine safety. It goes without saying that the VAERS system therefore needs to actually include the data submitted to VAERS. Unfortunately, React19’s audit revealed that, in many instances, that is not the case.

Based on its audit of 126 verified VAERS reports randomly collected from its members, React19 found that 5% never made it into the VAERS system, another 22% made it into the system but were not publicly visible, and incredibly another 15% of VAERS reports made it into the system but then were outright deleted! Even more concerning, the majority of the deleted reports consisted of permanent disabilities and emergency room visits! In total, 42% of reports were not accessible in the VAERS system used by many across this country to assess vaccine safety.

In light of these alarming findings, ICAN’s legal team sent a demand letter to the CDC and FDA demanding it explain why this crucial data the public pays for and deserves to see is either unavailable or has been deleted. We will keep you posted on their response. Unfortunately, whatever the response, this is yet another piece of evidence about how our health agencies are not interested in assessing safety, but rather only in affirming their policy and predetermined view these products are safe.

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Featured image is from ICAN


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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Nicola Sturgeon – Used and Discarded

February 20th, 2023 by Craig Murray

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***

Nicola Sturgeon is discarded, having served her purpose for the British Establishment once she obtained the UK Supreme Court judgment that Scotland could not hold a referendum on Independence.

That fight was deliberately thrown by Sturgeon’s unionist Lord Advocate. After almost nine years of leading Independence supporters into a whole series of blind alleys, with promise after promise broken to deliver a referendum, and mandate after mandate squandered, she appears to have shattered the Independence movement.

Throughout this nine years, Sturgeon was sustained and promoted by the unionist media.

She pretended she wanted Independence, and they pretended to attack her for it.

Meanwhile Sturgeon was given an extraordinarily easy ride over the real failings of her government. The achievements of Alex Salmond in building an extremely efficient reputation for the SNP’s ability to manage the business of government, were all knocked back.

The collusion of the unionist media in hiding Sturgeon’s role in the attempt to frame Alex Salmond on false charges – a conspiracy orchestrated from her office and her husband’s office – showed the Sturgeon/Unionist axis in operation.

Salmond of course was rightly perceived by the unionists as a much more genuine threat to the union. They had a joint interest with Sturgeon in putting him away.

The main cause of  bad government performance was Sturgeon’s compulsion to sideline all people of real talent in the SNP, and surround herself only with the extremely mediocre, who would never challenge her.

No leader genuinely concerned with the good of the country would ever appoint Shirley-Anne Somerville to be a minister.

Scotland has slid down the international tables, in healthcare, in education, in substance abuse, in almost every important area. The ferries debacle has been a disaster for the island communities.

Much of this has been a result of the SNP gradualists walking into the devolution trap. Devolution forces the government in Holyrood to try to mitigate the effects of Tory policies, with resources constrained by Tory austerity and hands tied by neo-con fiscal policy.

Devolution is a dead end filled with poison gas. Sturgeon’s lack of urgency to escape from it was inexplicable.

Sturgeon’s place in history will be as the woman who saved the Union in its hour of maximum danger – the moment the UK left the European Union, against the will of the large majority of Scottish people expressed in a referendum.

Having saved the Union then, Sturgeon went on to obtain the Supreme Court ruling against a referendum and subsequently shattered the Independence movement over identity politics.

She succeeded, by refusal to listen sympathetically to concerns of others, to unleash a wave of hatred towards trans people from those who had previously given the question not a moment of thought.

The contrast is astonishing between her softly softly attitude to Scotland’s Independence, where doubters were to be gently persuaded over decades, and her drastic attitude to gender reform, where doubters were to be condemned as misogynists and racists.

Sturgeon was a great boon to the unionists. Whether as useful idiot or as traitor is something history will decide. My money is on the latter.

But after the Supreme Court judgement, the UK Establishment did not need her any more. All that soft soap treatment disappeared. They started to seriously question her, on all points.

There has been a huge change in press tone towards Sturgeon since the Supreme Court judgment. The UK establishment believe they no longer need her to hold back the Independence movement.

I suspect much more tellingly, the Establishment has also finally taken off the gloves over the missing £600,000, that was donated to to a “ring-fenced” fund to campaign in the Indyref2 that Sturgeon did not deliver.

The money disappeared into the SNP’s accounts and where it went is not clear.

I could not understand why Sturgeon blatantly lied at the press conference last week, when asked by Tom Gordon of the Herald when she first knew that her husband had lent £107,000 to the SNP.

She replied she could not recall, and sought to distance herself from the loan, saying he used “his resources”.

Now it is a strange marriage where the husband lends £107,000 without telling the wife. But it is not impossible.

However it is impossible that the leader of the SNP was not told that the party was lent £107,000. Whoever it was from, let alone her own husband.

But I could see no reason that Peter Murrell should not lend the party the money. It was not illegal to do so and arguably a good thing to do. Why on earth would Nicola pretend she didn’t know?

This only started to make sense to me yesterday, when I learnt that Murrell made the loan the day after he was interviewed by the police about the missing £600,000.

No wonder she wanted to distance herself from it, and the timing.

Numerous sources have reported in the last few days that Police Scotland have now been given the go ahead by the Crown Office to pursue a criminal case over the missing money.

That seems the most likely explanation for the timing of her resignation today.

The good news is that, if my sources are correct, the £600,000 question is going to make the coronation of the Angus Robertson family collective as devolutionist party leaders somewhat difficult.

So farewell Nicola Sturgeon. You served the Union well. Now they don’t need you any more and you have been tossed away.

They won’t get you that UN job either (all UN posts need to be agreed with the candidate’s member state). The Establishment is both ruthless and ungrateful. I suspect the protection over the Salmond affair will disappear too.

*

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***

If you want a perfect example of how corrupt our system of government has become, just look at the massive cover-up that is going on in East Palestine, Ohio right now. Federal, state and local officials are telling the public that everything is just fine when everything is obviously not just fine.

On February 3rd, a 50-car Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine. Five of the cars were carrying vinyl chloride which is an extremely hazardous substance that has been proven to cause several types of cancer. Unfortunately, with the approval of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, a decision was made on February 6th to conduct a “controlled burn” of the wreckage. They knew that burning the vinyl chloride would create vast amounts of phosgene gas.

By now, most of you already know that phosgene gas was actually used as a chemical weapon in World War I. The cloud of toxic chemicals that was created by the “controlled burn” was so large that it could literally be seen from space, and the long-term health problems that are being caused all over the east coast could stretch on for decades.

But Ohio Governor Mike Dewine doesn’t want to be blamed.

He is telling everyone from East Palestine to go back to their homes, and he insists that the water in the area is “safe to drink”

Do you believe him?

For those that are gullible enough to believe him, I have just one question for you…

Does this water look safe to drink to you?

Ohio Senator J.D. Vance wanted to see this for himself.

So he went down to a local creek in East Palestine, and this is what he discovered

Sadly, it isn’t just the water in East Palestine that has been polluted.

Fifty miles away in Pittsburgh, the water is exhibiting similar qualities

But the head of the Environmental Protection Agency says that there is nothing to be concerned about at all.

In fact, he says that he would actually “allow his own children to drink and bathe in public water”from East Palestine…

The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency has said he would allow his own children to drink and bathe in public water near the site of a train derailment and chemical spill in Ohio, so long as it had been tested and deemed safe by officials.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan visited the site of the East Palestine derailment on Thursday, seeking to reassure skeptical residents that the water is fit for drinking and the air is safe to breathe.

Nobody wants to see your children do that, Michael Regan.

But we would love to see you down a tall, cool glass of tap water from a home right in the middle of East Palestine.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration is going to work relentlessly to downplay the severity of this crisis because they know that if they admitted the truth it would make them look bad to the voters.

And there is a presidential election coming up in less than two years.

Incredibly, the White House has even turned down a formal request for disaster relief for East Palestine…

The White House explained why it turned down Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s request for disaster relief this week in the aftermath of a derailment of a train hauling toxic chemicals.

A Biden administration official told Fox News Digital that it has provided extensive assistance to surrounding communities following the chemical release earlier this month in eastern Ohio. However, the official said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the agency that usually provides relief to communities hit by hurricanes and other natural disasters, isn’t best equipped to support the state’s current needs.

I was floored when I saw that.

We have just witnessed one of the greatest environmental disasters in the entire history of our country, and the Biden administration is not even willing to grant a request for disaster relief?

Ultimately, this is all about protecting the asses of the politicians and protecting the asses of the executives and shareholders of Norfolk Southern.

To the elite, it really doesn’t matter if the poor people of East Palestine all get cancer and die.

What matters is controlling the narrative, and up to this point the corporate media is doing a wonderful job of helping them do it.

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Did the US Blow Up Nord Stream If There Is No Media to Report It?

February 20th, 2023 by Margaret Kimberley

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***

A respected investigative journalist explains how the U.S. sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. But corporate media working in service to the state ignore the story and endanger the world.

“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The idea behind this old thought experiment should not be relegated to the realm of philosophy. Present day reality can be used in place of hypothetical falling trees. If the United States blows up the Nord Stream pipelines but the media ignores it, did the attack ever happen?

Seymour Hersh has all of the credentials that usually give one gravitas in the world of journalism. As a freelance reporter he exposed the U.S. army’s 1969 massacre of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai and won a Pulitzer Prize for his efforts. He later worked at the New York Times and reported on high profile stories such as the Watergate revelations, and the CIA coup against the government of Chile. In 2004 Hersh exposed torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison for The New Yorker.

None of these accomplishments helped Hersh when he recently provided evidence of what had long been obvious, that the Biden administration blew up the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022. In a 5,200 word article published on his Substack entitled How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline , Hersh utilized highly placed sources who presented as one might say the “receipts” of how the deed was done.

Joe Biden and his foreign policy team at the State Department, National Security Agency, and the Central Intelligence Agency first discussed the operation one year before carrying it out, and months before Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine began. The fear of deepening integration between Russia and Germany was the cause of alarm. They wanted to end Europe’s resource and financial connections to Russia, and decided that exploding the means of transporting natural gas was a good idea. According to Hersh’s source(s) the plot was carried out with help from Norway, a NATO member nation that made itself the sole source of natural gas in the region by helping in the attack. The current Secretary General of NATO, Jens Stoltenberg, was formerly a prime minister of Norway.

The U.S. had the motive, means, and opportunity and spent many months confessing to the plot and then to the crime after it took place. In February 2022 Biden pledged to stop the Nord Stream 2 project and added for good measure, “I promise you we’ll be able to do it.” After the explosion Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “It’s a tremendous opportunity to once and for all end the dependence on Russian energy.” Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland smugly said at a Senate hearing, “Senator Cruz, like you I am and I think the administration is very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now as you like to say, a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea.”

Hersh’s article was a sensation online when it was published on February 8, 2023 but it has been ignored by major corporate media ever since. One has to ask if it really happened when the New York Times, Washington Post and television networks ignore what ought to be a huge news story.

It isn’t hard to understand why the same individuals and institutions who act as state mouthpieces would want to sweep Hersh’s reporting under the rug. For months they have acted as scribes instead of as journalists. The days when they would compete to break a scoop that a president wanted covered up are long gone. They now go along with establishment narratives, and promote imperialism as much as the people they are tasked with covering and confronting. Not one person asked about Hersh’s revelations at the daily white house press briefing the day after it was published.

Not only have the media ignored what Hersh reported but Republicans who claim to oppose Biden and the Democrats have also been silent. There are impeachable offenses committed in Hersh’s account but the people who should be asking questions have demurred. Republicans were as eager as Democrats to end Nord Stream’s existence. The word collusion which was bandied about so much in recent years is apropos here and that means the Hersh story is now at the bottom of the sea politically.

Biden is the fox in charge of the hen house, preparing to ask congress for the biggest defense budget in history, in large part to replenish the weapons used in Ukraine. The people who are asked to accept austerity for themselves are largely ignorant of how the conflict started and why their money is used for every purpose except for those that benefit them.

The Nord Stream sabotage is not the only news story which has been deep sized. The decision to sabotage Nord Stream was very reckless, and a sign that Biden and his team are willing to risk a wider war in order to do what they cannot, weaken Russia or get Vladimir Putin out of office, or destroy Russia economically. At the very moment that people in this country need to know the hard truth, it is being kept from them.

So complete is the indoctrination that Biden’s obvious instability is never discussed, even when the public see it for themselves unfiltered. At the State of the Union address he made this odd remark, “Name me a world leader who’d change places with Xi Jinping! Name me one! Name me one!” The strange outburst was never given the attention that it deserved.

The media are behaving in a manner that violates their own ethics and that may in fact be criminal. Lest anyone forget, the post-World War II Nuremberg trials charged the German press with committing “propaganda as an instrument of war.” Now in the nuclear age the media in what is known as the “collective west” are acting in a similar fashion, covering up crimes and repeating lies as truth in the name of making and continuing war.

The Biden administration did sabotage Nord Stream whether the media say so or not. Their lack of attention doesn’t change facts, but it does disappear them and that is incredibly dangerous to the entire world.

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Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents. You can support her work on Patreon  and also find it on the Twitter  and Telegram  platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley(at)blackagendareport.com.

Featured image: “The Norwegian navy was quick to find the right spot, in the shallow water a few miles off Denmark’s Bornholm Island” (Image: Seymour Hersh Substack)

Norway’s Atonement for Nord Stream Sabotage

February 20th, 2023 by M. K. Bhadrakumar

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***

The meeting of the defence ministers of the Pentagon’s Ukraine Defence Contact Group in the “Ramstein” format in Brussels on January 14 failed to make any major announcement on the supply of offensive weapons to Kiev.

But the US President Joe Biden is expected in Poland early next week and may have another face-to-face meeting with Ukraine President Vladimir Zelensky. Biden probably intends to make a splash before declaring his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.

The Biden Administration hopes to push Germany to the war front in Ukraine but the meeting in Brussels ended up inconclusively. Later, the press conference by the US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin had an air of vacuity, of empty-headedness, devoid of content.

Against this murky backdrop, all that the NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg would say was that the supply of military aircraft to Ukraine is being discussed, but this is not an urgent problem. According to him, the current conflict is a “struggle of logistics” and ammunition, so the alliance needs not so much to provide Ukraine with new weapons, as to make sure that everything that has already been delivered works. Stoltenberg stressed the need to deliver on the promises regarding German Marder infantry fighting vehicles, American Bradley, as well as Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks. 

The single biggest announcement by Austin on Tuesday was about a decision by the Norwegian government that it will provide 7.5 billion euros in military and civilian assistance to Ukraine over the coming five years. He called it “a very significant commitment.” 

Austin pretended it never occurred to him why Norway is making such a grand gesture, which is in reality a pathetic act of atonement for destroying the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Therein hangs a tale. 

Of course, the Ramstein meeting did not discuss the bombshell report by Seymour Hersh, an investigative journalist with a track record of breaking major stories, on how the US reduced Germany’s Nord Stream gas pipelines to “a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea” — to borrow the immortal words of Victoria Nuland, US Undersecretary of State — as the conflict in Ukraine was raging.  

According to Hersh’s source, the decision to sabotage the pipeline came directly from President Biden and the subsequent top secret debate within the US administration lasting some 9 months was on how to achieve the goal without getting caught.

Hersh’s report on February 8 disclosed wrote that it was the Norwegian navy which finally found the optimal location for blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. Thus, on September 26, 2022, a Norwegian Navy P8 surveillance plane dropped a sonar buoy in a seemingly routine flight, triggering high-powered C4 explosives that had been planted on the pipelines.

Hersh has since explained to the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung that Norway was particularly interested in successfully pulling off the plot against the Nord Stream pipelines. 

In his words,

“Norway was interested in income growth, and hence in increasing the volume of its energy supplies to the EU, to the same Germany. And what do we see after the mission? Norway has made it. It’s (energy) exports grew against the backdrop of significant hostility towards Russia.” 

Norway was attracted to Biden’s sabotage project like a fly to the honeypot, since it stood to gain fabulously in financial terms if it helped the US military to destroy Nord Stream pipelines near Danish waters, and replace Russia as Germany’s principal source of piped natural gas. 

To be sure, Norway has made a kill. The loot is estimated to be worth over $100 billion so far! Norway supplied 33 percent of Germany’s gas needs in 2022, making it the country’s largest supplier. 

Experts estimate that

“Norway’s position as a key provider of energy to Germany is set to further increase in the years to come, including from new Arctic fields coming on line and new discoveries above the Arctic Circle… Expanded production above the Arctic Circle, arriving from the Irpa field 340 km west of Bodø scheduled to come online in 2026, as well as new discoveries in the Barents Sea including one made in 2022 adjacent to Goliat, will be key to maintaining peak production.

“With Germany largely disconnected from Russian pipeline gas, the door for Norway to further expand its market share and establish itself as the country’s primary gas supplier remains open.”

Ironically, at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in August 2022, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre claimed that “Norway delivers as much gas as possible to Germany.” Of course, what he didn’t tell Scholz was that Norway was about to execute a project to transform Germany, Europe’s largest consumer of natural gas, as a captive market for it very soon. Actually, Norway blew up the Nord Stream pipelines only a month later on September 22. 

Norway is now burnishing its image as a rich country capable of the milk of human kindness, which is generously sharing a whopping 7.5 billion euros (out of the windfall profit of $100 billion from the German loot) with Ukraine. And Austin announces it as a grand gesture to thwart Russian “aggression”!

This sordid pantomime provokes an incredulous gasp. One cannot but take pity on the German nation which is saddled in these tumultuous times with a mediocre government of inexperienced, dubious politicians who dare not defend their country’s core interests against American bullying. 

The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was spot on when he spoke at length for the first time about the Nord Stream pipelines and Seymour Hersh’s article at a working meeting on February 15 with heads of foreign media bureaus accredited in Russia: 

“The main goal was to prevent Germany from feeling comfortable in the energy sphere and from receiving gas via these two pipelines, which were financed by companies in Russia, Germany, Austria and Italy… Germany has not simply been humiliated; it has been put in its place as a satellite of the United States…” 

Norway is not squeamish about giving away a tiny portion of its loot from Germany, a NATO partner Germany. Maybe, it is indulging in an act of atonement over a fiendish crime perpetrated on a neighbour and ally. Maybe, the Biden team urged Norway to burnish its credentials as a Good Samaritan. And Austin hailed it as a solid outcome of the Ramstein meeting at Brussels.  

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Featured image is from Seymour Hersh

The End of Excesses. The Collapse of Everything

February 20th, 2023 by Peter Koenig

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***

As physiology, the science of life, has proven many times, all things, when driven to the limits of excess – and beyond – will collapse. History is living proof. Empires of the past disappeared because of greed for power and possession had no limits.

It looks like we are reaching this point now quickly. This time on a worldwide basis. The western empire, led by Anglosaxonia, is intent on becoming a globalist One World Order (OWO). For that purpose, Mother Earth is literally being weaponized.

This is clearly ignoring the limits of reason, the limits of nature – it enters the realm of criminal excesses and beyond. Those who respect no limits, drive the limits of reason further and further into the field of excesses, are accelerating the process of collapse. But they don’t know it. They are drunk by their exuberance of limitless arrogance and accumulation of power and goods. 

Technology that could be used for the good of mankind is in the hands of a diabolical clan. You may call it the “Death Cult”. In the past, empires had control over limited areas within parts of the world, expanding them, their intent of limitless expansion reached the level of Excesses and eventually their collapse. The Roman Empire is a typical example.

Today control over 193 UN member states (194 for WHO) has been prepared for maybe as long as 100 years or more. What used to be the United Nations (UN), the purveyor of peace, has been compromised and corrupted by those in power. We are talking about invisible corporate finance and people, way above the WEF, WHO, FED, the European Union, the entire UN system — with unfathomable and ill-gotten wealth that can “buy”, blackmail or “else”, literally everything, at their will.

Excessive greed, controlling “War and Peace”, creating “Killing Fields” is reaching a breaking point.

The commanding masters may appear shiny and legal, when visible, but are dark and sinister, when underground.

A reminder of this cult may be the lyrics of the 1977 Eagles song, “Hotel California”. See/listen to this.

The UN has become subordinate to the World Economic Forum, in fact it executes the WEF’s orders and is slated to become the de facto “puppet” government in a potentially new One World Order (OWO. “Potentially” is the operative word. There is still time for Us, the People, to renege.

There is time to start afresh – yes, exit the current system, the matrix, and start on a clean slate, following the principles of German-born British economist, Ernst Friedrich Schumacher, “Small is Beautiful”.

Essentially it means in today’s world,

“local production for local consumption, with local money, administered by local public banking systems – and trading to the extent possible with neighboring and / or likeminded societies.”

What Henry Kissinger said some 50 years ago is today more valid than ever:

“Who controls the food supply, controls the people; who controls the energy, can control whole continents; who controls money, can control the world.”

Today you may add:

“Who controls the weather and climate, controls the entire Planet Earth, people, food, energy, money and Nature.”

We have reached this Excess moment, where the powers that be may control the weather and call it climate change, so that people continue believing that they are responsible with their environmental footprint – “man-made fossil fuel-based CO2 emissions” – of ruining Mother Earth.

Therefore, they must be punished, with absolute control, with “sanctioning”, say, punishment if they do not behave according to an imposed set of values of the New World Order (NOW – identical to OWO).

Absolute technologies” with no limits to excesses have been quietly developed over the past 50 to 100 years or more, while we were asleep or duped to believe that climate change will wipe us out if we do not abandon the use of hydrocarbons; almost the only source of energy (close to 90%) that has allowed humankind to develop, to industrialize, to overall improve our standard of living but also to accumulate insane riches – excesses beyond reason.

Excesses today at the breaking point; a collapse or collapses are imminent.

Putting hydrocarbons (oil, gas and coal) into context – today they still provide the basis for about 85% of all energy used, not much different from some 20 to 30 years ago when they accounted for about 90% of total energy use. Yet, with this “dirty” energy, man-made CO2 amounts to less than 0.5% of all CO2 – most of CO2 is emitted by the seas and the soil.

CO2 is a vital gas, without it, no life exists on earth. CO2 is absorbed by plants, by rain forests around the globe – which, in turn, release oxygen, the lifeblood of all sentient beings. By excessive and corrupted media power, our compromised western governments dupe us into believing otherwise.

Back to “absolute technologies”, HAARP is one of them. We are referring to Environmental Modification Techniques. HAARP stands for High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program. (closed down in Gakona Alaska, 2014, possibly transferred to another location).  

Not only can these Environmental Modification Techniques (eg. HAARP) produce deadly hurricanes, freezing winters, dry and crop destroying heat waves and similarly excessively flooding – all destructive rains, but HAARP can also produce fatal all-devastating earthquakes.

While there is no solid proof, the issue must be raised: Were Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD) (eg. HAARP) applied in the recent Turkey-Syria earthquake that hit south-eastern Turkey, close to the Syrian border, in the early morning hours of 6 February 2023, with three major shockwaves within less than 12 hours – main tremor of 7.8 Richter, followed by 6.5 and 7.5 quakes. As of this writing, more than 36,000 people died, and more than 500,000 were injured. See this for more details.

HAARP technology might also be used to melt polar ice and flood continents to an unrecognizable level of destruction of life, infrastructure, food – everything. See this from TeleSUR.

It is the WEF’s, Globalists’ and UN Agenda’s 2030 unabashed plan to abolish the old and rebuild a new world with a vastly reduced World population towards a neo-fascist system of “Global Governance”), where other than the reigning elite, survivors own nothing but are happy.

Such “excesses” may be technically possible but will not materialize.

The excesses of control and obedience – obeying would not stop by following orders, but your thoughts are not allowed to sway from the given principles – no freedom of thought. No aspiration of “freedom”.

Mind control technology has existed for many years. It was a DARPA-developed program, also called “MK-Ultra”. DARPA is a semi-secret Pentagon think-tank. It stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Mind control was discussed in a special session at the 2023 WEF in Davos. But the discussion went way beyond mind-control. Duke University Professor Nita Farahany discussed and described the current state of mind-monitoring technology.

The WEF and its masters foresee a future where people’s thoughts can be controlled – and depending on how they fit into the Matrix’s dictate, the bearer of “unacceptable” thoughts may be punished. See this.

These are excesses beyond tolerance of the master mind of life science, or physiology.

They will not come to fruition but it’s important to know that apparently technology for such excesses exist.

The unbelievable excesses of America waging war against her closest ally, Europe. America is at war with Europesee this.

At the outset, Europe is America’s closest ally, but also her most powerful vassal – 450 million people, as compared to the 330,000 US inhabitants; and a GDP that threatens to overtake the faltering US economy.

To combat this for decades lingering and growing threat to the US of A, the European economy must be destroyed. And it is happening with the full participation of the European governments, to the detriment of the European people and most of these people are still under the illusion their governments are trustworthy and would never do what they are doing – help America destroy their livelihoods.

In amazing detail, US journalist Seymour Hersh describes – based on insider information – How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline which happened in September 2022; about seven months after the start of Russia’s Special Operation in Ukraine, after at least eight years of endless NATO and EU provocation. See this.

Supposedly this act of state terror, or outright Act of War, was a reaction to what in the western mainstream lie-jargon is called the Russian invasion of Ukraine and was meant to punish Russia by preventing them from further selling “cheap” gas to Europe, thus fueling Europe’s competitive economy.

Map of Nord Stream 1 and 2 (Source: The Unz Review)

But Hersh’s account omits some important details. Ordered by Washington, Germany had canceled finalizing Nord Stream Pipeline 2 way before the undersea gas-ducts were blown up. At that time, international gas prices rose by 8%, since the world at large was thirsty for the now “freed” Russian gas. So, Russia had no shortage of demand.

On the other hand, Europe, whose economy depends up to 40% on Russian gas, was set de facto on a course of massive de-industrialization. Sort of an economic suicide? Yes, indeed, and this is because it happened with full knowledge of the EU leadership (sic).

This “leadership” almost throughout all EU countries consists of scholars from Klaus Schwab’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) “Academy”:

We are proud having been able to infiltrate with our YGLs governments around the world”, Klaus Schwab’s recent words.

German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, also a Schwab scholar, knew way in advance about the planned blow-up of the Nord Stream Pipelines.

In fact he was in Washington on an official visit to the US in early February, 2022, when President Biden made the announcement at a Press Conference that a sabotage was envisaged. That decision was formally endorsed by Chancellor Scholz:

“As I’ve already said [Scholz], we are acting together, we are absolutely united, and we will not be taking different stepsWe will do the same steps”

What happened in Washington was a:

“a de facto “bilateral understanding” between U.S. President Biden and Germany’s Chancellor Scholz reached in Washington on February 7, 2022 to proceed with the act of sabotage of Nord Stream 2.”  

And so did Ursula von der Leyen, unelected President of the EU Commission in Brussels, who is also a member of the WEF’s Board of Trustees.

Scholz, von der Leyen, and most likely more EU key politicians, gave their consent to Washington’s Nord Stream 1 and 2 destruction. But it was not brought to the attention of German and EU citizens.

Why not?

And why did Sy Hersh not mention it in his otherwise well-covered article? The integrity of  Scholz, von der Leyen et al? was not questioned.

See the carefully documented analysis and critique by Mike Whitney.

The Participation of Europe’s “Classe Politique” in this crime against people is beyond words.

The falsehood of Europe, of European politicians has no name.

Their collective and constant lying and betrayal of half a billion people, plus an economy that is linked to another 2.5 – 3 billion people, thus affecting the lives of these people, is way beyond anything that could simply be called betrayal.

Will these horrendous “excesses” ever be punished?

The collapse of the western system may be the punishment.

And the innocent European people, who will suffer?

Are they really so innocent?

Haven’t they known all along that something is wrong, that they are being cheated?

But out of comfort and for the love of easy life they have let it go – ever more and more?

The size of this monstrosity may be way beyond conventional punishment but falls into the category of those seemingly boundless excesses, that may help trigger a collapse.

A system’s collapse in favor of the people?

In favor of the people, only if, We the People, finally grab the opportunity as awakened, responsible humans to carry our history forward in an ascent to a higher consciousness. A new beginning, but not à la WEF-Reset, but rather waking up to the “new” reality of people-betraying governments around the globe, an awakening to the threatening tyranny envisaged by these governments, led by the WEF and its masters, to enslave us all.

We can still stop it.

By not playing along; by starting alternative societies, à la “Small is Beautiful” – see above.

There are the tremendous Covid excesses

A fear-farse prepared well in advance, already in the making for at least half a century, described in the 2010 Rockefeller Report with the first phase called “The Lockstep Scenario”, followed by many secret preparatory meetings under the wings of WHO; then the Event 201, of October 2019 in NYC – a desktop simulation of the corona “outbreak” that was to follow a couple of months later.

Image is from The Expose

Worldwide, all 193 UN member countries (194 WHO), simultaneously were ordered in lockstep – to the detriment of a fear-trembling world population – into lockdowns, mask wearing, social distancing. There was no way out, as the entire world was under the spell of the Death Cult.

The fake Covid plague was followed by an equally false but deadly mRNA, DNA-altering vaxx drive, an experimental craze of utter submission, blackmail, coercion and the severest punishment for those who opted out. Discrimination, Apartheid style – the non-vaxxed were not allowed to enter restaurants, theatres and public spaces in general.

Worldwide about 70% of population were vaxxed – different types of experimental injections, with different injury and death results, including aggressive cancers attacking reproductive organs, infertility, massive birthrate reduction, myocarditis, heart failures and sudden deaths.

A perfect depopulation agenda. As of today, many people do not see it, or do not want to see it, out of fear, or simply as denial of their own failure of ignoring the writing on the wall?

Today, hardly two years into the vaxx drive most western countries see massive excess death statistics. In 2020, the first year of propagated “heavy outbreaks” of Covid, death statistics were not only stable, but in some countries, they were lower than in 2017, a year of severe flu.

By 2022, the second year into vaccination, excess deaths on account of the toxic jabs are amounting from 15% to 25% per country, or more. According to Dr. Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer VP and Chief Science Officer, this is only the beginning. Heavy dying may occur 3-5 years into vaxxing, or between 5 to 10 years after receiving up to 3 or 4 boosters, each one drastically reducing human immunity.

So, vaxxed people will become vulnerable to many diseases which would have been discarded with a well-functioning immune system.

These excesses of biblical proportions have brought about a worldwide economic collapse – differing between the global north and the global south, leading to poverty, famine, diseases and death.

The US / NATO / Ukraine War against Russia – is so full of Excesses and western political lies – the world has not experienced since at least the onset of WWI in 1914, when a war against Germany was promoted “to make the world safe and ready for Democracy”, when in reality WWI was to safe the collapsing US banking system, and to have Germany fight against Russia, then as now, the world’s by far largest and resources richest country, riches the west coveted then as now, for its unabashed profit-driven “development”, serving then as now an exquisite self-nominated elite, mostly linked to banking.

Today, since 24 February 2022, the US and her European vassals and NATO are fighting a proxy war against Russia for the same reasons as the impetus of WW I and WW II – fracturing the huge Russian landmass for control and for grabbing Russia’s resources.

The amounts of money and weapons sent to the corrupt Ukrainian leader, Zelenskyy, is insane. In total as of last count some US$ 115 billion equivalent in less than a year, equal to about a third of Ukraine’s GDP in 2022 (US$ 347 billion). More than two thirds of the funds – so called budget support? – and weaponry comes from the US, the rest mostly from Europe and other countries of the Anglo-saxon Empire.

Most of the “transfers” flow right back into the accounts of the US Military Industrial Complex – and corrupt politicians, on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ukraine – arguably one of the world’s most corrupt countries – has neither the capacity to absorb the money or to use the weaponry since there are no trained military personnel to operate them. So, easily two thirds if not more, of all the weapons delivered to Ukraine end up on the black market. All the “allies” of this nonsensical, criminal killing exercise know it. Yet, they continue this absurd war game to the detriment of the Ukrainian people, pushing to the brink of risking a potentially nuclear World War.

There are absolutely no criteria, no targets, no strategies, for these weapon deliveries, none whatsoever. They are supplied, while the Ukrainian people are killed in masses – not by Russian military, because President Putin is applying an ethical principle: Avoid destroying Ukrainian lives and infrastructure to the extent possible – but by their own Ukrainian army, so they can blame the annihilation and deaths on Russia, as Zelenskyy knows, that’s what the western media are reporting.

Those who are not killed by weapons, or famine, or disease, are suffering untold misery, and / or flee their homeland, for Russia and western Europe. The Ukrainian population in 2021 was about 44 million. Today’s estimates range from 35 to 37 million.

Still, the west continues to propagate hatred against Russia, make the rest of the world believe that “evil Putin” will soon succumb.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, yet the propaganda and lie-western-media keep bulldozing the same fake news into western minds.

For an accurate and strategic account of the situation in Ukraine, see this sobering interview with (former) US Col. Douglas MacGregor.

These unforgiven excesses will, no doubt, backfire.

*

Just in, on 14 February 2023…..

An act of ecological terrorism has been carried out in Ohio, USA as “authorities” set fire to as many as ten derailed train cars carrying highly toxic vinyl chloride (and other chemicals), unleashing a massive plume of chemical-laden smoke that exploded into the skies and spread for hundreds of square miles.

The mainstream media up to now provides little coverage of the “incidence”, or rather act of terror. They call it a “controlled burn” which is absurd. No professional chemist would put highly toxic chemicals on fire in an open field and disperse the byproducts of combustion into the skies, thereby setting off a chemical gas bomb.

The spinoff of this combustion includes hydrogen chloride, which almost instantly connects to water molecules from the humidity in the atmosphere, creating Hydrochloric Acid (HCl), a highly toxic acid that burns lungs, flesh and even fish gills when absorbed into water. A mass kill event affecting fish, wildlife, chickens and pets is being reported by citizens in the area.

See full report below.

Today’s world of absurd and untenable excesses

It is part of planned and “legalized” lawlessness – of which most of the world’s population is not aware of.

In preparation of the Great Reset and Agenda 2030 – the atrocities that need to be committed during this awful decade, called by WHO the Decade of the Vaccinations – most western countries have quietly abandoned their nation-state status of Republics and registered themselves as Corporations.

As corporations, their countries’ Constitutions and all the laws within the Constitutional framework do no longer apply. That’s why they can do what they do; that’s why no court of law will accept any claim against their crimes, and that’s why they get away with murder, literally.

It’s hard to believe but see this brilliant master talk video (43 min. on Kla.TV), by Dr. Astrid Stueckelberger, former WHO scientist, who talks about the planned WHO health tyranny and other matters. At about minute 8 into the video, Dr. Stueckelberger mentions the corporatization of western countries. See this. It is more than well-worth listening to the entire, extremely interesting and revealing video.

Click screen to access video

 

 

Going back to the beginning – physiology – the science of life – is a dynamic living process, constantly moving irrespective of linear inputs and planned projections.

A cardinal rule of physiology is to protect life as miniscule as microbes and as gigantic as Mother Earth herself.

Therefore, excesses, the way described above – and there are multitudes more going on, as these lines are written – will naturally lead to a collapse of the system – for life’s and Mother Earth’s self-preservation.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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.

Featured image is from  Adobe Stock

Crisis in Intelligence and the Way Forward

February 19th, 2023 by Emanuel Pastreich

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***

This article was originally published on Korea IT Times on November 4, 2021.

1. Making the Information Crisis into an Opportunity for Brave Reform

The crisis in intelligence in the United States has reached an extreme today as the multitude of contractors that feed on massive, and often obscure, budget, clamor to be fed without any concern for the long-term interests of the citizens of the United States, the constitution that defines that nation, or the security of our brittle planet.

The question of what to do, however, is not so simple.

No matter how much intelligence agencies are maligned or rebuffed, it is a fact that the covert gathering of information by governments, corporations, and other organizations has gone on for thousands of years and, granted human nature, will continue to be a reality in the future. The process can be regulated, to a certain degree, and it can be given a higher purpose, but it cannot be eliminated.

But the current situation is unsustainable and dangerous. The commercialized exaggeration of the term “intelligence” so as to extend into the field of human experience has distorted and diluted its meaning. Both creating deep misunderstandings when it is applied inappropriately and suggesting that anyone and his uncle can engage in intelligence.

Sadly, although there were remarkable figures in intelligence in the United States who have stood up for the accurate and scientific analysis in intelligence and who have opposed the abuse of authority by intelligence agencies for profit, (some going to jail, most simply disappearing into obscurity), such moral commitment has declined perspicaciously over the last decade.

The entire intelligence community has been radically privatized so that those in senior positions merely oversee the granting of contracts to contractors and have little sense of camaraderie with others engaged in a global battle for the wellbeing of our citizens.

Intelligence agencies that once played a critical role in keeping politicians and other government officials, up to date on the true threats facing the nation, have been carved up by jackals and hyenas working for multinational corporations.

Essential analysis has been outsourced over the last two years to Facebook, Google, Amazon, Oracle, and other multinational corporations that cannot be said to be “American” in any sense of the world. These lumbering leviathans are owned by banks and private equity funds around the world, many of which are happy to sell short the United States at any time.

The result? The entire intelligence community has been transformed into an appendage of big tech that abuses the authority of the Federal Government to advance the corporate agendas of these monopolies.

Not everyone is in on this game. Some bravely fight against the silent takeover. Nor is this battle entirely new. Terrible internal conflicts have wracked the intelligence community before—often completely unknown to the man in the street.

But this destruction of “intelligence” is far more serious and must have been in the context of the greater act of menticide, the murder of the human mind, undertaken against all American citizens by shadowy multinational finance.

Whether it is journalism or education, entertainment or advertisement, the goal is to reduce us to instinctive animals that are incapable of anything but a desire for food, sex, and superficial distractions.

The conspiracy channels would have you believe that it is intelligence agencies that are driving this war on the citizens. This interpretation, although not entirely without basis, is a serious misunderstanding.

Although intelligence agencies have always had corrupt elements happy to do the bidding of the powerful, they have also had pockets of the brave and the committee who have the technical and geopolitical understanding and the training that allows them to stand up when professors, NGO leaders, and politicians hide in fear.

The evidence of criminality within intelligence agencies is overwhelming, but the ultimate source of those orders remains obscure. The massive privatization of intelligence means that the line between government, corporations, and organized crime are blurred, or completely disappears. Sadly, the super-rich is able to misuse these organizations and then redirect all blame to the CIA.

The breakdown of intelligence is taking place at precisely the moment that we desperately need a system that can assure the integrity of information in the United States, and around the world, for our citizens.

This intelligence crisis is taking place at the moment that we must assure that those in positions of authority have access to accurate scientific information, not distorted commercial media, or the slick brochures of lobbyists and persuaders.

We have an obligation in intelligence reform the citizens of the United States and to the scientific truth. We have no obligation to conform to corrupt practices in Washington, D.C. that are accepted as reality.

2. Intelligence and the Crisis in Governance

Professors and researchers, ethically committed citizens and journalists, should lead the charge in the search for scientifically verified information that will serve as the foundation for ethical governance. At the same time, we must recognize that the search for scientific truth is not a democratic process. If we are voting on the truth, treating all opinions as equal on Capitol Hill, then we are no longer engaged in ethical governance and democracy is impossible.

It would be the best tit we could limit the role of intelligence agencies to specific intelligence-gathering missions in the diplomatic and security fields, and to small-scale counter-intelligence operations. We should cut back the massive bureaucracy that benefits from creating, and expanding, problems, and create a small focused group of experts.

That vision, often articulated by experts, is not readily available to us today.

First, the intelligence apparatus has grown so bloated over the last twenty years as a result of the deliberate misinterpretation of the legitimate imperative to respond to the vast implications of the information revolution. We must recognize that the sprawling fields of intelligence subcontractors that surround the CIA, NSA, and now most branches of the Federal Government, will not simply disappear by magic. A complex transformation must take place in which new roles are established and a new institutional culture put in place that holds up high ethical principles, not the pursuit of budgets for private profit.

Moreover, the simple pursuit of truth in the post COVID-19 era is a matter of life and death.

The level of risk involved in speaking the truth in the face of multinational corporations and other shadowy organizations that defend the interests of the global rich is far too much for the timid likes of professors, journalists, and other researchers to take on.

If it were not for the support (often hidden or tacit) of those in intelligence agencies, the hard-hitting alternative media would have been suppressed long ago.

Thus intelligence, a combination of the capacity to gather and analyze information, to promote a perspective even the most hostile environments, and to take action to respond to threats (real or perceived), is what makes these agencies so dangerous and at the same time so necessary in the face of the massive degradation of information taking place today around the world.

The above intelligence capabilities have often been employed by the rich and powerful to suppress alternative views and enhance their influence. That part of the story is well known. The manner in which intelligence agencies have used these three capabilities to defend people is virtually unknown. Yet that is precisely the role that is demanded by today’s crisis.

Reforming intelligence into a reliable and ethically committed institution that addresses directly the misuse of information by techno-tyrants is made even more difficult by the burgeoning conspiracy industry.

When I use the term “conspiracy industry,” am not assuming, as some would, that the various conspiracies discussed on the alternative media are specious and unfounded. There are numerous conspiracies that have taken place or are taking place, around the globe. Any intelligence professional must first accept the remarkable depravity of humans and accept that the battle for a better world requires us to pick our fights.

The conspiracy industry, however, often promoted by corrupt branches of the intelligence community, combines real evidence of the crimes by the global elite with fantastic, or exaggerated, narratives about Satanism, devil worship, Chinese and Jewish conspiracies for global domination, and other tales in a manner that misleads citizens as to the real interest groups behind these conspiracies and also makes it possible for authority figures to dismiss real evidence because those presenting it also talk about UFOs and the Second Coming.

In an age in which you can easily lose your life trying to speak the truth (inside government or outside government), we need strong organizations, let us call them intelligence agencies, with the slap-down capacity, which protect those investigating the truth. Only if the search for truth has a real backbone can it serve as a compass in the cloud of information chaos.

The fact that many of the intelligence experts have previously thought only about their paycheck and consulting contracts should not discourage us concerning the potential for transformation. Profound crisis, such as we face today, makes such transformation possible.

We must start by turning back the privatization of intelligence. We have seen an exponential increase in this trend over the last five years, a shift that can be traced back to the weakening of intelligence organizations after the Vice President’s directives for privatization as an effort to crush resistance to that regime within the intelligence community.

I was shocked when a friend recently sent me postings for job openings in North Korean intelligence analysis at Facebook, Amazon, Oracle, and Microsoft. Positions that once had to be held by government officials on long-term contracts paid for by tax dollars are now controlled by multinational corporations loyal to short-term profits.

Suffice it to say that Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft are not American organizations. Their stock is owned by the global elite, from Paris to Moscow, from London to Beijing, and they make decisions based on their interests.

Moreover, major investment banks like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, which have also played a big role in the privatization of intelligence, have decided to sell the United States short as part of a strategy for reducing domestic resistance to tyranny by outsourcing American industry, that produces educated and self-sufficient individuals, to China, India or elsewhere. We need intelligence officers capable of standing up to multinational banks, not serving as cover for their nefarious plots and ruses.

We never want to see again a scam of the global elite pinned on the CIA while the real culprits celebrate in luxury.

3. The Impact of Technological Change on Intelligence

Part of the problem can be traced back to technological change and is not the result of the evil done by individuals. The exponential increase in the capacity of supercomputers in accord with Moore’s Law has created a tremendous capability to manipulate the decision-making process on a global scale and give undue power to the very few who control such supercomputers.

The small group of billionaires who control the best networks of supercomputers has become a shadow government that is above all the politicians we see on television.

Just as Gresham’s Law suggests that debased coinage will displace pure coinage in the economy as people start to hoard, the degraded information we are being fed by the media and by multinational corporations has displaced accurate information completely in our society, leaving citizens to try to make sense of the garbage that they are fed by the corporate media, universities and research institutes now bought and paid for by multinational banks, and celebrities cultivated by those same forces.

As Arthur C. Clark suggests in his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, technology is not simply a passive tool subject to the human will but is a force in itself that can determine human evolution and human thinking.

The exponential development of technology has created an environment in which new unprecedented risks are unleashed. The few can amass detailed information about all individuals in the world and also control the information that is presented to the citizens so as dumb-down the population (making democratic process impossible) and to slowly reduce us to slavery. The Constitution ceases to be of meaning in that process and the government becomes tyranny.

This process is already well underway in the United States, and the super-rich who are pushing the buttons follow the strategies of menticide outlined by Joost Meerloo in his classic study The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control, Menticide, and Brainwashing (1957).

Government is not prepared to respond to the radical degradation of, and manipulation of, information that underlies the true information warfare we witness today. We are not talking about Chinese spies who steal secrets, but rather multinational equity funds (including Chinese and Russians, but also Japanese and Americans) that intend to destroy the capacity of citizens to think for themselves.

Government is the first victim of the systematic manipulation of information by global technology tyrants. In fact, the tyrants who have launched this world war like to hide behind the façade of government and to attribute their evil acts to government officials.

The intellectual response to this global takeover may come from journalists, university professors, community groups and other activists. But they are easily intimidated and cannot formulate the strategies for global information warfare.

As dangerous as it may be to turn to intelligence agencies in response to this global assault, we are left with no choice.

The critical point, the decisive aspect, of the proposed reforms, is severing the connection between global finance and intelligence and then creating out of the parts of the intelligence community a powerful force, like the Army of the Potomac, that adheres to the Constitution, creating a group of patriots devoted to the interests of the citizens, to the true, and to principles of the Constitution.

To be specific, that means that the CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI and other organizations must be taken back by citizens of the United States, transformed into organizations that not only do not report to Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Vanguard—or to the superrich who lurk behind those organizations, but that are capable of frustrating, or even facilitating the arrest and prosecution of the heads of these organizations.

We know for a fact that normal courts do not have the spine, or the global structures, necessary to take on these global forces that claim to control wealth beyond that of most nation-states.

Once the sections of the intelligence community that is not hopelessly infected with the cancer of global finance are able to rally, they must first assert that they are the government, not the appendages of global finance and that they are empowered by the Constitution to use their awesome power to defend the citizens against slavery by technology, much as Abraham Lincoln did in 1860.

4. Defending the Intelligence of the Citizen at Home and Abroad

If we think more deeply about the future of intelligence in the United States, we are led to the inevitable conclusion that part of our role will be to defend “intelligence” in the other sense of the word: the capacity of citizens to think for themselves so as to play their sacred role according to the Constitution.

Although we have been so overwhelmed as to be unable to formulate our position, the current trend of “menticide” directed against citizens by the globally integrated AI systems controlled by the super-rich is an attack on the Constitution, and by extension, on the United States.

That is to say that a new role of intelligence must be to defend the ability of citizens to think, to serve citizens, and not to have their minds destroyed by pornography, video games, addictive apps, and the manipulative social media employed by dark forces to reduce them to passivity.

We must formulate a national and a global system to assure the accuracy of the information and to prevent its abuse that allows us to create a space for a regulated and public system for the control of information for the benefit of citizens that does not belong exclusively to multinational corporations, or to the rich. Current efforts funded by multinational corporations, directly or indirectly, to assert what is fake news have no legitimacy.

The question will be whether we can create, out of the ashes, new intelligence institutions that are “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Journalism will be a major part of this effort. The degradation of journalism over the last twenty years has been one of the most severe threats to national security. Much journalism today is a matter of opinion, with no application of the scientific method, no opportunity for alternative opinions, or for honest debate. Arguing that human activity does not impact the climate, that the Earth is flat, or that the Biden administration is Communist are allowed to pass without any scientific analysis.

The obvious answer for many is to intelligence out of journalism and to allow for a free press that is not force-feeding citizens the agenda of multinational corporations. Many citizens have rightfully demanded such actions and advanced powerful arguments for an end to this media puppet show.

There is another vision that deserves to be taken seriously, even if it seems counterintuitive at first glance. That is to argue that reformed intelligence agencies that represent the citizens and the Constitution should play a central role in the rebuilding of journalism in the United States and defending journalists.

Those who argue that intelligence should simply leave journalism alone are hopelessly naïve. Although it is certainly true that the influence of big money on intelligence, and on journalism, must be ended, we find ourselves in the midst of a hot information war on a global scale. Things may look peaceful for those sipping lattes at Starbucks, it is increasingly common for journalists who touch on sensitive topics to be threatened, or killed, around the world.

If we want to have journalism that presents accurate information in such a state of war, we must protect journalists and journals and make sure that they develop so as to fulfill their constitutional role.

In the current situation, it is necessary rather to rethink intelligence as a force that can fight for the integrity of information, and this transformation is possible.

It is not without risks, but nothing in war is without risks.

5. Moving Forward with True Intelligence Reform

We need to step back and take a new view of what the true challenges for the United States, its citizens, and the citizens of the Earth, are in this age of unprecedented technological change. We need to assure that that the United States has government agencies that provide the most accurate information possible to its lawmakers and to its citizens and that assures that the information in circulation is reliable. Such an institution does not exist now, even though it is desperately needed.

Such an institution can easily degenerate into a “Ministry of Truth” that suppresses the truth on behalf of the powerful. It does not have to follow that route, however.

In this age of fake news and massive mental manipulation, our citizens are subjected constantly to distorted information that are produced by the rich and powerful. The intelligence community which could protect them is assigned to an entirely different task and there is no other powerful institution to protect them.

