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The real purpose of ninety nine percent of the available media out there is designed to help us ignore the truth. Not just mainstream media – all media.
That this Covid pandemic and the responses to it – and a whole host of hot button issues – were designed to manufacture our consent is the case. This is what this essay will address in the best shorter unlimited hangout I can manage. More complete descriptions of all the unlimited hangouts will require longer forms.
Because the real problem here for humanity is that we are now under the dictates of the Fourth Reich – promoted as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. As all totalitarianism does, it has crept in oh so gradually, unannounced and hidden in plain sight. We humans like the proverbial frogs in boiling water are blissfully unaware until it is too late.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution Is the Fourth Reich
There is only one way out of the traps set by this Fourth Reich – disguised as the Fourth Industrial Revolution – and that is to fully become aware of the master plan. Once we see the smirking and ugly deceptions used to manufacture our consent – displays fashioned by master manipulators – and what they actually represent – we are highly unlikely to offer our consent.
You will find that those entities which have come out and described the Fourth Industrial Revolution as The Fourth Reich have been removed from the internet. It is in where our would be masters of the universe act to remove our content where we know we have touched a nerve. Where we have touched a nerve we have learned something important.
The Master Manipulators and the Limited Hangout
Because the intent of these serially abusive master manipulators is to obtain your consent by either affirmation or by capitalizing on our human sympathies. Human sympathies predispose us to listen to what we think are reasoned arguments presented by those sympathetic to our cause.
The problem here is that through the work of these master manipulators most of those we regard as sympathetic to our cause are not. Many of those who appear as sympathetic to our cause are being used by the more powerful and are in fact gaining personally from their roles as the real master charlatans here.
Essentially, either knowingly or not, these sympathetic figures become the decoys for the master manipulators. Framed as rebels with a cause they serve to muddy the dialog and further manufacture our consent. In other words, by thinking we are participating in actual dissent, we are in actuality taking part in what is called a limited hangout.
A limited hangout is designed to entrap us in a rather sophisticated framework known to be used as part of the psychological operations used by intelligence operatives. In these limited hangouts we are furnished with part of the truth but almost never allowed a real glimpse at the actual truth of the matter.
In other words we may be offered some veiled references to the world economic forum, to the pandemic & vaccines, to the war in Ukraine, to the criminal enterprise represented by Hunter Biden, to the real facts of Volodymyr Zelensky – but be carefully kept from realizing the real threat represented by the title of this essay.
How Politics Is Used to Deceive
In addition our political frameworks are used to manipulate us. We may believe we have a political force to rely on which is seriously standing in opposition to these totalitarian manipulators. What we are likely to discover is that there is not an existing political solution – that in effect the political solution is being held as yet another side show to manufacture our consent.
In the United States we have two political parties. On one side – the conservative side – we have the Democrats – framed as the bad guys – and the Republicans – framed as the good guys. We also have the opposite. On the liberal side – those who hold that the Democrats are the good guys and the Republicans are the bad guys. You will find reasoned, heart felt arguments on either side.
A large majority of the population will fall for this ploy – thinking their side represents a way out. Unfortunately however this serves to further entrap us in the matrix. By being immersed in what we believe is reasoned political discourse we are effectively prevented from engaging with the larger issues.
Using Political Hot Button Issues to Deceive and Entrap Us
Similarly issues are concocted all around to entrap us in limited hangouts of different kinds. In this case unrestricted harmful immigration policies entrap us in useless dissent. In the case of the United States we have the influx of drugs and lawlessness to distract us from the truth. What we maybe don’t see is that this kind of immigration has been used all across the planet to distract people – quite effectively – from seeing the master plan.
Another very effective strategy is to promote such highly personally disturbing practices as the transgender philosophy foisted on children. Through the promotion of such sickening practices – which disturb us at fundamental levels of our human sympathies – we are quite effectively entrapped.
A full discussion of transgender ideology and how it is used as a political hot button issue is found in the article here.
They come for the children we cry. And we engage in questioning why they would do this and in how to stop those who are behind this. Lost in the hue and cry of speaking for these children and against their tormentors we are once again entrapped in a limited hangout. This limited hangout is highly effective as it gains our sympathies so well. Without answering our question as to why powerful forces would do this we remain lost.
The essential question – as elsewhere – is to ask why this is being done. The tactic of going after the children is very effective as a political tool to entrap our engagement. Much like the effects of using a pandemic and arguments over vaccines and medical treatment it fully engages our sympathetic energy as a hot button side show.
Promoting the sexualization of our children and the transgender medical mutilation involved horrifies us – and well it should. Similarly to how the deathly practices were used connected to the pandemic and vaccines there is a similar issue here. These are used as hot button issues designed to further deceive.
Both attack the each individual’s psychological integrity and that of the social institutions they rely on – the family and ultimately the entire community – destroying all. That is the strategy in a nutshell.
Our tormentors use methods of attack which work to destabilize the individual and the social forces which sustain that individual. Attack, divide and destroy the family. The breakdown of the family works to destroy the community and eventually the nation state and the planet.
The 500 Ton Gorilla – The Fourth Reich
This is what we have here. An international force of which we are effectively kept unaware and distracted from acknowledging through the use of highly effective psychological operations.This would take many books to accurately parse and describe. Essentially though for the purposes of this essay I will define this in very simple terms.
Framed as the Fourth Industrial Revolution by a body known as the World Economic Forum. I believe most readers are at least aware by now of this body – sufficiently so that they can look into it themselves by going to the WEF website.
What may not be immediately apparent without some digging however is how entrenched and threatening this organization and partners really are. Like a huge and almost unimaginable spiders web it exists as a real collusion designed to manufacture our consent and then to insure it before we truly understand what has hit us.
I am not going into further detail here as all is readily understandable with a bit of applied attention to the facts. I have written of it fairly extensively in other essays and intend to collate those writings to be more accessible.
The overwhelming goal here is to point out the necessity of moving beyond any limited hangouts to recognize exactly what we are dealing with. We need to be wrestling with the 500 Ton Gorilla here rather than being distracted by properly identifying the various parts.
As long as we settle for limited hangouts we will lose. There is only one effective way of removing the wind from the sails of our tormentors. This must be a planetary understanding of the real threat here. We must recognize the degree to which they have already manufactured our consent and then stand against it. That it must move well beyond these limited hangouts is a given. Those who are working on these hot button issues are very important – as are the issues involved. But we have no hope of confronting the 500 Ton Gorilla without acting as one unified force against tyranny.
The Power of Understanding the Unalienable Rights of the Individual
Although for Americans there are such guides as the US Constitution, Bill of Rights and the rest this unified force must go well beyond the aims of our now much defiled nation state. For the government of these United States has done irreparable damage to our name and to our intended purposes. These forces has damaged each of us as well by committing their dastardly deeds in our names.
But we are not alone here because all other governments across the world are also deeply involved in the nefarious aims of this Fourth Industrial Revolution. Any cause against the Fourth Reich must exist well above and beyond these nation states. Purely national forces have now declared themselves to be additional limited hangouts designed to further muddy the waters and to entrap our sympathies.
For the first time in human history the human cause is the only important issue. The ability of we as the human species to stand against totalitarianism will either stand or fall here. If these dreams of American founding fathers are recognized here it may be because their ultimate intent was a human cause and never intended to entrap us in these limited hangouts.
As Thomas Paine wrote:
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either. In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion. The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR…
It will not be easy. It will require nerves of steel and courage beyond imagining. It will require the deliberate laying down of our prejudices for the good of everyone. It will require that we arrive at the understanding once and for all that it is indeed we the people who are the powerful forces here. It will require that we reach an understanding of how such forces as this Fourth Reich arise to gain such power.
It will require that we define and fashion together a world council of free peoples who – free of manipulation by centralized governments and corporate entities – maintain a locally managed and decentralized nested series of councils. Only by decentralized bodies inclusive of all and devoted to free speech and the unalienable rights granted each individual by their creator may this be accomplished.
It will be by the planetary recognition of the real fundamental power of each of us – protected by a real understanding of the majesty of these unalienable rights – that this will be possible.
Instead of those tin foil hats we may only need instead our real thinking caps. The real barriers will exist in rooting out the residual traumas we each have absorbed from this manipulation which has kept us divided. To do this means educating each other to an understanding of true interdependence. Interdependence is the fundamental unit of real health and wealth. We can only be as healthy as a species – and as individuals and families – within a larger healthy ecosystem of which we are a part.
It will take everything we have and more. But the alternative – that these forces of the Fourth Reich should win – is unthinkable.
We are under direct attack by the ascendancy of this Forth Reich – known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. While protecting our own psychological & physical integrity and that of our families as best we can we cannot afford to ignore the presence of that 500 Ton Gorilla – the World Economic Forum & partners and the unique brand of modern totalitarianism they represent.
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Featured image is from the author
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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***
“This was a premeditated terrorist attack on European critical infrastructure (Nord Stream),” says @wallacemick, member of the European Parliament (MEP).
“I find it, frankly, jaw-dropping that the EU is not asking questions as to who is responsible,” says MEP Clare Daly.
Watch the video below.
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***
The lesson learned, and largely ignored, is that the government Americans vote for every two and four years does not “represent” them.
East Palestine is the lesson du jour. So long as it remains in the corporate media’s “news cycle,” coverage will downplay the federal government’s decision to ignore the poisoning of thousands of people, not only in East Palestine but across Ohio and Pennsylvania.
Joe Biden does not believe this disaster warrants a reaction. He has not traveled to East Palestine. Biden’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, waited more than two weeks to travel there, and only to shore up the government’s image as responsive and caring, which it is not.
The fact of the matter is, the government does not care about your welfare or protecting you from psychopathic profit-centric corporations. It has nothing but contempt for those, not of the billionaire class, the bankers, CEOs of transnational corporations, and attached lobbyists passing out fiat dollars to keep the crony capitalist game moving along—until it falls off a cliff, as it will soon enough.
The residents of East Palestine are outraged that Biden refused to send FEMA in response to a corporate-caused crime against humanity. As a comparison, consider FEMA’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
“The storm flooded New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 people, and caused $100 billion in property damage,” writes Chris Edwards. “The storm’s damage was greatly exacerbated by the failures of Congress, the Bush administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Army Corps of Engineers.”
Many Americans have arrived at the conclusion the government is incompetent, corrupt, and unable to respond effectively to natural and manmade disasters. In fact, the problem is far worse than mere incompetence and bureaucratic red tape.
FEMA actively blocked the emergency response to the disaster. FEMA turned away doctors volunteering their services at emergency facilities. FEMA blocked rescue flights headed to New Orleans. FEMA denied the Red Cross acess. FEMA turned away trucks from Walmart loaded with water. FEMA and the Bush administration seriously aggravated the human catastrophe in New Orleans.
It is absurd to think all these “failures” were the result of mismanagement and stupidity. The fact of the matter is, the federal government simply did not consider Katrina and the lives of mostly poor in the Ninth Ward worthy of a humanitarian response. George Carlin was correct: the government doesn’t give a f*#@ about you. It has other priorities. At the time of Katrina, the top priority was killing people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Wow!
Treasury Secretary announces $10 billion in economic aid to desperate Americans in East Palestine, Ohio
Now the priority is kickstarting WWIII. Forget about Joe and Pete, they are mouthpieces and apologists for crimes of the state. East Palestine—or Flint, where polluted drinking water has gone unresolved for almost a decade—is not worthy of a response. Ohio is a “red state,” and partisan politics define the uniparty.
Ukraine is not about people. It’s about saving the USG-dominated Empire.
Russia and China are capable challengers, never mind their own problems with corruption and authoritarianism. Russia has said on numerous occasions it will respond with nuclear weapons if confronted by an existential threat.
Lloyd Austin, boss of Murder Incorporated, has specifically stated the objective is to balkanize Russia. It is eager to confront China in its own backyard. For the ruling elite, this competition is the only issue of concern. The people are only needed during elections and, as sacrificial lambs, during manufactured wars.
The lesson of East Palestine and Ukraine is that your welfare is irrelevant to the state. However, through its miseducation system and corporate media, the crony capitalist state has managed to indoctrinate and brainwash millions of people into believing government exists to help them. The excuse is that the government is a bureaucratic dinosaur unable to respond. It’s true, the state is a dinosaur. However, as should be obvious to all, there is scant evidence bureaucrats and statist apparatchiks actually care about you and your family.
They serve a predatory crony capitalist state and its “stakeholders” (large corporations, banks). This is fascism, or corporatism, as Benito Mussolini called it. Fascism is antithetical to individualism. It considers people to be little more than pawns to be used and discarded in pursuit of global hegemony, the process of swindling humanity out of its birthright, and turning the planet into a control freak slave gulag “where you will own nothing” and will be at the mercy of psychopathic killers.
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Comments Off on Biden Administration’s Decision to Ignore the Poisoning of Thousands of People, Not Only in East Palestine but Across Ohio and Pennsylvania
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***
I have probably used the word ‘evil’ more, in these last three years of “Corona Fascism”, than I had hitherto ever employed the term. It has been my way of attempting – not so successfully, as I will show – to explain how so many people can have been so blithely subjected to the genocide we are experiencing now, with its attendant consequences – consequences that include the subversion of long-standing ethical and medical principles, the inversion of the meaning of formerly well-understood concepts such as vaccination, and the facile depredation of human rights by State powers.
The perpetrators of the universal lockdowns, the imposition of useless masks, the destruction of businesses and livelihoods by these measures and then by the mandates to be inoculated with an unnecessary and dangerous medical intervention – these perpetrators are the people I call evil; and I call evil also those who, knowing better – doctors, for example – went and continue to go along with the horrific charade.
In a recent essay, Naomi Wolf writes that ‘the madness we saw unveiled since 2020 could not have been brought about by normal history, or by ill-intentioned individuals, using human agency’.
There is no need to invoke the powers and principalities of another world to explain what occurred, nor is there any reason to dismiss the overwhelming evidence that the globe followed a narrow and consistent set of harmful and demonstrably unscientific policies precisely because it was highly organized and coordinated by a relatively small group of overlords.
With every day more and more data confirm that the covid inoculations are ineffective and highly dangerous and should never have passed muster during clinical trials. This did not happen by accident, fate, chance, organic development or supernatural visitation: it happened because people in power made the call to kill.
Unless and until we accept the fact that the institutions that have purported to have our well-being at heart have betrayed us, and that political leaders and national governments – like that in New Zealand –have actively colluded to harm their citizenry, we will be all the more subject to enslavement, control and, stripped of autonomy, consigned to a living if not actual death.
A particularly apposite example of evil comes to mind, one that I have cited before, which involves a local healthcare practitioner who, after having received his first covid inoculation, developed severe cardiac symptoms. Unable to traverse his living room without extreme discomfort and shortness of breath, he consulted a cardiologist who supported his application for an exemption from further jabs. The then-Director General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield, ostensibly a physician, dismissed the cardiologist’s recommendation and without ever examining the person in question refused to grant an exemption. Bloomfield, who has since been awarded with a knighthood, ironically enough, insisted that unless this person received further injections he would not be able to practice in his healthcare role.
What good doctor would have taken such a course? What doctor would have purposefully mandated a further dose of a substance that had already been shown to have caused significant harm? How else to explain this as anything but an act of evil? How else to explain a government’s active suppression of any early and actual treatment of covid except as an act of evil? How to explain why the Medical Council of New Zealand continues to persecute doctors for having prescribed Ivermectin, for having expressed caution about the covid injections, for insisting on individualized treatment approaches to their patients, for warning about the potential hazards of an mRNA jab, for questioning lockdowns and masks and daring to extol natural immunity?
But there is something lacking when evil is invoked as an explanatory concept, because evil itself has as many guises as there are individuals: its manifestations are wildly and unpredictably accomplished, and its tools are seemingly limitless. G. K. Chesterton informs us that the very Devil himself can quote Scripture for his purpose, and, furthermore, Shakespeare writes, through his character Banquo:
‘The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence’ (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3).
Humankind is often celebrated for characteristics that distinguish it from the animal kingdom: language, art, and science. Its great accomplishments are held as shining exemplars of a special status. There is, however, another distinguishing feature, which is scarcely mentioned: the human capacity for gratuitous cruelty.
Animals murder when they are hungry and revert to peaceable ways when they are sated. We humans behave otherwise. For me, it is this capacity for – if not an outright addiction to – gratuitous destruction that constitutes the very kernel of evil.
We see it in small ways when out of the blue an acquaintance may hurl an unnecessary barb another’s way, and in large ways when people in positions of great power have wielded that power to slaughter millions. The well-known genocides perpetrated by Hitler, Stalin and Mao, the wholly unnecessary use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to incinerate hapless civilians and, now, the manipulation of the secrets of the human genome to unleash a murderous so-called vaccination that has resulted in phenomenal ‘excess mortality’ – these all spring from the same root.
Within the breasts and hearts and minds and souls of every human being resides the neverending struggle between the forces of good and the forces of gratuitous destruction. When the Power Elites conspire to manipulate, they depend upon recruiting our darker drives. Like many I was shocked by the vehemence of self-styled progressives and liberals – like Professor Noam Chomsky – who called for punishing the unjabbed – healthy people who posed no danger except to arbitrary State authority.
The impulse to do harm purely for the fun, the delight, the wonder of it … this execrable inborn trait, seems rooted in the human need for action. Heavens, no matter how wonderfully described, are boring. Real nirvana is achieved only in those grandiose moments when sadistic and sexual pleasures are merged into one unending fantasy of omnipotently destructive bliss. It is this kind of infantile and quintessentially human condition to which the Technocratic Singularity, offered by those who have co-opted the ever more condensed and ever more potent tools of digital power, aspires.
As Shakespeare’s Mark Antony declaims over the body of the assassinated Julius Caesar:
‘The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones’ (Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2)
Perhaps here is revealed a significant truth that helps us to understand the apparently relentless and unquenchable thirst to kill: in the profoundest depths of the unconscious mind, only evil grants man immortality.
We humans nonetheless have the capacity to love, to show compassion, and to engage in cooperative enterprises of great beauty, every bit as exciting, to my mind, than the theatrical banality of murder, annihilation and control.
We ourselves have the choice to submit to the blandishments of gratuitous harm, as Cain did when he murdered his undeserving brother Abel, or to cultivate our better selves.
Over these past three years I have met many good people who have chosen wisely. We shall prevail.
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Dr. Garcia is a Philadelphia-born psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand in 2006. He has authored articles ranging from explorations of psychoanalytic technique, the psychology of creativity in music (Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Delius), and politics. He is also a poet, novelist and theatrical director. He retired from psychiatric practice in 2021 after working in the public sector in New Zealand. Visit his substack at https://newzealanddoc.substack.com/
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
In his state of the union address on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of the New START Treaty, which limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads. “The Defense Ministry and Rosatom must make everything ready for Russia to conduct nuclear tests. We will not be the first to proceed with these tests, but if the United States goes ahead with them, we will as well.” The suspension is not a termination, and the choice to suspend rather than withdraw opens up the possibility for future reinstatement.
What is most significant is this marks the end of the last remaining arms control treaty between Russia and the United States.
As it stands, there are no existing written agreements between the two largest nuclear powers to limit their arms build up, launch time, and magnitude of destruction.
Below is a brief overview of the advent and demise of arms control.
Before The Treaties
Ever since the first atom bombs were dropped on Japan there were discussions of arms control in the new age of atomic weapons. The Baruch Plan of 1946 was an attempt to get an international coalition to regulate atomic energy and its failure resulted in the first arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Soviets obtaining the bomb in 1949 solidified the danger of the new rivalry.
We’ve come a long way from the “duck and cover drills” that were popular in the 50’s, where the fear was instilled in every child’s head as they all shot under their school desks at a moment’s notice in preparation for an atom bomb attack. That fear was not entirely unwarranted—the real threat of a nuclear war with Russia wasn’t just possible, it defined the cold war.