The result is information anomy. The Internet is rapidly decaying into a ruthless jungle. Newspapers and TV news have degenerated into propaganda mouths.

It is essential that our citizens have accurate and objective sources for information about the world that assures stability in government policy and that will end the reliance of government officials on sensationalist media, or corrupt lobbyists, for information and analysis. True intelligence reform is not just about improving methodologies and policies, but about establishing a new vision for a healthy information ecosystem that makes its role critical to the wellbeing of all citizens. If done well, intelligence will no longer be a dirty word in our society.

*

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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.

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First published on February 3, 2022

***

Black is beautiful. Blackness is goodness.

Have you ever noticed that most of the cars you see on city streets and highways are black? Some are white and shades of grey and silver in between? They represent about 90% or more of all car colors in the US and in Europe. You may find slightly more red, blue and yellow cars in Latin America, Asia and in Africa. But the trend is universal.

This is for a purpose. You are being primed to think in black and white and ultimately mostly in black, as white is gradually disappearing. An entire generation knows nothing else but “cars are black and white”. The proportion of black is overwhelming. And with limited choices and constantly being exposed to these limited same-same colors, people start thinking and liking black and white.

This has been going on for the last 20 to 30 years. And not only with car colors. Black has become a very popular fashion color. Household equipment comes in black. White and grey in between is gradually fading out. That’s a planned “coincidence”. At the beginning you had a choice between black, white and shades in between. Now the funnel is gradually closing in on black.

You have entire restaurants in black, apartments furnished in black. Radio, stereo, TV – sound equipment, all in black. There are black housefronts, black painted patios, black carpets and rugs. And more and more people dress in black.

Black is chic. Black is beautiful. Ever more so than white. Never mind that white is the divine color. It’s discarded. Outranked by black. Divine versus diabolical. The latter is gaining the upper hand.

Your mind is being directed to love black. Dark vibrations emanate from black. Sadness, despair, depressions are represented by darkness, blackness. Black inspires fear. Black is the antidote to joy. Black lowers your defenses, makes us vulnerable to negative vibes. Black is doomsday-ish. Black lowers our defenses. Black is a planned mindset of apocalyptic think. Black primes us for fear and submission, without we noticing.

There are even black beds. Imagine! You are sleeping in the darkness on a pedestal of underworld vibrations. How does that subtly influence your state of mind?  It’s part of a larger plan. A long-term plan; has been going on for at least two to three decades.

Black becomes integrated into our hearts and souls. We are to become a reflection of blackness. Black becomes you, and you become black. You become an integrated oneness with black. Thinking black, you cannot escape. It’s a Luciferan Cult, a cult of death.

The Tavistock Institute

Blackness and the belief in its goodness form the basis for much more to come – an open mind for societal manipulation.

Welcome to Tavistock: to the Tavistock Institute for Social Engineering of the Masses. It is based in Sussex, England, and describes itself as “a nonprofit charity that applies social sciences to contemporary issues and problems.” In reality, it applies highly sophisticated psycho-social sciences to numb and channel our minds.

The Tavistock Institute has a wide reach, working together with many US think tanks and social research institutes, including the Pentagon based semi-secret DARPA – Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency which serves as the central research and development organization of the Department of Defense. One of its sinister objectives is mind manipulation of individuals and collaborating with Tavistock on geoengineering populations at large.

We must be aware that our thoughts and think-process is ever more controlled, manipulated – loaded with fear to make us submissive. To learn more about Tavistock, see Tavistock Institute – Social Engineering of the Masses, by Daniel Estulin – available from Amazon and other internet bookstores:

“The Tavistock Institute, in Sussex, England, describes itself as a nonprofit charity that applies social science to contemporary issues and problems.

But this book by Daniel Estulin posits that it is the world’s center for mass brainwashing and social engineering activities. It grew from a somewhat crude beginning at Wellington House into a sophisticated organization that was to shape the destiny of the entire planet, and in the process, change the paradigm of modern society.” (Amazon)

Focusing on just a few “phenomena”, false truths, demonstrates how large segments of populations and entire societies are being manipulated. The main instruments for mass manipulation are always fear, followed by submission.

Fearful people submit much easier to authority than those with self-esteem and recognition of self-worth.*

Fashion and torn jeans

In case, you sometimes wonder why people may have a tendency to wear torn jeans, sometimes so miserably torn, they are lucky to hang on to the wearer’s legs. It looks ridiculous, but it’s in. Its fashion of the commons, of the masses. It’s again Orwell’s dystopian “ugly is beautiful and beautiful is ugly.”

Again, mind and mass manipulation – Tavistock and Co. – at their best. The same purpose as the beauty of blackness is behind training people towards what you may call “same-think”; another form of matrix thinking, promoting the blue-pill doctrine.

You may wonder, how can grown-up and well-educated people in unison love black and wear torn-jeans. It’s the promotion of the tramp-look, the NYC homeless-look. It’s hype and prevents you from thinking what’s going on in politics and why.

Pineal gland

All the while, your mind is being numbed with chemicals in the air and in the water. Fluoride, for example, in the water and in toothpaste is sold to you as protecting children’s teeth from cavities. In reality, it is one of the chemicals that numb your pineal gland, particularly important for children as the pineal gland develops human’s sensibility, sense for wrong and right, sense for ethics. See this.

Highly sophisticated science is behind it all. You wouldn’t guess, but the purpose of this long-term thinking and planning is to bring about a generation that has been funneled into a dystopian “system-think” mode. George Orwell’s foresight was brilliant. And it is being applied to the latter by the cabal.

Image on the right is from Hank Grebe / Getty Images

Pineal Gland: Anatomy, Location, and Function

Simultaneously with 24/7 nonstop intensive propaganda for whatever aberration is at the forefront, they – the “financial cabal: – have tools for killing the pineal gland. That’s the gland at the center of your brain (see picture on the right – origin “google”). The pineal gland regulates the perception of light – darkness, by creating N-acetylserotonin and melatonin. Melatonin has many therapeutic roles and is heavily implicated in the regulation of the sleep-wake cycle.

As such, the pineal gland is key for human sensitivity and senses. When the pineal gland is severely weakened, mind manipulation is even easier, as natural senses and sensibilities are neutralized.

It’s all part of a sophisticated long-term plan. And all of the strategic mechanisms are connected. Nothing is coincidence.

Another tool for mass manipulation with multiple effects, is the release of thousands of tiny chemical molecules and heavy metal particles (they are covered by hundreds if not thousands of patents) by airplanes into what is called chemtrails which, on the one hand are a key instrument for climate geoengineering, the man-made “climate change” (see below), and on the other, for weakening humans’ sensibility, to prime us, We, the People, for mass-manipulation.

COVID

Once people are tuned-in or primed for propaganda, they’ll react to everything they are told.

To make sure they do, though, there is this crucial element of “fear” added to the propaganda.

It works like medicine. First fear, then warning – then whatever hammer slams down on people’s freedom, is for “our own good”. – and it works.

Fear is THE instrument for mind control and societal geoengineering.

The false covid crisis is a recent mass “engineering” of opinions, actually of creating a “public opinion”. The fraud should have been clear from the outset. It was to a few but most didn’t realize what was happening. Sophisticated psychosocial science was applied. People were shocked with tyranny-type dictates of obligatory mask wearing, social distancing and lockdowns. They condemned the non-believers and created a chasm between the sheep and the snakes.

That too is part of the manipulation: dividing to govern. An axiom as old as human history.

Fear worked and still works. Now that the mask mandate is off across the globe, millions of people still wear the ugly face cover that makes of individuals anonymous nobodies.

Compliment of Tavistock and Co., and their influence around the world of perfected social science keeping people on their knees, obeying with fear of catching a deadly disease if they were infected. To make it all believable, the mass dying of covid was tricked by delaying normal burials of everyday from all-causes diseased people. Coffins accumulated. In some cases, in the streets – to cause fear and obedience.

If only we – the vast majority of the people – had eyes to see and ears to hear and a brain to think and seek out reason – we would have noticed that the perpetrators gave us many signals of their lies and of what was to come. But he geoengineering of the masses was done well.

When waking up finally started, it was too late. Even now, after two years of intense vaxx campaigns – see below – after injecting some 70% of the western population, in the Global North, the light has not yet penetrated every mind.

Event 201

On October 18, 2019, in New York City, Event 201 took place. A desktop simulation of precisely what was going to happen less than three months later, a corona virus outbreak. The event was sponsored by the visible villains of those appearing to command the world, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It had broad participation of all villains, who would have a future key role in cracking down on humanity, the World Bank, IMF, WHO, the entire UN system – and many more.

With the midnight gong of the beginning of the decade 2020-2030 (UN Agenda 2030), covid descended on all 193 UN member countries (194 WHO members).

All at once. Had people used their brains, just a tiny corner of their brains, they would have realized that it is impossible for a virus to hit the entire planet at once, meaning at once – the same day, the same hour. Common sense and sensibility had been killed along with the pineal gland, gradually and gently during decades before. So, the clever perpetrators got away with it, as planned.

On March 11, 2020, Dr. Tedros, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared covid a “pandemic” with only about 118,000 cumulative cases (PCR test) worldwide including China (the figure has never been questioned and checked) and some 4,200 deaths (including China). Nobody checked those figures either.

The number of confirmed cases outside China (6.4 billion population) was of the order of 44,279 and 1,440 deaths (figures recorded by the WHO for March 11 and March 12)

.

No evidence of a pandemic on March 11, 2020

Did people not notice that this was a fraud of global proportions?

Fear must have kept us down. Fear from contracting the disease (morbidly and mortality) that is – and second, fear from the authorities.

Just compare the covid data (even if it’s false, which it probably is) with the common flu claiming every year between 50 and 70 million cases in the US alone – covid (never really identified as a virus), is a flu-like affliction, with a mortality rate about the same as the flu, of 0.07%. The flue has never been declared a pandemic. Open eyes and open ears should have detected the fraud. Most didn’t. They fell in with the masses – in lockstep.

Fear, submission, repression

Social engineering and mind manipulation is what the world – all 193 UN member states (194 for WHO) has been exposed to over the past at least 100 years, with one finality – to control humanity, Mother Earths resources and to decide over who lives and who dies. “Death Cult” institutions, WHO, WEF, the entire UN system – are the instruments to carry out this diabolical plan on behalf of an occult elite.

It is All Connected 

And be always aware – it is all connected. Presenting each event in the media as a neural individual “problem”, or crisis, separately, so that people do not make the connection. If they do, they will understand.

Around mid-March 2020, a lockdown was ordered in lockstep – by almost all countries of the world. In the west it was police and even military enforced.

Many African countries took it less seriously. They questioned the wisdom of this regimented worldwide “lockstep-lockdown” regime. Governments worldwide had been “primed” before. So, We, the People, should have noticed that all of this is a scam, and that our leaders (sic) are all traitors.

Governments – their leaders – remain traitors of the people they are supposed to to serve. They are traitors up to this very day. Take note.

Tavistock and Co know that, but they also know that people are generally beholden to their governments, that they would never suspect that they are cheated by their governments – actually in many cases driven to their death by their government. It’s hard to admit to oneself that your government is betraying you – so, many people fall into the “Stockholm syndrome”, hanging on to their governments in full trust.

“Vaxxing“

In mid-December 2020 they said they finally had a “vaccination” ready – and intense worldwide vaxx-campaigns started in 2021 – à la “no human is left behind, unvaxxed” – all must go through this horrendous tyrannical experiment of gene-modifying mRNA injections, sold as vaccinations. Which now even Pfizer and Co — and the “regulators” CDC, and the chief criminal in this affair, Dr. Fauci, now admit.

Yet, the admittance doesn’t stop the vaxx-bulldozer from rolling on. Because Tavistock and DARPA and Co. fuel the bulldozer’s rolling over all evidence of fraud. The bought media, of course, play along.

In fact, the vaxxes, now admitted, were only “experimental”, in as much as the manufacturers, who by the way never disclosed the contents of the vaxx-vial, was testing their reaction on humans. There were many versions of the “vaxxes” circulating, original, then first, second, third and even fourth “boosters”. The manufacturers, Pfizer, Moderna, J&J et al – wanted to know which concoctions were the deadliest.

Because part of the plans for the UN Agenda 2030, and in parallel, for Klaus Schwab’s (WEF) The Great Reset, is a massive culling of the population, of those useless eaters – as Schwab and his close Israeli adviser Harari calls us, The People. It is clearly a eugenist agenda.

By now, three years into this crime of biblical proportions, we know that millions, if not hundreds of millions of people have already perished or were maimed for life by the vaxxes. Far-far out-pacing the so-called covid-deaths, of which there is not even proof that they exist.

Why not?

Because worldwide statistics of deaths from all causes showed no excess deaths until the end of 2020, when supposedly covid was ravaging the globe.

However, excess deaths started showing in 2021 and 2022, when coerced vaxxination escalated and the vaxx-impact was registered. But, of course not covered by the mainstream media.

In the west, mostly Europe, global Anglosaxonia and Japan, excess deaths were reported as between 15% and 25% in some countries even higher. And we are only at the beginning. As Dr. Mike Yeadon, former VP and Chief Science Officer of Pfizer, warned on many occasions, the real impact (death) of the vaxxes may only be registered several years down the road, when it will be difficult to trace deaths back to the vaxxes.

Other than the potentially deadly mRNA and spike protein, plus in many cases graphene oxide (high degree of magnetism) characteristic, the vaxxes and every booster, reduces the natural human immune system (Dr. Yeadon). Depending on the number of boosters, the vaxxed could lose up to 70% to 80% of their natural immunity. Thereby becoming vulnerable to all kinds of diseases, including aggressive and deadly cancers – cancers that are affecting mostly the human reproductive system.

In addition – also hardly mentioned – but flagrantly reflected by country statistics, the vaxxes sterilize women, as well as men. Fertility rates clearly declined drastically. In some countries life-child births went down by up to 40%.

According to the WEF, due to the plandemic, fertility has drastically decreased. Nice way of saying “we have done so, with our covid vaxxes”. See this.

The non-vaxxed were segregated. They were not allowed in restaurants, theatres and other public places. – A discrimination that clearly works against the Soros-funded Woke agenda, also a Tavistock-WEF concept, the “Wokeness” of society – see below.

Instilled socio-engineered fear, makes vaxxed people keeping the unvaxxed from entering a restaurant. No police are needed. A clever strategy. These days are over. But they could reappear tomorrow, under another pretext, say the introduction of a vaxx certificate, that you refuse.

“Woke”

You may have guessed it, “Woke” is another parallel flank of the Tavistock et al agenda – it’s part of the tools to bring about a new world order (NOW) by 2030. In about 2017 the term “woke” has been infiltrated into the mainstream vocabulary. Woke is part of the social engineering and mind manipulation process.

What does “woke” really mean? In many ways it’s an enigma. People have different definitions. They include, no discrimination, equal treatment of all races, acceptance of all gender differences and preferences.

The Webster defines woke as “chiefly US slang”, meaning, “Aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).”

To be precise: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/ WOHK) is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination”.

This opens woke up to a wide range of interpretations. Not by coincidence, of course. That’s wat the manipulators want – create confusion, deviation of thoughts, bringing all together as a “oneness”, yet being divided about the term ‘s meaning. Divide to rule, while deviating from the real issue.

“Woke” is everything. A perfect tool for societal engineering.

Remember, mind-manipulated people will be gullible to stories of fear, lies, eventually obeying senseless but dictatorial orders – “if you don’t behave, you are “un-woke” and that’s a punishable crime.

Tavistock – there are so many things we have to obey to – how would we know what’s true and what’s fake? – We don’t.

And we cannot think. As we have been trained for black-and-white only. We tend to obey. There is hardly any room for colors, for deviation of thought, especially when the dictate comes top-down.

Here is an interesting clip about the Woke culture, by Konstantin Kisin – 11-min video clip, “This House Believes Woke Culture Has Gone Too Far” – 7/8 – Oxford Union.


LGBTQIAP+

This unpronounceable acronym stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual/aromantic, pansexual communities. The plus sign represents other not-yet invented queer identities, hence not yet included in the acronym. It feeds right into the woke-culture of non-discrimination.

Interestingly, the Woke / LGBTQIAP+ concept does precisely that. It discriminates, while pretending it fights discrimination. (White) teachers and parents are told to teach children not to discriminate guys, lesbians and trans-people, and not to discriminate black and colored people. But the sheer fact that you separate the “sexually normal” from the sexually “special” – and distinguish between skin colors, is discrimination – it’s against the very Woke-Culture. “Woke” would be respect everybody the same.

It’s again the Orwell dystopia of “war is peace and peace is war.”

Why not teaching children, as well as adults to respect all sexual orientations and all skin colors. Period.

As to the highly promoted sexual reorientation campaign – gays, lesbian and trans – won’t have children. See, Tavistock and Co work for the depopulation agenda.

Can you imagine how far this goes – there are schools in Europe that allow children age 11 / 12 to decide about their sexual orientation, i.e., medical intervention, if necessary – without their parents consent. That’s social manipulation at its worst. Potentially destroying young lives, making kids believe they may have another sexual orientation than the one they are born with – propaganda is everything.

The Climate Change Farce

Climate changes all the time. Everything that lives on Mother Earth, is in constant motion. The term “climate change”, preceded by “Global Warming” – which with rapidly shifting temperatures, was perceived not so reliable. Then the Cultists came up with the more flexible “universal term” of ”climate change”. It fits all shades of weather.

The idea itself was invented already by the Club of Rome in 1971, which was created by a non-European, David Rockefeller.  The Club has around 100 active full members with an eleven-member Executive Board, including Henry Kissinger, George Soros, Bill Gates, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and more such luminaries.

Anybody who thinks the Club of Rome, founded on the principles of an NGO, has anything to do with Rome – is dead-wrong. The CoR is headquartered in Winterthur, Switzerland, in the paradise for some of the world’s shadiest organizations.

Among the objectives of the CoR, as reflected by their 1972 issued infamous book “Limits of Growth”, is the pursuit of means to oppress, control and reduce humanity.

Their “Limits of Growth” is as of this day the blueprint for the tyranny that we are living since the beginning of the UN Agenda 2030. And more is to come.

The sloganization of climate change and its dire doomsday consequences for humanity is part of the ongoing mind-trickery.

We are talking about man-made climate change – made by CO2 emissions that are slowly but steadily killing the planet. Never mind that without CO2 there would be no life on earth. As carbon is used by plants to generate oxygen, the life gas for all humans and sentient beings.

So climate change too is an absolute propagandized lie. An entire generation more has been brought up with the guilt, being responsible for killing the planet because the energy we consume, hydrocarbons, emit CO2 that kills the planet. A lie of mammoth proportions.

The only man-made climate change that indeed is changing weather patterns, is geoengineering the weather – in other words, its weaponizing the weather. The deadly monsoon in Pakistan in July, August and parts of September 2022, was with high probability geoengineered, for political reasons.

It was to deviate people’s attention from wanting to bring back THEIR, people-elected President, Imran Khan, who was ousted by a US instigated internal coup, “vote of non-confidence”, as Mr. Khan was not dancing to the tunes of Washington, but had the interests of the Pakistani people at hand.

Similar with last summer’s extreme heat wave in Europe and North America, as well as the extreme cold hitting the Northeast of the US and parts of Europe – are the results of man-made weather interference. They kill in more ways than one, by wiping out harvests, floods destroying vital infrastructure – prompting the infamous death cycle – famine, poverty, disease, death

Who controls the weather or climate, control the people.

“Democracy”

The term “democracy” is for the last 30 years or so in everybody’s vocabulary. It’s mostly used as a no-holds barred expression. In other words, who wants to contradict Democracy? – We live under the illusion to live in a democracy. When you hear “democracy” – your mind is curling up – “Oh yes, we live in a democracy” implying not like Russia and China – which are presumed dictatorships.

Democracy is one of the most misused household words in modern history, especially in the west. It’s a make-believe term.

Have we ever had a democracy?

Nope. Never. Not even the Ancient Greeks some 2500 years ago, who supposedly invented democracy- were true democratic societies. Not all were equal. Only educated people were able to vote. The “educated” were pretty much the same as today – the elite, the wealthy, the “influencers”.

But hardly the common people.

Since the “common people” do often not grasp the subtleties of politics, they constantly and consistently being told what to think, translating into what or for whom to vote.

That’s not democracy, but rather mass-manipulating the minds. But it’s sold to us as “democracy” – something we never had.

A new society may be formed on democratic principles, the basis for which is a well-educated – a truth-educated – population.

When we feel there is no way to escape, when we are hanging in the balance, between choosing to do nothing and waiting it out – and taking the risk to resist, it is only a question of our, We the People’s, mindset to escape from tyranny and start afresh.

We must take the risk, to salvage humanity and ourselves from the ongoing dystopian destruction.

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Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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 is a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

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The World Government Summit (WGS) is an annual event held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 13 to 15 February 2023. This year’s title slogan was “Shaping Future Governments”. The Summit’s format is similar to the WEF’s at Davos.

The WGS brings together business leaders and politicians, high-level government representatives for a global dialogue about “knowledge” and governmental processes, as well as policies with a focus on the issues of futurism, technology innovation and other topics.

This year’s about 10,000 WGS attendees (WEF Davos 2023, about 2,700) included some 300 speakers. One of the more prominent speakers was – who else – Klaus Schwab, founder and eternal CEO and globalist way beyond reason of the World Economic Forum, or WEF, for short.

In his as always exuberant presentation with his signature accent reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Schwab bragged, “I wrote in 2015 the book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution’. I mentioned 23 or 25 technologies that will change the world.” He went on mentioning some of them. And continued, “The book was considered science fiction, but all those technologies have become realities.”

He said these technologies are now exponentially exploding: “our lives, ten years from now, will be completely different”; concluding his megalo-speech by saying, “Who masters those technologies – in some way – will be the master of the world.”

For a few seconds the camera passes over a row of VIP conference attendees. Their faces, in awe of so much megalomania and so much dystopian departure from reality, speak volumes.

Mr. Schwab’s time has come. He is no longer taken seriously. This was already demonstrated at this year’s (16-20 January 2023) traditional Davos WEF meeting. Davos turned out to be not much more than a networking event, a show-off about who is who in this megalo-elite club.

Not even Schwab’s elitist “allies”, who all come in their individual private jets to such events as Davos or Dubai, not collectively as a group of “think-alike leaders” might continue following the WEF’s agenda of sheer madness. They come to the event in Davos to rub elbows and to be seen. See this.

In Dubai a few days ago, Schwab used the same lingo as he did in Davos a month earlier.

He talked about a “fractured world” that needed to be “re-globalized”. The eternal Globalist cannot let go of a topic that nobody in his right mind – and especially not 99.9% of the world population is interested in: A globalized world, with a One World Order (OWO) Government of which Klaus Schwab sees himself as the Master Emperor on the throne.

See this related to the Dubai WGS conference and especially the 1:23 min video clip, excerpt of his full speech (16 min video) below.

Schwab and the WEF have become instruments for executing orders of the elite – a visible elite of the usual suspects, the multi-multi “philanthropist” billionaires, who finance and help organize disruptive social movements around the globe, like Woke and  the unpronounceable acronym LGBTIQA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning, asexual; the plus + sign stands for evolving sexual inclinations), BLM (Black Lives Matter), and more.

Such social movements are sheer deviation maneuvers so, people don’t pay attention to what’s being brewed for the future of humankind behind black curtains.

The invisible corporate financial giants, plus the Silicon Valley Tech-titans, who literally run the world from the shadows of their sinister cult edifice, are those who direct with an iron fist the WEF, WHO, the entire UN system, the FED, World Bank, IMF, Bank for International Settlement (BIS), as well as Washington itself, the Pentagon, NATO and Brussels – the siège of the European Union (EU).

Klaus Schwab and his WEF-outfit are generously funded by them – so, he is but a tool to represent and, to the extent possible, impose their will on the world. This elite of darkness wants a globalized world; a One World Order (OWO).

It will not happen. Dynamics of the forces of life will not allow such excesses, risking the destruction of our beautiful Blue Planet.

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Schwab and the WGS organizers envisage a future of doomsday tenor, see the WGS-issued Government in 2071: Guidebook. The issues and constraints listed in the Guidebook of the Future may only be resolved through a World Government, or OWO.

Elon Musk, who joined the conference by video, has a diametrically opposed view.

A world government may end humanity, Musk said, and pledges for maintaining our civilizational diversity.

The Tesla Chairman and SpaceX CEO voiced his concern over a single world government as “it could strip humanity of diversity and precipitate the end of civilization.”

These are valid concerns since the world population is made up of an uncountable multitude of different cultures, subcultures, moral and ethical values, as well as art, all of which would be lost in no time, if people like Schwab and his globalist ilk would have their way.

Musk added, “We want to avoid creating a civilizational risk by having – and this may seem odd – too much cooperation between governments.”

He explained that historically, different civilizations were separated by distance, so when one went into decline, others could rise. He used Ancient Rome as an example. “When Ancient Rome fell, Islam rose and managed to preserve much of the Roman knowledge and build upon it”, Musk said. “But in a globalized world this may no longer be a viable scenario.”

He went on saying that human civilization “is like a tiny candle in a vast darkness, and a very vulnerable tiny candle that could easily be blown out,” urging the WGS audience “to take great care to avoid humanity being wiped out by some cataclysm” – man-made, or otherwise.

Perhaps one of Elon Musk’s most important warnings addressed Artificial Intelligence (AI). “One of the biggest risks to the future of civilization is AI.” Musk told WGS attendees.

Musk called upon governments to develop safety regulations for AI, comparing its rise to the development of nuclear technology.

In conclusion, Musk cautioned that AI and one-world government pose threats to humanity. He suggests that the latter may even end humanity.

See this for more details.

These anti-globalist statements by Elon Musk are juxtaposed to Schwab’s megalo-statement “Technology can help the elite ‘be the master of the world.”

There was for sure hardly anybody in the audience who would want to give authority over the array of technologies listed in Schwab’s “4th Industrial Revolution” – like digitalization of everything, even the human brain to a small elite, on top of it, western elite, in the sense of WEF’s world view.

Just imagine, weather and climate geoengineering technologies, such as HAARP, that may weaponize the atmosphere, as well as our planet’s continents and seas, in control of some globalist elitists. It is highly likely, though not yet entirely proven, that the gigantic destructive tremor that shook Turkey and Syria in the early morning hours of 6 February, bore HAARP’s signature.

Who would want this destructive war weapon in the hands of WEF’s elitists, masterminded by their “invisible” rulers and their globalist, eugenist “front” actors, the likes of Schwab, Gates, Rockefeller, Soros et al!

May God save us from the Death Cult.

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Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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.

Featured image is from Summit News

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)

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***

A week  after Sy Hersh’s expose on the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, there is still no word that President Biden who denies any knowledge or involvement in causing an Act of War in the Baltic Sea has yet to offer an explanation to the American public or reach out to Russian President Vladimir Putin  – but what possible explanation could be offered when the Biden co-conspirators, millions of  Americans and Putin’s Security Council all know the truth.  

Even though the balloon  distraction consumes the American mainstream media with the anonymous buoyant inflatable nonsense of a psyop as if to avoid the inescapable moment of truth – which will come inevitably.  In any case, a good guess is that the Russians are not amused by whatever game the Biden Administration has conjured up to deflect attention from the reality of a world level Act of War crisis.

While the media remains aflutter with the guessing-game possibilities, TPTB appear confident that because Russia has been restrained and prudent in its reactions during its special military operation; including the unrelenting NATO lies but especially to the inhumanity of the Ukraine Nazi’s. There is a general refusal on the part of the Americans to believe that The Bear would ever retaliate, that they could never be pushed so far until there was nowhere else to go.

Perhaps as the European mainland flounders in an energy and economic crisis of its own making, they are experiencing a resurgence of lost sovereignty and awareness of their loss of independence at the hands of the US.

As the US and rest of the world await Russia’s response to the Biden Administration’s denial, legendary professor, historian, philosopher and political analyst emeritus Noam Chomsky has reminded us of the reckless and provocative impact of the US withdrawal of arms control agreements on Russia’s well-defined borders and legitimate security interests.

The Intercontinental ABM Treaty was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972 in Moscow with each participant limited to a small portion of their territory.  The Russians chose to protect its capitol at Moscow while the US chose to protect an ICBM site at Grand Fork, North Dakota – what does that tell you?

Three days after the 911 attack, President GW Bush with vice President Dick Cheney at his side, decided that the ABM was a ‘relic’ of the Cold War that had outlived its usefulness; announcing the withdrawal citing the Treaty’s hindrance of the US protecting itself as if it might be subject to a ballistic missile attack from ‘terrorists’ or ‘rouge states’ with access to comparable nuclear weapons.  Despite its original intent of “unlimited duration,” the ABM included a withdrawal option in case of ‘extraordinary events” that jeopardized the parties’ “supreme interests.”  The US then notified Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan of its intent.  It was the first time the US withdrew from a nuclear arms agreement but not the last.

Withdrawal of the ABM allowed offensive weapon facilities to be located close to the Russian border as Putin described the Treaty as a “cornerstone” of Russia’s security system.   In his 2018 Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly, Putin spoke of the US unilateral withdrawal:

“We did our best to dissuade the Americans from withdrawing from the treaty. All in vain. The US pulled out of the treaty in 2002. Even after that we tried to develop constructive dialogue with the Americans. All our proposals, absolutely all of them, were rejected.”

“All these years, the entire fifteen years since the withdrawal of the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, we have consistently tried to reengage the American side in serious discussions.”

By the mid 1990’s President Bill Clinton abandoned Secretary of State James Baker’s “categorical assurance” to Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev that “there would be no extension” of NATO’s jurisdiction “one inch to the east.”   As Gorbachev put it in 2008:

“the Americans had promised that NATO wouldn’t move beyond the boundaries of Germany after the Cold War but now half of central and Eastern Europe are members, so what happened to their promises? It shows they cannot be trusted.”

As a result of the Malta Summit in December, 1989 between President GWH Bush and President Gorbachev, former Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock said that

“..if Bush had been re-elected and Gorbachev had remained as president of the USSR there would have been no NATO expansion during their terms in office. There was no way either could commit successors” and that “I personally opposed the way NATO was extended to Eastern Europe, greater effort should have been made to create a “Europe whole and free,” by developing a new security structure including Russia”.

In addition, Robert Gates, then deputy national security advisor believed that “Gorbachev…” had been “led to believe” that the “expansion of NATO eastward” would not happen.

The Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan in 1987 in Reykjavik, Iceland eliminating thousands of missiles that would potentially have carried nuclear warheads.  To Gorbachev and Reagan’s credit, the INF abolished an entire category of nuclear weapons while allowing first-hand observers of missile destruction and on-site verification as part of Reagan’s ‘trust but verify’ motto.

By 2019, President Donald Trump announced that he was suspending compliance with the Treaty and cited development of a prohibited missile by Russia while Putin countered that the US anti ballistic system in Europe which was within striking distance of Moscow could be used for offensive purposes.  The Treaty ended a superpower build up in Europe as it banned ground launched missiles with a range of up to 3400 miles.

In October, 2018, US national security advisor John Bolton arrived for two days of talks with Russian officials who called the INF withdrawal as “dangerous” and “showing a lack of wisdom” as a “mistake.”  Known to be  belligerent to the Russians and arms control agreements, Bolton was also to meet with Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov and Secretary to the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev as well as Russian President Vladimir Putin who was looking for ‘clarification’ on US intentions.

In response, Putin denied any violation of the INF and announced suspension of  Russian involvement in the Cold-war era INF Treaty to pursue a new generation of hypersonic missiles.

*

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Renee Parsons served on the ACLU’s Florida State Board of Directors and as president of the ACLU Treasure Coast Chapter. She has been an elected public official in Colorado, staff in the Office of the Colorado State Public Defender, an environmental lobbyist for Friends of the Earth and a staff member of the US House of Representatives in Washington DC. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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***

The massive earthquake on February 6 devastated parts of the northwest of Syria, including the last remaining terrorist occupied area of Idlib.  While Latakia and Aleppo were damaged more than Idlib, they are not receiving any aid from the US, EU are other US allied countries because they are under the central government of Damascus. 

The Syrian people have suffered 12 years of armed conflict, occupation of Al Qaeda and ISIS among other Radical Islamic terrorist groups, and now a 7.8 earthquake which is being called the disaster of the century.

Besides armed conflict, the Syria people have also been under the threat and deprivation of US and EU sanctions which have prevented humanitarian donations.  Recently, the US Treasury issued a 180-day waiver of the sanctions for Syria for humanitarian aid, but it must be sent through an NGO and western banking system, which is not readily available now in Syria, so the waiver is a joke: but a very bad joke on the suffering Syrian people.

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Kari Jaquesson to get her expert insight into the European position on the Syrian situation.

Kari Jaquesson is a Norwegian health and fitness professional, with a political interest. She does research and writes for steigan.no, a Norwegian news outlet. For twenty years she was a presenter in many TV productions, but in the last ten years has been best known in Norway as a public debater. She visited Syria together with other media in 2017 and met public outrage as she presented the Syrians own perspective on the hostilities against the country. She has been back to Syria in 2018, and in 2019 organized a tour of several Syrian cities for a group of Norwegians.

***

Steven Sahiounie (SS):  Syria has been devastated by 7.8 magnitude earthquake on February 6, with over 7,000 dead and hundreds of thousands homeless.  The two hardest hit areas are Latakia and Aleppo; however, neither are receiving any aid from Europe because of political opposition to Syria. In your opinion, should the EU left sanctions on Syria?

Kari Jaquesson (KJ):  Let me first take the opportunity to express my deep-felt condolences to the Syrian people. The sanctions against Syria are criminal, immoral and completely indefensible. Of course they should lift the sanctions, but as we see, the MEPs, with a few exceptions, are either too weak to speak out about this, or they agree with them. My home country Norway is not a member of the EU, but has been part of this war of sanctions against Syria since the launch of them.

The EU claims the sanctions on Syria mostly target specific individuals and entities, but that’s not true. On my three trips to Syria in 2017, 2018 and 2019 every person I met was personally affected by the sanctions.

The EU is led by some very strange characters. Joseph Borell, the High Representative for Foreign Policy of the EU, recently displayed his condescending perspective on the world when he said, “Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that the humankind has been able to build – the three things together. The rest of the world, is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.”

On the sanctions against Russia, he allegedly said, “EU sanctions are a slow-acting poison like the one made from arsenic. They take time to produce their effects, but they do and it is irreversible.”

So he knows that sanctions hurt – that is the point of them.

SS:  Recently, the Greek foreign minister said that they cannot help Syria because there is no government. In your opinion, should European countries recognized Damascus as the central government?

KJ:  I have not heard about that. If this is the case, it is such an ignorant and abusive comment. Of course the Greek and other European countries not only should, but must recognize the elected Syrian president and parliament. But, what can you expect from a crowd that insisted that Juan Guaidó was president of Venezuela? In many ways, reality is not relevant to European politicians. We see it in so many domains. I was very disappointed when I saw the Norwegian King extend condolences to the Turkish people, addressed to H.E. Mr Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, President of the Republic of Türkiye, Presidential Palace, Ankara, but not one word to the people and leader of Syria.

After criticism, from me and probably others, some text was added on the web page of the Royal family, but no mention of Syrian president Bashar Assad, only “Condolences to the Syrian people”. The king is not supposed to practice politics, so this is very serious.

SS:   All of the western aid is going to Idlib alone, which is under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a Radical Islamic terrorist group which has fought alongside ISIS, and was formerly the Al Qaeda affiliate.  In your opinion, should western democracies recognize a terrorist group as a legitimate government?

KJ: As far as I know, no country has actually recognized the terrorist groups occupying the Idlib region as a government, but they are showering them with money. From Norway billions have been channeled to the terrorists through so-called NGO’s, from Norway especially The Norwegian People’s Aid. They have “local” crews and when The Norwegian People’s Aid were asked for justification of the all the money they have received, they responded to inquiry from the department of finance that they have ” a gentlemen’s agreement” with “local officials”, and we know who they are. There was no accounting of the funds.

SS:  Some of the humanitarian groups and the UN have called for separating politics from a humanitarian crisis. In your opinion, why does the EU continue to put politics before humanitarian needs?

KJ:  Unfortunately, the EU, led by non-elected bureaucrats are mostly serving as the prolonged arm of Washington.

SS:  Western mainstream media have been showing Idlib and the ‘White Helmets’ as the hardest hit area, but there are no official numbers of dead and injured because the authorities are terrorists. In your opinion, shouldn’t the media be showing Latakia and Aleppo as the hardest hit areas?

KJ:  The mainstream media is maintaining the “evil dictator”-narrative about Syria, and the larger part of the public will parrot “gassed his own people” and other types of media sound bites. The Western main stream media is not interested in producing situation descriptions rooted in reality, but one that upholds the narrative that prevents the public from understanding that Norway has been and is on the wrong side of the war against Syria. Journalists should report objective facts, but unfortunately, Western press is part of the soft-power tool box of the authorities. If they show “too much” of the plights of the people in Latakia and Aleppo the public might realize that the story they have been served for 12 years is untrue. The media war against Syria is still ongoing and only with pressure from the public will the sanctions and US occupation come to an end. Unfortunately, at the moment European citizens are neither informed nor have the stamina to engage in their countries wrong doings.

*

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

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The World Wants to be Deceived

February 19th, 2023 by Edward Curtin

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***

My title comes from a 19th century author whose name does not matter nor would it mean much if I mentioned him.  It’s an old truth that has not changed a bit over the centuries.  I think, however, it would be more linguistically accurate to say that most people want to be deceived, for the world, the earth doesn’t give a damn, as the French poet Jacques Prévert reminds us in “Song in the Blood”:

There are great puddles of blood on the world
where’s it all going all this spilled blood
is it the earth that drinks it and gets drunk
funny kind of drunkography then
so wise . . . so monotonous . . .
No the earth doesn’t get drunk
the earth doesn’t turn askew
it pushes its little car regularly its four seasons
rain . . . snow
hail . . . fair weather
never is it drunk
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It doesn’t give a damn
The earth

But people, the thinking reeds as Pascal called us, we, who through the support of wars and violence of all sorts, care just enough to want to be deceived as to what we are doing by making so much blood that is inside people get to the outside for the earth to drink.

I could, of course, quote liberally from truth tellers down through history who have said the same thing about self-deception with all its shades and nuances. Those quotations are endless.  Why bother?  At some very deep level in the recesses of their hearts, people know it’s true.  I could make a pretty essay here, be erudite and eloquent, and weave a web of wisdom from all those the world says were the great thinkers because they are now dead and can no longer detect hypocrisy.

For the desire to be deceived and hypocrisy (Greek hypokrites, stage actor, a pretender) are kissing cousins.  I write this to try to say something of value about the mass idiocy of the media’s daily barrage of lies and stupidities that pass for news on the front pages and newscasts of the corporate media.  And the people who believe them.

It is not easy.  No matter how obviously absurd the claims about Chinese “spy” balloons, the shooting down of unidentified flying objects, reports of how Russia is losing the war in Ukraine, all the support for presidents and prime ministers who shill for the war industries, etc. – a list that could be extended indefinitely on a daily basis – these media are relentless in presenting government propaganda juxtaposed with trivia.

When you think they must realize they have gone too far since even a moron could see through their fabrications, they double down.  And I am referring only to what they do report, not what they omit – e.g. how the U.S. has restricted aid to the earthquake victims in Syria or Seymour Hersh’s report on the U.S. blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, two examples of terror by a terrorist state that must be protected at all costs.  This is the protection racket by omission and commission.

Maybe an anecdote would help. A week ago, I ran into an old friend at a coffee shop.  Hersh’s article, aspects of which I question, had just come out and I asked him if he had seen it.  He said he hadn’t but didn’t know anything about such pipelines being blown up.  I was stunned.  A devout consumer of mainstream media, yet he somehow missed this major September 2022 event in the U.S. war against Russia that was reported widely by the media he relies upon.

Those media went on to suggest that Russia blew up its own pipelines, a claim beyond ridicule but one that was part of its war propaganda narrative.

My friend is a guy who has strong opinions about everything and finds NPR, The Guardian, The New York Times, CNN, etc. to be credible news sources.  How could he have missed one of the major stories of 2022, one that The New York Times, etc. was reporting on into December, still suggesting that Russia did the deed?  How could he have missed the pipeline story whose reverberations spread through all aspects of the U.S. war against Russia via Ukraine when it was referenced in so many reports of gas and oil prices, a cold winter for Europe, and so many other issues?  Its ramifications are manifold and have been reported as such, but he had never heard of it.  I was stunned.

I wanted to quote him Dylan’s facetious words from “The Ballad of the Thin Man”: “’Cause something is happening/And you don’t know what it is/Do you, Mister Jones?”  But I did not.

I have spent a week wondering how it is possible that he didn’t know anything about the pipeline explosions.  I am sure he wasn’t lying to me.  So how explain it?

In the interim, as I have been trying to comprehend these matters, the Super Bowl with its mesmeric half-time spectacle replete with crotch grabbing has come and gone, and I have read an interesting article by Ethan Strauss, a sports journalist, “Why America Needs Football. Even its Brutality” that raises important questions.

Much has been written about football’s violence and the injuries it causes, the most recent example being the near fatal injury to Damar Hamlin of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills that garnered headlines for weeks (even though why he suffered cardiac arrest has been left unanswered since that would raise the COVID vaccine problem, which is also taboo).  Strauss notes the many arguments calling for the banning of football – the war game – because of its violence.  He notes that it is very true that football is very violent but that this is part of its great appeal.  He writes:

And the NFL gives Americans that war, as spectacle, week after week.

Today, at 6:30 p.m., eastern time, begins the biggest spectacle of them all: the Super Bowl, where we channel those ancient animal spirits into a highly commercialized event that ends with fireworks and a shiny trophy.

We should celebrate that.

He doesn’t argue for the celebration of war, which he opposes, but for the war-like game of football.  To Malcolm Gladwell’s statement in support of the banning of football as “a moral abomination” – “This is a sport that is living in the past that has no connection to the realities to the game right now and no connection to American society.” – he responds quite rightly that Gladwell is wrong:

In 2022, 82 of the top 100 TV shows in America were NFL games, and the top 50 most viewed sporting events were football games or events that immediately followed football games. By contrast, in 2016, only 33 of the top 50 were football-related. The country has lost interest in so much else, but football remains a huge draw and, in fact, is gaining relative market share.

Americans love violence, not just the military propaganda that precedes the Super Bowl game, but the smashing hits that players make and take in the games.  It is hard to deny.  Strauss goes on to show how over ninety percent of former NFL players who suffer from daily lifelong pain say they would do it again.  The violence is intoxicating and Americans get drunk on it.  It is the American Way.

I don’t agree with all of Strauss’s points or assumptions, especially his imperative that “we have war within us, whether or not there’s one to wage,” but he clearly is right that despite all the rhetoric about how terrible violence is, there is something about it that Americans love.  D. H. Lawrence’s point a century ago still applies: “The essential America soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer.  It has never yet melted.”

But this killer soul must be hidden behind a wall of deceptions as the U.S. warfare state ceaselessly wages wars all around the world.  It must be hidden behind feel good news stories about how Americans really care about others, but only others that they are officially allowed to care about.  Not Syrians, Yemenis, Russian speakers of the Donbass, Palestinians, et al.  The terrorist nature of decades upon decades of U.S. savagery and the indifference of so many Americans go hand-in-hand but escape notice in the corporate media.  The major theme of these media is that the United States government is the great defender of freedom, peace, and democracy.  Every once in a while, a scapegoat, one rotten apple in the barrel, is offered up to show that all is not perfect in paradise.  But essentially it is one massive deception.

There’s a make-believe quality to this vast spectacle of violent power and false innocence that baffles the mind.  To see and hear the corporate masked media magicians’ daily reports is to enter a world of pure illusion that deserves only sardonic laughter but sadly captivates so many adult children desperate to believe.  This is so even as the propagandists’ trial balloons are popped in the society of the comedic spectacle.

But back to my friend I mentioned earlier. He hates violence in all its forms, is strongly opposed to war, and has a most compassionate heart, yet he remains devoted to the media that have lied us – and continue to do so – into war after war, a media that clearly fronts for the warfare state.  I still can’t explain how he knew nothing about the pipeline explosions.  Nor can I explain his allegiance to the media that lie to him daily.

Even as his government, led by that very media, leads the world toward nuclear annihilation, he remains true to his media informants.

I am stunned.

In the Blood

Born in a normal time,
The periodic slaughter of millions
By the civilized nations of the earth
I grew to adulthood half-crazed
With fear and numbed wonder.

I always wished to believe otherwise,
That people were good at heart,
Wanted to live in mutual peace
And tend the green earth as if
It were a garden
As if pity vivified all living things.

Somehow the blood that was in me
Said otherwise,
Spoke truth to the power
Of my wish,
While everywhere around me lay the lie.

But my blood, this blood that became me
While millions were being butchered
And Bing Crosby crooned I’m dreaming
Of a white Christmas,
This red blood said otherwise.

Do not accept the way they say
“Good Morning”
And the way they nod as they pass,
As though they didn’t want to kill
Each other.

Do not believe their eyes
And the way they pray to the skies
To save them.
Do not believe their beliefs,
All lies woven to deceive.
For at heart they truly hate
The green earth.

Do not believe the way they say
“Good Evening”
For they wish the darkest night
To descend upon us,
The nothingness of their knowledge
To swallow all.

That is what will release them,
That is all.

Thus my blood spoke to me,
A child of a sanguine century,
Born in a normal time,
The periodic slaughter of millions
By the civilized nations of the earth.

And despite all appearances,
I have never believed them.
Never.  Not at all.

*

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Behind the Curtain.

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts.  He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). 

Featured image: One of innumerable mass graves in South Korea prior to the onset of war (Source: Public Domain)

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***

The Canadian Federal government has been busy deleting COVID-19 booster vaccination data and graphs from the official government website and I will summarize below which data was removed and when.

COVID-19 1st & 2nd booster uptake in Canada deleted

All of the information presented is captured from the Canadian government website.

The first graph that the Canadian government deleted was this one:

Figure 2: “Cumulative % of people who have received a COVID-19 vaccine in Canada by vaccination status” was removed on January 10, 2023 (click here) (it’s gone on next update (click here))

Just before this data was deleted, 1st booster uptake in Canada was reported at 50.7%, 2nd booster uptake was reported at 23.4%.

COVID-19 1st & 2nd booster uptake data by age deleted

The next item deleted was:

Table 2: “Cumulative number and percent of people in Canada who have received a COVID-19 vaccine by age group and vaccination status”, was removed on January 10, 2023 (click here) (it’s gone on the next update (click here))

On January 15, 2023, Table 2 was replaced with a new table that has deleted all vaccination status data for the 1st & 2nd booster dose by age group:

COVID-19 1st & 2nd booster uptake graph by age deleted 

The next item deleted was:

Figure 4: “Cumulative percent of people who have received 1st booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in Canada by age group”, was removed on February 3, 2023 (click here). It’s gone on the next update (click here).

The next item deleted was:

Figure 4: “Cumulative percent of people who have received 2nd booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in Canada by age group”, was removed on February 3, 2023 (click here). It’s gone on the next update (click here).

My take…

It’s one thing to remove COVID-19 vaccine outcome data that showed COVID-19 vaccines were severely damaging the immune systems of those who took them, and the more doses one took, the worse the health outcomes (including death) were.

It’s an entirely different thing to delete COVID-19 booster vaccination data itself.

This begs the question: why is the Canadian government doing this now?

I have two theories:

Theory #1: Trudeau Liberals are aware of the recent acceleration of sudden and unexpected deaths which may be due to COVID-19 boosters and they don’t want Canadians to be able to correlate these sudden deaths to the COVID-19 1st and 2nd booster shot rollout, by age and by time-frame.

Theory #2: Trudeau Liberals are preparing to categorize Canadians into “compliant” and “uptodate” with COVID-19 vaccines vs “non-compliant” and “not uptodate” with their COVID-19 vaccines, in advance of either rolling out a Digital ID that will require “uptodate” COVID-19 vaccination, or any other forms of vaccine mandates, and these data deletions simplify the way in which Canadians will be labeled.

It is possible for both to be true simultaneously.

Perhaps not coincidentally, on February 3, 2023, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe wrote an open letter stating his government will not participate in any type of national healthcare “Digital ID” program as a condition to receive funding for healthcare from the Federal government.

*

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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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***

“Michael Welch is brilliant in all he does as a host.”

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LISTEN TO THE SHOW


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We are all at a critical crossroads in terms of comprehending the events that have been happening around us.

From the Terrorist attacks that led to the “War on Terrorism,” the “Russiagate” claims following the unexpected election of Donald Trump, the civil war in Syria, the recent “pandemic,” and now the Russian invasion of Ukraine, much of the conventional media has failed to provide a thorough condensation of the facts at hand.

Conventional news on television, radio, newspapers and online sources relentlessly restrict the divisions of debate. And when observers step outside these boundaries of respectable discourse, they are relentlessly targeted as “conspiracy theorists” which invariably cancels these perspectives in the minds of the influential public.