Mutually assured destruction was coined by Donald Brennan with the acronym M.A.D. to ironically describe the reality of complete annihilation by the attacker and defender in a nuclear war. But it wasn’t a joke—with the advent of ballistic missile submarines, it became a doctrine of our national security policy.1
As the Cuban Missile Crisis taught us, we could not sustain a world like this. It was only a matter of time, through malfeasance or ineptitude, that a geopolitical dispute would lead us to MAD. Before any treaties limiting the scope and scale of nuclear arms were implemented, it was the good faith of world leaders that had kept this possibility at bay.
The FirstTreaties
The first of these treaty negotiations began in the late 1960’s with what became the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) under Nixon, which was put in place to limit the arms race build up by limiting air-defense systems. A build of of ABMs were seen to instigate an arms race to deter the effectiveness of the defenders missile interception systems by overwhelming them. Two ABM systems were allowed with 100 anti-ballistic missiles on each site.
In the 80’s, Reagan and Gorbachev both wanted to move beyond the policy of MAD. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which has been in negotiations for over a decade, was finally signed by the two leaders in 1987, banned all ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and missile launchers with ranges of 500–1,000 kilometers (310–620 mi) (short medium-range) and 1,000–5,500 km (620–3,420 mi) (intermediate-range). This effectively eliminated the threat of nuclear attacks in Europe. Among the proposals for the INF Treaty was the phasing out of all nuclear weapons, which Gorbachev was ready to do. However, the negations outlined in the treaty as it existed were as far as Reagan was willing to go.2
President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev signing the INF Treaty in the East Room of the White House.
The Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) signed in 1990 limited the amount of military equipment an alliance could build up on the continent. 20,000 tanks and 20,000 artillery pieces were allotted to each side, including how much military buildup was allowed on the “flanks” of nations. This treaty greatly weakened Russia with the breakup of the Warsaw Pact. A Soviet Era treaty, it underwent several modifications in the post-USSR period, including the former Soviet Republics and the “flank” rules.
Then, in a rare moment of clarity in post USSR relations, came the START Treaty in 1991 under the George H. Bush administration, which limited the number of ICBM’s to 1,600 and nuclear warheads to 6,000. Massive amounts of warheads and other weapons were destroyed, as well as years of mutual inspections between Russia and The United States.
Soon after START II, a treaty that banned the use of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) on ICBMs was later negotiated, and even went as far as to be ratified by Russia. The treaty was conditional on the U.S. staying in the ABM treaty, and when Washington pulled out of that treaty on ABM, all START II negotiations were suspended.
In 1955 at the Geneva Conference, Dwight D. Eisenhower first suggested a treaty of non-combatant planes to fly over enemy territory to ensure trust through aerial surveillance flights. In 1992, George Bush Sr. successfully negotiated the Open Skies Treaty of which 34 countries signed. Finally, planes could fly over distant countries to ensure they were not building up arms and following international protocols.
USSR Breakup
The dissolution of the USSR saw the largest nuclear stockpile in the world fall into the hands of numerous republics overnight. 35,000 nuclear warheads were redistributed into countries like Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other former Soviet Republics. “Perhaps the most astonishing fact about the past twenty years is something that did not happen” wrote Harvard professor Graham Allison. One by one, they were sent back to Russia, dismantled and decommissioned.
Ukraine, embroiled in war today, would have been the 3rd largest nuclear power if it were not for disarmament in the 1990s. The Clinton administration had convinced the leaders of Ukraine that nuclear weapons would not deter Russian aggression, but rather incentivize it. The prompt and complete denuclearization of Ukraine was completed in exchange for security promises.
Missile silo in the Central Ukraine for a SS-24 missile
But this time was not without it’s moments. January 25, 1995 saw a high altitude Norwegian missile exercise that was detected by the Russian Air defense system. The trajectory was on course for Moscow. Russian President Boris Yeltsin was handed a brief case with the nuclear codes in them and in a matter of minutes had to make a decision. If this test had been done with missiles from the INF treaty, the amount of time that Yeltsin would’ve had to make his decision would go from 30 minutes to about 5 minutes. In all likelihood, the INF treaty had saved the world from mutually assured destruction. Without arms control, it would be a world gone MAD.
The 2000s: Withdrawal and Suspension
The late 90’s had seen the deterioration of U.S.-Soviet relations over conflicts in Chechnya, Bosnia and Kosovo, with a brief reprieve after the cooperation in military operations following the 9/11 attacks. But Bush’s war on terror and the fear of another attack caused him to suspend the ABM treaty in 2001, deeming it unnecessary in the post-USSR age and defending that anti-ballistic missile systems were necessary “to protect our people from future terrorist or rogue state missile attacks.”3
Anti-ballistic missile defense was never fully functional, intercepting 11 out of 19 missiles in a recent test.4
They cost hundreds of billions of dollars to maintain and suffer from program management issues.5,6
As writer James M Acton states: “No U.S. test has ever involved a target missile traveling at the speed necessary to reach the lower 48 states from North Korea. No test ever has involved a salvo of two or more incoming ICBMs or has appeared to have included realistic countermeasures, such as decoys shaped like real warheads.”7
In recent years, Russia and China have introduced a range of new ICBMs that are designed to counter U.S. missile defense systems. Putin has stated that these items are a response to the U.S. pulling out of the ABM treaty.
The Conventional Forces In Europe Treaty went through several reformations in the 90’s to accommodate for the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe and the balance of alliances. In 2007, the U.S. established military bases in Romania and Bulgaria which Moscow claimed was a breach of the treaty. NATO disputed this claim by stating the U.S. bases were not permanent. However, the Washington Times confirmed from a senior U.S. official the agreement allowed for permanent bases.8
The U.S. still has military bases there to this day. Russia formally withdrew from the treaty in 2014.
The “Russian Reset” that the Obama Administration employed with Russia was a geostrategic policy intended to ease tensions between Russia and the international community following the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. During this time, they negotiated the New START treaty, which calls for halving the amount of nuclear missile launchers. The Russian Reset was short lived, and tensions soon reignited with the Maidan Coup and the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014.
Post-Maidan Uprising
During Trump’s first few years in office, his administration was attacked with constant Kremlin collusion allegations. The administration responded with a heavier hand to look tough towards Russia, often hastily and irrational. Arms control treaties were collateral damage of that campaign.
In 2018, the U.S. State Department released a report that Russia was violating the INF treaty with their SSC-8 missile. Russia responded by re-asserting that the missile was within compliance standards of the New START. They went on to strike back at the U.S., claiming that the European missile defense launch system could be used to fire cruise missiles in violation of the treaty.9
Trump responded by abruptly withdrawing from the treaty, much to the surprise of other NATO countries.
Test launch of the Russian SCC-8 Missile, accused of violating the INF Treaty
The Open Skies Treaty, while negotiated in 1992, did not go into effect until 2002. In August of that year, the first Russian planes would fly over the U.S. in accordance with the treaty. U.S. planes flew over Russia later that year. But the international community would soon place a double standard on Russia. In 2006, Latvia suspended flights over it’s territory for one month for NATO ministers visiting the country. In April of 2008, several religious holidays lined up to create a shortage of hotels for visiting groups and Russia asked for a one-week delay in overhead flights. The U.S. accused Russia of violating the terms of the treaty, while Latvia received no such condemnation.
In 2017, a Russian plane flew over Washington DC, and this was too much for the legislators in Washington to swallow. The Defense Appropriation Law of 2018 banned the use of public funds for the Open Skies Program unless the president certified that Russia has complied with all American wishes regarding the treaty. Congress had given Trump a choice: concede with letting the treaty expire or look more like he’s cozying up to Russia. In May of 2020 Trump gave the required 6 months notice to withdraw. Putin soon followed suit. Russia formally withdrew from the treaty in December of 2021.
The End of the Arms Control Era:
The final nail in the coffin for the arms control era took place this week with NATO demanding that Russia return to the implementation of the New START Treaty with inspections of their nuclear defense facilities. Inspections have been paused since 2020 from COVID-19, but with the request to return Putin responded “It is a kind of theatre of the absurd…we know that the West is directly involved in the Kiev regime’s attempts to strike at our strategic aviation bases….and now they want to inspect our defense facilities? In the current conditions of confrontation, it simply sounds insane.”
Putin suspending the New START with no end to the proxy war in Ukraine in sight marks the end of the arms control era, or at least, this era. Not only are there no limiting treaties, there are no talks happening between Russia and the United States. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has had only one documented meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov since the start of the Russian invasion last February, and that meeting was over a prisoner exchange.
John Kennedy phoning with Nikita Khrushchev during those fateful days in 1962 saved us. Ronald Reagan’s relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev negotiated the end of the Soviet Union and the historic nuclear arms control treaties that led us into the post-USSR era. Bill Clinton’s relationship with Boris Yeltsin allowed for the dismemberment of the thousands of nuclear weapons that were left in the former Soviet Republics after it’s collapse.
But today, there are no consistent lines of communication between Russia and the United States, and no arms control treaties.
Thus ends the arms control era.
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In an interview with CNBC News in September 2020, Dr. Albert Bourla, the veterinarian Chief Executive Officer of Pfizer — the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world by revenue — said that anyone refusing to take the BioNTech vaccine will become “the weak link that will allow the virus to replicate”, and assured the public that “we will develop our product, develop our vaccine using the highest ethical standards”.
Pfizer has a long history of paying out vast sums in out-of-court settlements to avoid not only claims in civil cases but also prosecution on criminal charges resulting from the fraudulent promotion, unapproved prescription and injury, including death, from use of its products. It has also offered millions in payments to doctors and scientists to prescribe, test, approve and recommend them to the public. So let’s have a look at what Dr. Albert Bourla means by Pfizer’s ‘ethical standards’.
In 1992, Pfizer agreed to pay between $165 million and $215 million to settle lawsuits arising from the fracturing of the Bjork-Shiley Convexo-Concave heart valve, which by 2012 has resulted in 663 deaths.
In 1996, Pfizer conducted an unapproved clinical trial on 200 Nigerian children with its experimental anti-meningitis drug, Trovafloxacin, without the consent of their parents and which led to the death of 11 children from kidney failure and left dozens more disabled. In 2011, Pfizer paid just $700,000 to four families who had lost a child and set up a $35 million fund for the disabled. This cover-up was the basis of the John Le Carré book and film The Constant Gardener.
In 2004, Pfizer’s subsidiary Warner-Lambert was fined $430 million to resolve criminal charges and civil liabilities for the fraudulent promotion of its epilepsy drug, Neurontin, paying doctors to prescribe it for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
In 2009, Pfizer spent $25.8 million lobbying Congressional lawmakers and federal agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services. Its expenditure on federal lobbying between 2006 and 2014 came to $89.89 million. In 2019 it spent $11 million lobbying the federal Government.
In 2009, Pfizer set a record for the largest health care fraud settlement and the largest criminal fine of any kind, paying $2.3 billion to avoid criminal and civil liability for fraudulently marketing its anti-inflammatory drug, Bextra, which had been refused approval by the FDA due to safety concerns.
In 2009, Pfizer paid $750 million to settle 35,000 claims that its diabetes drug, Rezulin, was responsible for 63 deaths and dozens of liver failures. In 1999, a senior epidemiologist at the Food and Drug Administration warned that Rezulin was “one of the most dangerous drugs on the market”.
In 2010, Pfizer was ordered to pay $142.1 million in damages for violating a federal anti-racketeering law by its fraudulent sale and marketing of Neurontin for uses not approved by the FDA, including for migraines and bi-polar disorder.
In 2010, Pfizer admitted that, in the last six months of 2009 alone, it had paid $20 million to 4,500 doctors in the U.S. for consulting and speaking on its behalf, and $15.3 million to 250 academic medical centres for clinical trials.
In 2012, Pfizer paid $45 million to settle charges of bribing doctors and other health-care professionals employed by foreign Governments in order to win business. The Chief of the Securities and Exchange Commission Enforcement Division’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Unit said: “Pfizer subsidiaries in several countries had bribery so entwined in their sales culture that they offered points and bonus programs to improperly reward foreign officials who proved to be their best customers.”
By 2012, Pfizer had paid $1.226 billion to settle claims by nearly 10,000 women that its hormone replacement therapy drug, Prempro, caused breast cancer.
In 2013, Pfizer agreed to pay $55 million to settle criminal charges of failing to warn patients and doctors about the risks of kidney disease, kidney injury, kidney failure and acute interstitial nephritis caused by its proton pump inhibitor, Protonix.
In 2013, Pfizer set aside $288 million to settle claims by 2,700 people that its smoking cessation drug, Chantix, caused suicidal thoughts and severe psychological disorders. The Food and Drug Administration subsequently determined that Chantix is probably associated with a higher risk of heart attack.
In 2013, Pfizer absolved itself of claims that its antidepressant, Effexor, caused congenital heart defects in the children of pregnant woman by arguing that the prescribing obstetrician was responsible for advising the patient about the medication’s use.
In 2014, Pfizer paid a further $325 million to settle a lawsuit brought by health-care benefit providers who claimed the company marketed its epilepsy drug, Neurontin, for purposes unapproved by the FDA.
In 2014, Pfizer paid $35 million to settle a law suit accusing its subsidiary of promoting the kidney transplant drug, Rapamune, for unapproved uses, including bribing doctors to prescribe it to patients.
In 2016, Pfizer was fined a record £84.2 million for overcharging the NHS for its rebranded and deregulated anti-epilepsy drug Phenytoin by 2,600% (from £2.83 to £67.50 a capsule), increasing the cost to U.K. taxpayers from £2 million in 2012 to about £50 million in 2013.
In May 2018, Pfizer still had 6,000 lawsuits pending against claims that its testosterone replacement therapy products cause strokes, heart attacks, pulmonary embolism and deep vein thrombosis, and were fraudulently marketed at healthy men for uses not approved by the FDA.
In June-August 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice said they were looking at Pfizer’s activities in China and Russia under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which forbids U.S. firms from bribing foreign officials.
In November 2021, the British Medical Journal revealed that the Ventavia Research Group had falsified data, unblinded patients, employed inadequately trained vaccinators, and was slow to follow up on adverse events reported in the phase 3 trial for Pfizer’s ‘vaccine’.
Since 2000, Pfizer has incurred $10.268 billion in penalties, including $5.637 billion for safety-related offences; $3.373 billion for unapproved promotion of medical products; $1.148 billion for government contract-related offences; $60 million under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; and $34.7 million for ‘kickbacks and bribery’.
Given this record of ongoing corruption and malpractice from, which only its enormous profits have saved it from criminal prosecution by means of out-of-court settlements, it seems extraordinary that Pfizer Inc. is still permitted to manufacture and sell any health-care products. Yet this is the pharmaceutical company we were asked by the U.K. Government, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, the U.K. Health Security Agency and the National Health Service to trust with the mass vaccination of 68 million people with a product that was rushed through clinical trials in seven months, employing experimental mRNA biotechnology whose clinical trials are not due to be completed until March 2023, for a disease with the infection fatality rate not much above seasonal influenza, which statistically is no threat to those under 50 years old, and for which there is no evidence that it prevents infection by the virus.
That was three years ago, during which the British people have paid with their freedoms, their health and their lives for believing the lies of their Government, their National Health Service and international pharmaceutical companies. Subsequent retractions by Pfizer, however, are an opportunity to revisit its claims in more detail.
On December 10th 2020, the U.S. Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met to evaluate the trial data on the efficacy and safety of Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine contained in the briefing document produced by Pfizer itself titled ‘Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (BNT162, PF-07302048) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee Briefing Document‘. It was on the basis of this evaluation that, on December 11th, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Emergency Use Authorisation to its mRNA gene therapy product. And given the subsequent debate about what Pfizer claimed its ‘vaccine’ would do, it might be useful to review the contents of this document.
The FDA’s Emergency Use Authorisation, which requires less data than standard approvals and is based on a lower standard of proof, was issued for a vaccine “intended to prevent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2”. It was issue for prevention, therefore, not for reduction of the severity of symptoms, as was claimed when it became clear the gene therapy product did not prevent infection. Pfizer’s claim was that its product had a ‘vaccine efficacy’ of 95% protection against COVID-19 occurring after second days from injection with the second dose. In its clinical trials, a ‘case’ of COVID-19 was defined as a positive RT-PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 and the presence of at least one of the following symptoms: fever, cough, shortness of breath, chills, muscle pain, loss of taste or smell, sore throat, diarrhoea or vomiting. Nothing was said about asymptomatic ‘cases’ of COVID-19, or claimed about the ability of the gene therapy product to stop ‘asymptomatic transmission’ of the virus.
Pfizer’s benefit assessment was that its mRNA vaccine may be able to induce “herd immunity”, induces strong “immune responses”, and “confers strong protection against COVID-19”. This clearly indicates protection against both infection with the virus and the disease. Since transmission of a virus from person to person requires prior infection, Pfizer’s claim that its vaccine protects against infection, and the suggestion that sufficient injections will induce ‘herd immunity’, is also, by extension, a claim that it stops transmission from the injected.
The subsequent claim by Janine Small, Pfizer’s President of International Developed Markets, during her testimony before the European Union Parliament in October 2022, that Pfizer never tested whether its ‘vaccine’ stopped transmission appears, therefore, to rest on the myth of ‘asymptomatic transmission’. The implication of her statement was that Pfizer’s product only stops infection with SARS-CoV-2 and symptoms of COVID-19. However, the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorisation for Pfizer’s vaccine was based on prevention of both infection and disease. Pfizer’s claim is not evidence, as many afterwards claimed, for the lack of justification for making injection a condition of lifting lockdown or imposing vaccine passports, but rather an attempt to deny responsibility for the failure of its product (from which it has made $69 billion) to meet either of its claims.
An indication of just how unscientific was the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorisation of Pfizer’s vaccine is that it was granted on the basis of protection from infection and disease, while conceding there is no evidence that the vaccine “prevents transmission from person to person“. This is the way the ‘Science’ we mustn’t question or deny but blindly follow is conducted in what I call the global biosecurity state. Indeed, three years after it announced the pandemic in March 2020, the World Health Organisation can still only offer the following justifications for the four vaccines authorised for use in the U.K.
Pfizer/BioNTech: “There is modest vaccine impact on transmission.”
AstraZeneca/Oxford: “No substantive data are available related to impact of the vaccine on transmission or viral shedding.”
Moderna: “There is only modest impact on preventing mild infections and transmission.”
Novavax: “There is not currently sufficient evidence to date to evaluate the impact of the vaccine on transmission.” (See World Health Organisation, ‘COVID-19 advice for the public: Getting vaccinated’.)
Failure to offer protection against infection or transmission, however, are the least of the failings of Pfizer’s ‘vaccine’. As the evidence of the harms and deaths caused by this experimental gene therapy product injected into the U.K. public becomes too overwhelming for all but the Covid-faithful, the British press, the U.K. Parliament and our Government to ignore, there have been no end of doctors, nurses and medical professionals protesting they thought Pfizer’s biotechnology was ‘safe and effective’. But aren’t they trained to spot when something is going medically very wrong?
As of January 25th 2023, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, responsible for authorising the injection of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine into U.K. citizens, has received 180,005 reports of 517,779 adverse reactions to the injections, over 70% of which reports (127,405) have been classified as ‘serious’, including 884 deaths following injection. Including AstraZeneca’s viral-vector gene therapy product and Moderna’s mRNA gene therapy, the MHRA has received a total of 477,553 reports of 1,555,433 adverse reactions to the COVID-19 gene therapies, 74 per cent of which (355,052 reports) are categorised as ‘serious’, including 2,436 deaths following injection.