Global Research News Hour, like Global Research itself, is quite a bit different from these narrative manufacturers. We are inspired by the simple desire to get at the TRUTH and to listen to those voices in the field that have tremendous difficulty getting heard. The show has for more than a decade been loyal to our goal of informing the public and making sure they have adequate context and understanding of issues at hand before reacting in a face-nodding, fully compliant way before the modern priests of media “consensus.”

But in addition to working with the team on Global Research, we are also proud to produce our content at an actual radio station and project our interviews with key thinkers on the actual airwaves!

The radio station is CKUW. While the station is subsidized in part by the University of Winnipeg Student Association, it also must draw financing from listeners through direct contributions to pay for staff and meet all its heavy debts.

This edition of the Global Research News Hour is a fundraising edition designed to solicit contributions. We are hoping listeners will donate whatever they can afford so that our show and the campus and community station behind us will continue to survive and prosper in the months and years to come!

As well, in the body of the show, we feature audio from the public gathering in support of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirited People and of the grieved families they leave behind. We also have interviews focused on the Freedom Convoy of truckers from early last year making demands to eliminate the various vaccine mandates. Diwa Marcellino is a representative of a Winnipeg group that condemns the convoy. Benita Pederson is a representative and media spokesperson for World Unity Convoy 2023 held in a community outside of Winnipeg, and celebrates the Freedom Convoy movement. These interviews aired within two hours of the release of Commissioner Paul Rouleau’s findings on the Federal Government’s invoking of the Emergencies Act powers to bring the Convoy to a halt.

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The Great Western Crusade Against “Evil”

February 19th, 2023 by Manlio Dinucci

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On the stage of the Sanremo Festival, after reading Zelenski’s message the Kyiv band Antytila performed to “transmit a strong message on the Ukrainian resistance to the Italian public”. Shortly before in Brescia and Bergamo, the concerts of the Russian pianist Denis Matsuev scheduled for the International Piano Festival had been cancelled. It occurred after the Ukrainian ambassador had asked the mayors of the two cities to cancel “the performances of the musician who was supposed to be close to Putin’s positions”.

Even heavier was the interference of Kyiv in Italian internal affairs when former Premier Silvio Berlusconi said in an interview that to avoid war, “it was enough for Zelenski to stop attacking the two autonomous Republics of Donbas“. Kyiv declared that “Silvio Berlusconi’s latest comments on Ukraine cause a huge scandal“, called him “infamous” and accused him of “kissing Putin’s hands, full of blood up to his elbows“.

At the same time, US Secretary of Defence Austin reiterates that “the Free World remains at Ukraine’s side and Russia is now a global pariah“, convening the “Contact Group for the Defence of Ukraine” in Brussels to ask the over 50 countries which are part of it including Italy, to send even more weapons to Kyiv.

Soon after the NATO Summit of Defence Ministers established other war measures against Russia. Among these: “Strengthening our advanced defences“, i.e. deploying more and more military forces and strategic weapons including nuclear ones close to Russia; “Enhance industrial capacity to replenish stocks of weapons and ammunition, consumed by the huge amount that the Allies have supplied to Ukraine”. The Summit decided on a further increase in military spending.

The 2,800 million dollars that the US spends on average every day for its military forces is not enough. Italy’s military expenditure has risen to 80 million euros a day but must reach 100 million a day. All of this from the United States to Italy is paid for by the citizens, who bear the growing weight of the economic crisis caused by the war.

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Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

Featured image: Berlusconi with the Russian president Vladimir Putin in Italy, 2008 (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline was a gangster act that reveals the cancer at the heart of the “rules-based order”. How can there be peace and security when the world’s most powerful nation can destroy the critical infrastructure of other countries without deliberation or judicial proceedings?

If Hersh’s report can be trusted—and I think it can—then we must assume that senior-level advisors in the Biden administration as well as the president himself deliberately perpetrated an act of industrial terrorism against a long-term friend and ally, Germany.

What Biden’s involvement in the act implies, is that the United States now claims the right to arbitrarily decide which countries may engage in commerce with which others. And, if for some reason, the buying and selling of energy supplies conflicts with Washington’s broader geopolitical objectives, then the US believes it has the right to obliterate the infrastructure that makes such trade possible. Isn’t this the rationale that was used to justify the blowing up of Nord Stream?

Sy Hersh has done the world a service by exposing the perpetrators of the Nord Stream sabotage.

His expose not only identifies the people involved but also infers that they should be held accountable for their actions. But while we don’t expect any thorough investigation in the near future, we do think the magnitude of the attack has been a “wake up” call for people who cling to the belief that the Unipolar model can produce morally-acceptable outcomes. What the incident shows is that unilateral action inevitably leads to criminal violence against the weak and defenseless. Biden’s covert operation hurt every man, woman and child in Europe. It’s a real tragedy. Here’s a quote from a recent interview with Hersh:

“I think this story has the same potential for destroying the ability of our president to rally the American people behind the war because it shows something that is so dark and so Unamerican. You know, this isn’t us. We’re not talking about us. This is a bunch of intelligence officers and CIA people….” Seymour Hersh 2:29 min

He’s right, isn’t he? The Biden administration has vastly miscalculated the impact these revelations will have on the public. The reputational damage alone is going to be immense, but they will also be used as the prism through which many critics see the war. In fact, there are signs that that may already be happening. On Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov confirmed that the real objective of Washington’s war was not simply to “weaken” Russia and eventually splinter it into smaller pieces, but to force a split between Germany and Russia. Here’s what he said on Saturday:

According to Lavrov, the US decided that Russia and Germany cooperated “too well” over the past 20-30 years, establishing a powerful alliance based on Russian resources and German technology.

“That began to threaten the monopoly position of many American corporations. Therefore, it was necessary to somehow ruin it, and do it literally,” the minister said.

“There is an aspect here that’s related to the fact that friendship between countries, national reconciliation between them, as it happened between Russians and Germans, has become an eye sore for those who don’t want anyone to appear somewhere on this planet, who will compete with the main hegemon, which the US has declared itself to be,” Lavrov added.” (Lavrov says US officials essentially acknowledge Nord Stream blasts were US handiwork”, Tass)

Lavrov’s comments reinforce our own view that the conflict was concocted by Washington’s foreign policy experts who realized that German-Russo economic integration posed a serious threat to America’s dominant role in the global order. That is why Nord Stream became the primary target of US aggression, because the pipeline was the vital artery that connected the two continents and drew them closer together into an economic commons that would eventually become the world’s biggest free trade zone. This is what Washington feared most, and that is why Biden and Co. took such desperate steps to prevent the strengthening of economic relations between Germany and Russia. In short, Nord Stream had to be destroyed because Nord Stream marked the end of the unipolar world order.

Instead, of expanding on this belabored theory, let’s take a minute and see if we can figure out something about Hersh’s shadowy “source” of information. Allow me to frame it in the form of a question:

Why did Sy Hersh’s source provide him with detailed, top-secret information about the Biden administration’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline?

a. The source is a Kremlin stooge who wanted to subvert the war-effort and inflict serious damage on the United States

b. The source is an America-hating “Commie” who loathes democracy and freedom

c. The source is an adrenaline junkie who enjoys putting himself, his family, his career and his freedom at risk.

d. The source is a concerned American who thought that revealing information about the destruction of Nord Stream would prevent the neocons from leading the country into a catastrophic war with Russia

If you chose “d” then pat yourself on the back, because that is the right answer. No one in their-right-mind would take the risks that Hersh’s source took unless he felt the country was in grave danger. And, keep in mind, we might not even know what that what that danger is yet, since we don’t know what future escalations the neocons are planning. For example, it could be that US plans are already underway to deliver F-16s and long-range missile systems that will be used to strike deeper into Russian territory. It could be that the neocons want to detonate a nuclear device in Ukraine as part of a “false flag” operation. Or it could be that Biden plans to organize a ‘coalition of the willing’ (Uk, Poland, Romania) that will fight alongside US Special Forces in combat operations in east Ukraine. Any of these developments represent a serious escalation in the hostilities which would increase the probability of a direct clash with nuclear-armed Russia. In Joe Biden’s own words, “That’s what you call World War 3.”

He’s right, it would be WW3, which might explain why Hersh’s source summoned the courage to provide the author with the damning information about Nord Stream. He might have believed that the world was on the fasttrack to nuclear annihilation, so he risked his own life for ours. “No greater love hath any man…”.

And the source is not the only person who put himself at risk. Hersh could face charges as well. In fact, I would argue, that if Hersh was not as widely-respected as he is, he would probably be sharing a cell with Julian Assange right now. After all, what is the difference between what Assange did and what Hersh did?

Not much, except for the fact that Hersh’s stellar reputation makes him “untouchable. (We hope.)

In any event, if the motive behind the article was to prevent nuclear Armageddon, then we are very grateful for their bravery and selflessness.

Even so, there might have been other motives driving the article which are worth our consideration. Let’s imagine, for a minute, that Hersh’s source has information concerning the neocons plans for the near future. In other words, it is quite possible that the sabotage of Nord Stream alone was not the main impetus for Hersh’s report, but some other sinister plan on the horizon, that is, a military escalation that could trigger a catastrophe of unprecedented severity.

As we said earlier, such a plan might involve F-16s and long-range missile systems, or a nuclear “false flag” operation, or it could be that Biden will organize a ‘coalition of the willing’ that will fight alongside US Special Forces in combat operations in east Ukraine. US combat troops in Ukraine would make a direct clash with Russia effectively unavoidable. It would put the US on-track for another World War, which is what the neocons want. Unfortunately, I suspect that this is the most probable near-term scenario; the forming of a US-backed coalition organized to directly engage Russia in Ukraine. Here’s a “Statement from Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on President Biden’s Travel to Poland:

From February 20th – 22nd, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. will travel to Poland. He will meet with President Andrzej Duda of Poland to discuss our bilateral cooperation as well as our collective efforts to support Ukraine and bolster NATO’s deterrence. He will also meet with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9), a group of our eastern flank NATO Allies, to reaffirm the United States’ unwavering support for the security of the Alliance. In addition, President Biden will deliver remarks ahead of the one year anniversary of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, addressing how the United States has rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and democracy, and how we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.” (The White House, Washington DC)

As it says in the official statement, Biden will not merely talk to the Polish president about “collective efforts to support Ukraine”, but will also discuss US-Polish “bilateral cooperation as well”. But what type of bilateral cooperation does Biden want besides more weapons? Combat troops? Is that what Biden is looking for; coalition boots-on-the-ground to make up for Ukraine’s heavy casualties?Here’s an article from a website called Notes From Poland that announces a sharp uptick in Polish recruitment goals. Not surprisingly, the article does not explain the reason why Poland intends to more-than-double the size of its army within a year’s time.

Up to 200,000 people can be called up for military exercises in Poland next year, including some who have never put their name forward for service but are deemed to have “useful skills”…. The exercises can last up to 90 days, and failure to attend is punishable by jail or a fine….

The pool of people who can be called up are those aged 55 and under who have been through so-called military qualification, which is compulsory for all men turning 19 and during which the candidate’s health category and fitness for military service are determined….

Poland will increase defence spending to 3% of GDP next year, one of the highest levels in NATO, to protect itself from “voracious imperial Russia”.

Its new Homeland Defence Act will also more than double the number of troops serving in the armed forces https://t.co/KlEA1cHOo — Notes from Poland (@notesfrompoland) March 19, 2022

Until 2009, Poland had compulsory military service for men, but that was scrapped in favour of a fully professional army. However, in recent years the growing threat of Russia has pushed the government to seek to increase the size and strength of the armed forces.

In 2017, a new Territorial Defence Force was established. This year’s Homeland Defence Act foresees a doubling in the size of the armed forces, from the current 143,500 troops…” (“Up to 200,000 Poles to be called up for military training next year“, Notes From Poland)

Are we expected to dismiss this sudden expansion of the Polish military as a mere coincidence or is it more likely that a deal has already been made with Washington regarding future troop deployments to Ukraine?

According to the White House statement, Biden will “also meet with the leaders of the Bucharest Nine (B9)” which is a group of nine NATO countries in Eastern Europe that became part of the US-led military alliance after the end of the Cold War…and includes Romania, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All nine countries were once closely associated with the now dissolved Soviet Union, but later chose the path of democracy. Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria are former signatories of the now dissolved Warsaw Pact military alliance led by the Soviet Union…Check it out:

All members of the B9 are part of the … NATO (and all) have been critical of President Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine since 2014… Last year NATO adopted its new Strategic Concept, in which all Allies agreed that ,,the Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies security and to peace and stability in the Euro–Atlantic area”. Now, on the road to the Vilnius Summit we should make sure that the Alliance is fully prepared to face this threat.” (“Who are the Bucharest Nine, countries on NATO’s eastern flank?”, Indian Express)

An army of Russophobes; is that what they want to create?

It sure looks like it.

Maybe, we’re making a ‘mountain out of a molehill’; that’s certainly a possibility. But now that the Russian army is advancing on all fronts along the Line of Contact, we think that the desperate neocons are bound to do something colossal. In fact, we are sure of it. Check out this clip from an article at Larry Johnson’s web site, “The Son of a New American Revolution”:

Now for the bad news. The Biden Administration and our European allies either are preparing for a major military action in the Ukraine war or they know something bad is going to happen soon, probably in Belarus, because warnings were just issued for foreign citizens to bug out of Belarus and Russia:

The French Foreign Ministry urged its citizens to leave Belarus without delay.

Canada urges its citizens to leave Belarus immediately because of the risk of arbitrary application of local laws and hostilities in Ukraine — Canadian Foreign Ministry.

The U.S. on Monday issued a top-level advisory telling American citizens to leave Russia immediately and cease travel to the country as Russia’s war against neighboring Ukraine continues, citing risks of harassment and wrongful detention for Americans specifically.

“Do not travel to Russia due to the unpredictable consequences of the unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces, the potential for harassment and the singling out of U.S. citizens for detention by Russian government security officials, the arbitrary enforcement of local law, limited flights into and out of Russia, the Embassy’s limited ability to assist U.S. citizens in Russia, and the possibility of terrorism,” reads the alert.

I do not believe in coincidence. This is a coordinated action and signals the situation in Russia and Belarus is going to turn dangerous in the near future. Maybe it has something to do with the United States training Islamic radicals to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia and Belarus.” (“Sy Hersh Speaks and NATO Warns of Escalation in the War in Ukraine?“, Son of a New American Revolution)

Something is afoot although we cannot be certain whether it will materialize or not. But—keep in mind—there would be no need for terrorist attacks, false flags or additional combat troops if the official narrative was actually true and the Ukrainian army was winning the war. But that is not what’s happening. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are losing and losing badly. In fact, they don’t even have sufficient ammunition stockpiles to sustain long-term fighting. Here’s the story from Reuters:

“NATO is expected to ask its members to raise its ammunition stockpiles which have been badly depleted by the war in Ukraine... the pace of deliveries to Ukraine, where Kyiv’s troops are firing up to 10,000 artillery shells daily, has drained Western inventories and exposed holes in the efficiency, speed and manpower of supply chains.

“If Europe were to fight Russia, some countries would run out of ammunition in days,” a European diplomat told Reuters… the stockpiles are running even lower due to the conflict in Ukraine…. The war also cast a spotlight on the lack of industrial capacity necessary to ramp up production quickly, after decades of dwindling government orders saw many production lines vanish….

“I don’t necessarily think that within the next year our stockpile levels will increase massively,” the NATO official said. “Any additional stockpiles we will have will be heading to Ukraine.” (“NATO expected to raise munitions stockpile targets as war depletes reserves”, Reuters)

How do you take a country to war with Russia without enough ammo to fight the enemy?

The incompetence is mind-boggling, and it’s not a short-term problem either. Western nations no longer have the industrial base to provide the necessary supplies and equipment for “large-scale, high-intensity warfare.” Building up capacity will take years. In the meantime, the war will be settled by well-equiped Russian combat troops who will continue to grind away at the demoralized Ukrainians who increasingly find themselves outmanned and outgunned at every turn. This is from an article at the UK Telegraph:

“With Russia back on the offensive after significant Ukrainian combat successes around Kharkiv and Kherson in the second half of 2022, the past few weeks have been the bloodiest so far of an already bloody war, with both sides taking extraordinarily heavy casualties. Expect it to get worse.

Ukrainian defence minister Oleksii Reznikov says Russia has mobilised “much more” than 300,000 troops, perhaps up to half a million, and these are pouring into Ukraine in preparation for what is expected to be a major offensive in the coming days and weeks. Although Kyiv has also been building up its forces and supplying them with modern equipment donated by the West, Putin has a much greater advantage in troop numbers than he did when he invaded a year ago. Despite repeated optimistic reports of Russia running low on artillery shells – a battle winner in this conflict – Putin’s war stocks are vast, and his factories have been working around the clock to churn out even more.

Under pressure towards the end of last year, Russia withdrew its forces to positions of strength, trading ground for time as it massed resources for a planned hammer blow while grinding down the Ukrainians in the east, softening them up for the assault to come..

Until now, the narrative in the West has been that Ukraine is comfortably winning this war…The reality is more complex….: the truth is that recent promises of new combat equipment for Ukraine – especially longer range missiles, tanks and other armoured vehicles – are unlikely to be fulfilled in time to have an impact in this battle if Putin launches his offensive on the timetable Kyiv predicts….

We must therefore be prepared for significant Russian gains in the coming weeks. We need to be realistic about how bad things could be – otherwise the shock risks dislodging Western resolve. The opposite occurred last summer and autumn, as flagging support in parts of Europe and the US was galvanised by Ukrainian success.” (“Vladimir Putin is about to make shock gains“, UK Telegraph)

And this is from the New York Times:

Exhausted Ukrainian troops complain they are already outnumbered and outgunned, even before Russia has committed the bulk of its roughly 200,000 newly mobilized soldiers. And doctors at hospitals speak of mounting losses as they struggle to care for fighters with gruesome injuries.

The first stages of the Russian offensive have already begun. Ukrainian troops say that Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city that Russian forces have been trying to seize since the summer, is likely to fall soon. Elsewhere, Russian forces are advancing in small groups and probing the front lines looking for Ukrainian weaknesses.

The efforts are already straining Ukraine’s military, which is worn out by nearly 12 months of heavy fighting.

Losses among Ukrainian forces have been severe. Troops in a volunteer contingent called the Carpathian Sich, positioned near Nevske, said that some 30 fighters from their group had died in recent weeks, and soldiers said, only partly in jest, that just about everyone has a concussion.

At one frontline hospital in the Donbas, the morgue was packed with the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers in white plastic bags. In another hospital, stretchers with wounded troops covered in gold foil thermal blankets crowded the corridors, and a steady stream of ambulances arrived from the front nearly all day long.” (“Outnumbered and Worn Out, Ukrainians in East Brace for Russian Assault”, New York Times) Note: Lifted from Moon of Alabama

And one more excerpt from the Paper of Record:

The problem is that Ukraine is losing the war. Not, as far as we can tell, because its soldiers are fighting poorly or its people have lost heart, but because the war has settled into a World War I-style battle of attrition, complete with carefully dug trenches and relatively stable fronts.

Such wars tend to be won — as indeed World War I was — by the side with the demographic and industrial resources to hold out longest. Russia has more than three times Ukraine’s population, an intact economy and superior military technology. At the same time, Russia has its own problems; until recently, a shortage of soldiers and the vulnerability of its arms depots to missile strikes have slowed its westward progress. Both sides have incentives to come to the negotiating table.” (“Russia and Ukraine Have Incentives to Negotiate. The U.S. Has Other Plans”, New York Times)

Get the picture? The war will undoubtedly drag on for some time, but the outcome is now certain. And as the noose tightens in the east and the prospects for success grow more remote, we think the neocons are bound to do something even more desperate, foolhardy and violent. We expect the next move will be an attempt to build a coalition of the willing (UK, Romania, Poland and US) that will push the reluctant NATO allies to the breaking point by pitting a makeshift US-led Army against Russia Forces on Ukraine’s killing fields. With every reckless action, Uncle Sam increases the probability of a critical split within NATO that will end Washington’s stranglehold on Europe and lay the groundwork for a new order.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Michael Whitney is a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

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

Featured image: NATO heads of state at the alliance’s summit in Brussels (Source: Liberation News)

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First published on February 16, 2023

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Arch globalist Klaus Schwab has called for elites to come together globally in order to “master” advanced technologies, warning them that if they don’t act swiftly the world could “escape our power”.

Yes really. The guy doesn’t hold back.

The World Economic Forum founder was speaking at a gathering in Dubai not so subtly titled the World Government Summit.

Schwab pointed to “fourth industrial revolution technologies,” and stated “Who masters those technologies – in some way – will be the master of the world.”

“Ten years from now we will be completely different,” Schwab said, adding “My deep concern is that [with] #4IR technologies, if we don’t work together on a global scale, if we do not formulate, shape together the necessary policies, they will escape our power to master those technologies.”

Schwab is obsessed with AI and other advanced technologies and has previously predicted that “What the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, our digital, and our biological identities.”

Schwab also openly endorses something the media still claims is solely a domain of discussion for conspiracy theorists, namely “active implantable microchips that break the skin barrier of our bodies.”

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Featured image is from Summit News

La Grande Crociata dell’occidente contro “il Male”

February 18th, 2023 by Manlio Dinucci

Sul palco dei Festival di Sanremo. dopo la lettura del messaggio di Zelenski, si è esibita la band di Kiev Antytila per “trasmettere al pubblico italiano un messaggio forte sulla resistenza ucraina”. Poco prima, a Brescia e Bergamo, erano stati cancellati i concerti del pianista russo Denis Matsuev in programma al Festival Pianistico Internazionale.  Ciò è avvenuto dopo che l’ambasciatore ucraino aveva chiesto ai sindaci delle due città di cancellare “le esibizioni del musicista ritenuto vicino alle posizioni di Putin”.

Ancora più pesante è stata l’ingerenza di Kiev negli affari interni italiani quando Silvio Berlusconi ha detto in un’intervista che, per evitare la guerra, “bastava che Zelenski cessasse di attaccare le due repubbliche autonome del Donbass”. Kiev ha dichiarato che “gli ultimi commenti di Silvio Berlusconi sull’Ucraina causano un enorme scandalo”, lo ha definito “un infame” e lo ha accusato di “baciare le mani di Putin, insanguinate fino ai gomiti”.

Contemporaneamente il Segretario USA alla Difesa Austin ribadisce che “il Mondo Libero resta al fianco dell’Ucraina e la Russia è ormai un paria globale”, convocando a Bruxelles il “Gruppo di contatto per la difesa dell’Ucraina” per richiedere agli oltre 50 paesi che ne fanno parte, tra cui l’Italia, di inviare ancora più armi a Kiev. Subito dopo il Summit NATO dei Ministri della Difesa stabilisce altre misure di guerra contro la Russia. Tra queste: “Potenziare le nostre difese avanzate”, ossia schierare a ridosso della Russia sempre più forze militari e armamenti strategici anche nucleari; “Potenziare la capacità industriale per ricostituire le scorte di armi e munizioni, consumate dall’enorme quantità che gli Alleati hanno fornito all’Ucraina”. Il Summit ha deciso un ulteriore aumento delle spese militari. Non bastano i 2.800 milioni di dollari che gli USA spendono in media ogni giorno per le proprie forze militari. La spesa militare italiana è salita a 80 milioni di euro al giorno, ma deve raggiungere i 100 milioni al giorno. Tutto questo, dagli Stati Uniti all’Italia, è pagato dai cittadini, su cui grava il peso crescente della crisi economica provocata dalla guerra.

Manlio Dinucci

Video :

https://www.byoblu.com/2023/02/17/la-grande-crociata-delloccidente-contro-il-male-grandangolo-pangea/

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In a previous article – which was republished in ActivistPost, and The Burning Platform – readers were introduced on how the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, better known as NATO, have created a fifth operational domain (the first four being air, land, sea, space) called cyber which they use with great success to propagandise and brainwash the masses around the globe, particularly on social media, as an instrument to gain support for their war follies.  

This article will provide a more detailed assessment of this important form of covert warfare, as it is, stealthily yet effectively, being perpetrated on ordinary people without them even knowing they are its targeted subjects.

What is Cyber Warfare?

Though Cyber Warfare is often described as actions by a nation-states or international organizations to attack and attempt to damage another nation’s computers or information networks, what is seldom left out is how it is used to great effect on social media and is aimed towards ordinary citizens.

According to Imperva, there are 7 types of Cyber Warfare attacks:

The one of concern here is ‘Propaganda Attacks’ which they define as follows [emphasis added].

Attempts to control the minds and thoughts of people living in or fighting for a target country. Propaganda can be used to expose embarrassing truths, spread lies to make people lose trust in their country, or side with their enemies.”

Looking at this definition, it becomes apparent that propaganda is a kind of mind control. Other definitions for propaganda include:

“Propaganda is information that is not impartial and used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively (perhaps lying by omission).”

and

“Information or ideas that are spread by an organized group or government to influence people’s opinions, especially by not giving all the facts or by secretly emphasizing only one way of looking at the facts. (Cambridge Dictionary)”

The above definition makes reference to ideas spread by organisations or even the government. In fact, the word government is quite telling in itself, though most people don’t even realise the etymological significance of the word itself.

The definition continues, “to influence people’s opinions, especially by not giving all the facts or by secretly emphasizing only one way of looking at the facts.

Both of these points have been omnipresent during the Covid-19 Pandemic. First, it is no secret that fear was used with great success by governments, health authorities and other group to ensure compliance of wearing of masks, lockdowns, and being subject to an experimental medical procedure, i.e., the Covid-19 vaccines. Furthermore, many important facts about the SARS-CoV-2 virus and related information were censored and omitted (not reported on) by the corporate media.

In the case of the Covid-19 Pandemic, the topic at hand was the management of the health crisis itself. But here the topic at hand is war.

Similar to how propaganda and other mind control techniques, such as Mass Formation Psychosis, were used during the Covid-19 Pandemic, similar ones are now being employed to get people from all around the world to sympathise with and side with the Ukraine in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War, even though this belligerent has a systemic corruption problem and a dreadful human rights record.

NATO, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and other allies have been unswerving in their efforts to escalate this war for various reasons such as increasing the profits of the military-industrial complex, as well as to further antagonise Russia. They are not only providing massive amounts of funds to the corrupt Ukrainian regime, but are also dangerously increasing the funneling of military weapons to the conflict zone, carelessly setting the stage for further bloodshed and destruction – on both sides, not to mention the possibility of fomenting a nuclear exchange.

Fifth Generation Warfare

Getting back to NATO and Cyber Warfare, the sophistication upon which this form of military operation is used in this Information Age must be scrutinised to better understand its intentions and net effects.

Before delving into NATO’s specific cyber warfare treatise, it is worthwhile to first consult The Epoch Times John Mac Ghlionn’s article titled The WEF Wants to Hack Your Brain so as to have a bigger picture view of what is really happening.

Hacking the brain” has been an ongoing theme at the World Economic Forum (WEF) which must be taken seriously. The article makes reference to how NATO chaired a forum exploring the “weaponization of brain sciences” and “exploiting the vulnerabilities of the human brain.”

Project Censored – #18 The Human Mind as “New Domain of War”: NATO Plans for Cognitive Warfare, November 26, 2022.

The Project Censored article interestingly noted Canada’s role in the project [with emphasis and links added]:

“On October 5, 2021, the NATO Association of Canada (NAOC) sponsored a forum on what panelists described as the “weaponization of brain sciences” to exploit “vulnerabilities of the human brain”in service of more sophisticated forms of social engineering and control. As Ben Norton reported for the Grayzone, “with its development of cognitive warfare strategies,” NATO has added a new, sixth level to the five operational domains—air, land, sea, space, and cyber—that the alliances’ member nations have previously sought to control.”

“The NAOC panel discussion was part of NATO’s Fall 2021 Innovation Challenge, hosted by Canada, which sought to enlist the expertise of private entrepreneurs and academic researchers “to help develop new tactics and technologies for the military alliance,” Ben Norton reported. (The NAOC, he noted, is technically a nongovernmental organization, but “its mission is to promote NATO.”)”

Screenshot of Canada’s National Defence’s Fall 2021 NATO Innovation Challenge. Notice the crest on the right-hand site which is that of The Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM).

From a related article we also have the following notable passage which describes the manner in which NATO’s Fall 2021 Innovation Challenge, hosted by Canada, seeks to operate:

““Cognitive warfare seeks to change not only what people think, but also how they act,” the Canadian government wrote in its official statement on the challenge.“Attacks against the cognitive domain involve the integration of cyber, disinformation/misinformation, psychological, and social-engineering capabilities.”

“Ottawa’s press release continued: “Cognitive warfare positions the mind as a battle space and contested domain. Its objective is to sow dissonance, instigate conflicting narratives, polarize opinion, and radicalize groups. Cognitive warfare can motivate people to act in ways that can disrupt or fragment an otherwise cohesive society.””

Put simply, the tactics of creating dis/misinformation, dissonance, conflicting narratives, promoting the polarization of opinions, and radicalising groups are integral to their cognitive warfare’s modus operandi.

Returning to the Project Censored piece:

“One panelist, Marie-Pierre Raymond, who represented the Canadian Armed ForcesInnovation for Defense Excellence and Security Program, stated that “the rapid evolution of neurosciences as a tool of war” hinges on developments in artificial intelligence, big data, and social media.

Panelists of the NAOC, part of NATO’s Fall 2021 Innovation Challenge, hosted by Canada. Image source: The Grayzone – Behind NATO’s ‘cognitive warfare’: ‘Battle for your brain’ waged by Western militaries.

“As Norton noted, panelists representing NATO interests sought to ensure corporations that their shareholders would “continue to profit” from NATO’s “imperial endeavors.”

That passage above must be re-emphasised, for it suggest that the panelists involved represent NATO interests seeking to ensure that corporations would “continue to profit” from NATO’s “imperial endeavors.”

It is quite telling, for it appears to suggest that a large objective of this exercise is geared towards ensuring financial profits of corporations, presumable of the military/security-industrial complex in the pursuit of its imperialism, i.e., the preservation and continued expansion of the Anglo-American Empire.

Continuing with the Project Censored article,

“The panel’s focus was guided by a 2020 NATO-sponsored study titled “Cognitive Warfare” and authored by François du Cluzel [a former French military officer], who manages the NATO Innovation Hub and was one of the event’s featured speakers. According to du Cluzel’s report, the objectives of cognitive warfare are “to make everyone a weapon” and “to harm societies,” rather than simply targeting an enemy’s armed forces.

Moreover, as this passage states, apart from the financial interests, some of its main objectives are to “make everyone a weapon” and “harm societies.

Looking at the amount of hatred and division online and in social media outlets, such as Twitter, in particular, one can easily surmise that this operation is already in full swing.

“Furthermore, cognitive warfare ispotentially endless since there can be no peace treaty or surrender for this type of conflict.” For these reasons, “the human mind is now being considered as a new domain of war.”

In other words, this is a form of information warfare, or, more precisely, fifth generation warfare.

Ben Norton’s Behind NATO’s ‘cognitive warfare’: ‘Battle for your brain’ waged by Western militaries additional clarity on the matter.

“Now, NATO is spinning out an entirely new kind of combat it has branded cognitive warfare. Described as the “weaponization of brain sciences,” the new method involves “hacking the individual” by exploiting “the vulnerabilities of the human brain” in order to implement more sophisticated “social engineering.””

Social engineering is key here.

“A 2020 NATO-sponsored study of this new form of warfare clearly explained, “While actions taken in the five domains are executed in order to have an effect on the human domain, cognitive warfare’s objective is to make everyone a weapon.”

“The brain will be the battlefield of the 21st century,” the report stressed.

Humans are the contested domain,” and “future conflicts will likely occur amongst the people digitally first and physically thereafter in proximity to hubs of political and economic power.”

The 2020 NATO-sponsored study on cognitive warfare. Source: Cognitive Warfare Project – Reference DocumentsCognitive Warfare.

“Humans are the contested domain,” in other words, in this type of warfare it is ordinary citizens who are targeted.

And “future [perpetual?] conflicts” will first occur among the people digitally. Put differently, through psychological manipulation and social engineering – particularly online – the masses will be conditioned and predisposed for war.

“NATO’s development of novel forms of hybrid warfare come at a time when member states’ military campaigns are targeting domestic populations on an unprecedented level.”

“The Ottawa Citizen reported this September that the Canadian military’s Joint Operations Command took advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to wage an information war against its own domestic population, testing out propaganda tactics on Canadian civilians.”

As the passages above attest, Canada has been once such member state who has commissioned its military to wage this kind of hybrid warfare against its own people.

The devil is in the details

On May 21, 2021, NATO Review published a piece titled Countering cognitive warfare: awareness and resilience which was produced by authors from Johns Hopkins University and Imperial College London.

As was noted in this author’s previous article, it must be emphasised that these two organisations are the very same ones that created the models upon which lockdownsoccurred due to the SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19) outbreak which lead to disastrous outcomes such as business closures, supply-chain disruptions, massive increases in depression and suicides, but to name a few.

The piece is quite revealing, for it outlines in great detail the bases upon and manner in which cognitive warfare in the cyber operational domain can occur and be highly effective. In other words, how it can be used to counter the enemy’s propaganda and mis/disinformation efforts.

But, as has been quite apparent during the Covid-19 crisis, the tactics describe earlier and those hereunder are not limited only to attacking one’s enemy, but can also be used change the broader populations’ mindset and attitude regarding their war efforts and endeavours.

Particularly since the end of WWII, populations around the world have been quite against their respective countries becoming entangled in various wars – particularly those led by the United States in the pursuit of their hegemony. This was certainly the case during the Vietnam War and Iraq War, as even many Americans became disenfranchised with the war machine and its huge costs to society.

Consequently, to gain approval for given war efforts, such as with the current Russia-Ukraine War, the concerned parties, i.e., the United States, NATO, and allies (including governments), must sway public opinion in their favor to gain support and avoid pushback or criticism.

And this is where the methods and tactics described above and hereunder come into play.

While the reader may think that employing these cyber warfare tactics on the masses is easier said than done, what follows will shed doubt as to the sheer effectiveness they possess.

Here are some key excerpts from the paper [with emphasis added].

“In cognitive warfare, the human mind becomes the battlefield. The aim is to change not only what people think, but how they think and act. Waged successfully, it shapes and influences individual and group beliefs and behaviours to favour an aggressor’s tactical or strategic objectives. In its extreme form, it has the potential to fracture and fragment an entire society, so that it no longer has the collective will to resist an adversary’s intentions. An opponent could conceivably subdue a society without resorting to outright force or coercion.”

The above passage is one of the most powerful and telling of the paper. Unpacked, its aims are multifold:

  • Change what people think;
  • Change how they think;
  • Get them to act;
  • Shape & influence individual & group beliefs and behaviours;
  • Fracture and fragment entire societies;
  • Subdue a society without the use of force or coercion.

Specifically with regards to the Russia-Ukraine War, many of these tactics have already been used to great success which we have seen ad nauseum in the mainstream press and on social media. Russia bad, Ukraine good. If you’re not with us, you’re against us (groupthink). Zelenskyy is a noble savior fighting for his people (shaping beliefs). We must send more weapons to the Ukraine (shaping attitudes and behaviours). All Russians are bad and must be punished – even those who have nothing to do with the war such as athletes and expatriates (fracture society). Get countries to impose crushing sanctions on Russia and its people who have no say in the matter and ultimately bear their consequences (subdue a society).

Such tactics may appear inoffensive or innocuous when completely distinct and separate from one another; but when they are strategically employed in unison and over several campaigns, their effects are impressive.

“The aims of cognitive warfare can be limited, with short time horizons. Or they can be strategic, with campaigns launched over the course of decades. A single campaign could focus on the limited aim of preventing a military manoeuver from taking place as planned, or to force the alteration of a specific public policy. Several successive campaigns could be launched with the long-term objective of disrupting entire societies or alliances, by seeding doubts about governance, subverting democratic processes, triggering civil disturbances, or instigating separatist movements.

The part bolded above shows how such strategic campaigns, i.e., cyber military operations, are also devised and employed during Color Revolutions, or coups such as the Maidan Coup which was planned and executed by key U.S. neocons, such as Victoria Nuland and John Kerry.

With regards to the Russia-Ukraine War, though many prior destabilisation campaigns were employed by NATO and the United States, the 2014 Maidan Revolution was a significant one.

In this era whereby the masses have smartphones equipped with cameras and are readily tweeting on Twitter, posting on Facebook, or reacting to others’ posts in a flash, it is no wonder that a flurry of mis/disinformation, half-truths, lies, deceptions, and even omissions can create a digital fog of war for those lured in the online cyber battle.

Countless campaigns are purposely planned and executed by various units – some military, some non-military – to socially engineer the masses for particular causes.

“In the last century, the innovative integration of mobile infantry, armour, and air resulted in a new and initially irresistible kind of manoeuver warfare. Today, cognitive warfare integrates cyber, information, psychological, and social engineering capabilities to achieve its ends. It takes advantage of the internet and social media to target influential individuals, specific groups, and large numbers of citizens selectively and serially in a society.

“It seeks to sow doubt, to introduce conflicting narratives, to polarise opinion, to radicalise groups, and to motivate them to acts that can disrupt or fragment an otherwise cohesive society. And the widespread use of social media and smart device technologies in Alliance member countries may make them particularly vulnerable to this kind of attack.”

One needn’t look even beyond Twitter or Facebook to notice the polarisation, radicalisation, and extremism that foments confusion, hatred, and disunity among people who otherwise would have no reason to be hateful towards one another. This is done so by design and is called social engineering, or manipulation.

The following passage demonstrates how behaviors and actions of individuals or groups can be channeled for a specific purpose.

“A social messaging campaign that inflames the passions of online influencers can cause controversies to go viral. Social media groups may be motivated to organise demonstrations and to take to the street.

It is no secret that discernment and critical thinking skills have been on the decline in our education systems in the past several decades.

Moreover, the advent of so-called “smartphones” and increased usage of social media platforms have certainly aggravated this trend.

The section ‘Our weakened minds’ of the NATO Review article adds to this perspective:

“Our cognitive abilities may also be weakened by social media and smart devices. Social media use can enhance the cognitive biases and innate decision errorsdescribed in the Nobel-prize winning behaviourist Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

News feeds and search engines that serve results which align with our preferences increase confirmation bias, whereby we interpret new information to confirm our preconceived beliefs. Social messaging apps rapidly update users with new information, inducing recency bias, whereby we overweight the importance of recent events over those of the past. Social networking sites induce social proofing, wherein we mimic and affirm others’ actions and beliefs to fit in with our social groups, which become echo chambers of conformism and groupthink.”

“The rapid pace of messaging and news releases, and the perceived need to quickly react to them, encourages “thinking fast” (reflexively and emotionally) as opposed to “thinking slow” (rationally and judiciously). Even established and reputable news outlets now post emotional headlines to encourage viral diffusion of their news articles.”

The three passages above from the paper are very telling and provide a very accurate description of prevailing online behavior.

The first passage makes reference to Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman and his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.

The third passage emphasises the rapid pace of messaging and news releases, and the perceived need to quickly react to them. This is so true in the fast-pace society we have been conditioned to live in.

It is quite safe to assume that most individuals “think fast” (reflexively and emotionally) as opposed to “thinking slow” (rationally and judiciously).”

The Twittersphere provides a classic example of this phenomenon. How many people re-tweet others’ posts, images, memes, or articles without even reading them? People often react quickly without taking the time to properly assess or vet what they are looking at in a more thoughtful, rational, and judicious manner.

The second passage above – “we overweight the importance of recent events over those of the past” – also reminds us that, in general, people are too short-sighted, don’t know their history well enough, and are thus focused on commenting on present events without proper historical context.

When multiplied by thousands, if not millions of participants, it is no wonder that so much confusion, conflict, and hatred emerges in this digital fog of war.

People spend less time reading their content, even as they increase the frequency in sharing them. Social messaging systems are optimised to distribute short snippets that often omit important context and nuance. This can facilitate the spread of both intentionally and unintentionally misinterpreted information or slanted narratives. The brevity of social media posts, in combination with striking visual images, may prevent readers from understanding others’ motives and values.”

As previously mentioned earlier in this work, these are precisely the tactics that were discussed by panelists of the NATO Association of Canada (NAOC): “weaponization of brain sciences” to exploit “vulnerabilities of the human brain” in service of more sophisticated forms of social engineering and control.

To conclude, the combined elements described above contribute to what NATO and its allies such as the United States and Canada employ in its cyber warfare operational domain. And, as can be readily observed online, they execute it almost to perfection.

*

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This article was originally published on Dan Fournier’s Inconvenient Truths.

Dan Fournier is from Canada. After having worked for over 35 years in the education sector, 22 as a teacher (including at the collegiate level), he has recently transitioned into investigative journalism. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Depiction of nefarious cyber warfare. Image source.   

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First published on February 6, 2022

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***

“This is why I am pleased to announce that we have reached an agreement with BioNTech-Pfizer to, once again, speed up the delivery of vaccines. 50 million additional doses of BioNTech-Pfizer vaccines will be delivered in quarter 2 of this year, starting in April….I want to thank BioNTech-Pfizer. It has proven to be a reliable partner. It has delivered on its commitments, and it is responsive to our needs. This is to the immediate benefit of EU citizens.

 – Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission [1]

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In a recent report, Albert Bourla, the chairman and chief executive of the global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc accepted the prestigious Genesis award for his work leading to the very first vaccine for COVID-19 to be authorized for distribution in the U.S. and Europe. [2]

This prize is a million dollar U.S. award granted each year to an individual for “professional achievements, contributions to humanity and commitment to Jewish values.” [3]

Cited among reasons expressed for this season’s choice was Pfizer’s decision to turn down funding from the U.S. government early on “ a decision that helped the company reduce bureaucracy and expedite development of the vaccine.” (Although this courtesy does not extend to all the booster shots many are being coerced into taking as we move forward.) [4][5]

But with all the praise this massive drug dispenser has been getting, there exists a disturbing reality at the heart of it. As researcher Dr Gary G. Kohls put it quite bluntly in a recent article, “Pfizer has faced thousands of lawsuits for fraudulent marketing and medical injuries caused by some of its most profitable, drugs.” This includes a criminal record with the U.S. Department of Justice on charges of fraudulent marketing back in 2009! Pfizer had to pay $2.3 billion in fines, penalties and settlements. [6]

In related news, according to a recent article for the Brussels Correspondent, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen refused to disclose the texts of a discussion with Bourla after a freedom of information request. The text exchange was connected with discussions to purchase $1.8 billion COVID vaccines for the European population in April of 2021 – basically four shots for every man, woman and child in Europe – and long before Omicron! [7]

With a track record like this, one wonders how we keep this company operating as leaders let alone inheriting laurels!

Incidentally, the opposite is true of the Freedom Convoy 2022. Many thousands of Canadians and their vehicles have arrived in Ottawa to protest against the mandates to take the Pfizer and other vaccines for COVID-19. They are supported by countless Canadians who themselves are compelled and coerced into taking it.

The media and our politicians cannot express one fraction of concern for Pfizer given its record. Yet they cannot resist the impulse to shine the majority of the convoy in the spotlight of a few as yet unidentified individuals engaging in desecration of a war memorial, carrying a swastika, being rude to food banks and so forth. This in spite of the organizers themselves speaking out and condemning such acts!

What more can we find out about the pursuits of Pfizer within the COVID vaccine craze, Pfizer’s goals in the industry, the media and ultimately in health care itself? These are a few of the challenging questions we will set a course to address in this week’s Global Research News Hour.

In the first half hour, we speak with Professor Michel Chossudovsky about the document on early adverse effects of the Pfizer COVID vaccine and how this document itself acts as a “smoking gun” blasting away the safety assurances coming from Health Canada and the FDA. He also mentions the size of the company and how it uses its resources to dominate the industry as a whole.

In our second half hour, we are joined by Johnny Vedmore, who has studied extensively on Pfizer Inc and reveals the many tentacles of power it has extended into every facet of life.

Michel Chossudovsky is Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization in, Montreal, and Editor of Global Research. He is Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, and award wining author of 11 books including The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015) .

Johnny Vedmore is a completely independent investigative journalist and musician from Cardiff, Wales. His work aims to expose the powerful people who are overlooked by other journalists and bring new information to his readers. He writes for UnlimitedHangout.com and for his own johnnyvedmore.com

(Global Research News Hour Episode 341)

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Transcript – Interview with Professor Michel Chossudovsky, Jan. 25, 2022

Global Research: It’s a pleasure to have you back Professor Chossudovsky! Maybe to start, you could point out the fact that Pfizer actually has a criminal record, and their account is sound…maybe you could relate to our listeners a little bit more about their whole rejection of being straightforward with their freedom of information.

Michael Chossudovsky: Let me first address the issue of this confidential Pfizer report which was released under freedom of information. It’s a MASSIVE report. I’ve reviewed part of it, and I can say essentially this data revealed – refutes the official vaccine narrative peddled by the governments and the World Health Organization. It comes from the horse’s mouth! It comes from Pfizer! And this means that in as much as what is presented in this report, which is drafted by Phizer, pertaining to the impacts of the vaccine on mortality and morbidity, that data emanates from them! It can now be used, and it should be used to confront both Pfizer and the governments and the WHO and the media! And that report in a Court of Law should be presented as evidence.

And why is it irrefutable? Because it is THEIR data! And THEIR estimates! And not those of independent observers.

So, I think what is significant in this confidential report which is now in the public domain, is the fact that YES it is the #Killer virus! And it is a Mea Culpa on the part of Pfizer!

Now, let me revert to your question on Pfizer’s criminal record. And not many people know about this because the media doesn’t report on it. And I think it is of relevance that if you’re going to be vaccinated by a company which has a criminal record, you should be informed!

And bear in mind, this is the ONLY company in the United States of America which has a criminal record with the U.S. Department of Justice! And we should distinguish between the class action lawsuits which are civilian – it’s not criminal, okay? In other words there was a class action lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson – actually it’s still ongoing.

But as far as Pfizer is concerned, they were accused in 2009 of fraudulent marketing. And they – well, there was an agreement with the company. Pfizer pays $2.3 billion for fraudulent marketing. It goes to the Department of Justice. Okay? It’s a criminal lawsuit! And it’s a settlement.

Bear in mind that when you have a criminal lawsuit, normally you can arrest people. Okay? They negotiated this with the lawyers. And what they had was a so-called “corporate integrity agreement” which essentially is equivalent to Pfizer on probation for a period of four years. In other words, it was the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States which was essentially acting as parole officer on behalf of the Department of Justice. And what was understood is that Pfizer would go back to a normal honest life, and that this entity of the U.S. government would be detecting misconduct on the part of Pfizer Inc.

Now, that is the background and very few people know about it. And it’s the only case!

And now we have a situation, which is far more serious in fraudulent marketing. We have a company marketing a killer vaccine, and I use this  term because the confidential report which is now in the public domain confirms it! And all the data confirm it!

GR: Well, what about the idea that – I mean – you’ve got regulatory agencies, the FDA, Health Canada, they are saying “NO, this is not a killer vaccine. It’s safe!” Does that imply that Pfizer is somehow manipulating them in some way to get the vaccine (approved) to get the statements that they want to get?

MC: Well you know, Health Canada doesn’t publish the data on adverse events and mortality. The United States does it, it’s theirs. The European Union does it, it’s EMA, the European Medicines Agency. We have tons of information from these three – well, European Union, United Kingdom and United States – to say unequivocally that there is an upward trend in mortality and morbidity, and I can say that worldwide. We’re receiving reports from different countries.

Now, Health Canada, the first thing that we should ask Health Canada: reveal the data!

It’s not an issue of constitutional rights here. It goes much further! We have a vaccine which is killing people, and Health Canada has the responsibility to publish the data of vaccine related adverse events and mortality as is done in the United States, Britain and many other countries around the world.

Now I should mention this one very important element which has emerged in late December. Thailand has acknowledged not only the deaths and adverse events, it has implemented a program of compensating the victims of the vaccine! The data is available!

There was something of the order of 8000 complaints which were accepted by the Royal Thai government. At an earlier stage in my life, I worked for the Royal Thai government. A contract with CIDA. But bear in mind, a country like Thailand with a very large population – much larger than the population of Canada, very structured public sector, and so on – takes the decision – and it’s a member of the United Nations and it’s a member of the WHO – takes the decision to compensate the victims. It opens up a precedent.

It opens up a legal precedent. It opens up you might say a Pandora’s box because it is now setting a precedent that the government has actually accepted the fact that this is not a vaccine but a dangerous substance which threatens the lives of people in Thailand and, of course, worldwide.

GR: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see if any other countries jump on board soon!

MC: I don’t see other countries jumping on board, and this revelation on Thailand has been kept secret – well it’s public but at the same time – and people know about it in Thailand – but it’s not something which has been discussed worldwide. It’s important!

But there are other elements which are emerging. There is a police investigation of the United Kingdom directed against the government of Boris Johnson. It’s run by the London Metropolitan Police, okay?

GR: Yeah!