By the MHRA’s own estimation, only 10% of serious adverse reactions and 2-4% of non-serious reactions are reported, so the actual tally of injuries, autoimmune disease, reproductive and breast disorders, miscarriages and premature births, facial paralysis, blood clotting, amputations, myocarditis, pericarditis, heart attacks and deaths — all of which were recorded in Pfizer’s own analysis of post-authorisation adverse events as early as February 2021 — is far higher, undoubtedly many times higher. Indeed, this — and not the risible excuses with which the U.K. public has been fobbed off by the U.K. media — is likely a major cause of the huge increase in mortality in the U.K. since the ‘vaccine’ programme was implemented, contributing to the more than 60,000 excess deaths in 2022.
Given which, it is my contention that any medical professional that authorised or administered the injection of U.K. citizens with the Pfizer/BioNTech gene therapy product is at risk of being found guilty in a court of law for failure to give sufficient warning of adverse effects and obtain informed consent.
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Simon Elmer is the author of two new volumes of articles on the U.K. biosecurity state, Virtue and Terror and The New Normal, which are available in hardback, paperback and as an ebook. This article is an extract from an article in Volume 2, ‘Bowling for Pfizer’. Please click on these links for the contents page and purchase options. On March 11th, to mark the third anniversary since the declaration of the pandemic by the World Health Organisation, he will be holding a book launch at the Star & Garter, 62 Poland Street, W1F 7NX, upstairs in the William Blake room from 6-8pm. Entry is free, with book signings, a reading and open-mic discussion.
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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The antinuclear antibody is a well-established laboratory test to detect forms of autoimmune diseases including systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis. Chen et al have described a 23 year old woman who developed pericarditis 10 days after the Pfizer vaccine. Symptoms did not resolve with colchicine and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory agents. The ANA blood test was found to be positive at a high titer. She responded well to the addition of corticosteroids.
The important point of this case is that a positive ANA can accompany COVID-19 vaccine induced myopericarditis. When it is present it may be a signal of steroid-responsiveness.
Chen YS, Wu YW, Chiang CH, Lin HH. Acute Pericarditis with High Anti-Nuclear Antibody Titers Following BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination. Acta Cardiol Sin. 2022 Nov;38(6):784-787. doi: 10.6515/ACS.202211_38(6).20220522A. PMID: 36440237; PMCID: PMC9692212.
Noureldine et al have reported on 101 subjects with no history of autoimmune disease but with 18% having a family history of autoimmunity. The overall rates of positive ANA tests at low titers was the same before and after serial mRNA injections. However, in the cases where new positive tests were observed after vaccination, the specific test that turned positive was the antiphospholipid antibody which is related to blood clotting disorders.
In conclusion, there is a growing literature that mRNA and WIV Spike protein production in some recipients of genetic COVID-19 vaccines results in positive laboratory tests indicating autoimmunity. The long-term implications for emerging rheumatologic problems (pericarditis, arthritis, hepatitis) after repeated COVID-19 vaccinations are unknown. There should be a strong push to study autoimmune illnesses that emerge as a result of COVID-19 vaccination.
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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.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
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Idlib, Syria was devastated by a 7.8 earthquake on February 6. The leaks coming out of Idlib are from those working with the international aid groups in Idlib. Whistleblowers are exposing Mohammed Al-Julani and his terrorist organization Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The UN aid trucks were full and arrived at the al-Bab border crossing from Turkey into Syria with supplies for the survivors of the massive earthquake which is being called the disaster of the century. HTS refused entry to the trucks because they wanted a $1,000 bounty for each truck.
The UN reported their team is in Idlib assessing the needs of the people. The UN is well aware of the whistleblowers in Idlib who work for the aid agencies, and are reporting the fraud and misdistribution of humanitarian aid by Al-Julani, HTS, and his Salvation Government.
Aid agencies inside Idlib are CARE International, Danish Refugee Council, Global Communities – Syria, HI – Humanity & Inclusion, The Mentor Initiative, Sham Humanitarian, People in Need, Norwegian Refugee Council, HIHFAD, Dozana, Solidarités International, World Vision, Welt Hunger Life, Christian Aid, Syrian Relief & Development, Tamdeen Youth Foundation, Asylum Access, Rahma Worldwide, ATAA, SAMS, BINAA, International Rescue Committee, SEMA, Action for Humanity, Takaful Al Sham, CAFOD, Abs Development Organization for Woman & Child, Search for Common Ground, Save the Children, Action Aid, Relief International, Oxfam, War Child, Act Alliance, Mercy Corps.
In June 2022, Al-Monitor reported that HTS, and the Salvation Government in Idlib, were in full control of the humanitarian aid being provided to displaced persons in Idlib and parts of the northern countryside of Aleppo.
The international aid agencies were being restricted in their work by HTS which demands the aid be dispersed according to HTS discretion. HTS stormed into the aid offices and warehouses and arrested some employees to intimidate the aid agencies into subservience to HTS command.
Human rights activists have long complained that HTS steals aid, prevents the distribution of aid fairly, and extorts money from the agencies to continue their work in Idlib and the areas HTS controls. The extortion is the basis for hard currency for HTS and their prime source of income.
First-hand testimony came from a former HTS policeman who had been held in prison by HTS for smoking cigarettes. He has since left Idlib and talked with Al-Monitor anonymously.
He said, “HTS uses several methods to control the NGOs’ work and get a share of the projects they [NGOs] implement for the displaced. First, it forces NGOs to pay a sum of money in hard currency on a monthly basis in return for them to pursue their relief work in HTS-held areas. The movement also deducts up to 10% of the relief aid offered by these NGOs.”
He explained that HTS distributes the aid first to its fighters, their families, and employees of HTS.
“When NGOs provide educational or health projects, they are forced to include some civilians or people who are ideologically loyal to HTS with the aim to improve its [HTS’] image before the community and present it as the authority that has the best interest of the residents at heart, seeking to provide job opportunities for them,” the man explained.
He was paid $100 a month and provided with food and ration supplies for himself and his family.
Over the years, several aid organizations stopped their work in Idlib because of the HTS extortion and control. The Karam Foundation located in Reyhanli, Turkey had stopped their work in Idlib due to HTS interference and charity fraud.
“HTS requested us to pay $20,000 to continue with our relief work in Idlib. It also imposed the names of people affiliated with it to be part of the organization’s educational and health projects, by sending their resumes, which we considered a violation of our privacy,” reported a former employee at the aid agency Subul al-Salam told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
He said, “In mid-2019, our organization decided to stop abiding by these conditions, which prompted HTS to break into our warehouses in the towns of Ahsem, Ariha, and Jabal al-Zawiya in Idlib, seizing all contents and arresting several employees before releasing them later. This prompted the organization to halt its activities altogether.”
In June 2022, HTS arrested several workers of the Al-Qalb al-Kabir (Big Heart) organization in Idlib on charges of corruption, forcing them to pay $60,000 as a settlement before releasing the detained employees.
Al-Julani and his HTS have a particular hatred of any projects aimed at females. Any NGO or aid group, including the UN, must first submit a proposal for any project including females to be allowed.
Mohammed al-Yunis, originally from Idlib and currently based in France, is a former employee of Subul al-Salam. He told Al-Monitor that HTS stopped several projects that aimed at supporting women, especially camp residents.
He noted that HTS has recently banned all projects concerned with supporting, empowering, and educating women, prosecuted several feminist activists in its area of control, and closed down centers providing training, psychological support, and counseling for women, notably in the city of al-Atareb in the western countryside of Aleppo.
Yet, the US State Department and the UN are complicit in keeping HTS in power and keeping the 3 million civilians held hostage to an armed Radical Islamic terrorist group.
In November 2017, the Salivation Government, headed by Al-Julani, formed the so-called Organizations Affairs Management Office, to control the humanitarian aid and development projects funded by foreign organizations in northern Syria, in addition to extorting levies on all relief projects and materials introduced by NGOs into the area.
On February 1, 2023, Julani opened the Al Hamra shopping mall in Idlib, the equivalent of any mall located in a mid-sized city in the US. The mall was financed from the extorted funds the aid agencies have paid to HTS. Customers can ride the escalators even though most of Syria has just 30 minutes of electricity three times per day. The powerful gasoline generators are running day and night with fuel supplied from Turkey which buys the Syrian oil stolen by the US military who occupy the main Syrian oil wells in the northeast. This mall has all types of its merchandise on sale, among which is humanitarian aid which is overstocked and sold by Julani to civilians who are not on the list of those loyal to his terrorist group.
The UN and Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez are part of the aid fraud. For over a decade, the UN has been trucking in aid to the HTS terrorists and the unarmed civilians they hold as human shields. The group has always been in sole charge of what aid enters and who will be allowed to use it.
While the western media was showing videos of utter devastation and suffering following the recent earthquake, Al-Julani was controlling every movement of aid into Idlib, among the 3 million civilians qualifies for aid, and who are deprived.
The American journalist, Bilal Abdul Kareem, was held in prison in Idlib for more than six months by Al-Julani for criticizing HTS. Kareem has worked for CNN and BBC reporting from Idlib. He reported that he had been tortured by HTS and that Tauqir Sharif, a British aid worker had been restrained in a tire and beaten while in HTS custody.
The US government is firmly in support of the rights of the LGBTQ community worldwide, but not in Idlib.
The US State Department under Secretary Antony Blinken has planned for Julani to be installed in Damascus as leader of the proposed Islamic State of Syria. Barbara Leaf, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs traveled in September 2022 to the Middle East, but never visited Damascus. She and the US government she represents do not recognize Damascus as the government, but they do recognize Al-Julani and the Salvation Government, who they promote as the legitimate representatives of Syrians, even though the area they exist in is a mere 1% of the territory of Syria.
The UN charter states that every member must fight Al Qaeda everywhere on earth. Idlib is under the control of Al-Julani, who began his terrorist career in Iraq under Al Qaeda, then aligned himself with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS, who directed Al-Julani to go to Syria and establish a branch there.
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The United States will quadruple the number of US forces stationed on Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, in an effort to provoke a war with Beijing along the lines of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The United States is actively turning Taiwan into a military base just dozens of miles off the coast of mainland China, with the aim of goading China into invading the island, and painting the ensuing war as the result of “Chinese aggression.”