MC: And it is ongoing! And then there is also – also from the United Kingdom, there’s a registered case with International Criminal Court of Justice in The Hague, and it is presenting the fact that this vaccine is a criminal undertaking inasmuch as the governments are fully aware of the data, they have access to the data of other countries which actually – I mean – Health Canada must have the data somewhere in. And it’s a double crime there. They’re not revealing it to the public, on the one hand, and they’re ignoring the fact that adverse events are taking place. And they’re forcing people to get vaccinated so this constitutes a whole series of criminal acts.

And I say it’s not simply an issue of informed consent or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We’re beyond that!

GR: Yeah…

MC: And it’s the first time in history that a vaccine has had that kind of impact. We could go back to the polio vaccine years back, which was actually discontinued because it was resulting in adverse events, paralysis and death and so on. But it was withdrawn!

So, what we are asking our governments to do is to withdraw this killer vaccine! To withdraw it! There’s no other avenue, and it is not negotiable because it is a criminal act!

GR: Yeah. Okay, I just want to ask you one final point, not so much about the criminal behaviour of Pfizer but also its size. It’s going to be getting into a merger soon with another company. This would make it a much more impressive in terms of – in relation to the other pharmaceutical corporations. You said that they were responsible for getting AstraZeneca (due to its adverse effects) in other countries to get in danger when in fact the same level of injuries – or in fact Pfizer had more injuries than AstraZeneca did. So how do you propose that Pfizer actually achieves that?

MC: Let me go back a little bit in history. And this is something that people don’t know about.

Back in August of 2019, the two big giants, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer entered into an agreement. It wasn’t a merger. But it was a commitment to collaborate. There you have the two big monopolies. GlaxoSithKline is not directly involved in marketing vaccines, but it of course produces various substances which are used in the vaccines, and it’s worldwide and both these companies have partners in China and various other countries. But – there is certainly a big component of the Chinese pharmaceutical industry which is involved, but much more let’s say in the production phase rather than at the level of intellectual property.

But, let me just refer to something which is absolutely fundamental. Back in April of last year, in fact it was March that Pfizer entered into negotiations with the European Union for the delivery of – and listen to that – for the delivery of 1.8 billion doses of their vaccine. And if you look at the numbers, 1.8 billion doses is four times the population – exactly four times the population – of the European Union.

And that order came after an initial delivery of – I don’t have all the figures on that – but we’re talking about the fulfillment of contracts which are in the billions. Literally in the billions! Both in North America as well as in the European Union. And this was negotiated with Ursula von der Leyen who was president of the EU Commission. And she made a statement back in April that the negotiations had been launched. And she also thanked Pfizer and it’s German partner BioNTech, and they said they were reliable partners of the European Union.

Of course, how can Pfizer be a reliable partner when just a few years earlier they were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for fraudulent marketing?

And incidentally, Al Capone was indicted for tax evasion!

There’s a whole level of corruption, of blackmailing, underlying the relationship between the entities of the European Union and nation states and the pharmaceutical industries. And then of course in addition to the – to all this fraudulent behaviour, there is the substance of what is inside these vaccines. And what is inside the vaccines is a killer!

We are still in the process of investigating the vaccines. There’s a whole issue of the graphene oxide or graphene hydra-oxide. There’s the issue of magnetism within the vial of the vaccine. And so on, so forth. And the evidence is overwhelming! And the evidence is overwhelming both revealed by scientists but also revealed – and that’s very important – by the official data of adverse events and mortality associated with this so-called mRNA vaccine which according to scientific opinion is not a vaccine.

GR: Well, Professor Chossudovsky, we really appreciate having you on again and elaborating a little bit on this bombshell of a report. Thank you so much for your time!

MC: Delighted to be on the program. Best wishes!

Transcript- Interview with Johnny Vedmore, Jan. 21, 2022

Part One

Global Research: Joining us to talk about some of the history of Pfizer and the way they operate we are joined by Johnny Vedmore. He’s an independent investigative journalist as well as a musician. He’s based in Cardiff Wales. He contributes to the Unlimited Hangout which is Whitney Webb’s site. Johnny Vedmore welcome to the Global Research News Hour

Johnny Vedmore: Hi, nice to be here. Nice to speak to you. Finally.

GR: So I assume you followed the recent disclosure of the Pfizer documents? I need given what you’ve learned about them, does any of it surprise you?

JV: No and at the moment what we’re going through is a time where we going to see lots of information come out constantly. And what I find incredible is that people can sift through this information so quickly and actually get to the relevant points and I think this does a service to the normal sifts and journalists out there the researchers who are really there – a load of researchers out there who are constantly doing work, and are really, really talented at this stuff. They don’t necessarily have the ability to get out there and go, but they’re the ones who released this information, go through it, sift through it after the release and I find the really important points, and you’ll see in these points echoed in loads of different things that are coming out at the moment including – I know there was a report in New Zealand that came out where they were saying that basically the mortality and the adverse reactions it’s looking to be 30 times higher than any other vaccine.

Which where they’ve seen other figures recently that’s been coming from these other deposits of information, I don’t know what to call them because you always want to refer to them as leaks of information, because they’re only being given up – like you said – only given up because people have put pressure on them.

So in a sense they are like leaks. They’re leaks they just could not stop. They could not keep up those little bits, could not seal them off, and it’s been really important to see what the problems are, and the problems range from anything from like nerve damage.

So we’ve got like myocarditis and pericarditis and all those different effects. Death of course which is the most severe that you can get, some would say, some others would say not when they’re stuck on the wheelchair unable to speak for the rest of their life, as many as loads of other things like blood clots and lots of other problems. And these problems, they’re going to leave people having to ask more questions.

What I find disappointing the most disappointing is that with all the flood of this information you’re still seeing that the majority of people who have some form of profile and then experience the side effects after having a jab and then come out and say it, say in the same breath, “I’m really happy that these vaccines have saved a lot of lives. But this is what they’ve done to me.”

And I always find that’s when the saddest thing, the normal human reaction that often comes from, I believe comes from I want a self preservation of the ego so you don’t feel like you’ve been tricked or duped or that something’s gone wrong…because you can’t have people who are fit and healthy having– including a lot of athletes and stuff– coming down with such bad side effects publicly and it does seem like a mass psychosis event. It does seem like that. It does seem like we’re living in an imaginary world, and we think that’s normal.

And a lot of this comes down to…a lot of the problem we have at the moment is that we’re about to see that flood of information increase at such a level, because they will be creating document after document after document to make it harder for these many researchers to sift through it and actually get answers to any of the questions.

So Pfizer and their people will be looking into trying to flood the zone, as was said in Event 201 by I believe it was Matthew Harrington who said basically flooding the zone looks like putting out as much information as possible and making it impossible for any other news to come to the surface, you know, that sort of thing.

The other thing about a lot of the information that comes out one of the most concerning issues, I think, through the whole covid pandemic relating to these vaccinations, which a lot of people don’t like to call them them vaccinations because they are answering the medical procedure, really. Or medical interventions, they’re not really having to be there.

One of the most interesting things is that the batch types of these Pfizer vaccines had a different level of adverse side effects and death, and so batch types were sent to certain areas that will result in worse rates than other areas, and I find that information to be extremely suspicious because we know there’s an agenda. We know, we’ve heard about the agenda to get rid of the useless eaters and all of this. We’ve heard about that. Now, we’re always dealing with on the edge of rounds of conspiracy theory because it sounds like imaginary, it sounds like a silly imaginary thing, the idea that we could be entering again after all we’ve learned and all of this, That we’d be collectively entering into a point of mass extermination or depopulation by methods that seem underhand.

But when you’re seeing batch numbers being sent to certain areas that will have a higher death rate, and you wonder how are those actually chosen, and who decides who gets who and what gets what, it reminds me of standing in one of those modern Tech Museums – I can’t remember what it’s called, but it was in Bristol, it was like an exhibition I was in. I looked up recently . And it had one of the oldest philosophical issues in front. And it’s supposed to make you think, but to be honest the whole place seemed like it was manufacturing consent for doing rather than thinking about it, because these philosophical problems are not something that you should take, you should use as part of your toolkit unless you really have to. And this is what’s being used.

But the philosophy that if you’ve got one old person and they do this – one old person on a train track and on another train track you’ve got five people and the trains approaching and what do you do? Do you allow the five people, do you change the track, so that it only kills the one person. And everybody’s always going to say, well you change the track, and then it has, and gives you the idea, oh well actually I can make a decision that can save lives, but in return I have to take a life!

And that sort of fundamental idea that has entered into, I think it’s ever prevalent, and not talked about that much, and it’s really symbolic in that one philosophical idea of do you allow one person to die or five people to die and what’s your basis on? Seeding that into the environment, I think has happened a lot. And this Pfizer jab being different, having different effects, different batch numbers is a real suspicious addition to the equation.

GR: Well yeah when Pfizer joined the race to get a covid vaccine, it intended to use the MRNA, a novice brand new thing which is not a DNA vaccine, by the way, but you do see a connection there. Could you just explain that?

JV: Yeah and it’s really hard to research. As a researcher who goes into family histories, and the elite, the powerful sort of connections of the elites in the past and present, it’s really difficult to look at a science of such complicated level, and really understand it. I did a lot of research into it.

My only think of it is that this vaccination works by, instead of, where messenger and mRNA, DNA splits into two, goes through a cell wall, because DNA can’t fit through that cell wall, and then a piece of mRNA attaches to that and then it codes for a protein to be sent. Instead of doing the vaccination, working on that process of replacing that point, it skips to down the line and just calls for that protein to be brought. But that protein is a protein that is causing a lot of the effects.

So, I mean, this spike, this S spike protein, I think people discussed it a little bit at the start, and what the scientific consensus that wasn’t from the mainstream, because the mainstream was, oh, this came from a lab, or was from bat and etc, Even though the other scientists could provide evidence why that was obviously not. 99.9 percent of it came from an animal, but the 0.1 percent of it was a 12 nucleotide insert and that 12-Nucleotide insert is made up of a little bunch of things that’s going to ask for a certain type of proteins to be made. That basically is the spike protein, the S Spike protei you hear so much about, I believe anyway. Put it into that virus, put it into an animal virus inside the laboratory they’ve inserted that – gain of function to make it no longer just in the animal but to allow it to cross over to humans.

And what that Spike protein apparently is, the S protein is from the HIV virus. So they’ve taken it out of there and they’ve placed it in there to make it so that it hooks on better. Because that’s why HIV was so terrible. So that’s what they wanted to do for some reason, that’s what you want to do. You want to create a hook onto it . So that then creates that process, the vaccination creates this rolling process of you calling more of what’s more likely to harm you. Now that’s my understanding of it..

And they’ll say, oh you’re wrong, you don’t understand anything. And it’s true I don’t understand a lot. You know there’s elements of what they say is going to be true, but if you cannot explain to me the medical intervention and how it works so that I could understand it when I’ve got a lot of experience in going through scientific journals and scientific papers and understanding quite complicated stuff, through lots of like time of trying to learn it, if I can’t understand it, then the average Joe on the street who doesn’t take any notice of science is definitely not going to understand it, and that means it’s not got factor of consent. You cannot consent to a medical intervention if you can’t understand how it works and the person who makes it can’t explain it to you in simple terms. It’s simply that.

Because every time they have to try and explain it in too much detail, they have to try and explain where this bit come from or what that bit come from, Or how that’s different or why it’s different from this. Wait a minute, why is this different from this? Why is this? Well, they have to explain it because it’s something they’re discovering themselves. It’s still an ongoing research project.

One thing you discover is as well is that in about 2014, 2015 maybe a little bit later than that, in Britain alone, there were something like a hundred different lab breaches, in, uh, whichever lab is their main Ministry of Defense lab at the moment. And so this is something that is really common all around the place. These guys are doing really dangerous research, really dangerous viruses, it’s like one of those breaches in lab security was they were testing ebola, that they’ve given dead infected into animals. They’ve managed to create ebola in some bovines, some cows I believe they were, a cow, and they were testing it on what ebola does to a cow when it kills them.

Obviously it’s like that sort of gain of function trans-species mutation of viruses in laboratories are happening in Britain, and that just should not be, we shouldn’t be bringing these viruses … I understand the idea, you have to do some research, okay, if a virus is in a country you send all your scientists to that country and you do your research while that virus is there in that country.

You don’t create the viruses. I just do not believe in this. And a lot of this research is based on this mRNA technology which was, really, like, you know, fundamentally, like, all works apart from this one little bit we can’t get a grasp on. We can’t get an understanding of, which I think basically, something that, which I think it’s called an agitator or something, something that causes a response to your immune system. And you have to bond that, bond that onto something, and they couldn’t find it, and they ended up with like those lipid nanoparticles and things like that. And all of that stuff is known for having some form of toxicity. That is a known.

Now the problem with a lot of these experiments nowadays, a lot of these companies, is that if it’s unknown, that means it’s fair game. So they do this as well with the response to the virus and how they calculate the adverse effects of a vaccine. So they say we’re not going to count, we’re not going to check, no one has to report it, its not mandatory, you don’t have to… 1 to 10 percent may report it if they want, we won’t do any research into that, but we’ll tell you, we’ll tell you for sure that it’s doing this that’s the opposite of what the research would actually tell us if we do it. So it’s like don’t look, don’t tell policy. We don’t look at the research, we don’t research it, we don’t check the numbers, so it’s not happening.

Intermission

Part Two

GR: Talk a bit about this scandalous behaviour of Pfizer. I mean there’s a history of it that’s documented in the court’s record, I mean you talk about some of the more dynamic cases in their past that should raise a few flags about some of their products.

JV: Well I mean I, I’ve got to say I’m not the most knowledgeable person about everything in the world relating to Pfizer, but I did my research on them, and some of the things that you… One of the things I focused in on was the case in Nigeria.

I think it was in the nineties, where they come into test some medicine that was really potentially unnecessary, I think, on pregnant women. And then there was loads of birth defects. As soon as people started dying, I mean the birth defects weren’t discovered till later, and other things weren’t discovered till later, but the actual, as soon as people started dying, and things started going wrong, and people started noticing, and people started seeing it, the scientists just packed up the whole operation and left straight away. They had no intention

And did this would then – people would try and get justice for these people. And for the next like ten years, Pfizer would do everything in its power to put legal pressure on these people who were poor people from Nigeria community, and that’s a lot different than what it’s like living in the west, when you from… poor Nigerian town up north to be tested on by these guys and you’ve got some sort of, you’re done for life, you know, you can’t work anymore…these people have to work lots. They have to work much harder than us. They have to carry things, they have to look after people. Some of them were…obviously couldn’t have kids or couldn’t have a normal life so they’re seen as sterile and their lives would be affected forever, that’s a tragedy within itself.

But the Pfizer, Pfizer would do their best to obfuscate and to every point in court, to refuse to take any responsibility until eventually they said basically, “okay, we’ll say that it could have been but we’re not sure and we’ll pay you like something.” I don’t know, it was like a pittance, each person got maybe a thousand pound if they were lucky or something.

You know oh, they really didn’t get… And then they go on and act as though this is normal, it’s normal behaviour, this is what we do. So, a lot of the things about Pfizer, a lot of these things about these big pharmaceutical companies, they gain this, all of this behavior they do all of these different times, because that’s just one of many.

I’m sure there’s many people who can tell you every single thing that Pfizer has done, and I come across a lot of them, but I wouldn’t want to speak about things, I’m not necessarily, like I’d make mistakes on, and a lot of the stuff I read I didn’t go into in great detail because quite simply there was so much of it. These people they get – go on, sorry.

GR: Maybe you could talk a little bit about the role of Pfizer in contorting the regulation in the FDA. Because I mean, it’s not just within Pfizer but it’s going out, in fact I know, for example, a former Pfizer employee Patrizia Cavazzoni ended up as director at the FDA.

JV: Yeah, yeah well this is what they do, they swap in between. The other thing I discovered is when I did research on the Pfizer people, what you discover is that the people who were interviewing the Pfizer people back in the day, were given this manufactured version of events, and just like, you know, doing puff pieces for these people. These people would go on later to work for Pfizer and companies and vice versa when Pfizer employees caught three of them I think, in one of the cases, I think three of them got caught sending emails to each other that they were trying to play down and they got caught out.

And so those three actors step down and they all go into the media and then report doing the same thing! Going to there now the links with these pharmaceutical companies in the media then they’re just representatives, or they go into the PR into the back offices. A lot of these people don’t actually have any type of, like, punishment for their crimes this way. It’s a big circle. It’s a big circle.

And a lot of the funding, a lot of the funding in government etc, a lot of the adverts on TV and now you’ll see are sponsored by the people who can pay for them easily because their earning so much money. And that’s companies like Pfizer. Now a lot of these companies, big companies I’ve done research on, GlaxoSmithKline in the past – which was SmithKline Beecham and Glaxo Welcome or whatever, all of these different things – these companies merge, change, and they rebrand every, say, thirty years I’d say, it seems, because they need to. Because they come up to a point when the scandal’s too much and they’d have to pay way too much money out, that they just have to say okay we’re going to split the company in two, sell this off to this, sell this off to this, and that’s happened multiple times throughout history and will happen again I believe.

Any of these companies, Pfizer or something, they’ll get bought out by Eli Lilly or something like this, another company will come along, and really it’ll still be the same people making the same money, owning it the same way, the same people will be on board running it the same way. Anybody who has to have their head on the chopping block of a company like Pfizer or one of the big pharmaceutical companies, we’ll just be moved up into even another department which is never for you see a lot. It’s often they say, yeah this person did bad, we’re going to send them over to this department where they’re out of the Limelight.

These people don’t really take responsibility, or these big companies, and the people working inside them don’t take responsibility for any of the actions–

GR: What’s that going to do overtime, I mean if you’re working in Pfizer, I mean, like a company that’s able to avoid accountability as you say maybe there are attempts to cut corners whatever, what does that do to them as individuals doing their work, I mean, is it–

JV: Well, I think to get into the talk of Big Pharma in the first place, you probably got to be pretty narcissistic with a massive ego.

So the people running down at the lower levels I always feel a bit sorry for a lot of the people, because you’ve seen good people work in these companies, like the people who have the same intentions as many nurses have when they go into work at a hospital, the idea that I’m going to do good, I’m going to help people, I’m going to look after people, but when they actually get into it, all they’re doing is, their basic standard operating procedure. Research they’re being funded for, the area that they focus on, and that area that those who they build up to be a bigger picture that’s designed by someone else and for completely different reasons than altruism or humanity for the goodness of humanity, you know these people know how to work the small cogs so they don’t even know their parts of the Cog in the machine.

So a lot of these people who work in Pfizer as well, I feel quite sorry for, because a lot of them would be like “I wanted to make a career out of it” and they got such a bad name, and that’s not what my experience is. My lived experience, I go into work I produce nice and we’re doing good for humanity. We’re researching cancer, we’re researching some irritable bowel syndrome or something like that. Lots of people, you know, really doing good work in all of these companies.

All of these companies use them and then there is this reckless top-level which seems completely, to be put in charge because they’re willing to take the hit. So you don’t get to be, like someone like the CEO Bourla you don’t get to be someone like him in a position like he’s in without having-knowing way that your head will be on the chopping block at some point. You are the front man. You are the front man for a company which is committing crimes.

GR: So do you see any success coming, I mean with the accountability again – basically getting away with things, what will happen to eventually come to a disclosure where the people can basically force the company to – I don’t know – to stop their negative attacks or malfeasance or whatever. What can set the record straight?

JV: I got this really like, the more I look into these, how this whole network of pharmaceutical industries, of trusts, of academia through – fund the research of all these unaccountable bodies, I find it terrifying! What I see is, like, a kind of machine bureaucracy, akin to some sort of cyber hyper communism that’s rolling out through the hole in the medical industry throughout the whole of the world. That it’s unstoppable, that these people will remain unaccountable because they have this way too much power. They’re in control now!

This is like a medical technocracy. None of them will be held to account. I say none of the people who will actually make the decision will be held to account…they’ll have the…their people who have their head of the public chopping block and will then nothing will happen to them anyway. They’ll just disappear into the scene.

I don’t think there’s any structure that can hold them to account because all these structures by what I’ve seen have been completely and utterly infiltrated for over three decades by masses and masses of government infiltration and other things that make it have that sort of, like, fascist sort of like public-private behemoth feel to it. I’m not sure there is any way to do it apart from literally really big, really big change in the way we do politics and the way we hold people to account. Because I think what really needs to happen is that all of these companies, all of these people that are supposed to work for health have to be 100 percent transparent all of the time.

They should have no option to do anything other than that. They should be no wiggle room at all for them to hide anything. If they are giving their drugs to the public, which is what a drug company does if they’re giving their medical stuff for use on the public, they need to be 100 percent open, accountable, every email scrutinized, every communication scrutinized, I think we need that throughout a lot of the top levels of society, of the people we can’t trust. Not for the lower levels of society, I think the current path they are trying to create is what we need to flip.

What they’re trying to create at the moment in the world is this idea that they will surveil everybody in the panopticonic type manner. We will all be prisoners in cells and they will sit in the centre and watch out on us. Well we need to reverse that paradigm really easily by making them the cell in the middle and us being all free on the outside and there being like a reverse Panopticon. We need to create some form of reverse panopticon.

GR: I’m afraid we’ve run out of time but I just want to add that you’re writing a major article that’s coming up soon and I think we’ll have to watch for it. Maybe we can have another conversation on that article.

JV: I would love to– I think it relates in many different ways.

GR: Johnny, thank you for joining me

JV: Ah, it’s been a pleasure! Good night!

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Notes:

  1. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_21_1741
  2. Josef Federman (Jan. 19, 2022), ‘Pfizer boss Albert Bourla wins Genesis Prize for vaccine development’, Associated Press; https://www.independent.ie/world-news/pfizer-boss-albert-bourla-wins-genesis-prize-for-vaccine-development-41255689.html
  3. ibid
  4. ibid
  5. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-11-pfizer-biontech-moderna-profit-analysis.html
  6. https://www.globalresearch.ca/why-pfizer-can-never-trusted/5767125
  7. Joe Barnes (January 28, 2022), ‘Ursula von der Leyen hauled over the coals after refusing to publish text messages to Pfizer chief’, Brussels Correspondent; https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/01/28/ursula-von-der-leyen-accused-maladministration-refusing-publish/

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***

Expensive military hardware like a new tank undergoes rigorous testing before heading to the battlefield. A startup called Istari, backed by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and chair of Alphabet, reckons some of that work can be done more effectively in the metaverse.

Ishtari uses machine learning to virtually assemble and test war machines from computer models of individual components, such as the chassis and engines, that are usually marooned on separate digital drawing boards. It may sound dull, but Schmidt says it can bring a dose of tech industry innovation to US military engineering. “The Istari team is bringing internet-type usability to models and simulations,” he says. “This unlocks the possibility of software-like agility for future physical systems—it is very exciting.”

The company reflects Schmidt’s unique position as a link between the tech industry and the Pentagon. Virtual replicas known as digital twins are common in manufacturing and could help the Pentagon develop hardware more quickly. And Istari is a building block in a wider project in which Schmidt is attempting to bring Silicon Valley technology and thinking to the US military.

That quest has roots in the shock Schmidt experienced in 2016 when he first glimpsed the state of Pentagon technology up close. He was still chair of Alphabet but accepted an invitation from President Obama’s defense secretary Ashton Carter to chair a new Defense Innovation Board trying to modernize the DOD. Schmidt’s new post began with an eye-opening tour of US labs and bases.

“I got to run around with Eric and look at how the department was engaging on commercial technology,” says Will Roper, who was then an assistant secretary of the Air Force focused on technology and is the founder and CEO of Istari. “It was evident that the entire Department of Defense was developing software the same way it was done in the 1970s and ’80s,” Roper says. He was one of many Pentagon leaders who were impressed by Schmidt‘s diagnosis of the department’s problems and willingness to try to solve them.

Schmidt became CEO of Google in 2001, when the search engine had a few hundred employees and was barely making money. He stepped away from Alphabet in 2017 after building a sprawling, highly profitable company with a stacked portfolio of projects, including cutting-edge artificial intelligenceself-driving cars, and quantum computers.

Schmidt now sees another opportunity for technological reinvention to lead to domination, this time for the US government in competition with other world powers. He may be uniquely well positioned to understand what the Pentagon needs to reach its technological goals and to help the agency obtain it. But his ties to industry raise questions about how the US should aim to align the government and the private sector. And while US military power has long depended on advances in technology, some fear that military AI can create new risks.

Good People, Bad System

Speaking over Zoom from his office in New York, Schmidt lays out a grand vision for a more advanced DOD that can nimbly harness technology from companies like Istari. In a cheery orange sweater that looks like it’s made of exquisite wool, he casually imagines a wholesale reboot of the US armed forces.

“Let’s imagine we’re going to build a better war-fighting system,” Schmidt says, outlining what would amount to an enormous overhaul of the most powerful military operation on earth. “We would just create a tech company.” He goes on to sketch out a vision of the internet of things with a deadly twist. “It would build a large number of inexpensive devices that were highly mobile, that were attritable, and those devices—or drones—would have sensors or weapons, and they would be networked together.”

The problem with today’s Pentagon is hardly money, talent, or determination, in Schmidt’s opinion. He describes the US military as “great human beings inside a bad system”—one that evolved to serve a previous era dominated by large, slow, expensive projects like aircraft carriers and a bureaucratic system that prevents people from moving too quickly. Independent studies and congressional hearings have found that it can take years for the DOD to select and buy software, which may be outdated by the time it is installed. Schmidt says this is a huge problem for the US, because computerization, software, and networking are poised to revolutionize warfare.

Ukraine’s response to Russia’s invasion, Schmidt believes, offers pointers for how the Pentagon might improve. The Ukrainian military has managed to resist a much larger power in part by moving quickly and adapting technology from the private sector—hacking commercial drones into weapons, repurposing defunct battlefield connectivity systems, 3D printing spare parts, and developing useful new software for tasks like military payroll management in months, not years.

Schmidt offers another thought experiment to illustrate the bind he’s trying to get the US military out of. “Imagine you and I decide to solve the Ukrainian problem, and the DOD gives us $100 million, and we have a six-month contest,” he says. “And after six months somebody actually comes up with some new device or new tool or new method that lets the Ukrainians win.” Problem solved? Not so fast. “Everything I just said is illegal,” Schmidt says, because of procurement rules that forbid the Pentagon from handing out money without going through careful but overly lengthy review processes.

A New Weapon

The Pentagon’s tech problem is most pressing, Schmidt says, when it comes to AI. “Every once in a while, a new weapon, a new technology comes along that changes things,” he says. “Einstein wrote a letter to Roosevelt in the 1930s saying that there is this new technology—nuclear weapons—that could change war, which it clearly did. I would argue that [AI-powered] autonomy and decentralized, distributed systems are that powerful.”

With Schmidt’s help, a similar view has taken root inside the DOD over the past decade, where leaders believe AI will revolutionize military hardware, intelligence gathering, and backend software. In the early 2010s the Pentagon began assessing technology that could help it maintain an edge over an ascendant Chinese military. The Defense Science Board, the agency’s top technical advisory body, concluded that AI-powered autonomy would shape the future of military competition and conflict.

But AI technology is mostly being invented in the private sector. The best tools that could prove critical to the military, such as algorithms capable of identifying enemy hardware or specific individuals in video, or that can learn superhuman strategies, are built at companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple or inside startups.

“The big challenge that the US military faces going forward is how to rapidly adapt commercial technologies for military use faster than competitors,” says Paul Scharre, a vice president at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank, and the author of Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, a forthcoming book about AI and geopolitics. Scharre notes in his book that the Pentagon’s share of global R&D spending has declined from 36 percent in 1960 to 4 percent today.

The US DOD primarily works with the private sector through large defense contractors specialized in building expensive hardware over years, not nimble software development. Pentagon contracts with large tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, have become more common but have sometimes been controversial. Google’s work analyzing drone footage using AI under an initiative called Project Maven caused staff to protest, and the company let the contract lapse. Google has since increased its defense work, under rules that place certain projects—such as weapons systems—off limits.

Scharre says it is valuable to have people like Schmidt, with serious private sector clout, looking to bridge the gap. Big tech companies threatened by technological change have sometimes successfully reinvented themselves. And tech ambassadors can help the Pentagon understand how to slash bureaucracy to become a more attractive partner to startups, a crucial source of new ideas. “We’re still trying to build a 21st century military with a 20th century bureaucracy,” he says.

Pivot to China

Schmidt has come to believe that while the tech industry must help the Pentagon, the government must also help Silicon Valley. In 2019, he became chair of the US National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, created by Congress to examine the technology’s impact on US security and competitiveness. The NSCAI’s final report, released in 2021, focuses on AI rivalry between the US and China, warning that the technology could spread authoritarian values. To keep the wellspring of US AI healthy, it calls on the US government to work more with the private sector, and provide funding, data, and computing power to both public and private AI projects.

At an event last fall, Schmidt credited the NSCAI with changing his life by making him more aware of China’s threat to the US. “We’re facing a very significant challenge from a very, very focused competitor that knows what they’re doing,” he said. The commission has since disbanded, although Schmidt now serves on a similar body examining the implications of advances in biotechnology. And he funded a new, independent think tank called the Special Competitive Studies Project to see the NSCAI’s recommendations through. The project is looking at technologies beyond just AI and is modeled on an anti-Russia cold war initiative created by Nelson Rockefeller and led by Henry Kissinger.

The SCSP released a series of reports last year, calling for the government to fund areas critical to US growth and competitiveness, including nuclear fusion, quantum computing and communications, and gene editing. They came amidst a wave of political support for more government intervention in technology. The CHIPS act passed last year, with bipartisan support, and motivated by concerns over China, will provide $280 billion for research and manufacturing of semiconductor devices in the US.

Closer collaboration between government and industry is hardly straightforward, however. In 2017, while Schmidt was serving on the Defense Innovation Board, an official raised concerns, which were later dropped, over potential conflicts of interest involving him and other board members who were also Silicon Valley executives. Schmidt still owns about $5 billion of Alphabet stock, is an investor in startup military contractor Rebellion Defense, and has ties, through different investment firms, to other companies that work with the government.

“It’s difficult to point to any other CEO with the same level of influence in the national security tech sector,” says Jack Poulson, who tracks relationships between individuals, corporations, nonprofits, and governments through Tech Inquiry, a nonprofit. He says that Schmidt is involved in several companies developing technologies in areas that organizations like the SCSP say should receive more government funding.

Schmidt’s work perhaps shows not only the value of government and private collaboration but the need for greater transparency and new accountability as that collaboration grows. Melissa Stavenhagen, a spokesperson for Schmidt, says he has always made any disclosures necessary in full. “Having served across multiple Democratic and Republican administrations, he recognizes how critical these issues are,” Stavenhagen says.

Discussing his work over Zoom, Schmidt often seems frustrated by the dysfunction he sees in the US government’s approach to technology. When he entered the Pentagon back in 2016, he didn’t expect to find a new calling. “I figured I would do it for like a year to help out,” he says. Instead it has become a second career. Whatever progress the Pentagon makes toward its AI dreams—and the effect of that on the world—Schmidt will likely be at the heart of it.

*

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Will Knight is a senior writer for WIRED, covering artificial intelligence. He was previously a senior editor at MIT Technology Review, where he wrote about fundamental advances in AI and China’s AI boom.

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***

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) today filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to obtain documents related to the agency’s safety monitoring of the COVID-19 vaccines through the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) database.

The lawsuit alleges the CDC violated provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by failing to respond to CHD’s FOIA requests to provide key analysis of reports in the vaccine safety database and intra- and inter-agency communications about those reports.

CHD submitted the FOIA requests in the summer of 2022.

The agency said the requested information would be forthcoming by December of last year, but the documents were never delivered.

CHD is asking the court to compel the release of the requested documents in compliance with the FOIA.

Mary Holland, CHD president and general counsel, explained the significance of the lawsuit to The Defender:

“The CDC continues to ask the American public to believe that COVID shots are safe, without providing the evidence. Our lawsuit demands that the CDC give us hard data to back up its claim. No one should take vaccine safety on faith.”

CDC analysis of VAERS data

The CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jointly administer VAERS, a database that allows healthcare professionals and others to file reports about vaccine-related injuries.

While VAERS reports of adverse events don’t prove causality, the CDC considers VAERS to be a key “early warning system” for detecting unusual or unexpected patterns of adverse event reporting that can signal safety problems with a vaccine.

According to the co-sponsored VAERS “Standard Operating Procedures” (SOP) for COVID-19, dated Jan. 29, 2021, the CDC and the FDA would coordinate monitoring for “potential new safety concerns for COVID-19 vaccines” by performing routine VAERS surveillance.

Each agency would use a different standard approach to data mining to screen for potential safety signals.

The CDC would run proportional reporting ratio (PRR) data mining on a weekly basis, or as needed. PRR would compare the reports of specific adverse events suffered after receiving a Moderna or Pfizer mRNA vaccine to reports made after receiving any other vaccine to see if there is an indication that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines cause more adverse events than vaccines generally considered by the CDC to be safe.

The SOP stipulated that the FDA would conduct a bi-weekly thorough manual review of serious adverse events and through empirical Bayesian (EB) data mining, which uses a different statistical method to compare adverse events related to the COVID-19 vaccine with those related to non-COVID-19 vaccines in order to identify safety signals.

According to the CDC, if these forms of data mining raise a safety signal, then the agencies would do further analysis to confirm whether the adverse event was caused by the vaccine and that data would be shared with the public.

Both agencies failed to make data public.

Last month CHD filed a federal lawsuit against the FDA to obtain documents related to its empirical Bayesian data mining, The Defender Reported.

In today’s case, CHD made two requests.

The first request sought the records of all PRR conducted by the CDC related to COVID-19 from Oct. 1, 2021, to the present, along with all communications within the CDC and with the FDA about the PRR results and follow-up investigations required by the SOP done in connection with those results.

The second request sought the daily email alerts from VAERS contractors hired by the CDC listing identification numbers for all adverse events of special interest, which are events requiring further investigation.

CDC’s conflicting statements about its VAERS monitoring

Since last year, the CDC has issued a series of conflicting statements to The Epoch Times and CHD regarding their ongoing monitoring of the VAERS database.

In June 2022, the CDC told CHD that “no PRRs were conducted by the CDC” and that data mining was outside of the agency’s purview.

This was despite the fact that the SOP document dated Jan. 29, 2021, stipulated the CDC and FDA would begin ongoing data mining analysis then.

Next, in July 2021, the CDC told The Epoch Times that it had in fact been performing PRRs since January 2021 and was continuing to do so.

Two months later, the CDC changed its story again. This time it told The Epoch Times that it performed PRR analysis for a four-month period, from March 25, 2022, to July 31, 2022.

March 25, 2022, was three days after CHD emailed the CDC reminding them of their pending FOIA requesting the PRR analysis.

At that time, the CDC also said that its PRR results were “generally consistent” with the empirical Bayesian mining the SOP indicated would be done by the FDA and that it had not revealed any unexpected safety signals.

“Given it is a more robust data mining technique, CDC will continue relying upon EB data mining at this time,” the CDC spokesperson told The Epoch Times.

In January 2023, The Epoch Times reported that the CDC provided it with some of the PRR analysis it conducted between March and July 2022. The CDC shared an overall PRR analysis of all events reported from Dec. 14, 2020, to July 29, 2022.

But, it only shared its weekly analysis from three weeks — the weeks of July 15, 22, and 29, 2022. It is unclear whether the CDC did analysis during other weeks, or whether it never did the ongoing analysis mandated by the SOP.

That analysis revealed hundreds of safety signals, including signals for serious conditions such as blood clotting in the lungs, intermenstrual bleeding, lack of oxygen to the heart and even death.

The CDC admitted it gave false information about COVID-19 vaccine surveillance, including inaccurately saying it had conducted a certain type of analysis more than a year before it actually did.

Yet, given its conflicting statements, what surveillance analysis the CDC actually did, and when it did it, remains unclear. Access to this information would reveal when the CDC knew about safety signals related to the COVID-19 vaccine.

CHD’s FOIA request seeks all of these documents in order to clarify this timeline.

CDC anticipated spike in VAERS reports with COVID vaccine

Despite the fact that health officials and scientific journals have downplayed or dismissed the importance of VAERS during the pandemic, the CDC states in the SOP that it is a key “front-line system to monitor the safety of vaccines licensed for use in the United States.”

Information revealed through FOIA requests demonstrates that the CDC was anticipating a spike in VAERS reporting when the new vaccines were released and spent millions of dollars hiring contractors to process the data. Communication with these contractors is part of CHD’s FOIA lawsuit.

A FOIA request revealed, in late August 2020, that the CDC contracted with General Dynamics to handle VAERS reports for COVID-19 vaccines. The contract anticipated up to 1,000 reports per day, with up to 40% of them serious in nature, Josh Guetzkow reported. The value of the year-long contract was $9.45 million.

“This means that months before the EUA [emergency use authorization] of any COVID vaccines, the CDC anticipated up to a 600% increase over the average annual number of VAERS reports in recent years with 8 times the rate of serious reports,” Guetzkow said in his report.

In March 2021 the contract was amended to process backlogged reports filed through Feb. 28 for an additional $21.5 million. The CDC also contracted Eagle Health Analytics to assist with the processing for an additional $6 million.

Although other financial information about the dollar amounts associated with the contracts was redacted, Guetzkow estimated that the CDC paid contractors at least $40 million over two years to process VAERS data.

Every Friday, VAERS publishes vaccine injury reports received as of a specified date. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before a causal relationship can be confirmed. Historically, VAERS has been shown to report only 1% of actual vaccine adverse events.

As of Feb. 3, 2023, a total of 1,517,779 reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccines were submitted between Dec. 14, 2020, and Feb. 3, 2023, to VAERS.

The data included a total of 34,270 reports of deaths and 279,669 serious injuries, including deaths, during the same time period.

There were a total of 21,954 reports of adverse events following the new COVID-19 bivalent booster as of Oct. 21, 2022. The data included a total of 173 deaths and 1,458 serious injuries. As of Feb. 8, 52.5 million people have received the updated bivalent booster dose.

Of the 31,696 reported deaths, 21,479 cases are attributed to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, 9,638 cases to Moderna’s, 2,944 cases to Johnson & Johnson’s (Janssen) and no cases yet reported for Novavax.

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Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

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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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***

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, on February 15, called on EU member states to adopt yet another sanctions package (the 10th one) against Russia, this time also including Iranian companies. The new sanctions are expected to be officially announced on February 24, the one-year anniversary of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, and are estimated to be worth about 11.8 billion euros in trade flows. They will require unanimous approval of all EU state members, and, if approved, will target yet another four Russian banks, as well as imports from the Russian Federation and exports to that country, including heavy vehicles.

These sanctions also include a trade ban and a technology export control package which restricts several electronic components employed in Russian armed systems, such as helicopters, drones, and missiles. They are said to be, as a whole, the heaviest one ever imposed by Europe against Moscow.

Furthermore, according to von der Leyden, this is the first time the European bloc proposes to sanction Iranian bodies and entities such as the ones linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. In addition to that, European authorities in Brussels are discussing a fifth wave of sanctions against Iran pertaining to the issue of human rights, and they will include assets-freezing and visa-banning blacklists. Israeli diplomats have been pressuring for further sanctioning of Iran.

The stated goal of these measures is to make it more difficult for Russia to finance its military efforts and to build new arms.

The many sanctions so far enforced have failed to deter Moscow, which has in fact intensified its campaign – even Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has admitted that Kiev is losing. According to Henry Foy, Financial Times European correspondent, a year of conflict has left the armories of Europe dry.

As for Iran, its currency did fall to its lowest against the US dollar on January 21, and the country is struggling with internal problems and high inflation.

Regarding Russia, however, it is widely understood today that the sanctions thus far have backfired, and actually played a significant part in both the British and the European current energy crises. This situation has served US interests quite well, while American arms manufacturers have been profiting from perpetuating the current conflict. Europe today is facing deindustrialization (driven by high energy costs) while its own American ally threatens the continent with a subsidy war, which is wonderful to American companies, but could be fatal for European industry.

Moreover, the sanctions and their impact have also brought about a number of unintended consequences: for example, the global rise in commodity prices has been largely  perceived as a result of Western sanction policies, and this has forced the global south to look for parallel mechanisms and alternatives. Furthermore,  international trade has been reconfigured in such a manner that may actually pave the way for new political and diplomatic opportunities, as I have written before: in the post-sanctions world, Moscow has managed to redirect much of its trade to neighboring nations, and that can in fact boost Eurasian integration; in today’s world, insulating local industries from geopolitical disputes is increasingly difficult.

Right now, the geopolitical shifts caused by the new cold war and the crisis in Ukraine has brought Russia and Iran much closer. Both countries are strengthening their military ties and Tehran plans to purchase Russia’s  Sukhoi Su-35 advanced fighter jet, as announced by Brigadier General Hamid Vahedi, Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force’s commander. This is a significant development in itself: so far, China remains the only nation to have bought those from Russia. Such a purchase would have the potential to change the current regional balance of air power in the Persian Gulf.

These developments are part of an even larger process: in September 2021 I wrote on how Iran’s admission into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) as a permanent member was the realization of a greater Eurasian concept. Iran, as well as other SCO members, has an immediate and long-term concern over Afghanistan and Central Asian stability, for instance. Moreover, the North-South Transit Corridor, once again under the spotlight, can become a new promising route and even an alternative to the Suez Canal. In defiance of sanctions, the Persian nation, with Russian help, can once again become a regional transit hub, as it always was historically

Interestingly, the US State Department has signaled that the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is not necessarily dead – for instance, on February 10, Washington officially notified the US Congress that it would renew a six-month suspension of American sanctions targeting Chinese, Russian other foreign support to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Such was one of the main requirements of the JCPOA.

The truth is that the global landscape has now changed, both economically and politically, and Russia needs to develop new supply chains. Iran plays a large part in this and both countries have an interest in working together to counter Western endeavors to isolate them economically. Although the new European sanctions may bring some damage, especially to Iran, they could also backfire as the previous ones have and may end up boosting Eurasian integration.

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

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***

The insight shared in this analysis shouldn’t be misinterpreted as implying that Lula is “controlled” by Soros, Biden, or Sanders-AOC, but just that he’s definitely their “fellow traveler” since the Brazilian leader indisputably shares their worldview nowadays to a large extent. Even though he still shouts socialist slogans, Lula’s priority during his third term is less about improving the living conditions of his country’s impoverished and more about geostrategically realigning Brazil with the US-led West’s Golden Billion.

Brazilian President Lula was already suspected of recalibrating his worldview a lot closer to the US’ strategic interests ever since the start of his third term in office, including after he condemned Russia in his joint statement with Biden earlier this month, but Soros’s strong support of him removes all doubt. That liberal-globalist Color Revolution mastermind praised Lula during his speech at this year’s Munich Security Conference, which completely discredits the latter’s multipolar credentials once and for all.

In Soros’ own words as shared on his official website:

“There are many other regional powers that can influence the course of history. Brazil stands out. The election of Lula at the end of last year was crucial.

On January 8th there was a coup attempt much like January 6th, 2021, in the US. Lula handled it masterfully and established his authority as president.

Brazil is on the front-line of the conflict between open and closed societies; it is also on the front-line of the fight against climate change. He must protect the rainforest, promote social justice, and reignite economic growth all at the same time.

He will need strong international support because there is no pathway to net zero emissions if he fails.”

Quite tellingly, Lula hasn’t distanced himself from this strong support and almost certainly revels in it.

After all, Soros stands in full solidarity with Biden so disrespecting one would be disrespecting the other, which Lula would never do after traveling to DC to kiss the second’s ring as thanks for fully supporting his re-election. The Brazilian leader is so heavily under his US counterpart’s influence right now that he even tweeted that he’s partnering with Biden partially in “defense of democracy” despite him having been Vice President during Ukraine’s “EuroMaidan” and Brazil’s “Operation Car Wash” regime changes.

Lula seemingly no longer cares that Biden played a role in undemocratically overthrowing him through lawfare-driven Hybrid War means so it therefore follows that he also wouldn’t care about Soros’ Color Revolution spree across the world either. In complete contradiction to everything that Russia has said thus far about the US indefinitely perpetuating its proxy war on it in order to fight until the last Ukrainian, Lula then tweeted that “I think Biden is clear that the war has to stop.”

His political love affair with Soros’ allies goes beyond Biden and extends to fellow faux leftists Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), both of whom met with Lula during his trip to DC. Lula was so enamored with AOC after their meeting that he responded with a heart emoji under her retweet of their pics together, while Bernie predicted that “the United States and Brazil will build a stronger partnership” as result of the Brazilian leader’s re-election.

As can be seen from Soros’ strong support of him, his enthusiastic praise of Biden, as well as the mutual shoulder-rubbing between him and Sanders-AOC, Lula has surrounded himself with the world’s most infamous liberal-globalists. This confirms the prior assessment from last November that the US’ Democrat Party has infiltrated Brazil’s Workers’ Party through these means, though it couldn’t have been known until now that this infiltration literally reached the height of its leadership.

Considering these “politically inconvenient” factual observations about Lula’s new ideological allies in the US, there’s no doubt that his multipolar credentials are discredited once and for all. This doesn’t mean, however, that he can’t continue helping to make gradual progress in that direction amidst the ongoing global systemic transition. Rather, it simply reinforces the perception hyperlinked in this analysis’ first sentence that whatever he does might inadvertently or deliberately advance US interests.

The abovementioned insight shouldn’t be misinterpreted as implying that Lula is “controlled” by Soros, Biden, or Sanders-AOC, but just that he’s definitely their “fellow traveler” since the Brazilian leader indisputably shares their worldview nowadays to a large extent. Even though he still shouts socialist slogans, Lula’s priority during his third term is less about improving the living conditions of his country’s impoverished and more about geostrategically realigning Brazil with the US-led West’s Golden Billion.

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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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***

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Dr Melissa McCann reveal that the TGA appears to have hidden numerous vaccine-induced deaths from the public view, including those of two children.

Dr McCann shared the shocking revelation in her address at the Covid Vaccine Conference, hosted by Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party over the weekend in Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney. The event featured leading ICU physician Dr Pierre Kory, cardiologist and epidemiologist Dr Peter McCullough, and McCullough’s collaborator, author John Leake.

Addressing sold out crowds, Dr McCann shared the extraordinary lengths she had to go to to extract causality assessment documents relating to the TGA’s investigation of reported deaths after Covid vaccination, which were obtained under FOI request in a process that took six months. Dr McCann lodged the request after seeing an unexpectedly high number of patients coming through her clinic experiencing adverse events after immunisation (AEFIs). She also noticed a high number of serious AEFI reports in the in the DAEN database, including the reported death of a 14 year old in October 2021.

In her original FOI request, Dr McCann requested causality assessments for all of the reported deaths in the DAEN database. This request was denied due to the large scope, and in negotiation with the TGA, Dr McCann agreed to revise down the request to the 11 documents that were eventually handed over, of which 10 related to DAEN death reports.

When the documents were finally provided to Dr McCann in July 2022, she was dismayed to find that there were multiple reports that the TGA had assessed as causally linked to Covid vaccination, but, with the exception of one death, had not been reported in the TGA’s regular Safety Reports.

Following is a list of deaths that the TGA’s own reports assessed as causally linked to Covid vaccination:

  • 21 year old female
    Case 729139, Document 1
    Moderna booster. Fatal AEFIs, including myocarditis, cardiac arrest, renal impairment, femoral artery embolism, spinal cord infarction.
    Assessment outcome: ‘Causal’
    * Initially determined as ‘unclassifiable’. VSIG (FOI 4049 Doc 5) updated the assessment outcome to ‘causal’.
  • 9 year old
    Case 724023, Document 2
    Pfizer vaccination. Fatal AEFI, cardiac arrest.
    Assessment outcome: ‘Causality assessment outcome’
  • 24 year old female
    Case 718277, Document 3
    Pfizer vaccination. Fatal AEFI, cardiac arrest.
    Assessment outcome: ‘Causality’
  • 7 year old male
    Case 719838, Document 5
    Pfizer vaccination. Fatal AEFI, cardiac arrest.
    Assessment outcome: ‘Causality’
  • 21 year old male
    Case 644148, Document 6
    Pfizer vaccination. Fatal AEFI.
    Assessment outcome: ‘? causality’

Of the above five listed deaths, only the first (21 year old female, case 729139) has been published in the TGA Safety Reports.1

The reported deaths are listed in DAEN, but the causality assessment is not visible to the public.

Australians have been falsely and misleadingly advised by the TGA and official health representatives, that out of 973 reported deaths, only 14 have been assessed as being causally linked to the Covid vaccines (13 following Astra Zeneca, 1 following Moderna).

The causality assessment reports released under FOI 3272 prove this statement to be a lie.

TGA Covid Vaccine Safety Report 15 December 2022

The November 2022 TGA Safety Report states that, “There have been no deaths in children or adolescents determined to be linked to COVID-19 vaccination.” But the assessment reports indicating the causal role of the Pfizer vaccine in the cases of the 7 and 9 year old children were released to Dr McCann in July 2022.

The causality assessment reports released under FOI 3272 prove this statement to also be a lie.