The announcement gives context to the Biden administration’s unprecedented decision to attack a Chinese research balloon that had been blown over the United States earlier this month, the first time that any aircraft had been shot down over US territory or its coastal waters.
The attack, and the media frenzy that preceded it, was used in an attempt to whip up public hysteria and fear of China, justifying a massive US military buildup on the other side of the world.
In January, Gen. Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command, sent a letter to his subordinates stating, “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025,” and urging them to get their “personal affairs” in order in preparation for a conflict with China.
In both May and September of last year, US President Joe Biden categorically asserted the US would be willing to go to war with China if it invaded Taiwan.
The announcement of the troop surge follows the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act at the end of last year. It effectively rendered the US’s decades-old “One China policy,” under which Washington de facto recognized the Beijing regime as the sole government of all China, including Taiwan, a dead letter by sending direct military aide to Taipei.
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Scores of Israeli settlers rampaged for several hours in the West Bank town of Huwara late on 26 February, leaving one Palestinian dead, at least 390 injured, and setting fire to at least 75 Palestinian homes and 100 cars.
Flocks of settlers attack and burn Palestinian homes in Nablus under the protection of the Israeli army.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said 37-year-old Sameh Aqtash was shot and killed by Israeli fire. The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said two other people were shot and wounded, a third person was stabbed, and a fourth was beaten with an iron bar.
The settlers descended on the Palestinian village brandishing firearms, knives, sticks, and stones under the protection of the Israeli army.
Unreal! #Israeli settlers are jubilantly dancing & celebrating their deadly pogrom on Huwara, where they killed a Palestinian, wounded over 100, burned down 15 homes, dozens of cars, shops & farms under the full protection of the IDF!
Images posted on social media show settlers killing an entire herd of sheep and uprooting olive trees and other crops from Palestinian farmers.
According to WAFA news agency, early on Monday, an Israeli settler tried to run over a group of journalists covering the raid in Huwara.
The attack on the Palestinian village came in response to the killing of two Israeli settlers on highway 60 near Huwara by a Palestinian gunman. Israeli Channel 12 reported that the man intercepted the settlers’ vehicle by ramming into it, got out and shot both of them, then escaped by foot.
Sunday’s violence occurred just as senior officials from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and the US met in the Red Sea resort of Aqaba, where they announced that Tel Aviv and the Palestinian Authority (PA) reached an agreement to “de-escalate tensions” for a period of three to six months.
“They reaffirmed the necessity of committing to de-escalation on the ground and to prevent further violence,” the Jordanian Foreign Ministry announced in a statement.
The statement also claimed Israel agreed to “stop discussion of any new settlement units for four months and to stop authorization of any outposts for six months.”
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly denied this claim, tweeting that “the building and authorization in [the West Bank] will continue according to the original planning and building schedule, with no change.”
Tel Aviv has also tightened its siege on the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, imposing a closure on the checkpoints of Huwara, Awarta, Al-Murabaa, Zatara, and entrances to Beita.
Over the past year, the occupied West Bank has witnessed a severe uptick in violence, both from settler assaults and Palestinian retaliatory attacks, in addition to the intense, often violent raids the Israeli army carries out on a near-daily basis.
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The general expectation that the first anniversary of Russia’s special military operations in Ukraine would mark the commencement of a big military offensive has been belied, going by the speeches by President Vladimir Putin and the US President Joe Biden,separated by a few hours on February 21, in Moscow and Warsaw.
Neither said anything very original. Putin cut himself loose towards the end of his speech by dropping a bombshell that Russia is suspending its participation in the New START treaty, which is its last nuclear weapons pact with the US. But the foreign ministry in Moscow has since clarified that Russia will continue to observe the terms of the treaty till 2026.
For Biden, with his rating dropping within Democratic Party, the steady decline of support in the public opinion for the war in Eurasia underscores that his narrative about democracy vs. autocracy is not taken seriously even in American opinion outside the neocon circle. Certainly, Biden wouldn’t want the burial of the New START treaty as his presidential legacy.
For Putin too, although his stunning popular rating touching 80 percent makes his re-election in March next year a certainty, should he decide to seek another term, there are domestic pressures. The Russian public is politically erudite and questions will rise as time passes, given the slow pace of the Ukraine operations. Although Russian economy has done well to withstand the western assault, it remains an amalgamate of a siege economy and a war economy. Putin himself is acutely conscious of the need to assuage public concerns.
The Russian strategy all through has been to “grind” the Ukrainian military and force Kiev to negotiate but the US is only now realising that this was in reality a war of attrition. Biden has announced a new package of military assistance for Ukraine to the tune of $460 million, which will include ammunition for the HIMARS multiple launch rocket system as well as 155-millimeter and 120-millimeter shells for artillery. But, significantly, he did not make any promises regarding long-range missiles or fighter jets — although he predicted that the coming days will be difficult for Ukraine and pledged that the US will do everything necessary so that “Russia pays a high price.”
To quote Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general, what is unfolding is “a war of attrition… a battle of logistics; as in how do you get enough stuff – materiel, spare parts, ammunition, fuel – to the front lines.” But it can also mutate since the Western bloc is unable to define its end goal in Ukraine.
Putin warned that western weapon supplies to Kiev will trigger consequences. “The longer the range of the Western systems being brought to Ukraine, the farther away from our borders we will be forced to push the threat,” he said. Plainly put, Russian forces may create a buffer zone in the region west of Dnieper River. Putin called out the Western elite to realise that “it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.”
This is the nearest he came to speaking about the future trajectory of the special operations. To be sure, Russia is closely watching that the support for the war in the US is steadily on the wane and this can impact Biden’s political calculus as a divisive election campaign takes over. Of course, the Biden Administration has secured substantial authorised appropriation enabling it to continue the high levels of support to Ukraine through the remaining 8 months of the financial year ending in October, and there is no question that the Western allies will also supplement.
That said, Biden had to settle for a modest roadshow with the Bucharest Nine in Warsaw on Tuesday, whereas, a grand spectacle of Old Europeans of Western Europe descending on Kiev/ Warsaw along with him would have been befitting the occasion. Arguably, it carries a certain message on “western unity.”
Indeed, Putin’s decision to play the New START card is timely. This is a display of “smart power” — war by other means. On the outside, this is an aggressive bid to engage Washington diplomatically, and at the very minimum intends to compel the US to exercise self-restraint while fuelling the war. Russia’s permanent representative to international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov clarified on Wednesday that “The situation can be ‘reversed’ if the United States shows political will and makes honest efforts for the sake of general de-escalation and creation of conditions for the comprehensive operation of New START.”
The hawkish US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland reacted in an interview with Tass on Thursday that Washington is ready to start talks with Russia on the New START treaty “tomorrow” if Moscow is prepared for it. “The US and Moscow have responsibilities to the world to keep our nuclear arsenal safe and secure, and we should do our jobs,” she pointed out.
Nuland is usually not comfortable with such conciliatory idiom on matters regarding Russia — even bracketing her country with a power she regards disdainfully as a lower form of life in the global power dynamic. It only underscores Biden’s desperate keenness to salvage the New START treaty in the fulness of time.
Indeed, there is the European dimension. The implications for European security are profound, as Putin is demanding that future nuclear arms control talks should also include the UK and France. Putin’s announcement dramatically brings the nuclear threat to Europe’s doorsteps.
Will the UK and France agree to bring their nuclear weapon stockpiles under international treaties? The US abandoned the INF (1987) without regard for European concerns. And, now, New Start Treaty is becoming a casualty of US’ confrontation with Russia. Already, there is simmering discontent in Europe that the US has been the sole beneficiary of the Ukraine war. These undercurrents cannot be ignored.
How does all this add up? The expert opinion is that by March, the training will be completed for the new Russian recruits following the partial mobilisation of military reservists in September. Thus, aside the accent on the “demilitarisation” of Kiev’s forces in Donbass, the Kharkov, Zaporozhya and Kherson oblasts are also in Russian sights. Biden’s dangerous incitement of Moldavia on Tuesday putsMoscow on guard as regards Ukraine’s border with Transnistria — and a reminder that control of Odessa is absolutely vital.
In sum, Biden Administration is in a quandary since the facts on the ground show no tangible gains for its decision to wage a proxy war with Russia. Ukraine lost more territories following its abandonment (under US pressure) of the draft agreement negotiated in Istanbul in March. Four Ukrainian oblasts have become part of Russian Federation and Moscow is unlikely to part with them.
Biden knows only too well that Ukraine will overnight collapse without US military and financial backing. The rationale behind such a costly enterprise is debatable.The stigma of defeat will sink the current regime in Kiev, too.
The western plan, therefore, is to support another Ukrainian “counteroffensive” to make some, any territorial gains. But the chances of Kiev reclaiming the territories under Russian control are virtually nil. Meanwhile, war has created dynamics in the Sino-Russian strategic partnership.
Putin confirmed that Moscow is expecting a visit by the Chinese President Xi Jinping after the sessions of the highest deliberative and legislative bodies of China — the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress — which will begin in Beijing on March 4 and 5. Conceivably, the launch of any large scale Russian offensive will remain in suspended animation until then.
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The years of Covid chaos have really taken a toll on the world. We’ve suffered through the dramatic presentation of a world health crisis, and the resulting stress of oppressive societal dictates. This article discusses the history of social engineering and how it is currently impacting our personal and societal wellness.
There has been much talk about the importance of the humanities in this age of rapid technological transformation and we see funding for “digital humanities” programs that provide cutting-edge communications technology that is claimed will revolutionize teaching and will provide online videos that effectively present complex information for any number of viewers around the world.
According to Kant, one reason for not being able to think for oneself is laziness and cowardice. Being immature is comfortable and thinking for oneself is “a vexatious business”. This makes it easy for others, Kant believes, to become the “guardians” of these immature people.
It would seem ironic that the annual Munich Security Conference is traditionally set in Munich, Germany, the site of Adolf Hitler’s return in 1920 after his discharge from WW I service in the German army. Home to the Munich Putsch of 1923, it became the location from which the Workers Socialist Nazi party grew into a mass movement and political force throughout Germany; thus threatening the world.