TGA Covid Vaccine Safety Report 3 November 2022

On reading the causality assessments provided to her under FOI 3727, Dr McCann felt both shocked and confused. “Why has this information not been provided to health professionals and the public who are making consent decisions? Children are continuing to be vaccinated and this is something that parents deserve to be able to weigh up,” Dr McCann told Dystopian Down Under.

It gets worse. Dr McCann was surprised to find that documents 1-10 out of a total 11 documents from FOI 3727 had not been uploaded to the TGA’s public disclosure log, per regular protocol. She emailed the TGA to query why documents 1-10 had been withheld from the disclosure log, and was advised, in a communication on 24 August 2022,

“The decision maker for this request decided not to publish documents 1-10 pursuant to section 11c(1)(a) of the FOI Act as they contain sensitive personal information about deceased persons. As you would appreciate, consultation with the families of the deceased was not considered appropriate, and, as such, consultation was not undertaken with those families. Further, the decision maker determined that disclosure of the documents could undermine public confidence and reduce the willingness of the public to report adverse events to the TGA.”

The TGA seems to have assumed that families of the deceased will not want to hear from them. On the contrary, Deb, mother of 21 year old Natalie (case 729139), told Jab Injuries Australia that the lack of contact from the TGA was, “disgraceful treatment of a grieving mother who could have made a meaningful contribution to their investigations.” Deb says that she has never been contacted by the TGA, and only discovered the causality assessment outcome of her daughter’s death via the TGA’s Safety Report (23 September 2022), which she accessed online.

As for the TGA’s assertion that disclosure of the documents could undermine public confidence – one could very well argue the opposite case. Perceived lack of transparency drives public distrust. The last thing the TGA needs is public suspicion that they are burying vaccine deaths. Full transparency is the only way to create and maintain trust in public health. Dr McCann made this argument in a further communication, but the TGA’s decision against uploading documents 1-10 to the public disclosure log was final.

During this time, Dr McCann, in partnership with other concerned doctors, repeatedly wrote to the Health Ministers and Adjunct Professor John Skerritt of the TGA.2

to advise them of concerns about vaccine safety, and to call for immediate suspension of the vaccine rollout until an urgent review of adverse event reports could be undertaken.

Letter from Dr Melissa McCann to Health Minister Greg Hunt, 20 March 2022

These correspondences were met alternately with silence, obfuscation, or blanket assurances that the TGA was closely monitoring safety, and that the vaccines were safe and effective.

Letter from Adj. Professor John Skerritt to Dr Melissa McCann, 22 November 2021

Is this the tip of the iceberg?

The TGA consistently reports that only 14 of the 973 reported deaths have been causally linked to vaccination. But the contents of FOI 3727 raise questions:

  • How can the TGA’s statement be true? The TGA’s own causality assessments provided in FOI 3727 indicate that there are at least four more deaths that TGA has causally linked to vaccination (two adults, two children) which remain unaccounted for in the official count of 14.
  • How many of the 959 (973-14) deaths that the TGA implies are not causally linked to vaccination have even been investigated? Are 900 reports ‘in progress’? How many have been determined as ‘not causally linked’? Dr McCann asked the TGA to state the number of causality assessment reports that had been completed, but her request was denied.

Dr McCann is concerned about the implications for public health and safety: “If everyone is working on the basis that all of these deaths have been investigated and have been determined as not causally linked, well we can’t be sure that that’s the case.”

For now, Dr McCann is turning her efforts to a Covid Vaccine Class Action, which is expected to file within the month. The Class Action has received over 350 expressions of interest, and the number is still growing.

“Hopefully this class action will force some transparency so that there will be more clarity around how adverse events are reviewed, and how many are likely to be linked to the vaccines,” says Dr McCann.

This is not the first time Dr McCann has stepped up as a national hero.

The Courier Mail reported Dr McCann’s efforts in turning her Whitsunday Family Practice into a makeshift hospital in the immediate aftermath of Tropical Cyclone Debbie, in 2017.

Dr McCann has uncovered much more than this through the FOI process, but further revelations will be saved for another day. This is enough apparent malfeasance to swallow in one sitting.

Credit to Jikky (Twitter) and Senator Gerard Rennick for their roles in partnering with Dr McCann to bring light to the TGA’s behaviour in relation to Covid safety surveillance and regulation.

Yesterday, Federal MP Russell Broadbent (Liberal Party) added further pressure to the TGA, referring to Dr McCann’s FOI 3727 in parliament, “Why has the TGA not responded to doctors who raised these issues with you six months ago, including drawing your attention to those case reports? This information is extremely alarming and demands an immediate response from the TGA.” (Statement at question time, 14 February 2023). An answer is yet to be supplied.

Sydney lawyer Tony Nikolic, of AFL Solicitors, has represented parents of children who are disputing the necessity of having their child vaccinated against Covid, and is now seeing cases related to Covid vaccine injury in children as well. Mr Nikolic told Dystopian Down Under,

”In circumstances where child deaths and serious long-term injuries are listed on the TGA DAEN database relating to new and unsatisfactorily tested vaccine technologies, there should be no other response than a complete suspension of injections until independent lawyers and medical professionals conduct a thorough investigation, which should consider any civil wrongs, crimes or other wrongdoing associated to the roll out of injections across Australia.“

Australian parents who have concerns that their child has been vaccine injured or is subject to coercion to take a Covid vaccine are invited to contact Mr Nikolic at [email protected](.)

The TGA has been contacted for comment, and this post will be updated accordingly as correspondence is received.

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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.

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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***

Honey bee declines in the United States are “primarily related” to pesticide exposure, parasitic mites, and extreme weather conditions, research published by Penn State scientists have determined. Publishing the results in Scientific Reports, the researchers aim to provide a national overview of the range of factors harming bee colonies. “Some previous studies have explored several potential stressors related to colony loss in a detailed way but are limited to narrow, regional areas,” said study co-author Luca Insolia, PhD. “The one study that we know of at the national level in the United States explored only a single potential stressor. For this study, we integrated many large datasets at different spatial and temporal resolutions and used new, sophisticated statistical methods to assess several potential stressors associated with colony collapse across the U.S.” The results reinforce calls from bee health advocates in the U.S. and around the world: eliminate toxic pesticide use, the lowest hanging fruit contributing to pollinator declines.

In order to create a more comprehensive national overview, geographers, entomologists, and statisticians all participated in the study, reviewing publicly available data on colony health, land use, weather, and other environmental factors over a five-year period from 2015-2021. “In order to analyze the data all together, we had to come up with a technique to match the resolution of the various data sources,” said Martina Calovi, PhD corresponding author of the study, and researcher at Penn State. “We could have just taken an average of all the weather measurements we had within a state, but that boils all the information we have into one number and loses a lot of information, especially about any extreme values. In addition to averaging weather data, we used an ‘upscaling’ technique to summarize the data in several different ways, which allowed us to retain more information, including about the frequency of extreme temperature and precipitation events.”

Results show spacio-temporal trends that are perhaps unsurprising to many beekeepers, but could help inform better beekeeping practices. For instance, colony losses from mites are found to be highest in the first quarter of the year, and then increase again during the third and fourth quarter in all regions of the country except the southeast. This generally follows the life cycle of Varroa destructor, which beekeepers aim to manage to low levels in the fall; failure to adequately manage fall mite populations increases risk of failure throughout the winter.

To better determine the primary factors resulting in colony declines, researchers consider a range of features, including weather related information, land use, climatic regions, years and quarters, as well as several stressors, such as mites, other pests and parasites, diseases, and pesticides. These factors are then weighted for their impact on colony loss to determine the primary contributing factors.

Factors like the year or time of year played a smaller role than researchers expected. “Our results highlight the role of parasitic mites, pesticide exposure, extreme weather events, and overwintering in bee colony collapse. We hope that they will help inform improved beekeeping practices and direct future data collection efforts that allow us to understand the problem at finer and finer resolutions,” said Francesca Chiaromonte, PhD, coauthor and professor of statistics at Penn State.

This is the latest study to begin to separate out the contributing factors to colony collapse at larger spatial levels. Research published by U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists earlier this month found somewhat similar results when reviewing the factors owing to the decline of the western bumblebee, finding climate change and pesticides to be the primary culprit.

While the Varroa destructor is a serious, ongoing honey bee pest, it is important to emphasize that varroa levels themselves, and a colony’s fitness against their attack is a function not only of mite management but pesticide use in a surrounding region. Research published in Scientific Reports finds that realistic exposure to systemic neonicotinoid pesticides that bees are likely to encounter in the wild impairs the ability of honey bees to groom mites off their bodies, likewise increasing risk of viral infection.

A broad transformation of the food system is necessary to change the course of pollinator health. This includes not only eliminating the use of pesticides to prevent their direct and indirect harm to pollinator populations, but also the elimination of fossil fuels that contribute to extreme weather and the further spread of pests and diseases. These considerations should be part and parcel of every pesticide registered in the U.S., yet the federal government continues to ignore these positive policy proposals. Help bring greater attention to the need to take climate change seriously in the context of pesticide registrations sending a letter to EPA, USDA, and Congress today.

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***

We in the United States are on the brink of war with a major nuclear power, Russia. If that is not a dire emergency, an acute existential threat, what is? This situation has persisted for a year now without a national protest to stop the slide to Armageddon.

Given the proximity of nuclear Armageddon, the reaction that sanity dictates has now materialized for the first time. On February 19 in Washington DC, a demonstration against the war, RageAgainstWar, will take place, with sister rallies occurring in cities distant from DC, like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, and others.

But its organization and composition represent a radical departure from the peace movements of the last 40 years. The organizational framework for Feb. 19 has leapt the bounds of conventional political discourse. The effort is being led by a broad coalition of forces from “left” to “right.” The Peoples Party, a new progressive Party growing out of dissatisfaction with the Bernie Sanders campaigns and forfeited promises, and the Libertarian Party have taken the lead, represented by Nick Brana and Angela McCardle, respectively.

Here is a brief interview with McCardle and Brana conducted by David Swanson of World Beyond War, himself one of the featured speakers at the rally. It reveals two competent and inspiring leaders who provide an eloquent and clear exposition of the event. A full list of the speakers at the rally with their bios is found here and includes Jill Stein, Tulsi Gabbard, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney, Dan McKnight, Garland Nixon, Daniel McAdams, Chris Hedges and many others.

The lead demand of the demonstration is simple, straightforward and unequivocal: “Not one more penny for war in Ukraine.” It summarizes the point of unity among the politically diverse forces that are brought together for this event. And it directs the attention of this American protest to our own government, the only one which we can hope to influence in the real world.

Furthermore, the lead demand of the event recognizes that the US is not simply a bystander in this event. The war in Ukraine is our war, a war ginned up by the neocon-dominated foreign policy Establishment. It is a proxy war waged by the US, cruelly and cynically using Ukrainians as cannon fodder. Its purpose, as the clueless Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged, is to “weaken” Russia. In the words of the second demand of the rally, “Negotiate Peace,”

“The US instigated the war with a coup on its democratically-elected government in 2014, and then sabotaged a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine in March, 2022. Pursue an immediate ceasefire and diplomacy to end the war.”

A brief and complete history of the genesis of this war can be found in pamphlet sized books here and here, beginning with the expansion of NATO and the US-backed 2014 coup. In fact the beginning of the US assault on Russia antedates those events going all the way back to the 1990s with the US-engineered Russian Great Depression, worse than our own in the 1930s.

There is also material reason for the public to oppose the war. The war itself and blowback from US sanctions are hurting the US population and threaten to worsen inflation, trigger recession or even both, the dread stagflation. The third demand of the protest, “Stop the War Inflation” makes this clear and it reads:

“This war is accelerating inflation and increasing food, gas and energy prices. (Anyone who fills a gas tank or shopped at a supermarket recently knows that full well. Jw) The US blew up Russian gas pipelines to Europe, starving them of energy and deindustrializing their countries. End the war and stop increasing prices.”

All ten demands can be found here.

Given all these facts it is not surprising that the US public is growing increasingly skeptical of the war. The ground is fertile for a movement to get us out from under this threat. Polling here and here now shows that support for arms and aid to Ukraine, while still a majority opinion, is falling. Interestingly and worthy of more exploration, Democrats rather than Republicans or Independents hold the most hawkish opinions in these polls and this is coincident with the policies and actions of the Democratic Party.

So it comes as no surprise that recent legislation to end the funding for the Ukraine Proxy War comes from the Republican side of the aisle in the form of “Ukraine Fatigue” Resolution introduced in the House by Republican Matt Gaetz with all ten co-sponsors GOP members. In part here is what Responsible Statecraft has to say about this bill:

“The resolution states that ‘the United States must end its military and financial aid to Ukraine, and urges all combatants to reach a peace agreement.’

“’President Joe Biden must have forgotten his prediction from March 2022, suggesting that arming Ukraine with military equipment will escalate the conflict to ‘World War III.’ America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war. We must suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately,’ Gaetz said in a statement.”

As the resolution notes, the United States has been “top contributor of military aid to Ukraine compared to its counterparts,” having appropriated more than $110 billion in humanitarian, financial, and military aid.

“Earlier this week, Gaetz criticized President Joe Biden and a “bipartisan coalition” in Congress for dragging the U.S. into a war that was costing taxpayers and not advancing American interests.”

Perhaps the time is ripe for the two major parties to engage in an all-out tussle for the peace vote. Wouldn’t that be nice. A relatively small and determined minority can decide elections.

It is clear that the US government has responsibility for ginning up this war. US support and weapons and those of its NATO dependencies make the proxy war possible. Without that support the slaughter of Ukrainians and Russians will not continue. The US government can stop this potentially omnicidal war, and Americans can move the US government. It is our right and responsibility to do so.

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John V. Walsh, until recently a Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, has written on issues of peace and health care for the San Francisco Chronicle, EastBayTimes/San Jose Mercury News, Asia Times, LA Progressive, Antiwar.com, CounterPunch, Consortium News, Scheerpost and others.

Featured image is from CODEPINK

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Pompeo Claims Israel Has Biblical Right to Palestine

February 17th, 2023 by Middle East Eye

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***

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has claimed that Israel has a biblical right to Palestinian land and that President Mahmoud Abbas is a “known terrorist”. 

The comments were made during an episode of the One Decision podcast released early on Thursday.

“[Israel] is not an occupying nation. This land, as an evangelical Christian, I am convinced from my reading of the Bible that 3,000 years onto now, in spite of the denial of so many, is the rightful homeland of the Jewish people,” Pompeo said.

He referred to the West Bank as “Judea and Samaria” during the episode, using the biblical names of the region often used by Israelis to refer to the illegally occupied territory.

Many have speculated whether the former secretary of state, who served during Donald Trump’s administration, will enter the 2024 presidential race.

Pompeo criticised the administration of former president Barack Obama for negotiating with Abbas, who he referred to by his nickname Abu Mazen.

“Our theory of the case was this – what is in America’s best interest? Is it to sit and wait for Abu Mazen, a known terrorist who’s killed lots and lots of people, including Americans, and given those martyrs money, for having done so?” he said, without further elaborations.

“We said that’s just not in America’s best interest.”

Pompeo dismisses Israel judicial concerns 

Pompeo declined to support a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stating instead: “I’m for an outcome that guarantees Israeli security and makes life better for everyone in the region.”

He also dismissed concerns about controversial judicial reforms pushed forward by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition.

“The Israelis are one of the most democratic nations in the world and they’ll continue at it, and this to and fro, these protests you’re seeing, we’ve had protests at our Supreme Court too. People are entitled to their own views,” he said.

In 2019, Pompeo threw out a 1978 State Department legal opinion by declaring that the US did not deem Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank as “inconsistent with international law”.

The following year, Trump announced his Middle East peace plan for Israelis and Palestinians, dubbed the “Deal of the Century”.

The plan – which was condemned across the board by Palestinians – recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, declared the annexation of illegal settlements across the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley, and barred Palestinians from the right to resettle in their ancestral homes in Israel.

Last month, Pompeo released a memoir in which he discussed the 2020 US killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who he compared to a Rembrandt painting, and the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which he claimed was an overblown crisis.

He also spoke of how he tried to “break through” a locked door in Ankara’s presidential complex to reach then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was having a longer than expected tete-a-tete with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

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Is the Egg Shortage Another Conspiracy?

February 17th, 2023 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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***

Egg prices have more than doubled compared to what they were a year ago, with a median cost of $4.25 for a dozen

As of January 2023, more than 58 million birds in 47 states have been killed due to avian flu outbreaks

The egg shortage began amidst a series of mysterious fires and other disasters at U.S. food processors

Some farmers have stated chicken feed made by Purina may have been altered to contain lower amounts of protein and minerals, leaving chickens unable to lay eggs. [which has triggered bankruptcies of  producers]

A report from the Rockefeller Foundation, released in July 2020 and predicting a coming food crisis, calls for the creation of a centralized “nutrition security system”

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If the price of eggs has you seriously considering starting your own backyard flock, you’re not alone. Egg prices have more than doubled compared to what they were a year ago, with a median cost of $4.25 for a dozen.1

Many assume rising inflation is to blame, but the official narrative states avian flu, affecting up to 58 million birds, is the more likely cause.2 Another theory has surfaced from chicken farmers who have linked problems with egg laying to a certain brand of chicken feed.3 It’s also curious timing, as the egg shortage began amidst a series of mysterious fires and other disasters at U.S. food processors.

US Pledged to ‘Increase and Disseminate Food Shortages’

It’s relevant to note that in March 2022, President Biden openly stated food shortages are “going to be real.”4 He also said he spoke with European allies about “how we could increase, and disseminate more rapidly, food shortages.”5 Although it’s now been largely scrubbed from the internet, the statement wasn’t corrected by the White House. It circulated on social media, prompting Facebook to immediately flag it as fake news.

Whether the statement was the result of jumbling words or the revelation of something much more sinister is up for debate — as is the series of strange accidents at U.S. food processors that occurred in its wake. Here’s just a sampling:

Official Narrative Blames ‘Record’ Levels of Avian Flu

If you’re curious about why egg prices are rising — and egg shortages are occurring in some areas — you need look no further than the record number of chickens killed due to avian flu, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.15

Previously, the largest avian flu outbreak recorded occurred in 2015, when 50.5 million birds in 21 states were affected. However, 2022 marked a new record for dead birds in one year, when the number hit 52.7 million.16 By January 2023, more than 58 million birds in 47 states had been impacted in this outbreak.17

“I’m hopeful that this is not the new normal for us,” Richard Webby, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center for Studies on the Ecology of Influenza in Animals, told NPR.18

While some of the chickens died from the disease, most were culled to prevent further spread of the virus. Webby blamed the outbreak on wild birds, not those raised on concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs):19

“We don’t know exactly what it is about it, but it does seem just to be able to grow and transmit better in wild birds. Wild birds are the perfect mechanism to spread a virus because they, of course, fly everywhere.”

It does seem strange to describe wild birds as the “perfect mechanism to spread a virus,” without also pointing out that quick viral spread is virtually guaranteed on every CAFO, where birds are literally on top of each other. Still, it’s plausible that widespread avian flu could have led to chicken shortages and, therefore, egg shortages, which led to increased prices.

Anecdotal reports vary, however, about how severe egg shortages are in different areas. While some have experienced eggs disappearing from grocery store shelves, others haven’t noticed a decrease in supply at their local stores. The U.S. Department of Agriculture states that culling of chickens due to avian flu has led to a 7.5% drop in domestic egg supply each month since the outbreak began in 2022.20

Is Altered Chicken Feed to Blame?

Another theory is also circulating online — and it’s quickly been “fact-checked” and dubbed a conspiracy by the powers that be.21 It comes straight from the farmers’ mouths, however, with many noticing their hens producing significantly fewer eggs than normal.

It was suggested that chicken feed made by Purina may have been altered to contain lower amounts of protein and minerals, leaving chickens unable to lay eggs. Some farmers even stated that their hens began laying again after they switched from commercial feed to locally produced feed.

A spokesperson for Land O’Lakes, parent company of Purina Animal Nutrition, stated there have been no formulation changes to Purina chicken feed products,22 while others have called for an investigation into what could represent a potential public health and national security crisis.

Rockefeller Foundation Predicted Food Crisis

If you gain control of the food supply, you gain control of the people. This is why any threat to food freedom and security should prompt immediate alarm and calls for the protection of localized, regenerative agriculture.

It’s curious that a report from the Rockefeller Foundation, released in July 2020 and predicting a coming food crisis, hasn’t received more attention, however — especially since its solution centered on the creation of a centralized “nutrition security system.”23

A centralized food system benefits no one but those who control it, and puts consumers at risk. Will Harris, a regenerative farming pioneer who runs White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, explained:24

“The centralization of food production impoverishes our rural communities as it creates an oligopoly. This centralization of food production is also bad for consumers. This system lacks resilience.

When mega-production facilities that are focused on efficiency break down, consumers’ access to food can become limited, which causes panic. This state of panic allows multinational companies to increase their profits exponentially. When the driving goal of our food production system is efficiency, as opposed to resiliency, consumers suffer.”

Their report, “Reset the Table,”25 was published just one month after the World Economic Forum (WEF) officially announced its plans for a “Great Reset,” and many of the contributors to the Foundation’s paper are WEF members.26 They intend for the current food system to fall apart, so they can then “solve” the problem by introducing a new system based on patented lab-grown synthetic and genetically engineered foods, along with massive insect farms.

‘Resetting the Table’ Puts Food Security at Risk

The Rockefeller Foundation states, “America faces a hunger and nutrition crisis unlike any this country has seen in generations.”27 The Foundation’s “Reset the Table” report calls for “meeting the moment to transform the U.S. food system”28 in order to solve the food crisis. But as The Corbett Report put it:29

“And their proposed solution to this crisis? Subsidies for small farmers? Development of community gardens? A new food sovereignty campaign encouraging people to get their hands dirty and start growing more food themselves?

Of course not. On the contrary, the Rockefeller Foundation wants a further centralization of control over the food supply, including ‘a new, integrated nutrition security system.’ Yes, you read that right, folks: feeding the hungry is now a ‘nutrition security’ problem that can only be solved by massive federal intervention in the food sector.”

If the Rockefeller Foundation having its hands in your ability to purchase the food you need to feed your family doesn’t sit well with you, you’re in good company. A look back at the Rockefeller Foundation’s forays into agriculture reveal why we don’t want history to repeat itself. As Corbett reported:30

“They created the Mexican Agricultural Program, which was criticized from its very inception for trying to standardize and commercialize traditional Mexican farming practices in order to benefit of the Rockefellers and their corporate cronies.

They created the International Basic Economy Corporation in Brazil to industrialize that nation’s agricultural sector, with the explicit aim of hooking its farmers on expensive machinery and Rockefeller petroleum products and finding a sustainable business model in the process.

It was John D. Rockefeller III who, when sitting on the Board of Trustees of the Ford Foundation, convinced his fellow oligarchs to join the ‘Green Revolution’ by founding the Intensive Agriculture District Programme in India, which exacerbated the disparity between rich feudal landowners and poor farming peasants.

And then of course there’s the Rockefeller’s work in Africa, which today takes the form of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. AGRA’s stated goal is to “elevate the single African voice” on the world stage.

It all sounds nice and fuzzy until you learn that 200 organizations have come together to denounce the alliance and its activities. They claim that the group has not only ‘unequivocally failed in its mission’ but has actually ‘harmed broader efforts to support African farmers.'”

Who and What Else Are Angling to Control Food?

Egg prices reaching unprecedented highs presents a hardship for many working households — but is irrelevant to the likes of Bill Gates — another major player in the quest to control the food supply.

Gates owns more farmland than anyone else in the U.S.31 and was an early backer of fake foods like the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat.32 The acreage seems earmarked for GE corn and soy crops — the base foods for what will become an increasingly synthetic, ultraprocessed food supply make up of imitation meat and dairy.

The strong recommendation to replace beef with fake meat is also made in Gates’ book,33 a recommendation that stems from an overreaching theme of arrogance and the desire for recolonization and a global empire.

The EAT Forum, co-founded by the Wellcome Trust, also developed a Planetary Health Diet that’s designed to be applied to the global population and entails cutting meat and dairy intake by up to 90%, replacing it largely with foods made in laboratories, along with cereals and plant oils.34

In the U.S., the Board for International Food and Agricultural Development (BIFAD), an advisory board to USAID, is also on board, calling for a global transformation of agriculture and the food supply to include, among other things, “the promotion of insects as sustainable sources of proteins.” Referring to a BIFAD working paper, Corbett explains:35

“USAID’s ‘leverage’ over developing countries — specifically referenced no less than 125 times — gives an insight into the Kissingerian food-as-a-weapon mentality that is the very basis of USAID and its mission. The entire enterprise reeks of a neocolonial landgrab masquerading as ‘philanthropy’ — the kind of territorial taking that people in Africa and elsewhere have been warning about for decades.”

Get Prepared for Survival

At some point in time, the globalist cabal will start using food to control people’s behavior. So, it’s always best to have the resources on hand to survive, including becoming more self-sufficient in the short-term. By creating alternative parallel food systems locally, outside of the globalists’ control, it builds long-term independence. Basic suggestions to build your own food security safety net include:

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Notes

1, 2 Forbes January 12, 2023

3 Cleveland.com February 6, 2023

4 Des Moines Register August 13, 2022

5 YouTube, Fox News February 1, 2023, 0:45

6 Meat + Poultry March 22, 2022

7 IndyStar April 25, 2022

8 Arizona Republic March 30, 2022

9 Vegetable Growers News April 1, 2022

10 The Conway Daily Sun April 12, 2022

11 Magic Valley April 13, 2022

12 King City Rustler April 21, 2022

13 The Goldendale Sentinel April 27, 2022

14 WESA.fm January 31, 2023

15 U.S. CDC November 3, 2022

16, 18, 19 NPR December 2, 2022

17, 20 Newsweek January 30, 2023

21, 22 AOL February 6, 2023

23, 29, 30, 32, 35 Substack, The Corbett Report January 23, 2023

24 White Oak Pastures August 8, 2022

25 Rockefeller Foundation Reset the Table

26 ThreadsIrish June 18, 2022

27 Rockefeller Foundation, Report

28 Rockefeller Foundation, Reset the Table, Executive Summary July 28, 2020

31 New York Post February 27, 2021

33 Market Watch February 16, 2021

34 Eatforum.com The Planetary Health Diet

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According to a new law passed in the Knesset, Israeli citizens and residents of occupied East Jerusalem convicted of acts of “terrorism” will be stripped of their citizenship and deported. The law applies to only those receiving support from the Palestinian Authority implying that only Arab citizens of Israel come under its ambit

The Israeli parliament approved an amendment to the country’s 1952 citizenship law on Wednesday, February 15, according to which Israeli citizens and residents of occupied East Jerusalem convicted of acts of “terrorism” will be stripped of their citizenship and deported.

The new law will apply to all Israeli citizens or residents who receive any financial support from the Palestinian Authority or its affiliated organizations, implying that only the Arab citizens of Israel will be subjected to the law, and not the Jewish population.

Israel terms most acts of resistance to its occupation of Palestinian territories “terrorism.”

Since its illegal annexation of East Jerusalem in 1980, Israel has provided resident rights to the Palestinians there.

The bill proposed by Likud MP Ofti Katz was approved by an overwhelming majority of the Israeli parliament, with MPs voting in favor across party lines. Out of a total of 120 MPs, 94 voted in favor, and only the 10 Arab MPs voted against it.

The new law allows Israel’s Interior Ministry, after a hearing, to revoke the citizenship or residency rights of a person and deport them to the occupied West Bank or Gaza. That person will not be allowed to enter Israel again.

Reacting to the law, Arab MPs called it “racist.” Hadash Ta’al MP Ahmed Tibi called it a “populist draconian law” carefully designed to be applied to Palestinians. He accused the Knesset of voting with the “feeling of Jewish supremacy,” Times of Israel reported.

Palestinians and other activists have called the law another example of the Israeli apartheid regime and institutional racism.

A related bill—concerning the revocation of the citizenship of family members of “terrorists” and their deportation—also received the approval of a majority of the Knesset on Wednesday during its first hearing, Jerusalem Post reported.

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President Biden on Thursday acknowledged that the three unidentified objects he ordered the US military to shoot down were likely harmless weather balloons.

“The intelligence community’s current assessment is that these three objects were most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation, or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research,” Biden said.

Following the panic caused by the Chinese balloon that floated over the United States, US fighter jets shot down unidentified objects on February 10, 11, and 12 using heat-seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles, which are worth over $400,000 apiece.

Biden said the military was still working to collect the debris. “Our military and the Canadian military are seeking to recover the debris so we can learn more about these three objects,” he said.

According to a report from Aviation Week, at least one of the objects may have been a hobby balloon reported missing by a club in Illinois that launches small balloons with tracking devices that are capable of traveling the globe at high altitudes.

The club, the Northern Illinois Bottlecap Balloon Brigade (NIBBB), said its balloon was last reported off the coast of Alaska on February 10, and tracking data projected that it would be floating over Canada’s Yukon Territory on February 11, the same day a US F-22 shot down an object in the area.

The balloon they launched is known as a “pico balloon,” a small silver-coated party-style balloon that carries a transmitter. A Pentagon memo described the object that was shot down over Canada as a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it.”

Canadian authorities said the object that was shot down was traveling at “approximately 40,000 feet.” When the NIBBB’s balloon was last reported, it was floating at 38,910 feet.

The NIBBB isn’t blaming the US government for shooting down its balloon yet and sometimes the transmitters turn off for a few days, but they think it’s a real possibility. Ron Meadows, the founder of Scientific Balloon Solutions (SBS), a company that makes pico balloons, told Aviation Week that he tried to contact the government to tell them they were likely shooting these balloons down.

“I tried contacting our military and the FBI—and just got the runaround—to try to enlighten them on what a lot of these things probably are. And they’re going to look not too intelligent to be shooting them down,” Meadows said. According to Aviation Week, the pico balloons can usually be purchased for between $12-180 each, depending on the type.

Rocky Mountain Ham Radio, another group that launches hobby balloons, describes the pico balloons as “a 3-foot mylar foil party balloon, filled partially with ultra-pure helium, and carrying a 13-gram solar-powered APRS transmitter. The balloon is intended to travel for long distances (not to achieve heights) and is not intended to be recovered. These balloons have literally circumnavigated the globe — even multiple times — before finally descending.”

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Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.

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With a new Great Wall between Russia and the West, Graham E. Fuller wonders what kind of role lies ahead for either the U.S. or Europe on the international scene.

**

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It’s a slow-motion fall into the Final War.

Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO chieftain, has told Europe it must prepare for the “long haul” because “this [war] may last for many, many, many, many years.”

In other words, Forever War, this time in Europe.

Of course, at any time, the Forever War can easily morph into nuclear extinction, but this prospect does not seem important to Stoltenberg.

Like Biden and his war boss, Lloyd Austin, the idea here is to take out the Russian “regime,” as Jens calls the elected government in Russia. If we are going to use that term, then the USG is also a regime.

In America, only vetted candidates are allowed to “run” in uniparty elections. Trump was an aberration. The uniparty came together to destroy his presidency, his reputation, and his life.

BTW, I am not a Trump groupie. He is a malignant narcissist guilty of bombing Syria, stealing its oil, and also imposing sanctions on Russia (despite the media calling him a Putin dupe).

Hubris, narcissism, and manifest stupidity are all the rage in DC and Brussels.

In America, corporate oligarchs have poisoned thousands of people in an effort to squeeze every last penny out of unmaintained trains illegally transporting deadly chemicals through East Palestine, Ohio.

I say “illegally” because Norfolk Southern didn’t bother to tell the EPA it was moving hazardous material through the small town of around 5,000 people. In fact, Norfolk Southern lied.

Most of the train’s 150 rail cars were carrying cargo that was not hazardous, officials say, such as cement, steel and frozen vegetables, according a manifest of the derailed cars provided to the Environmental Protection Agency.

You’d think deadly toxins in the Ohio River might prompt the corporate media to cover the story more closely. Instead, the Associated Press tells Ohio Basin residents to chill. Groundwater toxins may be the next conspiracy theory.

Contaminants including butyl acrylate have been detected in the Ohio River, but the amounts so far don’t pose a risk for cities that rely on the river for its drinking water, according to the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and outside experts.

For some reason, the Associated Press failed to mention the presence of vinyl chloride. According to the EPA, it is a serious health hazard at 2 ppb (that’s part per billion).

According to WXIX in Cincinnati, however, zero “contaminants were found in the Ohio River after Greater Cincinnati Water Works tested it for multiple hazardous chemicals.” On Monday, a water quality manager in Louisville said, “right now, any affected water is still in West Virginia.”

Biden and his neocons are not concerned about the mess in East Palestine.  They are busy poking Russia, trying to get WWIII rolling, and also backtracking on Chinese spy balloons.

Now the click-obsessed corporate media is talking about aliens—anything to draw your eyes to web pages burgeoning with obnoxious ads and pop-up videos selling cars few can afford to buy.

Biden’s Commerce Department has enlarged the sanctions war against China in response to… virtually nothing, radar blips of objects in the “sky trash” zone. Spy balloons are, along with illusory weapons of mass destruction, a twist on neocon lies designed to rile up an easily frightened public routinely fed end-to-end lies.

Erin Brockovich, remember her? She was the whistleblower who exposed Pacific Gas & Electric’s contamination of groundwater in Hinkley, California. Brockovich’s successful lawsuit was the subject of an Oscar-awarded film.

On Thursday, she “told residents living near the site of a toxic train derailment in Ohio to ignore government claims that the water is safe to drink and leave if they fear for their health,” reported The Times (paywall requires scaling).

Short version: the government is lying—as usual.

Toxins threatening the lives of millions of people in the Ohio Basin are apparently of so little importance the government didn’t bother to send “officials” to a town hall meeting in East Palestine. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was nowhere to be seen.

From his office in DC, Buttigieg blamed Trump for the Biden administration’s decision to let the people of East Palestine twist in the wind while the administration and Congress send billions of dollars and expensive weapons to neo-nazi thugs in Ukraine.

It is business as usual in regard to killing people in foreign lands.

In America, the middle class is sliding into poverty. You and I come in a distant second to neo-nazis fond of burning people alive for daring to resist ending up victims of genocide.

As noted above, the Biden neocons and neolib “hawks” are plotting to escalate the war in Ukraine, thus violating red lines (no NATO on Russia’s border), and careening toward all-out thermonuclear war.

A handful of uniparty “republicans” are said to oppose an escalation that will ultimately lead to species extinction (although, if Trump were still in office and tempting war with Russia, I imagine some of these “representatives” would cheer for thermonuclear war. It’s a uniparty thing).

The Hill reports:

Continued U.S. support of Ukraine is not certain. Some Republican lawmakers oppose it. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) said he doesn’t much care what happens to Ukraine. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) voted against another $40 billion in aid, saying, “we have no business getting involved in another war.” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) insisted, “not another penny will go to Ukraine.” Other Republicans question the amount of proposed aid.

Government war propaganda and balloon diversions are so effective, millions of Americans ignorantly welcome their own horrible deaths, either the fast way (immediate vaporization) or the slow way (radiation sickness, starvation, disease).

*

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The Bayer/Monsanto Tie-up: Is the Marriage Over?

February 17th, 2023 by Paul Anthony Taylor

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Rumors are growing that the corporate marriage between German drug firm Bayer and American agrochemicals goliath Monsanto may be heading for divorce. Under increasing shareholder pressure following a dramatic slump in Bayer’s stock price over the past 8 years, the German company’s notorious CEO Werner Baumann is set to be replaced with the former head of Swiss drugmaker Roche, Bill Anderson. Werner had played a leading role in pushing through Bayer’s disastrous $63 billion takeover of Monsanto in 2018. Pharma industry observers suggest his departure signals that a corporate breakup could now be imminent.

Through acquiring Monsanto, Bayer inherited over 100,000 lawsuits filed by people who say they were harmed as a result of exposure to the agrochemical company’s glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup. The filing of these suits followed an announcement in 2015 by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) that glyphosate was “probably carcinogenic to humans”. Studies have since provided “compelling evidence” that the chemical increases the risk of developing non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system.

Settling the Roundup lawsuits has already cost Bayer almost $11 billion. Legal costs have added still further to this figure. Thus far around 80 percent of the cases filed have been settled. But with American lawyers still actively seeking new plaintiffs, the class action is ongoing. In this situation, with Bayer’s stock price having nosedived by more than 50 percent since 2015, it is easy to see why the firm’s investors are pushing for Monsanto to be cut off and sold. Even if this happens, however, Bayer’s dark history suggests that in the long term its business philosophy won’t change.

Bayer’s dark history

Bayer has a dark history of putting its profits before human health and life. In 2001, after it was discovered that Baycol (Lipobay), its cholesterol-lowering statin medication, was linked to the deaths of 31 patients in the United States, it was forced to withdraw the drug from sale. Papers discovered later indicated that, long before it was pulled from the market, senior executives at Bayer knew the drug had serious problems. As reported by the New York Times in 2003, emails, memos, and sworn depositions suggest Bayer had promoted the drug while knowing patients were falling ill or dying from it. In all, around 100 deaths worldwide are believed to be linked to Baycol/Lipobay.

In September 2006, further demonstrating a pattern of Bayer suppressing drug data, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the company had failed to reveal the results of a large study suggesting that Trasylol, a heart surgery drug it produced, might increase the risk of serious kidney damage, congestive heart failure, stroke, and death. Bayer subsequently admitted suppressing the study, claiming it had been done “mistakenly”. It is estimated that had Trasylol been withdrawn from the market earlier, 22,000 lives could have been saved.

But these deaths are dwarfed by those resulting from Bayer’s roles in IG Farben, Auschwitz, and the two world wars.

War crimes

During WWI Bayer was involved in the development and manufacture of a range of explosives and poisonous gases, including mustard gas. Its chemical warfare agents were used to devastating effect and became the planet’s first weapons of mass destruction.

In WWII, as a member of IG Farben, Bayer was part of the largest chemical cartel in the history of Germany. Its patented drugs were tested on inmates of Auschwitz and other concentration camps, who were used as human guinea pigs. These tests were conducted by the likes of Dr. Helmuth Vetter – a Bayer employee and Nazi Party SS doctor.

Following WWII, Fritz ter Meer, a director of IG Farben, was sentenced at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials to 7 years in prison for crimes against humanity including slavery, mass murder, plunder, and spoliation. Released after serving only 2 years he went on to become chairman of Bayer’s supervisory board, a post he then held for 8 years.

Maximizing ‘shareholder value’

With internal papers calculating the potential value of a corporate breakup having reportedly been leaked to mainstream media outlets, there seems little doubt that Bayer is actively considering ridding itself of Monsanto. While this may or may not lead to a recovery in Bayer’s stock price, it is ultimately beside the point.

In buying Monsanto, Bayer knew of the agrochemical firm’s background and crimes. It would also be fully aware of Monsanto’s reputation as the most hated company in the world. Nevertheless, if it wasn’t for the dramatic negative effect the purchase has had on Bayer’s stock price, it would not now be considering selling the company.

The bottom line is therefore that if it happens, the Monsanto sale will be about maximizing shareholder value. At best, so far as Bayer’s largest investors are concerned, improving human health is a purely secondary matter. More likely, however, it is essentially considered an irrelevancy.

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This article was originally published on Dr. Rath Health Foundation.

Executive Director of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation and one of the coauthors of our explosive book, “The Nazi Roots of the ‘Brussels EU’”, Paul is also our expert on the Codex Alimentarius Commission and has had eye-witness experience, as an official observer delegate, at its meetings. You can find Paul on Twitter at @paulanthtaylor

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Americans’ Soaring Distrust of News-Media

February 17th, 2023 by Eric Zuesse

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On Wednesday, February 15th, CNN headlined “Alarming new study finds half of Americans believe news organizations intend to mislead and misinform with their reporting”, and reported that

On Wednesday, Gallup and the Knight Foundation released their annual report surveying Americans for insights into how they view the press — and the results were grim.

Only 26% of Americans hold a favorable opinion of the news media, Gallup and the Knight Foundation found — the lowest level recorded by the organizations over the last five years.

Perhaps more startling: the report found that 72% of Americans believe national newsrooms are capable of serving the public [the survey question on that was instead:

“In general, most national news organizations have the resources and opportunity to report the news accurately and fairly to the public,” and 72% of respondents agreed with that], but that they do not believe they’re well intentioned [and the survey question on that was actually not one but instead two sdeparate questions: “

In general, most national news organizations do not intend to mislead, misinform, or persuade the public”, to which 50% disagreed and 25% agreed; and, “In general, most national news organizations care about the best interests of their readers, viewers, and listeners”, to which 52% disagreed and 23% agreed]. Only 23% said that they believe national newsrooms care about the best interests of their audiences.

The actual Knight Foundation Gallup survey showed that Americans trusted commercial network news (ABC, CBS, NBC) the most, and only 17% distrusted them; trust was the second-highest in U.S. national newspapers (NYT, WashPo, WSJ), and only 30% distrusted them; third-highest trusted was public broadcast news (NPR, BBC, PBS), distrusted by only 33%; fourth-most was local newsmedia, distrusted by only 41%; and fifth-most-trusted was Cable news (CNN, Fox News, MSNBC) distrusted by 45%. All other news (the seventh-most-trusted category) was “Other” (presumably online) which was distrusted by 70%.

Consequently: whereas Americans distrust “most national news organizations,” the distrust is mainly of online news; i.e., news that can be verified or disconfirmed by searching online. Americans trust the most the types of news-media that cannot embed links to sources, etc. (Perhaps Americans confuse those media with “social media” such as Instagram and Facebook— which likewise are available only online.)

The Knight/Gallup survey found that “Sixty-one percent say the increase in information today makes it harder to be well-informed.” Furthermore: “Fifty percent say there is so much bias in the news media that it is often difficult to sort out the facts.” Of course, if the public distrusts the most the news they receive online in a form that can be checked via online searches etc., and if those news-repiorts predominate among “the incease in information today,” then the public will the most be gtrusting the old news forms: ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT, WashPo, and WSJ. So, the mega-corporate-supplied ’news’-reports will be the most-trusted.

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This article was originally published on The Duran.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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US Uses UFO Psyop to Hide Crimes and Advance Military Agenda

February 17th, 2023 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

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The strategies used by the US to distract public opinion seem increasingly stupid. Now, Washington is resorting to science fiction mechanisms, promoting the narrative of “UFO attacks”. The reasons seem quite simple: to prevent the media from paying attention to the recent chemical disasters in the country and at the same time generate concern among citizens about alleged “unknown threats”, which may enable the advancement of military agendas.

A few days after shooting down a Chinese weather balloon claiming “risks to national security”, Washington decided to deepen its conspiracy theories. Now, the US government claims to be monitoring the activities of alleged UFOs in its territory. According to American and Canadian authorities, some of these UFOs would have been shot down in the border region between both countries – however, very suspiciously, the debris of the unknown objects have not been found yet.

The American government has refrained from accusing any country of launching the alleged UFOs, although some propagandists have suggested Chinese involvement, linking the episode to the case of the weather balloon. More than that, the Americans even resorted to bizarre and unrealistic speculations about a possible “alien visit”. For example, when asked about the “possibility” that the incidents were an actual contact with extraterrestrial beings, General Glen Van Herck, commander of U.S. Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), stated that he does “not rule out anything”.

“I’ll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out (…) I haven’t ruled out anything (…) At this point, we continue to assess every threat or potential threat unknown that approaches North America with an attempt to identify it”, he said during a press conference.

Obviously, the matter took the attention of the media and public opinion. On social networks, words like “UFO” and “alien invasion” reached the trending topics, with both humorous comments making fun of the situation and texts expressing concern, fear and terror. Although the topic seems extremely hilarious to many people, the idea of the “threat from the skies” is very strong in American culture. Since September 11, 2001, there has been an atmosphere of fear among many American citizens regarding aerial objects, since the biggest episode of attack on the country, which took place in the financial center of the West, came precisely “from the skies”.

The most curious thing about this whole situation, however, is to analyze that, in parallel with the “UFO invasion”, one of the greatest environmental disasters in American history was taking place, with the derailment and explosion of a train carrying chemical compounds between the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The tragedy generated a terrible chemical leak, forming a toxic cloud with phosgene and hydrogen chloride, gases that are extremely harmful to human health. The city’s river was also affected, severely affecting the lives of more than 5,000 local inhabitants. Some experts have called the case “Chernobyl 2.0”.

The “UFOs” curiously prevented the criticisms of the negligence of the American authorities in containing the effects of the accident from becoming known. While netizens were distracted by discussing aliens, the population of Ohio was intoxicated by the smoke from the explosion, with an uncertain number of victims. In this sense, the “UFOs” strongly contributed to prevent journalists from being able to expose the hypocrisy of the US – a country that enforces environmental standards abroad and is incapable of containing environmental problems domestically.

However, the strategic meaning of “UFOs” for the interests of American elites cannot be reduced to a mere attempt to hide environmental crimes. There is also a strong military sense evident in the dissemination of the UFO narrative, considering the aforementioned factors. By increasing the sensation of fear among citizens and creating an atmosphere of “unknown threat”, it becomes easier for the US government to garner popular support to approve measures to encourage militarization. In the face of growing popular dissatisfaction with NATO’s war machine, the ‘’unknown threat’’ appears as an opportunity to revitalize support for the US government.

There is still one factor that needs to be mentioned. A few days before the American-Canadian border UFO incident, the US government had been formally accused by Seymour Hersh, an award-winning investigative journalist, of being responsible for the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. The repercussion of the scandal was significantly minimized by the UFO incidents, which increases the suspicion surrounding the case.

Indeed, these “coincidences” can be seen as evidence that UFOs are a psyop operated by the US government to hide its crimes and advance its military agendas. With a distracted and terrified population, it is easier to ignore the relevance of episodes like Nord Stream and Ohio, as well as generate incentives for the NATO’s war machine. Indeed, if they really exist, the “aliens” do not seem to be the actual threat to the world today: once again, it is the US that promotes destabilization and panic to defend its egoistic interests.

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Lucas Leiroz is a researcher in Social Sciences at the Rural Federal University of Rio de Janeiro; geopolitical consultant. You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

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***

Ignore this girl’s potty mouth and listen to what she says about East Palestine.

Meanwhile, in a repeat of EPA boss Christine Todd Whitman’s declaration that Manhattan’s air was safe to breathe following 9/11 (400,000 people were exposed to toxic dust and debris),

health, safety and environmental officials said the air quality in and around East Palestine is what it was before authorities conducted a controlled burn of vinyl chloride from an tanker involved in a 150-car train derailment. That burn on February 7 produced a black cloud that could be seen for miles.

According to the “Compendium of environmental standards,” exposure to “flammable, toxic and narcotic” vinyl chloride “damages the liver, kidneys and spleen; malignant tumors may occur. Toxic concentrations in air may occur without producing an alarming odor. VC is definitely carcinogenic and teratogenic (deformities and skeletal changes on inhalation) as revealed both by animal experiments and human exposure.”

In 2005, the EPA, in a “review of VC toxicology, which was drafted with substantial input from the chemical industry… weakened safeguards,” and its assessment downplayed cancer risks, according to the Network of the National Library of Medicine. (Emphasis added.)

The trend toward increasing industry participation allows corporate interests with products under regulation to more effectively recommend acceptable limits of public exposure to their own products and wastes, while placing an unrealistic burden on the U.S. EPA scientists and the public to provide adequate peer review and oversight. Public confidence is undermined when commercial interests, instead of scientific evaluations, shape public health policy.

Norfolk Southern railroad didn’t bother to inform the local government it was moving extremely hazardous material through East Palestine. It also neglected maintenance on its trains. A video of the derailment shows “what appears to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment,” according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

The “top holders” of Norfolk Southern stock include The Vanguard Group (the world’s largest mutual fund company), BlackRock (the $10 trillion “Evil Empire”), JP Morgan (a long rap sheet of crimes), Wells Fargo (fined billions for misconduct), and other “investment” firms.

“In its operations, BlackRock pursues a sustainability strategy that seeks to decouple company growth from the firm’s impact on the environment, while increasing the efficiency and resiliency of BlackRock’s operations,” declares a BlackRock “environmental sustainability” webpage.

Meanwhile, in a perfect example of doublethink, the mega “financial services” corporation has invested billions in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

“Even though BlackRock says that it will focus on environmental sustainability, it continues to invest in companies that slash and burn the planet’s lungs,” explains Code Pink.

BlackRock is cashing in on the destruction of the Amazon by investing millions in oil, mining, and agribusinesses that not only destroy the rainforests but displace indigenous communities. Additionally, BlackRock decided to invest its money in the Brazilian meatpacking company JBS, another company that contributes to deforestation.

BlackRock and Vanguard are heavily invested in the business of organized murder for profit. The “investment” corporations own over 39 million shares of Lockheed Martin. Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics are also “significantly owned by BlackRock and Vanguard.”

Never mind the Bizarro World aspect of BlackRock’s deceptive “environmental sustainability” PR lies. Investments in the death merchant complex are associated with the Pentagon’s dismal record on environmental protection.

“Widespread conflict in populated rural areas jeopardizes vital public health campaigns,” writes H. Patricia Hynes, a former professor of environmental health at the Boston University School of Public Health, and director of the Traprock Center for Peace and Justice.

Likewise, modern war and militarism have a staggering impact on nature and our lived environment — by the kinds of weapons used (long-lived concealed explosives, toxic chemicals, and radiation); the “shock and awe” intensity of industrial warfare; and the massive exploitation of natural resources and fossil fuels to support militarism. By 1990, researchers estimated that the world’s military accounted for 5-10 percent of global air pollution, including carbon dioxide, ozone-depletion, smog and acid-forming chemicals. The Research Institute for Peace Policy in Starnberg, Germany calculated that 20 percent of all global environmental degradation was due to military and related activities.

Vanguard also claims it is dedicated to “sustainability goals,” and declares it will reach “carbon neutrality throughout our global operations in 2025,” according to its website. Meanwhile, the corporation holds at least $86 billion in coal, making it the world’s top investor in the industry. Other bankster operations, including Citigroup, Barclays, and 381 commercial banks, are also invested in coal.

The American taxpayer will be obliged to pay for the criminal behavior of Norfolk Southern, BlackRock, and Vanguard. On Tuesday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine demanded Congress respond to the expanding crisis, including the pollution of the Ohio River (the Ohio River Basin covers 204,000 square miles, encompassing areas in 15 states, including over 25 million people, totaling 10% of the US population).

“If a water supply is contaminated, vinyl chloride can enter household air when the water is used for showering, cooking, or laundry,” notes the National Cancer Institute.

East Palestine is experiencing a major environmental crisis and a serious threat to the health of millions of Americans. Norfolk Southern is responsible for allowing the disaster to happen, and its BlackRock investor will not be held responsible. “In a press release, Norfolk Southern said it [has] distributed more than $1 million to more than 700 families in the area to reimburse expenses incurred due to the evacuation,” reports WVXU in Cincinnati.

They also said they have donated air purifiers to residents, completed more than 300 in-home air tests with more than 100 additional tests scheduled and are currently testing well water in the area. A Potable Water Working Group has been created to monitor drinking water. Private wells are being prioritized.

Air purifiers and well monitoring will not address future liver, spleen, kidney, and lung cancers of East Palestine residents, in addition to the health of millions of other people in Ohio and surrounding states.

The response will likely follow a well-tread pattern: Norfolk Southern will be fined and awareness of its criminal behavior will be allowed to fade into the background, as the Flint water crisis has.

In Flint, Michigan residents have suffered nearly a decade of drinking water contaminated by pathological bacteria and lead poisoning.

“I’m frustrated by the water issue in Flint,” then Gov. Rick Snyder’s chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, wrote in an email. “I really don’t think people are getting the benefit of the doubt. These folks are scared and worried about the health impacts and they are basically getting blown off by us (as a state we’re just not sympathizing with their plight).”

Norfolk Southern and BlackRock will not face serious consequences for the East Palestine disaster.

Moreover, the crisis does not seem to be on the radar of climate warriors Al Gore and Greta Thunberg. While the crisis has resulted in passing news coverage, it has not received the media attention it deserves. In fact, a reporter demanding answers was thrown to the floor during a news conference, handcuffed, and arrested.

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***

The U.S. is blaming Zimbabwe’s government (which it is conveniently trying to overthrow) for the tragic humanitarian crises afflicting its suffering people. But the International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism has now placed responsibility directly on the harsh economic sanctions that the U.S. has been imposing on Zimbabwe for the last 22 years.

Just two years after the U.S. had imposed sanctions in 2001, Zimbabwe’s economy contracted 23% and inflation skyrocketed by more than 560%.

On February 4, expert witnesses testified at an International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism about the adverse impact of sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Organized by an assortment of peace and social justice organizations, the hearings were the first in a series that aims to spotlight the pernicious impact of U.S. sanctions on 16 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia, arguing that such sanctions function as a “key tool of U.S. imperialism.”

The first speaker, Rotendo Benson Matinyarare, chairman of the Zimbabweans Against Sanctions movement, noted that, between 2001 and 2008, Zimbabwe’s economy contracted by 17% as a result of the sanctions, then contracted even more, to 23%. Inflation skyrocketed by more than 560% in just two years after the sanctions were imposed—and some 280 million percent by 2008.

On the eve of the Africa leaders summit in Washington, D.C., in December, the Biden administration slapped yet another round of sanctions on Zimbabwe that will further worsen living conditions for Zimbabwe’s population.

One of the targets was Emmerson Mnangagwa, Jr., the son of the previously sanctioned President Emmerson Mnangagwa (2017-present), along with three other people and two companies that were accused of “undermining democracy and facilitating high level graft.”

The sanctions were designed to freeze any assets the targets may have had within U.S. jurisdiction and bar Americans from doing business with them. (Mnangagwa Jr. is in charge of his father’s business interests related to a prominent businessman, Kudakwashe Tagwirei, and his Sakunda Holdings company, both of which are already subjects of U.S. sanctions).

The U.S. Treasury Department announced in December 2022:

“We urge the Zimbabwean government to take meaningful steps towards creating a peaceful, prosperous, and politically vibrant Zimbabwe, and to address the root causes of many of Zimbabwe’s ills: corrupt elites and their abuse of the country’s institutions for their personal benefit. The goal of sanctions is behavior change. Today’s actions demonstrate our support for a transparent and prosperous Zimbabwe.”

The reference to “behavior change” seems very close to “regime change,” which is clearly an underlying goal of the U.S. sanctions.

By weakening Zimbabwe’s economy and creating hardship among its people, the aim is for Zimbabweans to turn against their government, which has resisted efforts to keep its economy subordinate to Western interests as a supplier of raw materials, source of cheap labor and consumer of manufactured goods produced elsewhere.

Map Description automatically generated

Source: sarpn.org

“A Program to Maintain White-Skin Privilege”

U.S. sanctions on Zimbabwe were first applied by the Bush administration in December 2001 after the U.S. Congress passed the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA), which restricted Zimbabwe’s access to credit and loans provided by international lending institutions including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

ZDERA was introduced in the Senate by Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Bill First (R-TN) and sponsored by Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Joe Biden (D-DE), and Jesse Helms (R-NC). 97% of the House of Representatives voted for it.

Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) referred to ZDERA as “nothing more than a formal declaration of United States complicity in a program to maintain white-skin privilege;” “under the hypocritical guise of providing a ‘transition to democracy.’”

The passage of ZDERA followed Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s initiation of a historic land redistribution program, which returned land that had been taken over by Europeans when Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) was colonized by white settlers at the turn of the 20th century.

A bibliophile who studied at Fort Hare, the only Black South African university, where he was exposed to revolutionary Marxist and pan-Africanist ideals, Mugabe had been imprisoned by the white supremacist Ian Smith regime from 1964 to 1974. He became Zimbabwe’s first president in 1980 as head of the Zimbabwe African National Union—Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), ruling until his death in 2019 when he was succeeded by Mnangagwa.[1]

Vilified in Western media, Mugabe displayed tyrannical qualities but cultivated a strong base of support in Zimbabwe’s rural areas and among traditional tribal chiefs.[2] He was disliked in the West primarily because his government a) embraced pan-Africanist and socialist principles; b) aimed to advance Zimbabwe’s industrialization; c) supported the anti-apartheid struggle; and d) supported the historic land reform initiatives that aimed to overturn Zimbabwe’s colonial legacy.[3]

In 2003, Mugabe adopted a “Look East” policy, declaring: “We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets.”[4] Mnangagwa—who received military training in China in the 1960s—has further deepened Zimbabwe’s relations with China.

For the last 20 years, the U.S. government has covertly supported the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), an opposition party launched in 1999 that has received generous funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—a CIA offshoot that supports propaganda and pro-U.S. political parties.

ZDERA was first passed, conveniently, right after MDC had lost parliamentary elections. Its major aim was to boost MDC’s political fortunes when Mugabe’s ZANU-PF Party had just instituted his land reform initiative.

The MDC’s leader until his death in 2018, Morgan Tsvangirai, adopted a neo-liberal economic program that strove to open Zimbabwe to foreign exploitation and was accused of trying to assassinate Mugabe.

In 2011, when Mugabe pushed for the nationalization of foreign-owned companies and reaffirmed a bill forcing foreign-owned companies worth more than $500,000 to have at least 51% Black ownership, Tsvangirai denounced the plan “as looting and plunder by a greedy elite.”

Morgan Tsvangirai speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in 2009. [Source: thegrayzone.com]

Sanctions of Mass Destruction

In his talk at the People’s Tribunal, Rotendo Benson Matinyarare provided a shocking set of statistics that underscored the horrifying effects of U.S. as well as EU sanctions on Zimbabwe.

Between 2000 and 2014, according to Rotendo, Zimbabwe lost more than $42 billion in revenue and its GDP fell 35%.

Access to health care in that time declined considerably, and thousands of Zimbabweans lost their jobs as the government could no longer afford to subsidize state-run industries like ZSCO steel, which laid off 5,000 workers, and SABO Chemicals, which manufactured chemicals to purify water. Access to clean water in Zimbabwe’s cities, consequently, plummeted from 29% to 22% in cities and from 50% to below 50% in rural areas—as the country was gripped by cholera and typhoid epidemics.

Zimbabwean kids living in abject poverty. [Source: thezimbabwemail.com]

Many people also died in road accidents because the government could no longer fund first responders, while Zimbabwe’s rail infrastructure became dilapidated as it had been dependent on General Electric (GE) for the furnishing of locomotives.

Infant mortality rates and the number of women dying during childbirth at the same time skyrocketed, and Zimbabwe suffered from a major brain drain, with millions of people displaced artificially.

The U.S. and European media, political elite and intellectual classes blamed Zimbabwean government mismanagement under Mugabe and corruption for the catastrophe that befell the country in the early 21st century.

However, under Mugabe’s leadership in the late 1990s, Zimbabwe had had one of the best health care and education systems in Africa, the second biggest stock exchange, and was a key breadbasket for the entire Sardic [South Africa] region.

The drastic change could only be accounted for by the sanctions, which deprived the Zimbabwean government of needed credit and loans and destroyed its tax base as the economy contracted.

Illegality and Wall Street Windfall

While ordinary Zimbabweans suffer, Rotendo pointed out that powerful Wall Street investment firms such as BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and Fidelity continue to invest in Zimbabwe’s stock exchange. Somehow they are immune from the sanctions.

The illegality of the sanctions appears to have been recognized even by the U.S. government.

When Zimbabwe’s CBZ Bank refused to pay a $385 million fine for violating sanctions and sued the U.S. government, the U.S. government quietly backed off and a secret settlement was reached that was likely very favorable toward CBZ.

A Warning to Zimbabwe’s Sardic Neighbors

Milton Allimadi, the other main expert witness at the tribunal, who is the publisher of Black Star News, emphasized that a main goal of the Zimbabwean sanctions is to send a signal to South Africa and Namibia that they should not redistribute their land—or they will face similar consequences as Zimbabwe.

Allimadi said that Europeans in South Africa constitute 8% of the population but control 72% of the land, despite the end of Apartheid. In Namibia—where President Sam Nujoma (1990-2005) supported Mugabe’s land reform—Europeans constitute 6% of the population but also control 70% of the land.

Allimadi noted that the media began vilifying Mugabe in the West once he instituted his land reform and was moving forward with industrialization plans.

The scurrilous stories lent support not only to the U.S. sanctions but also to a U.S. plot to back a South African invasion of Zimbabwe.

When Allimadi traveled to Zimbabwe in the early 2000s, he saw directly how the media lied: He had read about white Europeans being attacked in the streets of Harare and other Zimbabwean cities but witnessed nothing like that on his trip.

Colonial Legacy

According to Rotendo, Zimbabwe is stil bearing the burden of sanctions imposed on it by Great Britain in 1966 when it refused to follow Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) on its path to independence, and instead formed a renegade regime of white settlers under Ian Smith.

Rotendo specified that the intention of the sanctions at that time was to punish Blacks down the road when they would gain independence, and that Ian Smith was able to enrich himself and extend his regime by obtaining illegal loans that were in violation of the sanctions.

When Zimbabwe became independent under Mugabe’s leadership, the country was forced to assume the debts of Smith’s government, which had failed to provide basic health care, education, housing or energy for the majority Black population like its colonial predecessor.

The U.S. and UK at this time partnered with South Africa’s Apartheid government to destabilize Zimbabwe, which played a key role in the anti-Apartheid struggle as a base of operation for African National Congress (ANC) anti-Apartheid activists.[5]

South Africa’s Apartheid state worked to sabotage Zimbabwe’s infrastructure and promoted terrorist acts, primarily in neighboring Mozambique, affecting the entire regional economy, and plunging the new Zimbabwean state into greater debt.

The CIA supported right-wing Mozambican National Resistance (RENAMO) terrorists who were allied with Apartheid South Africa and a vital aspect of regional destabilization efforts.

When Zimbabwe was promised money for its reconstruction following the demise of South African Apartheid, the aid failed to materialize—though the country for a time flourished until the ZDERA was passed.

Crime Against Humanity and Instrument of Regime Change

Rotendo suggests that the U.S. sanctions policy is a crime against humanity that discriminates against Zimbabweans, a form of collective punishment for Zimbabwe’s political defiance of the U.S.-dominated world order, and political instrument to affect regime change.

The U.S. government claims that it wants to advance democracy in Zimbabwe, though it rigs elections through the sanctions and supports a political party, MDC, that Rotendo considers to be a terrorist organization because it uses coercion and supports the persecution of Zimbabweans and killing of them through hunger in an attempt to gain political power.

A group of people holding a sign Description automatically generated with medium confidence

Source: picturenet.co.za

Rotendo said that Americans would not tolerate a political party that was there for the explicit purpose of destabilizing the United States—which is true of the MDC.

Rotendo also noted the U.S. hypocrisy of crying wolf about Russian interference in its past elections, when he says the U.S. has been manipulating elections in Zimbabwe for 22 years through its support for the sanctions and MDC.

*

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Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

  1. On Mugabe’s background, see Sue Onslow and Martin Plaut, Robert Mugabe (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2018). This book provides good information and acknowledges the need for land reform and that Mugabe has a strong base of support in Zimbabwe, but is typical of Western scholarship in its anti-Mugabe bias and denial of the endurance of Western imperialism in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s and attempts to affect regime change. The authors blame Mugabe for Zimbabwe’s problems while failing, in a glaring omission, to even discuss the U.S. and EU sanctions. A similar bias is evident in William J. Mpofu’s book, Robert Mugabe and the Will to Power in an African Postcolony (New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2021), which supports Samantha Power’s characterization of Mugabe’s rule as “the art of how to kill a country.” Mpofu further claims that “Mugabe participated in the defeat of white settler colonialism in order to replace it with his own nativist colonization of Zimbabwe.” A search through the index reveals that the term sanctions or ZDERA appears nowhere in the scholarly text. 

  2. Onslow and Plaut, Robert Mugabe, 128. Mugabe also had the support of Zimbabwe’s dominant Shona tribe and delivered many of his speeches in Shona. A low point of Mugabe’s rule was the Gukurahundi in the early 1980s when North Korean-trained army regiments in western Zimbabwe massacred supporters of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), a rival of ZANU-PF, which had its base among the Ndebele and Katanga people. Mugabe himself described the early 1980s as a “moment of madness.” Stuart Doran, “New Documents Claim to Prove Mugabe Ordered Gukurahundi Killings,” The Guardian, May 19, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/19/mugabe-zimbabwe-gukurahundi-massacre-matabelelan 
  3. Onslow and Plaut, Robert Mugabe. Mugabe was a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement in the 1980s. Another reason Western powers hated him was because, in the 1990s, he sent Zimbabwean troops into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) at the invitation of the DRC government to protect it from outside imperialist invasion led by U.S. proxies Rwanda and Uganda, which were intent on plundering the DRC’s mineral wealth and opening it to exploitation by U.S. corporations.
  4. Onslow and Plaut, Robert Mugabe, 115. 
  5. Zambia, ruled at the time by socialist Kenneth Kaunda (1964-1991), was another important base of operation for the ANC. The CIA in 1981 backed a coup against Kaunda. 

Featured image is from cfr.org

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According to several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of its central claims, especially about the destruction of the World Trade Center, show its members to be scientifically challenged. In the opinion of some of these critics, moreover, claims made by members of this movement are sometimes unscientific in the strongest possible sense, implying an acceptance of magic and miracles.

After documenting this charge in Part I of this essay, I show in Part II that the exact opposite is the case: that the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center implies miracles (I give nine examples), and that the 9/11 Truth Movement, in developing an alternative hypothesis, has done so in line with the assumption that the laws of nature did not take a holiday on 9/11. In Part III, I ask these left-leaning critics some questions evoked by the fact that it is they, not members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who have endorsed a conspiracy theory replete with miracle stories as well as other absurdities.

I  The Charge that 9/11 Truth Theories Rest on Unscientific, Even Magical, Beliefs

Several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, besides showing contempt for its members, charge them with relying on claims that are contradicted by good science and, in some cases, reflect a belief in magic. By “magic,” they mean miracles, understood as violations of basic principles of the physical sciences.

For example, Alexander Cockburn, who has referred to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as “9/11 conspiracy nuts,”3 quoted with approval a philosopher who, speaking of “the 9-11 conspiracy cult,” said that its “main engine . . . is . . . the death of any conception of evidence,” resulting in “the ascendancy of magic over common sense, let alone reason.”4 Also, Cockburn assured his readers: “The conspiracy theory that the World Trade Centre towers were demolished by explosive charges previously placed within them is probably impossible.”5 With regard to Building 7 of the World Trade Center, Cockburn claimed (in 2006) that the (2002) report by FEMA was “more than adequate.”6

Likewise, George Monbiot, referring to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as “fantasists,” “conspiracy idiots,” and “morons,” charged that they “believe that [the Bush regime] is capable of magic.”7

Matt Taibbi, saying that the “9/11 conspiracy theory is so shamefully stupid” and referring to its members as “idiots,” wrote with contempt about the “alleged scientific impossibilities” in the official account of 9/11; about the claim that “the towers couldn’t have fallen the way they did [without the aid of explosives]”; of the view (held by “9/11 Truthers”) that “it isn’t the plane crashes that topple the buildings, but bombs planted in the Towers that do the trick”; and of “the supposed anomalies of physics involved with the collapse of WTC-7.” He had been assured by “scientist friends,” he added, that “[a]ll of the 9/11 science claims” are “rank steaming bullshit.”8

Chris Hayes, writing in The Nation in 2006, did not stoop to the kind of name-calling employed by Cockburn, Monbiot, and Taibbi. Also, he knew, he admitted, of “eyewitness accounts of [people] who heard explosions in the World Trade Center.” And he was aware that “jet fuel burns at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit [whereas] steel melts at 2,500.” He asserted, nevertheless, that “the evidence shows [a 9/11 conspiracy] to be virtually impossible,” so that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s conspiracy theory is “wrongheaded and a terrible waste of time.”9

Noam Chomsky has also declared that the available facts, when approached scientifically, refute the 9/11 Truth Movement. Speaking of evidence provided by this movement to show that 9/11 “was planned by the Bush Administration,” Chomsky declared: “If you look at the evidence, anybody who knows anything about the sciences would instantly discount that evidence.”10 In spite of his dismissive attitude, however, Chomsky in 2006 gave some helpful advice to people who believe they have physical evidence refuting the official account:

“There are ways to assess that: submit it to specialists . . . who have the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, building construction, etc., for review and analysis. . . . Or, . . . submit it to a serious journal for peer review and publication. To my knowledge, there isn’t a single submission.”11

In These Times writer Terry Allen, in a 2006 essay entitled “The 9/11 Faith Movement,” assured her readers that “the facts [do not] support the conspiracists’ key charge that World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by pre-positioned explosives.”12

In an essay posted at AlterNet a few months after 9/11, David Corn used a purely a priori argument to demonstrate – at least to his own satisfaction – that 9/11 could not have been an inside job: “U.S. officials would [not have been] . . . good [capable] enough, evil enough, or gutsy enough.”13 In 2009, after having been silent about 9/11 for the intervening years, he addressed the issue again. Referring to “9/11 conspiracy silliness,” “9/11 conspiracy poison,” and “9/11 fabulists,” Corn declared:

“The 9/11 conspiracy . . . was always a load of bunk. You don’t have to be an expert on skyscraper engineering . . . to know that [this theory] make[s] no sense.”14

Corn thereby implied that, whereas anyone can know that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s conspiracy theory is false, those people who are “expert[s] on skyscraper engineering” would have even more certain knowledge of this fact.

As to how people (such as himself) who are not experts on such matters could know this movement’s conspiracy theory to be “a load of bunk,” Corn again employed his three-point a priori argument, as re-worded in a later essay, according to which the Bush administration was “not that evil,” “not that ballsy,” and “not that competent.”15 Corn even referred to his three-point argument as “a tutorial that should persuade anyone that the 9/11 theory makes no sense.” Although this “tutorial” does not, of course, convince members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, Corn explained this fact by saying: “I have learned from experience that people who believe this stuff are not open to persuasion.”16

In any case, although his argument against the inside-job theory was almost entirely a priori, he did make the above-mentioned suggestion that one’s a priori certitude would be reinforced by people, such as “expert[s] on skyscraper engineering,” who have relevant types of expertise to evaluate the empirical evidence.

A fuller statement of the general claim made by these authors – that the 9/11 Truth Movement is based on unscientific claims – was formulated by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive. In an essay entitled “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Already,” Rothschild wrote:

“Here’s what the conspiracists believe: 9/11 was an inside job. . . . [T]he Twin Towers fell not because of the impact of the airplanes and the ensuing fires but because [of] explosives. Building 7, another high-rise at the World Trade Center that fell on 9/11, also came down by planted explosives. . . . I’m amazed at how many people give credence to these theories. . . . [S]ome of the best engineers in the country have studied these questions and come up with perfectly logical, scientific explanations for what happened. . . . At bottom, the 9/11 conspiracy theories are profoundly irrational and unscientific. It is more than passing strange that progressives, who so revere science on such issues as tobacco, stem cells, evolution, and global warming, are so willing to abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.”17

However, in spite of the confidence with which these critics have made their charges, the truth is the complete opposite: It is the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, which has been endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), that is profoundly unscientific (partly because it ignores a massive amount of evidence pointing to use of explosives18), and it is precisely for this reason that the 9/11 Truth Movement has come up with an alternative explanation – namely, that the WTC buildings were brought down in the procedure known as “controlled demolition.”

II  Miracles Implied by NIST’s Explanation of the WTC’s Destruction

The main reason why NIST’s theory of the destruction of the World Trade Center is profoundly unscientific is that it cannot be accepted without endorsing miracles, in the sense of violations of fundamental principles of physics and chemistry. I will demonstrate this point in terms of nine miracles implied by NIST’s accounts of the destruction of Building 7 of the World Trade Center (WTC 7) and the Twin Towers (WTC 1 and 2).

1. The Fire-Induced Collapse of WTC 7: An Apparent Miracle

WTC 7 was a 47-story building that, although it was not hit by a plane, came down at 5:21 PM that day. Unlike the collapse of the Twin Towers, the collapse of this building was not publicized. The 9/11 Commission Report, for example, did not even mention it.19 Many people have, accordingly, never heard of this building’s collapse. A Zogby poll in 2006, for example, found that 43 percent of the American people were still unaware that a third WTC building had collapsed, and even though NIST’s report on its collapse appeared in 2008, many people today still do not know that this building also came down.20 For the purposes of the present essay, in any case, the main point is that, insofar as people profess belief in the official account of this building’s collapse as articulated by NIST, they imply an acceptance of several miracles.

I begin with a fact about WTC 7’s collapse that at least appears to entail a miracle: that it was (according to the official account) the first steel-frame high-rise building in the known universe to be brought down solely by fire. The Twin Towers were hit by airliners, so the official account could attribute their collapses to the airplane impacts as well as to the ensuing fires. But WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, so its collapse apparently had to be attributed to fire alone.

The unprecedented nature of a fire-induced collapse of a steel-frame high-rise building was expressed a couple of months after 9/11 by New York Times reporter James Glanz. Calling the collapse of WTC 7 “a mystery,” Glanz reported that “experts said no building like it, a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise, had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire.” Glanz also quoted a structural engineer as saying: “[W]ithin the structural engineering community, [WTC 7] is considered to be much more important to understand [than the Twin Towers],” because engineers had no answer to the question, “why did 7 come down?”21

The mystery was not lessened in 2002 when FEMA issued the first official report on this building’s collapse. Saying that its “best hypothesis” was that flaming debris from the collapse of the North Tower had ignited diesel fuel stored in the building, resulting in large, steel-weakening fires that made the building collapse, FEMA admitted that this hypothesis had “only a low probability of occurrence”22 (although Alexander Cockburn years later, as we saw above, would declare this report to be “more than adequate”).

This cautionary statement by FEMA did not, however, prevent defenders of the official account from claiming that WTC 7’s collapse was not really very mysterious after all. In a 2006 book, Popular Mechanics told its readers what they could probably expect to find in the report on this building to be put out by NIST – which had taken over from FEMA the responsibility for issuing the official reports on the Twin Towers and WTC 7. Citing NIST’s “current working hypothesis,” Popular Mechanics said that WTC 7’s diesel fuel had probably fed the fires “for up to seven hours.”23

Also, using NIST’s then-current thinking in order to claim that “WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated,” Popular Mechanics argued that critics could not reject the official account on the grounds that it would make WTC 7 the first steel-frame high-rise to have failed “because of fire alone,” because, Popular Mechanics claimed, the causes of WTC 7’s collapse were analogous to the causes of the collapses of WTC 1 and WTC 2: “A combination of physical damage from falling debris [analogous to the damage caused in the Twin Towers by the airplane impacts] and prolonged exposure to the resulting [diesel-fuel-fed] fires [analogous to the jet-fuel-fed fires in the Twin Towers].”24

Popular Mechanics called this twofold explanation a “conclusion” that had been reached by “hundreds of experts from academia and private industry, as well as the government.” This claim evidently impressed many people, including Chris Hayes and Matthew Rothschild, both of whom said that Popular Mechanics had disproved the claims of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Rothschild, repeating Popular Mechanics’ twofold explanation, wrote:

“Building 7 . . . is a favorite of the conspiracy theorists, since the planes did not strike this structure. But the building did sustain damage from the debris of the Twin Towers. ‘On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom – approximately ten stories – about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out,’ Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, told Popular Mechanics. What’s more, the fire in the building lasted for about eight hours, in part because there were fuel tanks in the basement and on some of the floors.”25

Hayes, saying that “Popular Mechanics assembled a team of engineers, physicists, flight experts and the like to critically examine some of the Truth Movement’s most common claims,” reported that these experts “found them almost entirely without merit.” This counter-claim by Popular Mechanics evidently settled the matter for Hayes.26

Also, although Terry Allen did not mention Popular Mechanics, her article was apparently dependent on it. Assuring her readers that she had found it “relatively easy” to undermine the “facts” employed by the 9/11 Truth Movement, she wrote:

“Many conspiracists offer the collapse of WTC Building 7 as the strongest evidence for the kind of controlled demolition that would prove a plot. Although not hit by planes, it was damaged by debris, and suffered fires eventually fueled by up to 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored near ground level.”27

Like Rothschild, therefore, she gave the same twofold explanation for WTC 7’s collapse that had been provided by Popular Mechanics.28

However, when NIST finally issued its WTC 7 report in 2008, it did not affirm either element in the twofold explanation that had been proffered by Popular Mechanics. With regard to the first element, NIST said: “[F]uel oil fires did not play a role in the collapse of WTC 7.”29 With regard to the second element, NIST said: “Other than initiating the fires in WTC 7, the damage from the debris from WTC 1 [the North Tower] had little effect on initiating the collapse of WTC 7.”30

This second point means that, contrary to what Popular Mechanics had claimed it would say, NIST actually asserted that WTC 7 was brought down by fire, at least primarily. In NIST’s words, the collapse of WTC 7 was “the first known instance of the total collapse of a [steel-frame] tall building primarily due to fires.”31

One ambiguity needs clearing up: Although in these just-quoted statements, NIST seemed to indicate that the debris damage had a “little effect” on initiating the collapse, so that this collapse was only primarily (rather than entirely) due to fire, NIST generally treated fire as the sole cause: Besides repeatedly speaking of a “fire-induced” collapse,32 Also, in a press release announcing its Draft for Public Comment in August 2008, NIST called the collapse of WTC 7 “the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building.” This press release, moreover, quoted lead investigator Shyam Sunder as saying: “Our study found that the fires in WTC 7 . . . caused an extraordinary event.”33 The brief version of NIST’s final report said: “Even without the structural damage, WTC 7 would have collapsed from fires having the same characteristics as those experienced on September 11, 2001.”34 The long version said: “WTC 7 sustained damage to its exterior as a result of falling debris from the collapse of WTC 1, but this damage was found to have no effect on the collapse initiating event.”35

It is not wrong, therefore, to say that NIST portrayed WTC 7 as the first (and thus far only) steel-frame high-rise building to have come down because of fire alone. NIST said, in other words, precisely what Popular Mechanics, knowing that claims about unprecedented physical events are deeply suspect, had assured people it would not say.

In doing so, moreover, NIST contradicted both parts of Popular Mechanics’ explanation for WTC 7’s collapse, which, according to Rothschild and Allen, had provided the basis for discounting the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims about this collapse. To review: Rothschild said that the official account was credible, contrary to the Truth Movement’s claims, because “the building did sustain damage from the debris of the Twin Towers” and the “fire in the building lasted for about eight hours,” due to the “fuel tanks in the basement and on some of the floors.” Allen likewise said the official account was believable because, although WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, “it was damaged by debris, and suffered fires eventually fueled by up to 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored near ground level.”36

But then, when NIST later denied that either the debris-damage or the diesel fuel played a role in the collapse of WTC 7, Rothschild and Allen did not retract their prior assurances. It seems that they, in effect, simply said – like Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s – “Never mind.” Their attitude seemed to be, in other words, that whatever the government says, that is what they will believe. Whatever kind of journalism this is, it is certainly not truth-seeking journalism.

In any case, NIST’s claim that WTC 7 suffered an unprecedented, fire-induced collapse is made even more problematic by the fact that the fires in this building were relatively unimpressive, compared with fires in some other steel-frame high-rises. In 1991, a huge fire in Philadelphia’s One Meridian Plaza lasted for 18 hours and gutted eight of the building’s 38 floors. In Caracas in 2004, a fire in a 50-story building raged for 17 hours, completely gutting the building’s top 20 floors. In neither case, however, did the building, or even a single floor, collapse.37

In WTC 7, by contrast, there were long-lasting fires on only six of the building’s 47 floors, according to NIST, and by “long-lasting,” NIST meant only that they lasted up to seven hours.38 It would be exceedingly strange, therefore, if fire had produced a total collapse of this building. The claim becomes even stranger when one discovers that NIST had no evidence that the fires on any of the floors lasted for much over three hours.39

Accordingly, besides undermining the confident explanations of WTC 7’s collapse offered by Popular Mechanics, NIST’s conclusion about this building – that it was the first steel-frame high-rise building ever to be brought down by fire – appears to constitute a rather remarkable miracle-claim.

2. WTC 7’s Collapse: A Perfect Imitation of an Implosion  

More clearly miraculous, given the official account, was the precise way in which WTC 7 collapsed: symmetrically (straight down, with an almost perfectly horizontal roofline), into its own footprint. In order for this symmetrical collapse to occur, all the (vertical) steel columns supporting the building had to fail simultaneously. There were 82 of these columns, so the fire theory of WTC 7’s collapse entails that the fires in this building caused all 82 of these columns to fail at the same instant.

Even if otherwise possible, such a symmetrical failure would have been essentially impossible even if the building had been entirely engulfed by fire, so that all the floors would have been evenly covered with fire. As it was, however, there were fires on only a few floors, and these fires never covered an entire floor at the same time. The official account implies, therefore, that a very asymmetrical pattern of fires produced an entirely symmetrical collapse. If that is not a genuine miracle, it will do until one comes along.

Another problem is the fact that, even if a symmetrical, total collapse could be caused by an asymmetrical pattern of fires, a fire theory could not explain the sudden onset of WTC 7’s collapse. Popular Mechanics, which is unreliable on every aspect of 9/11 (as I showed in my 2007 book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking40), apparently misled Chris Hayes on this point by suggesting otherwise. Attempting to illustrate his claim that Popular Mechanics had shown the core ideas of the 9/11 Truth Movement to be “almost entirely without merit,” Hayes wrote:

“To pick just one example, steel might not melt at 1,500 degrees [Fahrenheit], the temperature at which jet fuel burns, but it does begin to lose a lot of its strength, enough to cause the support beams to fail.”41

However, even if the fire could have heated the steel up to this temperature in the time available (which would have been impossible42), the fire would have weakened the steel gradually, causing it to start sagging. Videos would, therefore, show deformations in the building before it came down. But they do not. One moment the building was perfectly immobile, and the next moment, as videos show,43 it was accelerating downward in free fall (the significance of free fall will be discussed below). As Australian chemist Frank Legge has observed: “There is no sign of the slow start that would be expected if collapse was caused by the gradual softening of the steel.”44

Because of these two features of the collapse, anyone knowing anything about such things can tell, simply by seeing a video of WTC 7’s collapse, that it was brought down in the procedure known as “controlled demolition.” For example, Daniel Hofnung, an engineer in Paris, has written:

“In the years after [the] 9/11 events, I thought that all I read in professional reviews and French newspapers was true. The first time I understood that it was impossible was when I saw a film about the collapse of WTC 7.”45

Kansas City civil engineer Chester Gearhart wrote:

“I have watched the construction of many large buildings and also have personally witnessed 5 controlled demolitions in Kansas City. When I saw the towers fall on 9/11, I knew something was wrong and my first instinct was that it was impossible. When I saw building 7 fall, I knew it was a controlled demolition.”46

Jack Keller, emeritus professor of engineering at Utah State University (who had been named by Scientific American as one of the world’s leaders in using science and technology to benefit society), wrote simply of WTC 7’s collapse: “Obviously it was the result of controlled demolition.”47

In revealing the collapse of WTC 7 to be an example of controlled demolition, moreover, the videos show it to be the type of controlled demolition known as “implosion,” in which explosives and/or incendiaries are used to slice the building’s steel support columns so as to cause the building to collapse into its own footprint.

In 2006, for example, a Dutch filmmaker asked Danny Jowenko, the owner of a controlled demolition company in the Netherlands, to comment on a video of the collapse of WTC 7, without telling him what it was. (Jowenko had been unaware that a third building had collapsed in New York on 9/11.) After viewing the video, Jowenko said: “They simply blew up columns, and the rest caved in afterwards. . . . This is controlled demolition.” When asked if he was certain, he replied: “Absolutely, it’s been imploded. This was a hired job. A team of experts did this.”48

Moreover, the reason to implode a building, rather than simply causing it to fall over sideways, is to avoid damaging nearby buildings, and engineering an implosion is no mean feat. An implosion, in the words of a controlled demolition website, is “by far the trickiest type of explosive project,” which “only a handful of blasting companies in the world . . . possess enough experience . . . to perform.”49 Mark Loizeaux, the president of the afore-mentioned demolition firm, Controlled Demolition, Inc., has explained why: “[T]o bring [a building] down . . . so . . . no other structure is harmed,” the demolition must be “completely planned,” using “the right explosive [and] the right pattern of laying the charges.”50

Would it not be a miracle if a fire-induced collapse, based on scattered fires on a few of WTC 7’s floors, had produced a collapse that perfectly imitated the kind of planned, controlled demolition that can be carried out by only a few companies in the world?

Chris Hayes suggested that the 9/11 Truth Movement, by doubting the government’s account of 9/11, exemplifies a resurgence of the “paranoid style” in American politics. But in accepting the government’s account, as defended by the pseudo-scientific Popular Mechanics, he illustrated the other target of his article, the “credulous style,” which, he pointed out, is generally exemplified by the American media.51 Surely, however, his credulity does not extend to the acceptance of miracles.

3. WTC 7’s Descent in Absolute Free Fall

Even if some readers question whether the two previously discussed features of the collapse of WTC 7, when understood within the framework of NIST’s fire theory, imply miracles, there can be no doubt about a third feature: the now-accepted (albeit generally unpublicized) fact that WTC 7 came down in absolute free fall for over two seconds.

Although members of the 9/11 Truth Movement had long been pointing out that this building descended at the same rate as a free-falling object, or at least virtually so, NIST had long denied this. As late as August 2008, when NIST issued its report on WTC 7 in the form of a Draft for Public Comment, it claimed that the time it took for the upper floors – the only floors that are visible on the videos – to come down “was approximately 40 percent longer than the computed free fall time and was consistent with physical principles.”52

As this statement implied, any assertion that the building did come down in free fall, assuming a non-engineered collapse, would not be consistent with physical principles – meaning basic laws of Newtonian physics. Explaining why not during a “WTC 7 Technical Briefing” on August 26, 2008, NIST’s Shyam Sunder said:

“[A] free fall time would be [the fall time of] an object that has no structural components below it. . . . [T]he . . . time that it took . . . for those 17 floors to disappear [was roughly 40 percent longer than free fall]. And that is not at all unusual, because there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had a sequence of structural failures that had to take place. Everything was not instantaneous.”53

In saying this, Sunder was presupposing NIST’s theory that the building was brought down by fire, which, if it could have produced a collapse of any type, could have produced only a progressive collapse.

In response, high-school physics teacher David Chandler, who was allowed to submit a question at this briefing, challenged Sunder’s denial of free fall, stating that Sunder’s “40 percent longer” claim contradicted “a publicly visible, easily measurable quantity.”54 Chandler then placed a video on the Internet showing that, by measuring this publicly visible quantity, anyone understanding elementary physics could see that “for about two and a half seconds. . . , the acceleration of the building is indistinguishable from freefall.”55 (This is, of course, free fall through the air, not through a vacuum.)

In its final report on WTC 7, which came out in November 2008, NIST – rather amazingly – admitted free fall. Dividing the building’s descent into three stages, NIST described the second phase as “a freefall descent over approximately eight stories at gravitational acceleration for approximately 2.25 s[econds].”56 NIST thereby accepted Chandler’s case – except for maintaining that the building was in absolute free fall for only 2.25, not 2.5, seconds (a trivial difference). NIST thereby affirmed a miracle, meaning a violation of one or more laws of physics.

Why this would be a miracle was explained by Chandler, who said: “Free fall can only be achieved if there is zero resistance to the motion.”57 In other words, the upper portion of Building 7 could have come down in free fall only if something had suddenly removed all the steel and concrete in the lower part of the building, which would have otherwise provided resistance (to make a considerable understatement). If everything had not been removed and the upper floors had come down in free fall anyway, even if for only a fraction of a second, this would have been a miracle – meaning a violation of physical principles. Explaining one of the physical principles involved, Chandler said:

“Anything at an elevated height has gravitational potential energy. If it falls, and none of the energy is used for other things along the way, all of that energy is converted into kinetic energy – the energy of motion, and we call it ‘free fall.’ If any of the energy is used for other purposes, there will be less kinetic energy, so the fall will be slower. In the case of a falling building, the only way it can go into free fall is if an external force removes the supporting structure. None of the gravitational potential energy of the building is available for this purpose, or it would slow the fall of the building.”58

That was what Sunder himself had explained, on NIST’s behalf, the previous August, saying that a free-falling object would be one “that has no structural components below it” to offer resistance. But NIST then in November, while still under Sunder’s leadership and still defending its fire theory of WTC 7’s collapse, agreed that, as an empirical fact, free fall happened. For a period of 2.25 seconds, NIST admitted, the descent of WTC 7 was characterized by “gravitational acceleration (free fall).”59

Besides pointing out that the free fall descent of WTC 7 implied that the building had been professionally demolished, Chandler observed that this conclusion is reinforced by two features of the collapse mentioned above:

“[P]articularly striking is the suddenness of onset of free fall. Acceleration doesn’t build up gradually. . . . The building went from full support to zero support, instantly. . . . One moment, the building is holding; the next moment it lets go and is in complete free fall. . . . The onset of free fall was not only sudden; it extended across the whole width of the building. . . . The fact that the roof stayed level shows the building was in free fall across the entire width. The collapse we see cannot be due to a column failure, or a few column failures, or a sequence of column failures. All 24 interior columns and 58 perimeter columns had to have been removed . . . simultaneously, within a small fraction of a second.”60

For its part, NIST, knowing that it had affirmed a miracle by agreeing that WTC 7 had entered into free fall, no longer claimed that its analysis was consistent with the laws of physics. Back in its August draft, in which it was still claiming that the collapse occurred 40 percent slower than free fall, NIST had said – in a claim made three times – that its analysis was “consistent with physical principles.”61 In the final report, however, every instance of this phrase was removed. NIST thereby almost explicitly admitted that its report on WTC 7, by affirming absolute free fall while continuing to deny that either incendiaries or explosives had been employed, is not consistent with basic principles of physics.

Accordingly, now that it is established that WTC 7 came down in absolute free fall for over two seconds, one cannot accept the official theory, according to which this building was not professionally demolished, without implying that at least one miracle happened on 9/11.

George Monbiot, as we saw, described members of this movement as “morons” who “believe that [the Bush regime] is capable of magic.” Unless Monbiot, upon becoming aware of NIST’s admission of free fall, changes his stance, he will imply that al-Qaeda is capable of magic.

Matthew Rothschild said he was “amazed” at how many people hold the “profoundly irrational and unscientific” belief that “Building 7 . . . came down by planted explosives.” Given the fact that progressive members of the 9/11 Truth Movement “so revere science on such issues as tobacco, stem cells, evolution, and global warming,” Rothschild continued, it is “more than passing strange that [they] are so willing to abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.”

NIST’s report on WTC 7, however, provided the final proof that the 9/11 Truth Movement had been right all along – that those progressives who credulously accept the Bush-Cheney administration’s explanation for WTC 7’s collapse are the ones who “abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.”

4. The Twin Towers: Descending in Virtual Free Fall

Miracles are implied not only by the official account of WTC 7’s collapse but also by the official account of the destruction of the Twin Towers. According to this account, the North Tower (WTC 1) and the South Tower (WTC 2) came down because of three and only three causes: (i) the airplane impacts, which caused structural damage; (ii) the ensuing fires, which were initially fed and spread by jet fuel from the planes; and (iii) gravity. NIST’s negative claim here is that neither explosives nor incendiaries helped bring the buildings down.

One of the miracles implicit in this account is that, although each building had 287 steel support columns – 240 perimeter columns and 47 massive core columns – and although neither explosives nor incendiaries were used to destroy these columns, each building came down, as NIST itself put it, “essentially in free fall.”62 How would that have been possible?

According to NIST, each airliner took out several perimeter and core columns at its area of impact and also created huge fires, which began weakening the steel. After a period of time (56 minutes for the South Tower, 102 minutes for the North Tower), “the massive top section of [each] building at and above the fire and impact floors” fell down on the lower section, which “could not resist the tremendous energy released by [the top section’s] downward movement.”63 Accordingly, NIST’s report said:

“Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos.”64

Trying to describe more fully its theory of how this happened, NIST wrote:

“The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that energy through energy of deformation. . . . As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass. In other words, the momentum [of the top stories] falling on the supporting structure below . . . so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that [the latter] was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass.”65

Even before we think about any specific law of physics violated by this account (assuming that no explosives or incendiaries were used to remove the steel columns), we can see intuitively that this explanation implies a miracle: As NIST critic Jim Hoffman has pointed out, it “requires us to believe that the massive steel frames of the [lower structure of the] towers provided no more resistance to falling rubble than [would] air.”66

As to why physics rules out NIST’s account, William Rice, who has both practiced and taught structural engineering, pointed out that NIST’s account “violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum,” which requires that, “as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit,” the speed of descent must decrease.67 A paper by physicists and engineers published in an engineering journal agreed, stating:

“NIST evidently neglects a fundamental law of physics in glibly treating the remarkable ‘free fall’ collapse of each Tower, namely, the Law of Conservation of Momentum. This law of physics means that the hundreds of thousands of tons of material in the way must slow the upper part of the building because of its mass.”68

A letter to NIST signed by physicist Steven Jones, chemist Kevin Ryan, and architect Richard Gage, among others, made a similar point, saying:

“Basic principles of engineering (for example, the conservation of momentum principle) would dictate that the undamaged steel structure below the collapse initiation zone would, at the very least, resist and slow the downward movement of the stories above. There is, indeed, a good chance that the structural strength of the steelwork below would arrest the downward movement of the stories above.”69

NIST, as we saw above, claimed that the lower portion would not retard – let alone arrest – the downward movement of the upper part, because the “tremendous energy” of the upper part’s downward momentum would be irresistible. Let us examine this claim with regard to the North Tower. It was struck at the 95th floor, so the upper portion consisted of only 16 floors. Also, the structure at this height had relatively little weight to bear, compared with the structure lower down, so the steel columns in the upper part, above the area of impact, were much thinner than those in the lower part. This means that the upper 16 floors probably constituted less than 15 percent of the building’s total weight. Also, the top portion would have fallen only a story or two before hitting the lower portion, so it would not have acquired much velocity before striking the lower portion. For these reasons, the top portion would have not had much momentum, so its energy would not have been so “tremendous,” it would seem, as to be irresistible by the lower part, with its millions of pounds of interconnected steel.

This conclusion, based on a purely commonsense analysis, was confirmed by a technical analysis of the North Tower collapse by mechanical engineer Gordon Ross. Far from failing to retard the downward movement of the building’s upper portion, his analysis showed, the lower portion would have quickly and completely stopped the top portion’s descent. Having made the necessary calculations (which NIST failed to do), Ross concluded that the “vertical movement of the falling section would [have been] arrested . . . within 0.02 seconds after impact. A collapse driven only by gravity would not continue to progress beyond that point.”70

If Ross’s calculations are even close to accurate, then NIST’s account – according to which the Twin Towers came down “essentially in free fall,” even though they were not professionally demolished – implied two enormous miracles (one for each building).

Another element in NIST’s account, to be sure, is the claim that the fires in the buildings weakened the steel, so that it provided less resistance than normal. “[W]hen bare steel reaches temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius,” NIST wrote, “it softens and its strength reduces to roughly 10 percent of its room temperature value.”71 NIST thereby, without actually saying it, implied that the steel columns had been heated up to the point where they lost 90 percent of their strength.

NIST was in this way able to mislead some nonscientific journalists into thinking that fire could have caused the Twin Towers to collapse. Alexander Cockburn, stating that the collapses did not require preplaced explosives, said: “High grade steel can bend disastrously under extreme heat.”72 Chris Hayes, stating that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims about the Twin Towers are without merit, wrote (in a passage quoted earlier): “[S]teel might not melt at 1,500 degrees (Fahrenheit], the temperature at which jet fuel burns, but it does begin to lose a lot of its strength, enough to cause the support beams to fail.”73

However, the idea that steel heated up by fire could account for the collapses of the Twin Towers is wrong for at least two reasons. In the first place, even if the steel had indeed lost 90 percent of its strength, it would still have offered some resistance, because the law of conservation of momentum would not have taken a holiday. So a collapse “essentially in free fall” would have been impossible.

In the second place, there is no empirical basis for claiming that either tower’s steel had lost any strength, let alone 90 percent of it. On the one hand, as MIT engineering professor Thomas Eagar has pointed out, structural steel only “begins to soften around 425°C [797°F].”74 On the other hand, scientific studies on 16 perimeter columns carried out by NIST scientists found that “only three [of these perimeter] columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250˚C [482˚F].” These NIST scientists also found no evidence that even this temperature (250˚C [482˚F]) had been reached by any of the core columns.75

Accordingly, far from having evidence that any of the steel in the columns reached the temperature (1,000°C [1,832°F]) at which it would have lost 90 percent of its strength, NIST had no evidence that any of the columns would have lost even one percent of their strength. If neither explosives nor incendiaries were used to remove the 287 steel support columns, therefore, the top portion of the building came down through the lower portion as if it were not there, even though the steel in that portion was at full strength.

In claiming, therefore, that both of the Twin Towers came down essentially in free fall without the aid of either incendiaries or explosives, NIST implied enormous violations of the physical principle known as the conservation of momentum. Although Rothschild accused the 9/11 Truth Movement of being “irrational and unscientific,” this characterization applies instead to NIST’s report on the Twin Towers and anyone who accepts it.