The world’s focus is on the war. On February 24, it is one year since Russia launched its so-called special military operation. Much more important is to focus on the underlying conflicts – because there exists no war or other violence without root causes.
How far we have come—or, rather, fallen. Once upon a time in America, corporations were required to sign a charter before doing business in a state or community. “After the nation’s founding, corporations were granted charters by the state as they are today,” writes Stephen D. Foster Jr.
February 24th marks the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It also marks the twentieth anniversary of a month of record turnouts against the expected war in Iraq by the United States, the United Kingdom, and their so-called “coalition of the willing.”
There is reason to be alarmed by the recent China balloon. However, that reason is not the alleged China aggression but the very calculated aggression towards China by the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. This hate and the manufactured reasons for it have been layering on for years. We’ve seen this playbook. It’s the same game plan that led us to the war on Iraq.
The Russian president has hailed cooperation between his country and China, describing it as an important step in stabilizing the international situation. The cooperation in the international arena between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, as we have repeatedly underlined, plays an important role in stabilizing the international situation.
This confirms the work of Sasha Latypova and Katherine Watt, who showed how the Pentagon’s Operation Warp Speed was able to completely circumvent Federal Health Regulations by using what’s called in bureaucratic-speak, an “Other Transaction Authority”, which they used to contract with the bioweapons manufacturers to literally produce the bioweapon.
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Human beings could be used as part of an electromagnetic radiation (EMR) antenna system by wearing a special copper-coiled bracelet, according to a team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands.
The researchers said they developed a low-cost way to “harvest” the radiofrequency (RF) radiation that gets “leaked” during visible light communication (VLC) — a technology they said is likely to be used in the “coming 6G networks.”
But some critics allege that using human beings as RF antennas for 6G is disrespectful to the human body and may have unknown health implications.
“I am diametrically opposed to this type of work, especially given the paucity of medical research on using the human body as an RF antenna,” said Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E., Children’s Health Defense (CHD) chief scientific officer and professor of biology at Simpson University.
“This type of technology makes the human body an RF collector and ignores the health implications of EMR altogether,” Hooker told The Defender.
‘LiFi’ can ‘enable new pervasive wireless systems’ for Internet of Things
The researchers — including Jie Xiong, Ph.D., an associate professor of information and computer sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Qing Wang, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Embedded Systems Group in the Department of Software Technology at TU Delft, The Netherlands — are proponents of VLC, or “LiFi” as it is sometimes called, which uses light to transmit data.
Like WiFi, VLC is wireless — but instead of using a router and RF waves to transmit data, VLC uses LED bulbs and light signals to send and receive information.
According to OpenVLC, a research platform co-founded by Wang, VCL can “enable new pervasive wireless systems in the context of the Internet of Things.”
During VLC, RF radiation is “leaked” into the ambient environment, allowing it to be “harvested” and used to power small devices, the researchers said.
The team designed an electrical system called “Bracelet+” whereby a human wearing a bracelet containing a copper coil could “collect” the RF radiation generated during VLC.
The researchers said they were able to harvest microwatts of power using their copper-coiled bracelet system in tested scenarios.
“Such a micro-watt level of harvested energy has the potential to power up ultra-low-power sensors such as temperature sensors and glucose sensors,” they said.
The team did not specify in their design how the harvested radiation would be relayed to devices.
Two bracelets harvest more RF than one
The team said they were able to harvest more RF radiation when an individual wore two bracelets, one on each arm.
Increasing the number of bracelets would not increase the wearer’s exposure to RF, according to Minhao Cui — a Ph.D. student of information and computer sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who worked with Xiong on the project.
“The Bracelet only ‘extracts’ [RF] energy from the human body, which is already captured by the human body,” he said, “so no matter how many bracelets we wear, [it] will not influence people’s exposure to RF.”
The team said wearing the bracelet “does not cause any health issues” because the maximum amount of RF radiation from VLC is “around 0.01 microwatts per squared centimeter (mW/cm2)” — which is “far below” the RF limits specified by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
FCC guidelines set the limit for human exposure to RF at 0.2 mW/cm2 and FDA specifies an upper limit of 10 mW/cm2, they said.
‘One of the worst ideas ever’
However, Bill Bathgate, an electrical engineer and certified building biology environmental consultant, said it wasn’t feasible to think that wearing the bracelets would not increase people’s exposure to RF. “That’s not possible,” he said.
Commenting on the study, Bathgate said, “This is one of the worst ideas ever.” It uses the human body as a “telecommunications point in some kind of network grid” and could result in “health effects we can’t predict,” he said.
Bathgate criticized the researchers for using FCC and FDA regulations as a measure of health impacts. “These are the two of the most corrupt organizations I’ve ever met in this field of electrical engineering,” he said.
“The FCC is not a health agency,” Bathgate said, “The FDA is — but it doesn’t know anything about RF.”
Bathgate pointed out that in 2021, CHD sued the FCC successfully for being unable to explain why its current guidelines adequately protect against the harmful effects of exposure to RF radiation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the FCC failed to consider the non-cancer evidence regarding adverse health effects of wireless technology in its decision to not update its 1996 guidelines.
Bathgate said he would have liked to see the study authors provide evidence to support their claim that the leaked RF radiation from VLC does not cause health issues. “What measurements have been done to validate that statement?” he asked.
“You have to be careful … people throw this stuff out there without even thinking about the potential ramifications of it,” he said, adding that prior research has indicated clear interactions between EMR exposure — including RF — and health problems.
Thousands of peer-reviewed studies have shown non-thermal biological effects — meaning effects from low-level radiation that does not cause heat — at the cellular level including oxidative stress, DNA damage, sperm damage, neurological effects, cognitive impairment and electrosensitivity.
Nonetheless, Cui said he didn’t think VLC has an impact on people’s health. “The energy of leaked RF signals from the VLC is largely below that of Wi-Fi signals already in the environment,” he added.
‘Making the human body the ground plane for 6G communications’
Bathgate broke down the science behind why the study authors would want to use the human body to collect the RF generated by VLC.
In VLC, when LED bulbs oscillate at a very high frequency it allows signals to be sent at very low power. These signals get transferred to the human body, Bathgate said, making the body an “amplifying antenna” for the signals.
“Basically, what we’re talking about here is making the human body the ground plane for 6G communications,” he added.
“If you drive by a TV tower or radio tower, you see this big thing going up in the air. Underneath that tower — which you can’t see — is a very large copper sheet the size of a parking lot.”
That’s the ground plane for the antenna, he said. “The antenna on its own will not radiate unless it has a counterpoise — or a ground plane — to reflect the information from.”
Bathgate said that human beings are very effective as being a ground plane because they are “saltwater beings.”
For example, he said, if he wanted to get a really strong signal using a ham radio, he would go to a saltwater beach and “literally stick” the antenna in the sand where the saltwater is.
The saltwater would amplify the signals “very quickly and very effectively,” he said, by making the ocean — “half the earth” — the ground plane. “It will make my antenna a lot more effective than if I were to be a hundred yards inland,” he said.
Indeed, the study authors tested various objects to ascertain which ones functioned most effectively to amplify the RF radiation produced during VLC and found that the human body was the best “object” for collecting the RF radiation.
They first put a copper coil on objects — made of plastic, cardboard, wood and steel — but found metal to be the most effective. Then, they tested objects “ubiquitous” in daily life including walls, electronic devices (such as a smartphone and laptop) and the human body.
They concluded that the human body — with its many watery tissues — was more effective at amplifying the harvestable RF radiation than electronic devices or walls.
The study authors did not discuss what amount of RF radiation might be expected to occur in individuals exposed to VLC who wear copper jewelry similar to their copper-coiled bracelet or in women who use a copper intrauterine device as a form of long-term birth control.
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Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.
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Soon after softening its public stance on banning gas stoves in response to backlash, the Biden administration is already planning to impose new costs on the appliances with stricter efficiency standards that have drawn a stinging rebuke form the natural gas industry.
The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy this week proposed new efficiency standards for consumer cooking appliances, claiming they would save a “significant amount” of energy.
U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart is discounting the regulators’ claim — and accusing them of concealing an ulterior motive.
“The potential environmental benefits will be very small because the potential energy efficiency improvements are very small,” Stewart said in a statement to Just the News.
The latest move against gast stoves “isn’t about efficiency,” he asserted, “it is about ending the use of fossil fuel.”
Last month, the Biden administration was forced to backpedal after an official hinted at a possible nationwide ban on gas stoves, claiming the appliances are linked to climate change, pollution and health problems such as cancer.
The White House clarified that it is not in favor of banning gas stoves, after Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. told Bloomberg the appliances are a “hidden hazard” and that “any option is on the table” with regard to regulating them.
In a bid to allay public concerns, the Energy Department is emphasizing the time lag before the proposed new efficiency standards would take effect.
“As required by Congress, the Department of Energy is proposing efficiency standards for gas and electric cooktops,” a department spokesperson told Fox Business. “We are not proposing bans on either.
“The proposed standards would not go into effect until 2027 and cumulatively save the nation up to $1.7 billion. Every major manufacturer has products that meet or exceed the requirements proposed today.”
The department claims the new standards would strongly benefit both the climate and consumers. The standards “would save a significant amount of energy and a lifetime energy savings for consumer conventional cooking products purchased,” according to the proposed rule.
Fox Business reported that regulators estimated the new standards would raise upfront costs of gas stove products by $32.5 million per year while saving $100.8 million annually with lower operating costs factored in.
For Stewart, the claims of net savings are deja vu all over again.
“New government standards almost always increase the up-front cost for the manufacturer and just as often will reduce the actual utility of the new appliance,” he said. “These costs are passed on to the consumer.
“On the other hand, if manufacturers determine there is a market for more fuel-efficient natural gas stoves, they will more than likely compete to produce those stoves without new regulations.”
Any potential efficiency increases promised by the regulators are far outweighed by steep new compliance costs, according to Stewart’s calculations.
“The Department of Energy has looked at the energy efficiency before and decided that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze,” he said. “In other words, it’s difficult to cost-effectively increase the energy efficiency of stoves. It is estimated that they at best will achieve a 3% increase in efficiency for an astronomical cost.”