5. The South Tower’s Mid-Air Miracles

Having illustrated the previous miracle primarily in terms of the North Tower, I turn now to a miracle unique to the South Tower. It was struck at the 80th floor, so that its upper portion consisted of a 30-floor block. As videos of the beginning of this building’s collapse show, this block began tipping toward the corner that had been most damaged by the airplane’s impact. According to the law of the conservation of angular momentum, this section should have fallen to the ground far outside the building’s footprint. “However,” Jim Hoffman and fellow 9/11 researcher Don Hoffman have observed,

“as the top then began to fall, the rotation decelerated. Then it reversed direction [even though the] law of conservation of angular momentum states that a solid object in rotation will continue to rotate at the same speed unless acted on by a torque.”76

And then, as if this were not miraculous enough:

“We observe [wrote physicist Steven Jones] that approximately 30 upper floors begin to rotate as a block, to the south and east. They begin to topple over, not fall straight down. The torque due to gravity on this block is enormous, as is its angular momentum. But then – and this I’m still puzzling over – this block turned mostly to powder in mid-air! How can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives?”77

If someone were to ask how even explosives could explain this behavior, we could turn to a statement by Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. In response to an interviewer’s question as to how he made “doomed structures dance or walk,” Loizeaux said:

“[B]y differentially controlling the velocity of failure in different parts of the structure, you can make it walk, you can make it spin, you can make it dance. We’ve taken it and moved it, then dropped it or moved it, twisted it and moved it down further – and then stopped it and moved it again. We’ve dropped structures 15 storeys, stopped them and then laid them sideways. We’ll have structures start facing north and end up going to the north-west.”78

If we suppose that explosives were used, therefore, we can understand the mid-air dance performed by the upper portion of the South Tower.

If we refuse to posit explosives, however, we are stuck with a major miracle: Although the upper block was rotating and tipping in such a way that its angular momentum should have caused it to fall down to the side, it somehow righted itself by disintegrating.

This disintegration, incidentally, further undermines the official theory, according to which the “tremendous energy” of this block’s downward momentum caused the lower part of the South Tower to collapse. This theory requires that the upper part smashed down, as a solid block, on the lower part. Videos show, however, that it did not. As Gage, Jones, Ryan, and other colleagues pointed out to NIST

“[T]he upper portion of WTC 2 did not fall as a block upon the lower undamaged portion, but instead disintegrated as it fell. Thus, there would be no single large impact from a falling block . . . [but only] a series of small impacts as the fragments of the disintegrating upper portion arrived.”79

6. Horizontal Ejections from the Twin Towers

Dwain Deets, former director of the research engineering division at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, has written that the “massive structural members being hurled horizontally” from the Twin Towers “leave no doubt” in his mind that “explosives were involved.”80 oh my God

Deets was referring to the fact that the collapse of each of the Twin Towers began with a massive explosion near the top, during which huge sections of perimeter columns were ejected out horizontally so powerfully that some of them traveled 500 to 600 feet. Although this feature of the collapses was not mentioned in NIST’s (2005) report on the Twin Towers, there could be no doubt about it, because some of these sections of steel implanted themselves in neighboring buildings, as can be seen in videos and photographs.81

These ejections are now, in any case, part of the official account, because NIST, apparently finding them necessary to explain how fires got started in WTC 7, mentioned them in its report on this building. In Shyam Sunder’s opening statement at the August 2008 press briefing to announce the release of NIST’s final report on WTC 7, he said: “The debris from Tower 1 . . . started fires on at least 10 floors of the building.”82 NIST’s WTC 7 report said: “The fires in WTC 7 were ignited as a result of the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1, which was approximately 110 m[eters] (350 ft) to the south.”83

NIST thereby admitted that debris had been thrown out horizontally from the North Tower at least 350 feet.84 NIST’s report also stated: please

“When WTC 1 collapsed at 10:28:22 AM, . . . some fragments [of debris] were forcibly ejected and traveled distances up to hundreds of meters. Pieces of WTC 1 hit WTC 7, severing six columns on Floors 7 through 17 on the south face and one column on the west face near the southwest corner. The debris also caused structural damage between Floor 44 and the roof.”85

Debris that caused such extensive damage, including the severing of seven steel columns, had to be quite heavy. NIST seemed to be granting, therefore, that sections of steel columns had been hurled at least 650 feet (because “hundreds of meters” would mean at least 200 meters, which would be about 650 feet). Enormous force would be needed to eject large sections of steel that far out.

What could have produced this force? According to NIST, as we saw earlier, there were only three causal factors in the collapse of the Twin Towers: the airplane impacts, the fires, and gravitational attraction. The airplane impacts had occurred 56 minutes (South Tower) and 102 minutes (North Tower) earlier, and gravitational attraction pulls things straight downward. Fire could, to be sure, produce horizontal ejections by causing jet fuel to explode, but the jet fuel had, NIST pointed out, burned up within “a few minutes.”86 Therefore, although NIST admitted that these horizontal ejections occurred, it suggested no energy source to explain them.

High explosives, such as RDX or nanothermite, could explain these horizontal ejections. According to NIST, however, explosives did not contribute to the destruction of the Twin Towers. Those who accept NIST’s account must, therefore, regard these horizontal ejections as constituting yet another miracle.

7. Metal-Melting Fires

In light of the above-discussed unprecedented effects produced by the fires in the WTC buildings (according to the official account), it would seem that these fires must have had miraculous powers. This conclusion is reinforced by an examination of still more extraordinary effects.

Swiss-Cheese Steel: Within a few months of 9/11, three professors from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) had issued a brief report about a piece of steel recovered from the WTC 7 debris, stating that it had undergone “microstructural changes,” including “intergranular melting.”87 A greatly expanded version of this report, which contained a description of a similarly eroded piece of steel from one of the Twin Towers, was included as an appendix to the first official report on the destruction of the World Trade Center, which was issued by FEMA in 2002.88

A New York Times story, noting that parts of these pieces of steel had “melted away,” even though “no fire in any of the buildings was believed to be hot enough to melt steel outright,” said that these discoveries constituted “[p]erhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.”89 Describing these mysterious pieces of steel more fully, an article in WPI’s magazine, entitled “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” said:

“[S]teel – which has a melting point of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit – may weaken and bend, but does not melt during an ordinary office fire. Yet . . . [a] one-inch column has been reduced to half-inch thickness. Its edges – which are curled like a paper scroll – have been thinned to almost razor sharpness. Gaping holes – some larger than a silver dollar – let light shine through a formerly solid steel flange. This Swiss cheese appearance shocked all of the fire-wise professors, who expected to see distortion and bending – but not holes.”90

One of the three WPI professors, Jonathan Barnett, was quoted by the Times as saying that the steel “appear[ed] to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures.”91

That the steel had actually evaporated – not merely melted – was also reported in another New York Times story. Professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl of the University of California at Berkeley, speaking of a horizontal I-beam from WTC 7, reportedly said: “Parts of the flat top of the I, once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized.”92

Why do these phenomena involve miracles? Because the fires could not possibly, even under the most ideal conditions (which did not obtain), have been hotter than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (the maximum possible temperature for hydrocarbon-based building fires, which these fires were said to be), whereas the melting and boiling points of steel are only slightly lower than those of iron, which are 2,800°F and 5,182°F, respectively.93 So if one accepts the official account, according to which all the heat was produced by the building fires, then one must believe that these fires had miraculous powers.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which took over from FEMA the task of writing the official reports on the WTC, avoided this issue by simply not mentioning any of these pieces of steel, even though two of them had been discussed in a FEMA report appendix. NIST even claimed that no recovered steel from WTC 7 could be identified, because the steel used in this building, unlike that used in the Twin Towers, “did not contain . . . identifying characteristics.”94

In making this claim, however, NIST was clearly not being truthful. For one thing, it had previously published a document in which it had referred to steel recovered from WTC 7 – including the piece discussed by the WPI professors.95 Also, NIST’s claim about not identifying any WTC 7 steel was made in August 2008, shortly after the airing in July 2008 of a BBC program on WTC 7, in which one of those WPI professors, Jonathan Barnett, had discussed an “eroded and deformed” piece of steel from WTC 7, which he and his colleagues had studied in 2001. These professors knew “its pedigree,” Barnett explained, because “this particular kind of steel” had been used only in WTC 7, not in the Twin Towers.96

So, although it called the collapse of WTC 7 “the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building,”97 NIST had demonstrated its awareness of a recovered piece of steel from this building that only a very miraculous fire could have produced. NIST was surely also aware of the similarly eroded piece of steel from one of the Twin Towers, which had likewise been reported by the WPI professors in their paper included as an appendix to the 2002 FEMA report.

If the fires in WTC 7 and the Twin Towers had miraculous powers, we would expect still more miraculous effects to have been discovered, and this was indeed the case.

Melted Iron: The RJ Lee Group, a scientific research organization, was hired by Deutsche Bank, which had a building close to the World Trade Center, to prove that the dust contaminating its building after 9/11 was not ordinary building dust, as its insurance company claimed, but had resulted from the destruction of the World Trade Center. The RJ Lee Group’s reports showed that the dust in the bank’s building shared the unique chemical signature of the WTC dust, part of which was “[s]pherical iron . . . particles.”98 There were, moreover, an enormous number of these particles: Whereas iron particles constitute only 0.04 percent of normal building dust, they constituted (a whopping) 5.87 percent of the WTC dust.99 The existence of these particles, the RJ Lee Group said, proved that iron had “melted during the WTC Event.”100 The scientists conducting the EPA’s WTC dust signature study, incidentally, had at one time considered including “iron spheres” among the components to be mentioned; it would be interesting to learn why this idea was dropped.101

In any case, the identification of iron spheres by both the EPA and the RJ Lee Group was another miraculous discovery, for the reason given above: The melting point of iron is 2,800°F, whereas the WTC fires could not possibly have gotten above 1,800°F.102

Melted Molybdenum: Scientists at the US Geological Survey, in a study intended to aid the “identification of WTC dust components,” discovered an even more miraculous effect of the fires. Besides finding the spherical iron-rich particles, these scientists found that molybdenum, the melting point of which is 4,753°F (2,623°C), had also melted. Although these USGS scientists failed to mention this discovery in their published report,103 another group of scientists, having obtained the USGS team’s data through a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, reported evidence showing that the USGS scientists had devoted serious study to “a molybdenum-rich spherule.”103

8. Inextinguishable Fires

Besides having the power to produce the miraculous effects already reported, the World Trade Center fires were also miraculously inextinguishable. The fact that fires continued burning in the Ground Zero rubble for many months, in spite of every attempt to put them out, was widely reported. The title of a New York Times story in the middle of November, two months after the attacks, referred to the “Most Stubborn Fire.” A New Scientist article in December was entitled “Ground Zero’s Fires Still Burning.” Very hot fires continued to burn in the Ground Zero debris piles, these stories reported, even though heavy rains came down, millions of additional gallons of water were sprayed onto the piles, and a chemical suppressant was pumped into them.105

According to Greg Fuchek, vice president of a company that supplied computer equipment to identify human remains at the site, the working conditions at Ground Zero remained “hellish” for six months, because the ground temperature ranged from 600 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.106

These inextinguishable fires were a mystery. Assuming the truth of the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, there would have been nothing in the debris pile other than ordinary building materials, and these can burn only in the presence of oxygen. There would have been little oxygen available in the densely packed debris piles, and wherever it was available, the fires should have been easily suppressed by the enormous amounts of water and chemical suppressants pumped into the piles. The fires’ seemingly miraculous power to keep burning could not be explained by the airplanes’ jet fuel (which some people seem to think of as having miraculous powers, even though it is essentially kerosene), because it would have all burned out, as mentioned above, within a few minutes.

A non-miraculous explanation is suggested by the discovery of a large amount of nanothermite residue in the WTC dust, which was reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in 2009.107 Being both an incendiary and a high explosive, nanothermite is one among several types of “energetic nanocomposites” – described by an article in The Environmentalist as “chemical energetic materials, which provide their own fuel and oxidant and are not deterred by water, dust or chemical suppressants.”108 The discovery of nanothermite residue in the dust provided, therefore, an empirical basis for a non-miraculous explanation of the long-lasting fires at Ground Zero.

According to the official account, however, the buildings were all brought down without the aid of any incendiaries or explosives. WTC 7 was said by NIST, as we saw above, to have been brought down by fire alone, and this fire, NIST added, was “an ordinary building contents fire.”109 As for the Twin Towers, they were brought down through the combined effects of the airplane impacts and the ensuing fires: NIST explicitly rejected “alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives.”110

For anyone who accepts the official account, therefore, the inextinguishable underground fires at Ground Zero provide still another demonstration of miraculous powers that must have been possessed by the World Trade Center fires.

9. Supernatural Sulfur

In the seventh section, I discussed the two Swiss-cheese-appearing pieces of steel that had been recovered from the World Trade Center rubble – one from WTC 7, the other from one of the Twin Towers. In that discussion, however, I ignored one of the central features of these pieces of steel, which was central to the reason they were said by the New York Times to constitute “the deepest mystery.”

This was the fact that the thinning of the steel had resulted, according to the three WPI professors’ report, from sulfidation, but there was no explanation for the source of the sulfur or the mechanism through which it entered into the steel. According to a preliminary analysis reported by the professors, said the NYT article, “sulfur released during the fires – no one knows from where – may have combined with atoms in the steel to form compounds that melt at lower temperatures.”111

This phenomenon was discussed more fully in the article, “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” in WPI’s magazine, which attributed the holes and the thinning to “a eutectic reaction” that “occurred at the surface, causing intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese.”112

In summarizing their findings in the paper included in the FEMA report, the three professors wrote:

“1. The thinning of the steel occurred by a high-temperature corrosion due to a combination of oxidation and sulfidation.

“2. Heating of the steel into a hot corrosive environment approaching 1,000°C (1,832°F) results in the formation of a eutectic mixture of iron, oxygen, and sulfur that liquefied the steel.

“3. The sulfidation attack of steel grain boundaries accelerated the corrosion and erosion of the steel.”113

Then, having mentioned sulfidation in each of these three points, the professors added: “The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified. . . . A detailed study into the mechanisms of this phenomenon is needed.”114

However, although Arden Bement, who was the director of NIST when it took over the WTC project from FEMA, said that NIST’s report would address “all major recommendations contained in the [FEMA] report,”115 NIST ignored this recommendation. Indeed, as we saw earlier, it did not even mention these Swiss-cheese pieces of steel.

Also, when NIST was later asked about the sulfidation, it tried to maintain that the source of the sulfur was not actually a mystery, saying that “sulfur is present in the gypsum wallboard that was prevalent in the interior partitions.”116

But there are three problems with this explanation. First, gypsum is calcium sulfate, so if all the sulfur discovered had been from gypsum wallboard, it would have been matched by about the same percentage of calcium. That, however, was not the case.117

Second, the WPI professors reported not merely that there was sulfur in the debris, but that the steel had been sulfidized. This means that sulfur had entered into the intergranular structure of the steel (which the New York Times article had indicated by saying that sulfur had “combined with atoms in the steel”). As chemist Kevin Ryan has said, the question NIST would need to answer is: “[H]ow did sulfates, from wallboard, tunnel into the intergranular microstructure of the steel and then form sulfides within?”118 Physicist Steven Jones added:

“[I]f NIST claims that sulfur is present in the steel from gypsum, they should do an (easy) experiment to heat steel to about 1000°C in the presence of gypsum and then test whether sulfur has entered the steel. . . . [T]hey will find that sulfur does not enter steel under such circumstances.”119

Chemistry professor Niels Harrit has explained why it would not: Although gypsum contains sulfur, this is not elemental sulfur, which can react with iron, but sulfur in the form of calcium sulfate, which cannot.120

The official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, therefore, implies that the sulfidized steel had been produced by a twofold miracle: Besides the fact that the fires, as we saw earlier, could have melted steel only if they had possessed miraculous powers, the sulfur in the wallboard could have entered into this melted steel only by virtue of supernatural powers.

Once again, a non-miraculous explanation is available: We need only suppose that thermate, a well-known incendiary, had been employed. As Steven Jones has written:

“The thermate reaction proceeds rapidly and is in general faster than basic thermite in cutting through steel due to the presence of sulfur. (Elemental sulfur forms a low-melting-temperature eutectic with iron.)”121

Besides providing an explanation for the eutectic reaction, thermate could also, Jones pointed out, explain the melting, oxidation, and sulfidation of the steel:

“When you put sulfur into thermite it makes the steel melt at a much lower temperature, so instead of melting at about 1,538°C [2,800°F] it melts at approximately 988°C [1,820°F], and you get sulfidation and oxidation in the attacked steel.”122

NIST, however, insists that no incendiaries were employed: WTC 7 was brought down by fire alone; the Twin Towers by the fires combined with damage from the airplane impacts. Those who endorse the official account, therefore, are stuck with yet another miracle.

III  Which 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Is Truly Discrediting and Distracting?  

In light of the above facts, I ask Terry Allen, David Corn, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi: Are you still comfortable with endorsing the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center?

A symposium on “State Crimes Against Democracy” in one of our major social science journals, American Behavioral Scientist,123 has recently addressed this issue. Likening Orwell’s “secret doctrine” that 2 + 2 = 4, which intellectuals must safeguard in dark times, to unquestioned laws of physics, one of the symposium’s authors criticized “the awesome intellectual silence making permissible the blithe dismissal of more than one law of thermodynamics in the World Trade Center Towers’ collapse.”124 Part of this silence has involved the failure of the academy to protest when “Professor Steven Jones found himself forced out of [a] tenured position for merely reminding the world that physical laws, about which there is no dissent whatsoever, contradict the official theory of the World Trade Center Towers’ collapse.”125

I wonder if you are still comfortable with giving your own consent to NIST’s “blithe dismissal” of otherwise unquestioned physical principles – as did Cockburn, when he ridiculed the 9/11 Truth Movement for its “delirious litanies about . . . the collapse of the WTC buildings,” and Taibbi, when he wrote contemptuously of people who have tried to educate him “on the supposed anomalies of physics involved with the collapse of WTC-7.”126 I would think that, if there are good reasons to suspect that these physical principles have been dismissed in the interests of covering up a major state crime against democracy, you would be especially uncomfortable with giving your consent to it.

Some of you have expressed fear, to be sure, that the left will be discredited insofar as it is seen as endorsing a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Having asked in 2007, “Why do I bother with these morons?” George Monbiot replied: “Because they are destroying the movements some of us have spent a long time trying to build.”127 In 2009, David Corn wrote: “[W]hen the 9/11 conspiracy theories were first emerging on the left, I wrote several pieces decrying them [for] fear . . . that this unsound idea would infect the left and other quarters – discrediting anyone who got close to it.”128

Some of you, moreover, have objected to the 9/11 Truth Movement on the grounds that it has served as a distraction from truly important issues. The 9/11 conspiracy theories, Corn wrote in 2002, serve to “distract people from the real wrongdoing.”129 Cockburn, writing in 2006, agreed, saying: “The Conspiracy Nuts have combined to produce a huge distraction.”130 That same year, Chomsky said: “One of the major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous amounts of energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state.”131 And Monbiot, naming in 2007 some truly important issues from which, in his view, the 9/11 conspiracy theory has distracted us, mentioned “climate change, the Iraq war, nuclear proliferation, inequality, . . . [the fact] that corporate power stands too heavily on democracy, [and] that war criminals, cheats and liars are not being held to account.”132

I will address these two fears – of being discredited and of being distracted – in order.

1. The Fear of Being Discredited

You are certainly right to fear that the left would be discredited by being aligned with a conspiracy theory that is scientifically unsupportable and even absurd. It is hard to imagine, however, what could discredit the left more than having many of its recognized leaders endorsing the Bush-Cheney administration’s 9/11 conspiracy theory, especially at a time when more and more scientists and people in relevant professions are pointing out its absurdities.

Conspiracy Theories and the Official Account of 9/11: I realize, of course, that most of you do not like to acknowledge that the official account of 9/11 is itself a conspiracy theory, given the one-sided, propagandistic meaning with which this term is now commonly employed. As New Zealand philosopher Charles Pigden has pointed out in a superb essay entitled “Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom”:

“[T]o call someone ‘a conspiracy theorist’ is to suggest that he is irrational, paranoid or perverse. Often the suggestion seems to be that conspiracy theories are not just suspect, but utterly unbelievable, too silly to deserve the effort of a serious refutation.”133

However, Pigden continues, using the term in this way is intellectually dishonest, because “a conspiracy theory is simply a theory that posits a conspiracy – a secret plan on the part of some group to influence events by partly secret means.”134 And, given this neutral, dictionary meaning of the term:

“[E]very politically and historically literate person is a big-time conspiracy theorist, since every such person subscribes to a vast range of conspiracy theories. . . . [T]here are many facts that admit of no non-conspiratorial explanation and many conspiracy theories that are sufficiently well-established to qualify as knowledge. It is difficult . . . to mount a coup [or an assassination] without conspiring. . . . Thus anyone who knows anything about the Ides of March or the assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand or the Tsar Alexander II is bound to subscribe to a conspiracy theory, and hence to be a conspiracy theorist.”135

In light of the neutral meaning of the term provided by Pigden, everyone is a conspiracy theorist about 9/11, not only people who believe that the US government was complicit. According to the government’s theory, the 9/11 attacks resulted from a conspiracy between Osama bin Laden, other al-Qaeda leaders (such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), and 19 young members of al-Qaeda who agreed to hijack airliners.136

Failure to recognize this point can lead to absurd consequences. For example, after an article about 9/11 by former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, which had been posted at the Huffington Post, was quickly taken down, the HP editor gave this explanation: “The Huffington Post’s editorial policy . . . prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories — including those about 9/11. As such, we have removed this post.”137 In response, I pointed out that this policy entails that the HP “cannot accept any posts that state, or imply, that al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, for that is a conspiracy theory.” This fact has been acknowledged, I added, by former Harvard law professor and current Obama administration member Cass Sunstein – who referred to the above-quoted article by Charles Pigden. One implication of this fact combined with HP’s policy, I concluded, is that HP “cannot allow President Obama to say that we are in Afghanistan to ‘get the people who attacked us on 9/11,’ because he’s thereby endorsing the Bush-Cheney conspiracy theory about 9/11.”138 But HP, evidently not bothered by logical inconsistency, has not changed its policy.

In any case, once it is acknowledged that both of the major theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories, the 9/11 Truth’s Movement’s theory cannot rationally be rejected on the grounds that it is a conspiracy theory. Making a rational judgment requires comparing the two conspiracy theories to see which one is more plausible. And when the issue is posed in this way, the official theory does not fare well, whether viewed from a scientific or a merely prima facie perspective.

The Prima Facie Absurdity of the Official Conspiracy Theory: Even when viewed only superficially (prima facie), the central elements in the official story, if evaluated in abstraction from the fact that it is the official story, is certainly implausible – it probably would have been even too implausible to pass muster as the plot for a bad Hollywood movie. Matt Taibbi has made such a statement about the story implicit in the various claims made by the 9/11 Truth Movement, saying that if you combine those claims into a coherent script, “you get the dumbest story since Roman Polanski’s Pirates.”139 However, aside from the fact that Taibbi failed to support this claim, he simply ignored the absurdity of the official story, which, boiled down to a one-sentence summary, says:

Inexperienced Muslim hijackers, armed only with knives and box-cutters, took control of four airliners, then outfoxed the world’s most sophisticated air defense system, then used two of these airliners to bring three skyscrapers down (indeed, straight down, in virtual free fall),140 and then, almost an hour later – when the US air defense system would have been on highest alert – flew a third one, undetected, from the mid-west back to Washington DC, where – thanks to heroic piloting by a man who had never before flown an airliner and who was, according to the New York Times, known as a “terrible pilot,” incapable of safely flying even a tiny plane – this third airliner went through an extremely difficult trajectory (even too difficult for them, said some experienced airline pilots) in order to strike the first floor of the Pentagon – surely the most well-protected building on the planet – without scraping the Pentagon lawn.

What could discredit “the left” more than the fact that you, some of its leading spokespersons, have endorsed such nonsense?

The Scientific Status of the Two Conspiracy Theories. Actually, there is one thing that would be even more discrediting: If, after having it pointed out to you that at least nine miracles are implied by this story, you fail to renounce your former acceptance of it.

Also, it is not only the miracles implicit in the official account that undermine your apparent assumption that good science supports the official account rather than that of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Although that assumption was less obviously unreasonable a few years ago, at least by people who either could not or would not look at the evidence for themselves, that assumption is now completely and obviously unreasonable, due to developments that have occurred in the past few years.

In 2006, as we saw above, Chomsky suggested that there would be two decisive tests for the physical evidence touted by the 9/11 Truth Movement: (i) “submit it to specialists [with] the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, [and] building construction.” (ii) “submit it to a serious journal for peer review and publication.”

To begin with the second test: A few months before December 2006, when Chomsky made this suggestion, physicist Steven Jones, at that time a professor at Brigham Young University, and some other scientists started a new online outlet, the Journal of 9/11 Studies. By now, it has published dozens of peer-reviewed papers, five of which were cited earlier: “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?” (by Jones himself); “9/11: Acceleration Study Proves Explosive Demolition” (by Frank Legge); “Revisiting 9/11/2001: Applying the Scientific Method” (by Jones); “Momentum Transfer Analysis of the Collapse of the Upper Storeys of WTC 1” (by Gordon Ross); and “Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade Center Destruction” (by Jones and seven other scientists).

Of course, people who are skeptical of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims may assume – albeit wrongly, from what I have learned – that this journal, being favorable to such claims, may have a less than rigorous peer-review process. And what Chomsky had suggested, in any case, was that 9/11 Truth Movement scientists should submit articles to mainstream science journals, to see if they could pass their peer-review processes.

Jones and other scientists, deciding to take up Chomsky’s challenge, started working on papers to submit, and since 2008, at least six papers disputing the official account of the WTC have been published in mainstream journals:

  • “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction,” by Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, and James R. Gourley, published in 2008 in the Open Civil Engineering Journal.141
  • “Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials,” by Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones, published in 2009 in The Environmentalist.142
  • “Active Thermitic Material Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” by University of Copenhagen chemistry professor Niels Harrit and eight colleagues (including Jones, Ryan, Legge, and Gourley), published in 2009 in The Open Chemical Physics Journal.143
  • “Discussion of ‘Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Center: A Simple Analysis’ by K.A. Seffen,” by physicist Crockett Grabbe, published in 2010 in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, which is published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).144
  • “Discussion of ’Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions’ by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure,” by chemical engineer James R. Gourley, published in 2010 in the ASCE’s Journal of Engineering Mechanics.145
  • “Discussion of ‘What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York?’ by Zdenek P. Bazant, Jia-Liang Le, Frank R. Greening, and David B. Benson,” by Anders Björkman, published in 2010 in the ASCE’s Journal of Engineering Mechanics.146

Given the time it takes to write scientific papers and get them through the peer-review process, combined with the relatively small number of scientists writing about these issues, this is an impressive achievement. It would seem that this part of Chomsky’s test has been met.

These publications demonstrate, moreover, that many of the same scientists who had been publishing in the Journal of 9/11 Studies have now written papers that have gotten through the peer-review process of mainstream science journals. There is no empirical basis, accordingly, for the assumption that the Journal of 9/11 Studies’ peer-review process is any less critical. We can, therefore, add the 25 scientific papers about the WTC collapses in the Journal of 9/11 Studies to the six recent papers in mainstream journals, giving us a total of over 30 peer-reviewed scientific articles challenging the official theory about the destruction of the WTC that have appeared since 2006.

I turn now to Chomsky’s other suggested way for members of the Truth Movement to test physical evidence that they see as disproving the official story: “submit it to specialists [with] the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, [and] building construction.” This has now been done and, as a result, the movement has large and continually growing numbers of physical scientists, engineers, and architects.

The physical scientists (beyond those already mentioned) include;

  • Dr. A. K. Dewdney, professor emeritus of mathematics and physics, University of Western Ontario.
  • Dr. Timothy E. Eastman, Consultant, Plasmas International, Silver Spring, Maryland.
  • Dr. Mark F. Fitzsimmons, senior lecturer in organic chemistry, University of Plymouth.
  • Dr. David L. Griscom, former research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory; principal author of 100 papers in scientific journals; fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
  • Dr. Jan Kjellman, research scientist in nuclear physics and nanotechnology, École Polytechnique Federale, Lausanne.
  • Dr. Herbert G. Lebherz, professor emeritus, Department of Chemistry, San Diego State University.
  • Dr. Eric Leichtnam, professor of mathematics and physics, University of Paris.
  • Dr. Terry Morrone, professor emeritus, Department of Physics, Adelphi University.
  • Dr. John D. Wyndham, former research fellow, California Institute of Technology.147

With regard to architects and engineers: In December 2006, when Chomsky issued his suggestion, there were few if any architects and engineers who had publicly questioned the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center. But in January, 2007, architect Richard Gage, a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), began Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and by now its membership includes over 1,200 professional architects and engineers.

Here are a few of the architects:

  • Daniel B. Barnum, AIA fellow; founder of the Houston AIA Residential Architecture Committee.
  • Bertie McKinney Bonner, M. Arch; AIA member; licensed architect in Pennsylvania.
  • David Paul Helpern, AIA fellow; founder of Helpern Architects.
  • Cynthia Howard, M. Arch; licensed architect in Maine and Massachusetts; past president, AIA’s New England Chapter.
  • David A. Johnson, PhD, internationally known architect and city planner; chaired the planning departments at Syracuse and Ball State universities; former president of the Fulbright Association of the United States.
  • Kevin A. Kelly, AIA fellow; author of Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer, which has become a standard textbook.
  • Anne Lee, M. Arch, AIA member; licensed architect in Massachusetts.
  • Dr. David Leifer, coordinator of the Graduate Program in Facilities Management, University of Sydney; former professor at Mackintosh School of Architecture.
  • Paul Stevenson Oles, fellow of the AIA, which in 1989 called him “the dean of architectural illustrators in America”; co-founder of the American Society of Architectural Perspectivists.
  • David A. Techau, B. Arch., MS; AIA member; licensed architect in Hawaii.148

Here are a few of the engineers:

  • John Edward Anderson, PhD; professor emeritus, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota; licensed Professional Engineer (PE).
  • Robert Bowman, PhD; former head, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, US Air Force Institute of Technology; director of Advanced Space Programs Development (“Star Wars”) under Presidents Ford and Carter.
  • Ronald H. Brookman, MS Eng; licensed Professional Civil and Structural Engineer in California
  • Dwain Deets, former Director for Research Engineering and Aerospace Projects, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, which awarded him the NASA Exceptional Service Award.
  • Joel Hirschhorn, PhD; former professor, Metallurgical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison; former staff member, Congressional Office of Technology Assessment.
  • Richard F. Humenn, licensed PE (retired); senior Project Design Engineer, World Trade Center electrical systems.
  • Fadhil Al-Kazily, PhD; licensed Professional Civil Engineer.
  • Jack Keller, PhD; professor emeritus, Civil Engineering, Utah State University; member, National Academy of Engineering; named one of the world’s 50 leading contributors to science and technology benefiting society by Scientific American.
  • Heikki Kurttila, PhD; Safety Engineer and Accident Analyst for Finland’s National Safety Technology Authority.
  • Ali Mojahid, PhD, Civil and Architectural Engineering; licensed PE.
  • Edward Munyak, Mechanical and Fire Protection Engineer; former Fire Protection Engineer for California and the US Departments of Energy and Defense.
  • Kamal S. Obeid, MS, licensed Professional Structural and Civil Engineer.149

In addition to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, many other 9/11 organizations of professionals with relevant types of expertise have been formed, including Firefighters for 9/11 Truth,150 Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth,151 Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth,152 Pilots for 9/11 Truth,153 S.P.I.N.E.: The Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven,154 and Veterans for 9/11 Truth.155

Less obviously relevant, but surely not entirely irrelevant, are some other professional organizations, including Journalists and Other Media Professionals for 9/11 Truth,156 Lawyers for 9/11 Truth,157 Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth,158 Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth,159 and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.160 If we combine the membership of these organizations with those in the previous paragraph, we can see that several thousand professional people have publicly announced their alignment with the 9/11 Truth Movement.

In light of the above-mentioned developments, could any fair-minded person deny that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s evidence has passed Chomsky’s twofold test with flying colors?

Given the make-up of the 9/11 Truth Movement, could any such person agree with the claims about this movement quoted in Part I of this essay, according to which its members are “conspiracy nuts,” “idiots,” and “morons,” who, being devoid of “any conception of evidence,” are “willing to abandon science” in favor of “magic”? In one of his 2009 essays, David Corn expressed concern about “9/11 conspiracy silliness.”161 But it is hard to imagine anything sillier, and hence more self-discrediting, than making such claims about the scientists, architects, engineers, intelligence officers, lawyers, medical professionals, political leaders, and other professionals who have publicly aligned themselves with the 9/11 Truth Movement.

As I stated on a lecture tour in early 2009:

“Among scientists and professionals in the relevant fields who have studied the evidence, the weight of scientific and professional opinion is now overwhelmingly on the side of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Whereas well over 1,000 such people have publicly supported the stance of this movement, there are virtually no scientists or professionals in the relevant fields who have gone on record in defense of the official story—except for people whose livelihood would be threatened if they refused to support it. This caveat is important, because, as Upton Sinclair famously observed: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”162 Except for such people, virtually everyone who has expertise in a relevant field, and who has seriously studied the evidence, rejects the official conspiracy theory. It is time, therefore, for journalists and everyone else to take a second look.”163

A More General Problem with the Official Conspiracy Theory: In addition the twofold fact that the official conspiracy theory’s account of the WTC destruction implies miracles and has been increasingly rejected by informed and independent people in relevant professions, this theory is rendered unworthy of belief by a more general problem: when its various details are subjected to critical scrutiny, the entire story falls apart – as I showed in my 2008 book, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited164 (which, incidentally, was a Publishers Weekly “Pick of the Week” in November 2008,165 an honor not normally bestowed on books written by morons and idiots).

One of the things that falls apart is the idea that there were al-Qaeda hijackers on the airliners. Having in my book examined the various types of evidence for this idea, I will here focus on the type of evidence usually considered the strongest: the alleged phone calls from the planes, during which the presence of hijackers was reported. All of you have evidently accepted these calls as genuine.

For example, Matthew Rothschild, defending the government’s account of what happened on United Flight 93, wrote: “we know from cell phone conversations that passengers on board that plane planned on confronting the hijackers.”166 However, about ten of the reported calls from this flight were said to have been made on cell phones, most of them when the plane was at 35,000 feet or higher, and the technology at that time did not allow cell phone calls to be made from airliners at such altitudes, as pointed out by members of the 9/11 Truth Movement – most definitively by A. K. Dewdney and Michel Chossudovsky in 2003 and 2004.167

Chris Hayes faulted the Truth Movement for focusing on what he called “physical minutiae,” such as “the altitude in Pennsylvania at which cellphones on Flight 93 should have stopped working.”168 It would appear, however, that the FBI took such “minutiae” seriously: When it issued a report in 2006 on the (alleged) phone calls from the 9/11 airliners, the FBI designated only two of them as having been made on cell phones, and both of those, the FBI said, had been made from Flight 93 when it, about to crash, was at a low altitude. All the other reported calls from this flight (as well as all the reported calls from the other flights) were said to have been made from onboard phones, including three to five calls that Deena Burnett reported having received from her husband, Tom Burnett.169

This change of story got rid of the problem of technologically impossible (miraculous) phone calls, but it created another problem: How to explain the reports of approximately ten calls from this flight that, according to the recipients, had been made on cell phones? In some cases, we might assume, the recipients had misunderstood, or misremembered, what they had been told. But Deena Burnett said – and she reported this to the FBI on 9/11 itself – that she knew her husband had used his cell phone, because she recognized his cell phone number on her own phone’s Caller ID. If Tom Burnett had really called his wife using an onboard phone, as the FBI now claims, the fact that his cell phone number repeatedly showed up on her Caller ID would have to count as a miracle.

I would think people generally skeptical of the claims made by the government, especially claims from which the military-industrial complex is benefiting, would consider this problem – which is documented at length in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited170 – worthy of investigation.

I have also raised questions about the alleged phone calls from CNN correspondent Barbara Olson, which had been reported that day by her husband, US Solicitor General Ted Olson. She had phoned him twice, he claimed, from American Flight 77 (which allegedly crashed into the Pentagon shortly thereafter).

In a list of my views treated derisively by Rothschild, he said: “Griffin casts doubt on whether the phone calls actually happened.”171 Perhaps Rothschild will be more impressed by the fact that, in its 2006 report on phone calls from the 9/11 airliners, the FBI did not support the claim that the calls from Barbara Olson “actually happened.” Although Ted Olson said he had received two calls from his wife, with the first call lasting “about one (1) minute”172 and the second one lasting “two or three or four minutes,”173 the FBI report on calls from American Flight 77 says that Barbara Olson attempted one call, which was “unconnected,” so that it (of course) lasted “0 seconds.”174

The reported calls from Barbara Olson were very important: They provided the first evidence given to the public that the planes had been hijacked; they were instrumental in getting the American public ready to strike back at Muslims in a “war on terror”; and they were also the only source for a piece of information that everyone “knows” – that the hijackers had box-cutters. One would think, therefore, that it would be of more than passing interest to people concerned about the direction of US foreign policy since 9/11 that an FBI report in 2006 indicates that these calls never happened.

This is the same FBI that – in spite of Rothschild’s confident claim that there is no doubt of Osama bin Laden’s responsibility for the attacks, because he (allegedly) claimed responsibility for them in a video (allegedly) found in Afghanistan by the US military – does not list him as wanted for 9/11. Why? Because, an FBI spokesman explained, “the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”175 The FBI must be less certain than Rothschild about the evidentiary value of that so-called confessional video – and for good reason, as I have shown elsewhere.176

Accordingly, insofar as you left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement have been concerned not to discredit yourselves by endorsing an unsupported, implausible, irrational, and even scientifically impossible conspiracy theory, that is precisely what you are doing so long as you stand by your endorsements of the Bush administration’s – and now the Obama administration’s – 9/11 conspiracy theory.

2. The Fear of Being Distracted oh fuck it how long is this bloody

The second fear – that the focus on a false conspiracy theory has been distracting many people from more important matters – is equally valid. But this fear has been directed toward the wrong conspiracy theory. Nothing has distracted the United States and its allies from issues such as global apartheid, the ecological crisis, nuclear proliferation, and corporate power more than the “war on terror” – with its huge operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, its incessant terror alerts and stories of attacks prevented, and its depletion of our national treasuries. Lying at the root of this so-called war on terror, both historically and as present justification, is the official account of 9/11. So it is, as I wrote in response to Cockburn in Le Monde Diplomatique three years go, “The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.”177

Had the falsity of this account been exposed within weeks – as it certainly could and should have been – the war in Afghanistan, which has now been using up our time, talent, and treasury for almost a decade, could have been avoided altogether. If the falsity of the Bush-Cheney 9/11 conspiracy theory had at least been exposed within a year, the fiasco in Iraq could have been avoided. If the truth had been exposed within three years, those wars could have been closed down long ago and the Bush-Cheney administration dismissed before it had a second term. If so, the next administration, not distracted by two major wars and exaggerated fears about terrorist attacks on the “homeland,” might have focused on the fact that many environmental regulations needed to be tightened up. One consequence might have been that the Gulf oil blowout (not “spill”), which could turn out to be extremely destructive to our planet’s ecosystem, might never have occurred. The fact that the official conspiracy theory about 9/11 has distracted the United States and its allies from the ecological crisis is, therefore, no trivial matter – and this is merely one of many illustrations that could be given.

That the 9/11 Truth Movement, by contrast, cannot be rationally considered a distraction from more important matters was persuasively expressed in August 2006 by former CIA official Bill Christison, who by the end of his 28-year career had risen to the position of Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis (and who, sadly, died while this essay was being written178). In an article entitled “Stop Belittling the Theories About September 11,” Christison wrote:

“After spending the better part of the last five years treating these theories with utmost skepticism, I have devoted serious time to actually studying them [and] have come to believe that significant parts of the 9/11 theories are true, and that therefore significant parts of the ‘official story’ put out by the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission are false.”179

Then, after listing nine judgments that had led him to this conclusion – one of which was that the “North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them” – he added:

“If [these] judgments . . . are correct, they . . . strongly suggest that some unnamed persons or groups either inside or with ties to the government were actively creating a ‘Pearl Harbor’ event, most likely to gain public support for the aggressive foreign policies that followed – policies that would, first, ‘transform’ the entire Middle East, and second, expand U.S. global domination.”

Then, explaining why the evidence for this conclusion cannot reasonably be dismissed as a distraction from more important matters, he wrote:

“A manageable volume of carefully collected and analyzed evidence is already at hand . . . that elements within the Bush administration, as well as possibly other groups foreign or domestic, were involved in a massive fraud against the American people, a fraud that has led to many thousands of deaths. This charge of fraud, if proven, involves a much greater crime against the American people and people of the world than any other charges of fraud connected to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It is a charge that we should not sweep under the rug because what is happening in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, and Iran seems more pressing and overwhelming. It is a charge that is more important because it is related to all of the areas just mentioned – after all, the events of 9/11 have been used by the administration to justify every single aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since September 11. It is a charge that is more important also because it affects the very core of our entire political system. If proven, it is a conspiracy, so far successful, not only against the people of the United States, but against the entire world.”

In this passage, Christison expressed this charge of fraud conditionally, saying “if proven.” He later made clear, however, that he had personally found the evidence convincing, referring to the 9/11 attacks as “an inside job.”180

In any case, besides saying that 9/11 is more important than America’s crimes in the Middle East because “the events of 9/11 have been used by the administration to justify every single aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since September 11,” he also, in saying that the 9/11 fraud “affects the very core of our entire political system,” anticipated the above-cited symposium in the American Behavioral Scientist, which treated 9/11 as a probable instance of its topic: State Crimes against Democracy. Christison’s implicit message to Chomsky, therefore, was: Given your concern with “real and ongoing crimes of state,” I would respectfully suggest that you do what I finally did: Actually examine the evidence that 9/11 was one of these crimes.

As for the concern to prosecute war criminals, what bigger war criminals could there be than people within our own government who engineered these attacks, then used them as a pretext for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have killed millions?181

As for the hope of stopping these horribly deadly and terribly expensive wars, what better means could be had than proof – which scientists, architects, engineers, firefighters, and pilots in the 9/11 Truth Movement have provided – that the official account of 9/11 is a lie and that the attacks had to be, at least in part, an inside job?

Concluding Statement

I recently completed a 15-city tour, presenting a lecture entitled “Is the War in Afghanistan Justified by 9/11?” My hope was that, by providing clear evidence that it is not – because the official account of 9/11 is false from beginning to end – “the 9/11 Truth Movement and more traditional Peace and Anti-War groups [would] be able to combine forces to oppose this illegal and immoral war.”182 I have written the present essay with the same hope. But if this hope is to be fulfilled, erstwhile left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement will need to prove that Cockburn’s charge about this movement’s members – “They’re immune to any reality check” – and Corn’s charge – they “are not open to persuasion”183 – are not instead true of themselves.

*

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This article was first published by the late David Ray Griffin as

An Open Letter to Terry Allen, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, David Corn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi.1

The late David Ray Griffin is the author of 36 books dealing with various subjects: philosophy, theology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and 9/11 and US imperialism. In September 2009, The New Statesman ranked him #41 among “The 50 People Who Matter Today.” His most recent book is The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 is Unscientific and False (2009). His next book will be Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (September 2010). He wishes to thank four scientists – Jim Hoffman, Frank Legge, Kevin Ryan, and John Wyndham – and three other superb critics – Matthew Everett, Tod Fletcher, and Elizabeth Woodworth – for help with this essay.

 
Notes

1 As those who know the history of modern theology are aware, one of its seminal writings was Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Speeches on Religion to Its Cultured Despisers (1799). These “cultured despisers” of religion were people whom Schleiermacher admired and with whom he agreed on most issues. He believed, however, that they had a blind spot with regard to religion, mainly because they did not understand its true nature and the experience on which it is based. I address those I call “left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement” in the same spirit.

2 David Ray Griffin is the author of 36 books dealing with various subjects: philosophy, theology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and 9/11 and US imperialism. In September 2009, The New Statesman ranked him #41 among “The 50 People Who Matter Today.” His most recent book is The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 is Unscientific and False (2009). His next book will be Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (September 2010). He wishes to thank four scientists – Jim Hoffman, Frank Legge, Kevin Ryan, and John Wyndham – and three other superb critics – Matthew Everett, Tod Fletcher, and Elizabeth Woodworth – for help with this essay. 

3 Alexander Cockburn, “The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts,” ZNet, September 20, 2006 (http://www.zcommunications.org/the-9-11-conspiracy-nuts-by-alexander-cockburn-1). A shorter version appeared in the September 24, 2010, issue of The Nation.

4 Alexander Cockburn, “The Conspiracists, Continued – Are They Getting Crazier?” The Free Press, September 16, 2006 (http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/2/2006/1433).

5 Alexander Cockburn, “Conspiracy Disproved: Distractions from Awful Reality,” Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2006 (http://mondediplo.com/2006/12/02dconspiracy).

6 Ibid.

7 George Monbiot, “9/11 Fantasists Pose a Mortal Danger to Popular Oppositional Campaigns,” The Guardian, February 20, 2007 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/20/comment.september11).

8 Matt Taibbi, “The Idiocy Behind the ‘9/11 Truth’ Movement,” AlterNet, September 26, 2006 (http://www.alternet.org/story/42181). This date, incidentally, refers to the original posting of the article at Rollingstone.com. It was not posted on AlterNet until May 7, 2008. In another article, posted on Rollingstone.com a couple of weeks earlier (September 14, 2006), Taibbi had offered a different diagnosis, saying that people who thought that the towers had been wired with explosives were “clinically insane” (Matt Taibbi, “Americans in Denial about 9/11,” AlterNet June 6, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/story/41635).

9 Christopher Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia,” The Nation, December 8, 2006 (http://www.chrishayes.org/articles/911-roots-paranoia).

10 “Chomsky: 9/11 Truth Movement Pushes Non-Scientific Evidence,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBg3aFZVATk).

11 “Chomsky Dismisses 9/11 Conspiracy Theories As ‘Dubious’” Rense.com, December 13, 2006 (http://rense.com/general74/dismiss.htm).

12 Terry Allen, “The 9/11 Faith Movement,” In These Times, July 11, 2006 (http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2702).

13 David Corn, “When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad,” AlterNet, March 1, 2002 (http://www.alternet.org/story/12536).

14 David Corn, “How 9/11 Conspiracy Poison Did in Van Jones,” Politics Daily, September 7, 2009 (http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/07/how-9-11-conspiracy-poison-did-in-van-jones).

15 Ibid.

16 David Corn, “Van Jones and the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Poison,” Mother Jones, September 7, 2009 (http://motherjones.com/mojo/2009/09/van-jones-and-911-conspiracy-theory-poison).

17 Matthew Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already,” The Progressive, September 18, 2006 (http://www.alternet.org/story/41601/).

18 David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 Is Unscientific and False (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2009), Chs. 4 and 5.

19 See David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press [Interlink Books], 2005), 29.

20 See David Ray Griffin, “Building What? How SCADs Can Be Hidden in Plain Sight,” 911Truth.org, May 27, 2010 (http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20100527162010811).

21 James Glanz, “Engineers Suspect Diesel Fuel in Collapse of 7 World Trade Center,” New York Times, November 29, 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/nyregion/nation-challenged-site-engineers-have-culprit-strange-collapse-7-world-trade.html).

22 See FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study, ed. Therese McAllister, ed. (Washington D.C., and New York: Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2002), Chapter 5, by Ramon Gilsanz, Edward M. Depaola, Christopher Marrion, and Harold “Bud” Nelson (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf), 31. As the title of Glanz’s article in the previous note indicates, he had already suggested that the diesel fuel might provide an explanation.

23 Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts: An In-Depth Investigation by Popular Mechanics, ed. David Dunbar and Brad Reagan (New York: Hearst Books, 2006), 53, 56.

24 Ibid., 53-54, 29.

25 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already.”

26 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.”

27 Allen, “The 9/11 Faith Movement.”

28 As this example shows, Allen’s rejection of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s empirical claims seems to be based entirely on her taking on faith the claims of the Bush-Cheney administration as mediated through Popular Mechanics. It is quite ironic, therefore, that she caricatures the 9/11 Truth Movement as the “9/11 Faith Movement.” But she seems to have a special knack for getting things backwards: With regard to an In These Times editor’s question about me, “What could have transformed this sober, reflective scholar into a conspiracy theorist?” (which was his way of asking why I had rejected the government’s conspiracy theory in favor an alternative conspiracy theory), she replied: “I think part of it is that he’s a theologian who operates on faith” (quoted in Salim Muwakkil, “What’s the 411 on 9/11?” In These Times, December 21, 2005 http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2444). Given the fact that the primary issue at hand was my belief “that the towers were toppled by a controlled demolition,” for which there is (as we have seen) an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence, it is especially strange that she would say that the reason I believe this must be that I am “a theologian who operates on faith.” Besides the fact that she was obviously the one who was operating on faith with regard to 9/11, she was also assuming that, because I am “a theologian,” I must operate in the way she assumes all theologians operate. Since the 18th-century Enlightenment, however, there has been a great methodological divide within theology. Many theologians still do operate on the traditional basis, in which questions of truth are settled by appeals to authority, the pronouncements of which are taken on faith. But I have always practiced the Enlightenment-based type of theology, which, as I explained in a book subtitled A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith, rejects the “method of authority” in favor of the method of “settling questions of truth and falsity on the basis of common experience and reason – that is, by reasoning on the basis of experience that is at least potentially common to all people” (David Ray Griffin, Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004], 62). Also central to this type of theology is the rejection of “miracles,” in the sense of “supernatural interruptions of the world’s most fundamental causal processes” (ibid., 98). The centrality of this element in my theology is illustrated by the titles of two of my other books, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), and Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001). My explicit rejection of miraculous interruptions of the world’s normal causal processes may make me more sensitive to this issue than are some left-wing critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who to me seem puzzlingly unconcerned about the official account’s cavalier violations of principles that have long been considered inviolable laws of nature.

29 NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (brief version), National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2008, xxxvi (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf). This document is henceforth cited simply as NIST NCSTAR 1A, which will always refer to the final (November 2008) version (as distinct from the Draft for Public Comment, which was issued in August 2008).

30 Ibid., xxxvii.

31 Ibid., xxxv.

32 See, for example, Shyam Sunder, “Opening Statement,” NIST Press Briefing, August 21, 2008 (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/opening_remarks_082108.html); NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, November 2008, Volume 2: 493, 617, 618 (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-9%20Vol%202.pdf).

33 “NIST WTC 7 Investigation Finds Building Fires Caused Collapse,” NIST, August 21, 2008 (http://www.physorg.com/news138546437.html).

34 NIST NCSTAR 1A, xxxvii.

35 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, November 2008, Vol. 1 (wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-9%20Vol%201.pdf): 341.

36 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already”; Allen, “The 9/11 Faith Movement.”

37 J. Gordon Routley, Charles Jennings, and Mark Chubb, “High-Rise Office Building Fire, One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), 1991 (http://www.interfire.org/res_file/pdf/Tr-049.pdf); Robin Nieto, “Fire Practically Destroys Venezuela’s Tallest Building,” Venezuela News, Views, and Analysis, October 18, 2004 (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/741).

38 Sunder, “Opening Statement.”

39 Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: 170-77.

40 David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2007), Chap. 4.

41 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.”

42 Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, 152-63.

43 See “WTC7 Demolition on 9/11 – Video Compilation,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlTBMcxx-78). For video and analysis, see “WTC7: This Is an Orange,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv7BImVvEyk&feature=related), and David Chandler, “WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III)” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3mudruFzNw) , at 2:25-4:00.

44 See Frank Legge, “9/11: Acceleration Study Proves Explosive Demolition,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol. 5, November 2006 (http://journalof911studies.com/volume/200611/911-Acceleration-Study-Proves-Explosive-Demolition.pdf).

45 Daniel Hofnung, Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Dhofnung).

46 Chester W. Gearhart, Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Gearhart).

47 Jack Keller, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (http://www.ae911truth.org/supporters.php?g=ENG#998929).

48 See “Danny Jowenko on WTC 7 Controlled Demolition,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=877gr6xtQIc). For more of the interview, “Jowenko WTC 7 Demolition Interviews,” in three parts (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DRhwRN06I&feature=related).

49 “The Myth of Implosion” (http://www.implosionworld.com/dyk2.html).

50 Liz Else, “Baltimore Blasters,” New Scientist 183/2457 (July 24, 2004), 48 (http://www.911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/new_scientist/BaltimoreBlast_Loizeaux.html).

51 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.”

52 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Draft for Public Comment, Vol. 2 (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NIST_NCSTAR_1-9_vol2_for_public_comment.pdf), 596.

53 “WTC 7 Technical Briefing,” NIST, August 26, 2008. Although NIST originally had a video and a transcript of this briefing at its Internet website, it recently removed both of them. However, Nate Flach has made the video available at Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/11941571), and the transcript, under the title “NIST Technical Briefing on Its Final Draft Report on WTC 7 for Public Comment,” is available at David Chandler’s website (http://911speakout.org/NIST_Tech_Briefing_Transcript.pdf).

54 Ibid.

55 David Chandler, “WTC7 in Freefall – No Longer Controversial,” September 4, 2008 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCDpL4Ax7I) , at 2:45.

56 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2: 607.

57 Chandler, “WTC7 in Freefall – No Longer Controversial,” at 3:27.

58 Chandler, “WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III),” January 2, 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3mudruFzNw) , at 1:19.

59 “Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation,” NIST, August 21, 2008, updated April 21, 2009. Whereas the original version of this document denied free fall, the updated version affirms it. Although both versions have been removed from NIST’s website, Jim Hoffman’s website has both the 2008 version (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_082108.html ) and the 2009 version (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_042109.html).

60 Chandler, “WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III),” at 2:20, 3:15.

61 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Draft for Public Comment, Vol. 2: 595-96, 596, 610.

62 NIST, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, September 2005 (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201.pdf) , 146.

63 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” August 30, 2006 (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm), Question 2.

64 NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, 146.

65 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” Question 6. In the italicized portion of this statement, NIST was quoting NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, Section 6.14.4 (page 146).

66 Jim Hoffman, “A Reply to the National Institute for Standards and Technology’s Answers to Frequently Asked Questions” (http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html).

67 William Rice’s statement is quoted at Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Rice).

68 Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, and James R. Gourley, “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction,” Open Civil Engineering Journal, 2/1 (2008): 35-40 (http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM).

69 “Request for Correction Submitted to NIST,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol. 12: June 2007 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/RFCtoNISTbyMcIlvaineDoyleJonesRyanGageSTJ.pdf). This letter, dated April 12, 2007, was also signed by Bob McIlvaine, Bill Doyle, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.

70 Gordon Ross, “Momentum Transfer Analysis of the Collapse of the Upper Storeys of WTC 1,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol. 1: June 2006 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/Journal_5_PTransferRoss.pdf) : 32-39, at 37.

71 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” Question 7.

72 Alexander Cockburn, “The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Slip Off the Hook,” Counterpunch, September 9/10, 2006 (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09092006.html).

73 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.”

74 Thomas W. Eagar and Christopher Musso, “Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation,” JOM, 53 (12), 2001 (http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html).

75 NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, 90.

76 Don Paul and Jim Hoffman, Waking Up from Our Nightmare: The 9/11/01 Crimes in New York City (San Francisco: Irresistible/Revolutionary, 2004), 34.

77 Steven Jones, “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol. 3 (September 2006), 1-47, at 28 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/Why_Indeed_Did_the_WTC_Buildings_Completely_Collapse_Jones_Thermite_World_Trade_Center.pdf).

78 Quoted in Liz Else, “Baltimore Blasters” (see note 50, above).

79 “Request for Correction Submitted to NIST.”

80 The statement by Deets is at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (http://www.ae911truth.org/profile.php?uid=998819).

81 See “911 Eyewitness: Huge Steel Sections Ejected More than 600 Feet” (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1807467434260776490), or “9/11 Mysteries: Demolition” (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1337231563159418946#).

82 Sunder, “Opening Statement.”

83 NIST NCSTAR 1A: xxxvi.

84 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 1: 125.

85 NIST NCSTAR 1A: 16.

86 NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Twin Towers, 183, 184.

87 Jonathan Barnett, Ronald R. Biederman, and Richard D. Sisson, Jr., “An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building 7,” JOM 53/12 (2001), 18 (http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Biederman/Biederman-0112.html).

88 Jonathan Barnett, Ronald R. Biederman, and R. D. Sisson, Jr., “Limited Metallurgical Examination,” Appendix C of World Trade Center Building Performance Study, FEMA, 2002 (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf).

89 James Glanz and Eric Lipton, “A Search for Clues in Towers’ Collapse,” New York Times, February 2, 2002 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E0DE153DF931A35751C0A9649C8B63).

90 Joan Killough-Miller, “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” WPI Transformations, Spring 2002  (http://www.wpi.edu/News/Transformations/2002Spring/steel.html).

91 James Glanz, “Engineers Suspect Diesel Fuel in Collapse of 7 World Trade Center,” New York Times, November 29, 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/nyregion/29TOWE.html). I have here quoted Glanz’s paraphrase of Barnett’s statement.

92 See Kenneth Change, “Scarred Steel Holds Clues, And Remedies,” New York Times, October 2, 2001 (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05E6DC123DF931A35753C1A9679C8B63).

93 WebElements: The Periodic Table on the Web: Iron (http://www.webelements.com/iron/physics.html).

94 “Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation,” August 21, 2008 (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_082108.html). This statement was repeated in a version of this document that was updated April 21, 2009 (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_042109.html). Thanks to Jim Hoffman for preserving these documents at his website, after NIST had removed them from its own website.

95 See NIST NCSTAR 1-3C, Damage and Failure Modes of Structural Steel Components, September 2005 (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-3C%20Damage%20and%20Failure%20Modes.pdf), in which the authors, Stephen W. Banovic and Timothy Foecke, referred to “the analysis of the steel from WTC 7 (Sample #1 from Appendix C, BPAT/FEMA study) where corrosion phases and morphologies were able to determine a possible temperature region” (233).

96 The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – The Third Tower, BBC, July 6, 2008 (available at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9072062020229593250# and http://www.911blogger.com/node/16541); the statement by Barnett is at 48:00. I am indebted to Chris Sarns for this discovery as well as the one in the previous note. Barnett during this interview, incidentally, speculated that the steel had “cooked” in the underground fire. This explanation was, however, deceptive at best, for three reasons: First, the effects being discussed by Barnett could have been caused only by something producing much higher temperatures than ordinary hydrocarbon fires could have produced – fires fueled, for example, by nanothermite or some other energetic nanocomposites, as explained below in Section 8. The second and third reasons also involve facts discussed in that section: Ordinary hydrocarbon fires would not have been able to keep burning underground without oxygen; and they would, in any case, have been extinguished by the water and chemical suppressant that were pumped into the rubble.

97 “NIST WTC 7 Investigation Finds Building Fires Caused Collapse.”

98 RJ Lee Group, “WTC Dust Signature,” Expert Report, May 2004 (http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/WTC/130%20Liberty%20Street/Mike%20Davis%20LMDC%20130%20Liberty%20Documents/Signature%20of%20WTC%20dust/WTCDustSignature_ExpertReport.051304.1646.mp.pdf) : 11.

99 RJ Lee Group, “WTC Dust Signature Study: Composition and Morphology,” December 2003 (http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/WTC/130%20Liberty%20Street/Mike%20Davis%20LMDC%20130%20Liberty%20Documents/Signature%20of%20WTC%20dust/WTC%20Dust%20Signature.Composition%20and%20Morphology.Final.pdf): 24.

100 Ibid., 17.

101 See “Comments on WTC Signature Study and Peer Review from Greg Meeker, Paul Lioy and Mort Lippmann, November 3, 2005” (http://www.epa.gov/wtc/panel/pdfs/SubGroupComments_110305.pdf). I am indebted to Kevin Ryan for this information.

102 WebElements: The Periodic Table on the Web: Iron (http://www.webelements.com/iron/physics.html).

103 Heather A. Lowers and Gregory P. Meeker, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, “Particle Atlas of World Trade Center Dust,” 2005 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1165/508OF05-1165.html).

104 Steven E. Jones et al., “Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade Center Destruction,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, January 2008 (http://journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf): 4.

105 Eric Lipton and Andrew C. Revkin, “The Firefighters: With Water and Sweat, Fighting the Most Stubborn Fire,” New York Times, November 19, 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/19/nyregion/19FIRE.html); Jonathan Beard, “Ground Zero’s Fires Still Burning,” New Scientist, December 3, 2001 (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1634).

106 Trudy Walsh, “Handheld APP Eased Recovery Tasks,” Government Computer News, 21/27a: September 11, 2002 (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/evidence/gcn_handheldapp.html).

107 Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, et al., “Active Thermitic Material Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2: 7-31 (http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm).

108 Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones, “Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials,” The Environmentalist, 29 (2009): 56-63, at 58, 56.

109 NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 1: 330.

110 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” Question 2.

111 Glanz and Lipton, “A Search for Clues in Towers’ Collapse.”

112 Killough-Miller, “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel.”

113 Barnett, Biederman, and Sisson, “Limited Metallurgical Examination.”

114 Ibid., C-13.

115 Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., Testimony before the House Science Committee Hearing on “The Investigation of the World Trade Center Collapse,” May 1, 2002 (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/official/nist/bement.htm). In the quoted statement, the name “FEMA” replaces “BPAT,” which is the abbreviation for “Building Performance Assessment Team,” the name of the ASCE team that prepared this report for FEMA.

116 “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” NIST, Question 12.

117 Jones et al., “Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade Center Destruction,” 3.

118 Email letter from Kevin Ryan, October 16, 2008.

119 Email letter from Steven Jones, October 17, 2008.

120 Personal communications from Niels Harrit, May 8, 2009, and June 25, 2010.

121 Steven E. Jones, “Revisiting 9/11/2001: Applying the Scientific Method,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol. 11: May 2007 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/JonesWTC911SciMethod.pdf), 81.

122 Ibid., 75.

123 Symposium on State Crimes Against Democracy, American Behavioral Scientist 53 (February 2010): 783-939 (http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6).

124 Matthew T. Witt, “Pretending Not to See or Hear, Refusing to Signify: The Farce and Tragedy of Geocentric Public Affairs Scholarship,” American Behavioral Scientist 53 (February 2010): 921-39 (http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6), at 934.

125 Ibid., 932 (emphasis in original).

126 Cockburn, “The Decline of the Left,” The Free Press, September 30, 2006 (http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/2/2006/1440); Taibbi, “The Idiocy Behind the ‘9/11 Truth’ Movement.”

127 “9/11 Fantasists Pose a Mortal Danger to Popular Oppositional Campaigns.”

128 Corn, “How 9/11 Conspiracy Poison Did in Van Jones.”

129 Corn, “When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad.”

130 Cockburn, “The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Slip Off the Hook.”

131 “Chomsky Dismisses 9/11 Conspiracy Theories As ‘Dubious.’”

132 Monbiot, “9/11 Fantasists Pose a Mortal Danger to Popular Oppositional Campaigns.”

133 Charles Pigden, “Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom,” Episteme, 4 (2007), 219–32, at 219.

134 Ibid., 222.

135 Ibid., 223.

136 Although political leaders, the mainstream press, and even much of the left-leaning press have been reluctant to admit that the official account of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory (often because they like to use this label to discredit people without examining their evidence), former Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who was appointed to a senior post in the Obama administration, acknowledged this fact in a co-authored essay: Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” Journal of Political Philosophy, 17/2 (June 2009), 202-27, at 208. Sunstein also helpfully referred to Charles Pigden’s above-quoted article, which criticizes the widespread use of the “conspiracy theory” label to avoid substantive issues. I deal with the Sunstein-Vermeule essay in Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], September 2010).

137 Quoted in “Jesse Ventura’s Piece on 9/11 – KILLED BY HUFFPOST!” News from the Underground, March 9, 2010 (http://markcrispinmiller.com/2010/03/jesse-venturas-piece-on-911-killed-by-huffpost).

138 “HuffPost’s Absurd Stand on ‘Conspiracy Theories’ (David Ray Griffin),” News from the Underground, March 11, 2010 (http://markcrispinmiller.com/2010/03/huffposts-absurd-stand-on-conspiracy-theories-david-ray-griffin).

139 Taibbi, “The Idiocy Behind the ‘9/11 Truth’ Movement.”

140 See “Two Hit, Three Down – The Biggest Lie,” by National Medal of Science-winner Lynn Margulis, Rock Creek Free Press, January 24, 2010 (http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/353434420/two-hit-three-down-the-biggest-lie).

141 Jones et al., “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction.”

142 Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones, “Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials,” The Environmentalist, 29 (2009): 56-63 (published online, August 4, 2008 (http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/fulltext.html).

143 Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, and Bradley R. Larsen, “Active Thermitic Material Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2: 7-31 (http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm).

144 Crockett Grabbe, “Discussion of ‘Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Center: A Simple Analysis’ by K.A. Seffen,” Journal of Engineering Mechanics 136/4 (April 2010): 538-39 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EM.1943-7889.0000025).

145 James R. Gourley, “Discussion of ’Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions’ by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure,” Journal of Engineering Mechanics 134/10 (October 2008): 915-16 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2008)134:10(915)).

146 Anders Björkman, “Discussion of ‘What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York?’ by Zdenek P. Bazant, Jia-Liang Le, Frank R. Greening, and David B. Benson,” ASCE, Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 136/7 (July 2010): 933-34 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EM.1943-7889.0000090).

147 Some of these scientists belong to Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (http://stj911.com); others belong to S.P.I.N.E.: The Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven (http://physics911.net); and still others have been quoted on Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com). The remainder will be announcing their affiliation with the 9/11 Truth Movement in the near future.

148 Information about these and other architects who question the official story can be found at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (http://www.ae911truth.org) or under “Engineers and Architects” at Patriots Question 9/11 (http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Search).

149 Information about these and other engineers who question the official story can be found under “Engineers and Architects” at Patriots Question 9/11 (http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Search).

150 Firefighters for 9/11 Truth (http://firefightersfor911truth.org).

151 Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth (http://IO911truth.org).

152 Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth (http://mp911truth.org).

153 Pilots for 9/11 Truth (http://pilotsfor911truth.org).

154 Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven: Physics 911 (http://physics911.net).

155 Veterans for 9/11 Truth (http://v911t.org).

156 Journalists and Other Media Professionals for 9/11 Truth (http://mediafor911truth.org).

157 Lawyers for 9/11 Truth (http://l911t.com).

158 Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth (http://pl911truth.com).

159 Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth (http://rl911truth.org).

160 Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (http://stj911.com).

161 Corn, “How 9/11 Conspiracy Poison Did in Van Jones.”

162 Upton Sinclair, “I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked (1935; University of California Press, 1994), 109.

163 “9/11: Time for a Second Look.” For the text, see Voltaire.net.org, April 18, 2009 (http://www.voltairenet.org/article159749.html). For the lecture as delivered in Boston, see the YouTube video at davidraygriffin.com (http://davidraygriffin.com/calendar/april-11-2009-boston ). For the lecture as delivered in Hamburg, see the YouTube video at davidraygriffin.com (http://davidraygriffin.com/calendar/may-9-2009-hamburg).

164 David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008); henceforth NPHR.

165 Publishers Weekly, November 24, 2008 (http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/1-legacy/15-web-exclusive-book-reviews/article/6017-web-exclusive-reviews-week-of-11-24-2008-.html).

166 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already.”

167 A. K. Dewdney, “The Cellphone and Airfone Calls from Flight UA93,” Physics 911, June 9, 2003 (http://physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm); Michel Chossudovsky, “More Holes in the Official Story: The 9/11 Cell Phone Calls,” Global Research, August 10, 2004 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO408B.html). For discussion of this issue, see Griffin The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 112-14.

168 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.”

169 The FBI’s report on the phone calls from the four flights is at United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200054 (http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/flights/P200054.html).  But these documents can be more easily viewed in Jim Hoffman’s “Detailed Account of Phone Calls from September 11th Flights” (http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html).

170 Griffin, NPHR 115-18.

171 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already.”

172 FBI, “Interview with Theodore Olsen [sic],” 9/11 Commission, FBI Source Documents, Chronological, September 11, 2001Intelfiles.com, March 14, 2008, (http://intelfiles.egoplex.com:80/2008/03/911-commission-fbi-source-documents.html).

173 “America’s New War: Recovering from Tragedy,” Larry King Live, CNN, September 14, 2001 (http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/14/lkl.00.html).

174 See the graphic at Jim Hoffman’s website (http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html) and my discussion in NPHR 60-62.

175 Griffin, NPHR 206-07.

176 See David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2009), 22-36.

177 Dr. David Ray Griffin, “The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory: A Reply to Alexander Cockburn,” Le Monde Diplomatique, Nordic Edition, March 2007 (http://www.lmd.no/index.php?article=1408); a response to Alexander Cockburn, “US: The Conspiracy That Wasn’t,” Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2006 (http://mondediplo.com/2006/12/02conspiracy), which was headlined: “Distractions from Awful Reality.”

178 See the obituary I wrote, “William A. (‘Bill’) Christison (1928-2010),” 911Truth.org, June 20, 2010 (http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20100620115516747).

179 Bill Christison, “Stop Belittling the Theories about September 11,” Dissident Voice, August 14, 2006 (http://dissidentvoice.org/Aug06/Christison14.htm).

180 Paul Joseph Watson, “28-Year Career CIA Official Says 9/11 An Inside Job,” Prison Planet, September 7, 2006 (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/070906insidejob.htm).

181 Mainstream sources estimate the total number of deaths due to the invasions and occupations at about one million for each country. But Dr. Gideon Polya, author of Body Count: Global Avoidable Mortality Since 1950, has put the numbers much higher. See his “Iraqi Holocaust: 2.3 Million Iraqi Excess Deaths,” March 21, 2009 (http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210309.htm); and “January 2010 – 4.5 Million Dead in Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide,” Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide, January 2, 2010 (http://afghangenocide.blogspot.com).

182 Both this statement and the Chicago version of my lecture can be seen at Ed’s Links: Is the War in Afghanistan Justified by 9/11? (http://edwardrynearson.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/is-the-war-in-afghanistan-justified-by-911/). A slightly revised version has been posted as David Ray Griffin, “Did 9/11 Justify the War in Afghanistan? Using the McChrystal Moment to Raise a Forbidden Question,” Global Research, June 24, 2010 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19891).

183 Cockburn, “The Decline of the Left”; Corn, “Van Jones and the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Poison.”

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***

This article was first published by Cuba Debate in Spanish in September 2010. (Translation by Cuba Debate).

***

On Thursday, Michel Chossudovsky, professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, was invited to appear on the Mesa Redonda television program. He participated along with Osvaldo Martinez, director of the Research Center on World Economics.

Of course, I listened to their debate with particular interest. Chossudovsky spoke in Spanish and showed a complete command of the issues at hand. He is scrupulous about the meaning of words, including phrases coined in English to precisely express a certain idea when they do not have equivalent terms in Spanish.

Chossudovsky said that in the United States an inescapable systemic crisis has been created, which they are trying to resolve by employing the same measures that caused it. 

He explained that there has been an impoverishment of all social groups, which affects the workers and middle class much more than the rich. 

The U.S. government is calling for austerity measures at a global level, and applying “remedies” and “prescriptions” that are the cause of the crisis, also faced with the necessity of financing military spending and bailing out banks.

He confirmed that they have been preparing for war against Iran since 2003, and are also threatening Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Lebanon and other countries in this vast region.

He energetically criticized the justification for the introduction of the so-called mini-nuke into the arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons, and of the doctrine that was widely promoted prior to their introduction, in an attempt to argue that the mini-nuke is safe for civilians (safe for the surrounding civilian population, because the explosion is underground) in English he explained. He noted the irony of how the mini-nukes included bombs with an explosive capacity between one-third and six times that of the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.

Let us press on immediately with the synthesis of Chossudovsky’s academic address to the students and teachers at the Faculty of Economics, University of Havana:

“… I want to mention one thing that is very important […] this war is not a war that creates jobs […] It is true that the Second World War did create jobs, in Germany under the Nazi regime […]. That is simply a factual observation. […]

The same in the United States at the beginning of the Second World War, which started for them in 1941; there was job creation and that was the way out of the Great Depression under President Roosevelt. But this war (referring to a Third World War) is not of the same type; it is a high-tech war, not a war whereby military equipment is assembled or manufactured . The war in Viet Nam created jobs, as did the Korean War. This war is a war characterized by a very sophisticated weapons system, employing highly advanced scientific manpower, engineers and the like … “

“… any first year student knows that if you impose austerity measures at a national and global level —as proposed at the G-20 meetings and also under the auspices of the International Settlements Bank, which represents the central banks—, there is a sort of consensus that to solve the crisis we have to implement austerity measures, that austerity measures are not a solution, but a cause of the crisis. Cutting the budget, cutting spending, cutting credit to small and medium enterprises at the same time increases unemployment levels and reduces salaries. This is the case in most European countries.”

“Spain and Portugal have unemployment rates above 20 percent, officially; the key issue here is that the proposed solution, not only nationally, but in all countries, pronounced by the neoliberal consensus, is that we have to implement austerity measures … “

“… but the stagnation of the civilian economy caused, in a first instance, because of the transfer of wealth, not just in recent years but let’s say from the beginning of the 1980s, when the so-called era of neoliberal policies began which also led to stagnation in the civilian economy […] if we talk about the United States, these measures were implemented at the end of the Bill Clinton administration […] the Financial Services Modernization Act, but they have created a financial system that is not regulated, and that is involved, shall we say, in semi-illegal activities. In some ways it is the criminalization of the financial apparatus, and that is not just a word I’m just using, many analysts, including The Wall Street Journal are talking about the criminalization, because there was financial fraud in recent years, and those who have committed this fraud are not being punished.”

“… an economic crisis, in my opinion the worst in history, without precedent, not even the 1930s, which was a very localized crisis, not a global crisis as such, it had a dynamic in certain countries and regions of the world. “

“… the financial war is closely linked to the war in the military sector, there are even links between the World Bank and the Pentagon. […] former United States Defense ministers became presidents of the World Bank […] the new world order is run by financial manipulation mechanisms […] regime changes, destabilization of governments and military operations of various kinds […] capitalism has institutions, both civilian and military, that work together, this is a very important concept. Behind these institutions are the intellectuals, the think tanks in Washington, there are secret clubs for the elites [… ] the process of war, which now threatens humanity, is important at all levels of society.”

“… war is classified as a criminal act, the Nuremberg Convention states this […] It is the ultimate criminal act. War is a crime against peace. […] we have indications that this economic crisis led to a concentration of wealth, in a few years, and a centralization of economic power that is unprecedented in history […] this crisis is not spontaneous, as presented in the neoliberal economy, it is the result of manipulation, of planning, and, at the same time, there is a military component.

With these words, Chossudovsky concluded his address and expressed his willingness to answer questions: “…I will leave the issue of resistance and how to reverse this process for you to debate,” he said.

The students’ questions were intelligent and serious. From them I have only repeated the essential ideas.

Moderator: I believe I convey the sentiments of all present, in thanking Dr. Michel Chossudovsky for the excellent address he has given us, which has provided us with even more awareness about the causes and consequences of the real dangers that threaten humanity … ”

“… we will proceed with the questions that the audience deems pertinent for our guest.”

A student: … we would like to know […] your view on the optimism that has been presented in the media over the current crisis situation in Latin America, what is your opinion about the possibilities of addressing this crisis in the region … ”

“Thank you”

“Michel Chossudovsky:  The Caribbean region is identified as a region extremely rich in both oil and gas, and not just Venezuela and Colombia, the truth is that there are known reserves because the oil companies have information that is not public; but what is public is that this region is extremely rich.

“The situation in Haiti is also linked to a project of resource appropriation […] the humanitarian situation […] allows capital to gain access to mineral resources and potential oil resources in the region. […] I’m not saying that’s the only reason for the militarization of the region. The other is drug trafficking.”

“… there are geographic, geopolitical and resource objectives […] but also drug trafficking, because it is a very important source of profits for capital.”

“… there are two axes of the global drug trade, one is Afghanistan and Pakistan, which represents the heroin trade, and the other is Colombia, Peru, Bolivia. The transfer goes through Haiti and other Caribbean countries to the U.S. market. […] Afghanistan is an enormously rich country, it annually produces about $200 billion in revenues from the export of heroin, at least according to my estimates. Since the U.S. forces entered into Afghanistan, heroin production has increased 30 fold. Well, I digress.”

“The militarization of the region and operations in Ecuador, an oil power, Venezuela, an oil power, Mexico is also an oil power. These are all countries that have a strategic role in the geopolitics of the U.S. economy. ”

A student: I am a student at the Faculty of Economics …”

“My question is: Is globalization, as it has been sold, as presented by the so-called developed countries, currently viable or are there other alternatives, such as integration models?

“Thanks.”

“Michel Chossudovsky: It is certainly not viable.

Globalization, as defined by the centers of power is not viable. Perhaps it is viable for one sector, a social minority that becomes richer, but it leads to impoverishment, and that is now very well documented. It is part of a process that has affected developing countries over the past 30 years. You can see the consequences in neighboring countries, the impoverishment that exists in Brazil, Mexico, Peru, a product of that destructive model. […] There are many countries that have presented different development models, as in the case of Yugoslavia.”

“… Yugoslavia had a socialist system, a market economy, a mixed economy with a high standard of living, social services, education, and what did they do? Since the beginning of the 1980s it was completely destroyed and fragmented into many countries, half a dozen countries. Why? Because Yugoslavia represented a model, an alternative that did not suit them.”

“… we can also look at the experiences of Latin America: Chile created an alternative, but then was subjected to a military coup and a process of destabilization that was carried out by the United States intelligence services, by sabotage, by embargoes and such, because I experienced that coup.
“There are many examples: Tanzania, in Africa, Algeria, there are many countries that have tried. Indonesia for example, in the 1960s there was also a very important process […] In 1965 a military coup, once again supported by the CIA, killed more than 500,000 people in planned kilings and a military regime was imposed, which ceded to U.S. interests. ”

“… We must produce an economic model of society as alternative to global capitalism. We can do it. But all the alternatives, including the Cuban model, are the subject of sabotage, embargoes, measures of destabilization, assassinations. That is the truth. ”

“… Iraq is not a socialist country, but a country that has a certain autonomy. It is a state that does not want to be manipulated, and they do not even want to accept capitalism, is not theirs. That’s the world today, there are countries that are capitalist but are enemies of the United States, China is capitalist in a way, Russia too, but Russia’s style of capitalism does not suit their interests, and they want to militarily destabilize or destroy any attempt against the economic and geopolitical hegemony of the United States and its allies. ”

“A Professor:  Your presentation, your lecture was excellent.  I used to be scared of war, after listening to you, I´m terrified, but I´d like to ask you something.

“At present, there are still Americans who never heard about the Viet Nam War. So my question is the following: What do you think must be done to raise awareness in the U.S. in order to prevent an event that, if it occurs, will have unpredictable economic, political and social consequences?

“Michel Chossudovsky: That is our main concern. More than half of those who visit our Website are readers from the United States, and I would say that most authors are also from the U.S. The point is that we have to expose the lies of the media; we have to fight the sources of the lies, because if the American people know the truth, the power and the legitimacy of their leaders will fade overnight. What happens in the United States is that the media, television, print and the Internet are spreading a view which is largely biased.”

“…As they listen to these inquisitorial discourses, they accept what is false, they accept the lies; and once the lie becomes the truth, you cannot have any real reflection and the debate terminates. This is all part of a war propaganda that reaches all levels of society, that tries to hide the real face of war. The number of civilians killed in Iraq is 2 million, according to estimates by well-known sources, such as the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. There have been 2 million civilian deaths since they arrived in 2003. Add that to the 4 million deaths in the Congo and to one fourth of the Korean population that was killed from bombardments during the Korean War. These facts are known, but not by the public.

[…] there is censorship, but more than censorship is the manipulation of information. […] we have to fight the media, this is crucial. We have to set up anti-war networks in all municipalities across the United States, in Canada, and the whole world. We need to hold debates, gain knowledge, because we have an intelligent population, but one that is subjected to the constant pressures of conformism and from an authority that tells them the truth, which is in fact a lie.”

“…I will make an effort to give brief responses, though your questions are very forceful, so I cannot be that brief sometimes.”

“A student: I’d like to know if it is possible to achieve a technological change in favor of clean technologies to stop the current ecological crisis.”

“Michel Chossudovsky:  Yes, that is a fundamental issue for our societies, but there exists a distortion of environmental realities that yield to economic interests, which are the main actors in the destruction of the environment.”

“…the British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. There is complicity by the U.S. government, that is to say Washington, in their actions to hide what really occurred. Wildlife, all the marine species along the entire coastal region of the U.S. and beyond, is threatened. This fact has been concealed.”

“It is also important to connect this event, this environmental crisis and the war. British Petroleum is involved in the Middle East and in the military project, which is contradictory on the one hand, while also being responsible for the worst environmental crisis in the history of this continent.”

“A professor:  You made a brief analysis of the U.S. economy. […] that economy continues to define the dynamics of the world economy. […] I’d like to know if you think that this economy will continue to define the dynamics of world economy […] or if countries like China or the so-called emerging states may take over the role currently played by the United States?”

“Michel Chossudovsky: Look, about this so-called dynamics of economy, the leadership of the United States, from an economic perspective, is not based on its productive capacity […] the industrial economy has been shutting down over the past 30 years, there are no more assembly lines, production has fallen, there is a service economy, there is the issue of intellectual property control, there is an investment economy, there is an economy where most of consumer goods come from China.”

“…The U.S. economy is bigger than China’s, but even though it is bigger than China’s economy it does not produce anything, and the GDP —as we all are well aware— is the sum of added value. The fact is that a large part of U.S. GDP is the result of imports from China.

“The technique is simple. If you are going to import a shirt —and I will use more or less real prices—, a dozen high quality shirts cost $36. These figures correspond to the 1990s, since these prices are even lower nowadays. […] a nice shirt costs $3 at the factory; it is taken to the United States and it costs $30, $40 or $50. What is the resulting increase in U.S. GDP? While, $30 minus $3 equals $27 which is added to the GDP without having any kind of production […] This growth may take place without any existing production; this is how a nation state with an imperial economy works, production takes place in the colonies or semi-colonies.”

“…The fiction of this first world economy is based on military power […] this is the most important fact. The productive forces in the United States are very weak; we can witness this in the companies going bankrupt, in unemployment levels, etc.”

“A student: …I’d like to acknowledge your stance since it is unusual for us to see someone from your origins strongly criticize the capitalist system as you have done. It deserves acknowledgement.”

“According to Marxism, this is a systemic crisis, not a temporary one.”

“In your opinion, what is the real capacity of world public opinion and of the possible growing awareness among the U.S. population to avoid a nuclear conflict, if we bear in mind the strong pressure exercised by small circles of power so frequently referred to in recent times?”

“Michel Chossudovsky:  …This is a systemic crisis, although it cannot be measured using the  guidelines set out in The Capital. The Marxist methodology is useful for our understanding, since it is based on class conflicts, but today’s structure is quite different than that of the mid 19th century […] as economists, we cannot make it fit one model, we have to consider its institutional nature, the relationship among financial activities on the one hand, covert operations.”

“…The CIA is an entity in Wall Street, a major one […] it has joint ventures with a large number of financial entities. […] since the CIA can foresee events, it can operate in market speculation…”

“… Describing this systemic crisis is very important, but we have to establish the way capitalism operates, its institutional structure, its secret agencies, covert operations, both in financial markets and in the geopolitical context, the function of the military, the decisions of think tanks in Washington, the state entities, and we have to identify who the actors are as well.”

“I think that your second question shares a common element with the previous ones; the need to change public opinion. But my answer is that we need to shatter the consensus that holds up this system, which is a lie […] There are different codes of conduct in capitalist countries. There are the politically active people who usually say, ‘We are making a petition, please President Obama, stop the war in Afghanistan.” They spread that message around the Internet, ‘Please, sign our petition, we are writing a letter to Obama, etc.’ But all of this is futile because it is based on the acceptance of the consensus, on the acceptance of the president who is one of the factors, and we have to break this inquisition.”

“…People talk about the Spanish inquisition, insane from an historic point of view, but this is even more insane, statements like, ‘We are fighting against Bin Laden and you have to join us, if not, you are a terrorist.”

“A couple of weeks ago, the FBI raided and arrested anti-war activists and accused them of working with Bin Laden. This was reported in US newspapers, and it is part of this dynamic to change public opinion, it is dialectical, we need to revert and dismantle this discourse that supports and legitimizes war and this economic project, along with the lies such as, ‘The crisis is over.’”

“You read the Wall Street Journal, you read the newspaper and it says, ‘The crisis will come to an end in January 2011,’ nobody questions this statement, not even the economists. This ritual of acceptance, is based not on a lack of information but rather because everyone accepts it. We have to break this ritual of accepting the consensus that stems from political power and the financial markets.”

A student: Sustainable development, which for me is totally incompatible with war because there has never been anything more destructive than the recent wars, not only the future one that could take place, but all the recent wars instigated by the United States.”

“…They insist on the importance of human development, of boosting the roles of local regions and territories. I’d like your opinion on this issue, how realistic is this objective for our countries?

Michel Chossudovsky:  I agree with the real objective of sustainable development, but we have to look at the word play behind this objective. This objective has been formulated by several environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, WWF, […] I am not criticizing these organizations, but if you consider the summits held on the environment like the World Social Forum, the G-7 summits for instance, the G-20, they hardly ever talk about the impact of war on the environment. They make their presentations on city pollution, global warming, but western NGOs do not talk about war, they do not talk about the impact of war on the environment, which is significant.”

“I took part in the social summits up until 1999. As soon as I mentioned the war in Yugoslavia, they did not invite me to participate anymore. War might be discussed in a workshop or some other type of meeting, but it is not an issue addressed at debates on ‘Another world is possible,’ not at all. This sort of idea of global governance that has characterized the social movements, and I am not criticizing them because I think there are some very good people in these groups, but they have a certain dynamic and there is something about the leadership of these organizations that doesn’t fit. […] We cannot have an anti-globalization movement that only focuses on certain aspects, without taking into account the geopolitical context […] The United States and its allies…at war during a large part of this era, which we call the post-war period, that is to say, the last 50 years, are characterized by military operations, wars, interventions by the United States and its allies and all this, in my experience, has not been the subject of debate or discussions at the different world forums where they present sustainable development as a code of conduct.”

With these words, Michel Chossudovsky concluded his presentation at the University of Havana, which was warmly applauded by the students from the Faculty of Economics, their professors and other people who filled the Manuel Sanguily Hall that day.

Before I [Fidel] met with professor Chossudovsky, a coincidence occurred spontaneously. A coincidence related to both the risks of a conflict, which inevitably would lead to global nuclear war, and the need to mobilize world opinion in the face of such a dramatic danger.

Along with nuclear weapons are cyber weapons. Another product of technology which, once transferred to the military sector, threatens to become another serious problem for the world.

The U.S. Armed Forces possesses some 15,000 communication networks and 7 million computers, as reported by journalist Rosa Miriam Elizalde on the Cubadebate Website.

Rosa Miriam Elizalde also wrote:

“Four-Star General Keith Alexander, who has compared cyber attacks to weapons of mass destruction, affirmed that the United States has plans to use this new war tactic in an attack without taking into account the opinion of their allies. They could even attack allied networks without any previous warning if they consider that an attack was or could be generated from any of them.”

I ask the readers to please excuse the length of the two parts of this reflection. There was no way to make it shorter without sacrificing content.

Allow me also to express —I did not forget— that today marks the 43rd anniversary of the death of Che, and that two days ago we commemorated the 34th anniversary of brutal Yankee killings of our Cuban compatriots and other passengers aboard our civilian plane over Barbados.

Eternal glory to them all!

Fidel Castro Ruz

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The US Department of Education has an Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Catherine Lhamon, who is busy at work making sure parents don’t have any rights and are unable to get in the way of her personal agenda of transgendering children.  She is pushing new Title IX rules that facilitate school boards to encourage gender transitions without awareness or consent from parents. 

In other words, Lhamon is using the US Government to impose her personal agenda.  What do you think about that?

Have you ever wondered about the transgender craze that suddenly was upon us?  I went through K-12, 4 years of undergraduate university, and 4 years of graduate school and never heard the issue mentioned.  I never knew or heard of anyone who thought they were the opposite sex, or knew a man who wanted to be a woman or a woman who wanted to be a man.  As a kid I knew a couple of girls, known as “Tom Boys,” who liked to climb trees and would go off the high dive, but that was the extent of it.

It seems that the transgender movement is the result of indoctrination in school.  Teacher advocates give the kids the idea that there is nothing unusual about being born the wrong sex in the wrong body and that so many are that gender transition is a worthy topic.  

It seems to have become a big medical business overnight.  Psychiatrists and psychologists are involved.  Pharmaceutical companies sell hormone blockers. Clinics perform sex change operations.  Transgender advocates brand parents “abusive” for not supporting some 12-year old’s implanted idea that a sex change is needed.  As the indoctrination is clearly a form of abuse, where is Child Protective Services?

I read recently that Britain’s Tavistock Centre for transgendering had been ordered closed and that other European countries had reigned in aggressive sex change practices.  Parents are beginning to bring lawsuits about the damage done their children behind their backs.  But transgender advocates argue that kids have a right to “gender privacy” from parents who would’t be supportive of their kids’ transgendering.  What this means is that “kids’ rights” are really the school’s rights, the transgender advocate’s rights, the transgender specialist’s rights, everyone’s rights but the parents.

I wonder how much longer Americans are going to have children. Those at work deconstructing marriage, family, and society are taking all the pleasure out of parenthood and all of the responsibility for children from parents.  How can you be a parent when you can’t raise your own child?

Imagine the horror of going through a sex change and then realizing that you are indeed in the wrong body.

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

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African American Resistance in the Rural South

February 16th, 2023 by Abayomi Azikiwe

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“The new industry had a vision not of work but of wealth, not of planned accomplishment, but of power. It became the most conscienceless, unmoral system of industry which the world has experienced. It went with ruthless indifference towards waste, death, ugliness and disaster, and yet reared the most stupendous machine for the efficient organization of work which the world has ever seen.” Quote taken from “Black Reconstruction in America” by Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois in the chapter entitled “Looking Forward”. (See this)

During the most disastrous post-Civil War period of African American historical development in the rural South and other regions of the United States, there were heroic efforts to reverse the process of re-enslavement which utilized brute force, super-exploitation and the passage of reactionary legislation often referred to as the Black Codes.

These Black Code laws were designed to suppress the political and economic aspirations of the formerly enslaved Africans who by their efforts during the Civil War and Reconstruction, sought to build an independent social existence in the U.S.

However, this notion of equality and self-determination clashed with the desire on the part of the planters and their allies among the white population to restore the absolute dominance of the slavocracy. African American suffrage and land ownership were viewed by the white southerners as a threat to their ruling class status.

White militias founded by former slave owners and Confederates such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) inflicted terror on the African American people. Between the 1880s and the Great Depression of the 1930s, thousands of Black people were lynched in the U.S. These acts of terrorism were justified through false claims of insolence, robbery, rape and murder against the whites.

In recent years, official tabulations of the actual number of lynchings in the U.S. remain inconclusive. Many acts of racial terror were covered-up as justifiable homicide by law-enforcement agents, white posses and the decisions of racist courts which imposed capital punishment.

The so-called “race riots” of the early 20th century in urban areas such as New Orleans (1900), Atlanta (1906), Springfield (1908), among others, were in actuality organized acts of systematic repression often incited and inflamed by white ruling class interests committed to the maintenance of their supremacy over Black labor. In the rural areas of the South such as in Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Tennessee and other post-Confederate and slave states, there were numerous massacres and forced removals of African Americans which were prompted by the desire to crush all forms of resistance and self-organization.

Populism and the African American National Question

During the 1890s, the People’s Party, or Populist Movement, was formed ostensibly to organize in the rural areas of the South to challenge the largely uncontested power of landowners in alliance with industrialists. The movement would become a viable force up until the first decade of the 20th century when it succumbed to the racism so prevalent in the U.S., particularly in the southern states.

The origins of the white farmers’ movement can be traced back to the late 1870s as the South emerged from the years of Federal Reconstruction. A Southern Farmers Alliance dominated by whites from various stratums within the agricultural industry refused to allow African Americans to join their organization.

Consequently, African American farmers, both sharecroppers and small landowners, formed their own organizations. One of the most prominent was The Colored Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Union (CFNACU) founded in December 1886 in Houston County, Texas. Initially, the CFNACU had the support of R.M. Humphrey, a white Farmers Alliance member and Baptist missionary. Humphrey even served as a spokesman for the CFNA in an effort to temper the inevitable racist backlash against the organization of African American farmers. (See this)

The CFNACU would merge with two other farmers organizations in the African American community. These groups were the National Colored Alliance and the Colored Agricultural Wheels which operated in Arkansas, West Tennessee and Alabama. By 1890, these Black farmers organizations claimed a membership of 1.2 million people.

In September 1891, sections of the African American farmers organizations called a “cotton pickers strike” in Lee County, Arkansas. This action was met with extreme repression leading to an armed confrontation and the arrests and murders of at least 11 African Americans and a white plantation manager killed ostensibly by the strikers.

Nonetheless, differences between white and Black farmers organizations would hamper the capacity of any serious coalition. The Populist Party began by claiming their desires to organize both African American and white farmers. The grouping organized chapters in the Southern and Western regions of the U.S.

However, despite their emergence as a viable Third Party during the 1890s which challenged electorally the Democrats and Republicans, eventually leading figures in the People’s Party such as Tom Watson, abandoned any suggestion of an alliance with African Americans and became advocates of white supremacy.

The Populist Party would soon oppose efforts to guarantee the franchise to African Americans since this harkened back to the years of Federal Reconstruction. In North Carolina, there was a viable coalition of white populists and Black farmers allied with the Republican Party during the mid-1890s resulting in the ascendancy to local offices by African American politicians.

Nevertheless, this alliance was overthrown by force in the Wilmington coup of 1898, instituting Jim Crow laws which had become the norm throughout the South in the decades following the Civil War and Reconstruction. Hundreds of African Americans were massacred in the areas around Wilmington by white segregationist officials and vigilantes. These events remained largely hidden until recent years when the acknowledgement of these atrocities came to light on an official level.

Racial Terror in Elaine, Arkansas in 1919

After the conclusion of World War I, there was a rash of attacks against the African American communities across the U.S. in both rural and urban areas. Designated as “Red Summer”, African American neighborhoods were violently attacked in cities such as Chicago, Washington, D.C., Knoxville, Tennessee, etc. Dozens of people were killed and injured while others were driven out of these municipalities and given long term prison sentences.

Elaine Arkansas Black defendants during 1919

However, in the rural areas of the South, these incidents of racial terror took on even more murderous proportions. In Phillips County, Arkansas, African American tenant farmers, sawmill employees and domestic workers sought to form an organization aimed at enhancing their standard of living in the immediate aftermath of WWI.

The Progressive Farmers and Household Union (PFHU) was formed in 1918 and grew rapidly among African American men and women. The organization was committed to gaining greater returns on their cotton crops where prices were increasing after the War. African American tenant farmers and domestic workers were being severely exploited through the agricultural production system.

Despite the large volumes of cotton being cultivated, these farmers and domestic workers were forced to sell their crops and labor to the white-owned firms which refused to provide any accounting for their products and purported debts owed. Every year these farmers and domestic workers would be assessed as being in serious debt and therefore obligated to pay high interest rates to the landowners and merchants.

In 1918-19, an African American named Robert Hill led an effort to withhold the labor of domestic workers and the cotton produced by the farmers. On September 30, 1919, they announced a mass meeting at a lodge in Elaine, Arkansas to explain their plans. The PFHU had hired a law firm in Little Rock to provide legal support to achieve their demands for higher wages and the acquisition of farmland.

At a location in Elaine called Hoop Spur where the meeting was convened, a white mob attacked the gathering which was guarded by armed African Americans. An ensuing gunbattle resulted in the deaths of at least one white man. In retaliation, law-enforcement agents and federal authorities led by the Arkansas Governor Charles Hillman Brough, indiscriminately killed and arrested hundreds of African American farmers and workers. Estimates from the time period suggest that anywhere between 100-300 African Americans were killed along with five whites.

Hill was able to flee to neighboring Kansas where the then Governor Henry Justin Allen refused to extradite him back to Arkansas, declaring that it would not be possible for him to receive a fair trial in the state. 12 African American farmers designated by the Arkansas authorities as ringleaders of the effort were placed on trial by an all-white jury and sentenced to long prison terms and death by execution.

These injustices received widespread coverage in the African American and mainstream press. Several organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Equal Rights League and the People’s Movement of Chicago passed resolutions and pledged support to save the men’s lives and win their freedom.

African American journalist, organizer and anti-lynching crusader, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, left her Chicago residence to travel to Phillips County, Arkansas. Wells-Barnett interviewed the wives of the defendants then being held in jail. She then went to the jail and interviewed the inmates exposing the actual story behind the so-called “Arkansas Riot”. The Union and its supporters were accused of insurrection through a plot to kill all the white residents of Phillips County and seize the land.

Wells-Barnett in her study of the incident published as “The Arkansas Race Riot” in 1920, noted that:

“The terrible crime these men had committed was to organize their members into a union for the purpose of getting the market price for their cotton, to buy land of their own and to employ a lawyer to get settlements of their accounts with their white landlords. Cotton was selling for more than ever before in their lives. These Negroes believed their chance had come to make some money for themselves and get out from under the white landlord’s thumb.”

Eventually, through a massive legal campaign and political pressures exerted on the Arkansas state courts and the U.S. Supreme Court, the 12 African American inmates were released. Hill, the principal organizer, remained in Kansas where he would work until retirement for the railroad industry.

Legacy of Resistance Must Be Upheld

These examples of African American self-organization and resistance to racial terror, national oppression and economic exploitation illustrate the continuity of struggle in the U.S. African Americans were never totally suppressed and a century later these questions of independent organization and alliances with white farmers and workers remain unresolved.

In future articles, we will examine other efforts aimed at organizing African Americans in rural and small town areas and their impact on the further urbanization of population groups in the U.S. During the period of the Great Depression leading into World War II and the advent of the mass Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, the plight of African Americans and their resistance to oppression continued to be an important aspect of the political culture of the U.S.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author; featured image: African American Farmers Alliance of the late 19th century

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