At the end of the day, Stewart argued, the stricter standards are a ploy to price gas appliances into obsolescence as part of the administration’s larger war on traditional, cheap energy sources.
“The Biden Administration is doing everything it can to make natural gas and natural gas appliances more expensive to force consumers to fuel-switch,” said the industry advocate. “Across the administration they are working against the use of natural gas, even though right now natural gas is incredibly inexpensive.”
Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed back against any government regulation of gas stoves by proposing a permanent tax holiday on them.
DeSantis’ 2023 state budget (“Framework for Freedom Budget”) proposed four permanent sales tax holidays covering baby necessities, cribs and strollers, over-the-counter pet medications and gas stoves.
“They want your gas stove, and we’re not going to let that happen,” he said at the state Capitol.
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What happened in East Palestine is just the latest in an upsurge in train derailments in recent years. Norfolk Southern alone is responsible for over half the damages caused by hazardous materials incidents involving railways in 2022. In May of last year, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in western Pennsylvania, releasing 1,423 gallons of combustible petroleum distillate. Then, in October of 2022, another Norfolk Southern train derailed in Sandusky, Ohio releasing 20,000 gallons of liquid paraffin wax. And then another derailed just a few weeks later in Illinois, releasing over 20,000 gallons of flammable chemicals.
The East Palestine disaster is an expression of capitalism’s single-minded drive for greater and greater profit: Norfolk Southern has for decades now eliminated services and operating costs to dangerously low levels—all to deliver more and more wealth to its shareholders each year.
What causes train derailments?
The uptick in train derailments can be attributed to a confluence of three factors that epitomize capital’s profit motive incentive at all costs. The first factor is the introduction of Precision Scheduled Railroading starting in 1993—the implementation of which was largely pushed by Wall Street to cut operating expenses and increase stock buybacks and dividends. PSR means rail companies spend less money on labor in order to create higher profit margins, resulting in trains transporting heavier and heavier loads with a diminishing number of workers. In fact, while 80-90 cars were once supported by five rail workers before the introduction of PSR, after PSR was set into place two workers can now oversee as many as 150 rail cars or more. According to More Perfect Union, “In 2002, Norfolk Southern employed 29,000 people. By the end of 2022, the company had slashed its headcount by 33%. Meanwhile, management more than doubled profit margins.”
The second factor contributing to this increase in derailments is that rail companies are making their trains longer and forcing them to carry heavier and heavier freight. Very long trains can also disrupt radio communications between rail crew, making accidents more likely. In fact, the same train that derailed in East Palestine broke down at least once a few days prior, due to excessive length and weight. When it derailed, the train was 9,300 feet long, consisted of 151 cars, and carried 18,000 tons. Again, this is to generate higher profit margins for its investors, which include the likes of Vanguard, Blackrock, JP Morgan, and Wells Fargo, among others. In its 2021 annual report, Norfolk Southern assured shareholders it would increase “efficiency” by increasing average train weight by 21% and train length by 20%.
The third factor is that most railroad trains—including the Norfolk Southern one which derailed in East Palestine—rely on outdated braking technology. That is, trains are still using 19th century braking systems which stop each car individually rather than the entire train at once. Also, in an emergency situation, the longer, heavier trains which have become commonplace are much more difficult to halt.
While the rate of accidents for Norfolk Southern has increased, the rail company reaped over $8 billion of gross profit in 2022. And railways, as a whole, are the most profitable industry in the United States, with an over 50% profit margin.
The rail lobby is a powerful force both on the federal and state levels. In Washington, Norfolk Southern consistently opposes any legislation which could potentially cut into its profits. In 2018 alone, the rail company lobbied against over 20 different bills which sought to regulate weight uniformity or limits on trains. In fact, Bill Johnson, the U.S. Congressman who represents East Palestine, received $18,000 from a Norfolk Southern PAC—though he later donated this money to a firefighter’s association after public scrutiny of the rail carrier emerged following the derailment.
In 2016, former Norfolk Southern employee Robert Mallory was diagnosed with colon cancer after years of exposure to asbestos and other hazardous materials working for the rail company. In 2017, Mallory filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern for the company’s failure to provide the necessary protective equipment. As reported by Lever News, “Pennsylvania has what’s known as a ‘consent-by-registration’ statute … which stipulates that when corporations register to do business in the state, they are also consenting to be governed by that state’s courts. Norfolk Southern asserts that being forced to defend the case in Pennsylvania would pose an undue burden, thereby violating its constitutional right to due process.” Mallory appealed, and the case has been brought to the Supreme Court.
This is a landmark case, especially in light of the East Palestine derailment catastrophe: if the right-wing dominated Court rules in favor of Norfolk Southern, the rail company could block lawsuits brought by victims exposed to toxic chemicals from the spill in neighboring Pennsylvania. Only those living in states where Norfolk Southern is headquartered could bring lawsuits against the company. The case could also severely limit individuals’ ability to sue corporations overall.
Nationalize the railways
Under these current conditions, train derailments are set to continue increasing—major rail carriers like Norfolk Southern are first and foremost beholden to their investors and driven by the profit motive. Armed with millions of dollars and an influential political lobby, it is clear that Norfolk Southern and other rail companies have the power and financial backing to oppose any law that could potentially threaten shareholder profits, even going so far as weaponizing the Supreme Court. We have seen them slashing their workforces, increasing freight to dangerous limits, relying on outdated brake technology, and even subjecting working class people to dangerous chemical spills and exposure to protect their own financial interests.
The solution is to remove the profit motive altogether and nationalize Norfolk Southern and the rest of the rail industry, as organizations like Railroad Workers United have called to do. With nationalization, rail workers could be placed in direct leadership positions where they could have greater oversight in day-to-day decisions and implement improved working conditions. Revenue could then be directed toward improving safety and infrastructure, rather than into the pockets of billionaire shareholders.
Defenders of Wall Street denounce this idea as “too extreme” and an infringement on the sacred right of corporations to profit. But a look at Norfolk Southern’s record makes it clear: the alternative is a constantly escalating safety crisis causing injury, sickness and suffering across the country.
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Featured image: A Norfolk Southern train. Photo: James St. John (Wikimedia Commons)
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From early 2004 until late 2010, former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Siegfried Hecker had unparalleled access to North Korean nuclear facilities and scientists and officials connected to them. During his many visits, taken with other scientists and scholars as a private citizen but with the knowledge of the US government, Hecker had a few nearly shocking experiences; at one point, he was shown a half-pound piece of plutonium in North Korea’s Radiochemical Laboratory, apparently to document, for the world, the North’s nuclear accomplishments. He also gained a nuanced appreciation for North Korea’s negotiating strategy vis-a-vis the United States. That dual-track strategy—within which North Korean leaders simultaneously pursued a nuclear weapons capability and some form of rapprochement with the United States—serves as a through-line in Hecker’s new book, Hinge Points: An Inside Look at North Korea’s Nuclear Program.
Via his visits to the North and subsequent research outside the country, Hecker came to believe that the standard US narrative about its various failed attempts to negotiate an end to the North Korean nuclear program was seriously askew. That US narrative portrays North Korea as unreliable, a serial violator of diplomatic agreements, a country that uses provocations to extort rewards from the West. Instead, Hecker found that the story of the growth of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal in the 21st century can more accurately be told as a series of missed opportunities—what he calls “hinge points”—when diplomatic openings that could have led to controls on the North’s nuclear program were undermined, sometimes by Pyongyang but at least as often (and perhaps more consequentially) by Washington.
I spoke with Hecker (who is also chair of the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors) at some length about his book and how three successive US presidential administrations failed to take advantage of an apparent willingness by the North Koreans to accept a fundamentally new relationship with the United States—along with significant controls on their nuclear program. Those failures, Hecker said, center on the US government’s unwillingness to make what he calls “technically informed risk-management decisions.”
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. An excerpt from Hinge Points can be read here.
John Mecklin: Your book, which I enjoyed a great deal, goes through a whole series of missed opportunities with North Korea that you call hinge points. I know you can’t go through all of them, because there were a lot, through history. But why don’t you go through one or two to give our readers a flavor of what you were talking about, in terms of what a hinge point is?
Siegfried Hecker: It’s a turning point where key decisions have serious consequences. These typically followed advances in North Korea’s nuclear enterprise—what Washington called provocations. Examples are missile or satellite launches, or the discovery of a covert uranium enrichment program. In the book, I describe that, at such key hinge points, the US government unfortunately did not make technically informed risk-management decisions.
The first big hinge point was at the beginning of the [George W.] Bush administration—at a meeting in October of 2002. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly made the first Bush administration visit to Pyongyang. During the summer, the administration was made aware that North Korea was pursuing, clandestinely, a uranium enrichment centrifuge program, the second path to the bomb [the first path involved plutonium].
This was during the Agreed Framework, a Clinton-era deal that was consummated in 1994, in which North Korea agreed to freeze its plutonium production complex. In return, the US would provide two light-water nuclear reactors for the production of electricity. These would be paid for primarily by South Korea and Japan. The North Koreans did shut down their small plutonium-production reactor and the entire Yongbyon nuclear complex in 1994 in return for the promise of two light-water reactors.
When the Bush administration got word of North Korea’s clandestine efforts to develop uranium centrifuges, it confronted the North Koreans at the October 2002 meeting. In the book, I describe how the Americans walked away from the deal. John Bolton later said the uranium enrichment revelations were the hammer he needed to shatter the Agreed Framework. It was a hinge point because it had disastrous consequences. North Korea withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, restarted the Yongbyon nuclear complex, built the bomb, and a few years later tested one.
Mecklin: Let me play just a little bit of devil’s advocate. Throughout the book, you say better integration of technical analysis would allow a rational, cost-benefit kind of assessment of dealing with North Korea. But they really did lie about uranium enrichment. Would better analysis of any kind affect the kind of hawkish people like [former State Department official and later national security adviser] John Bolton, who can pop in and ruin negotiations like this?
Hecker: You are right. Bolton was determined to kill the Clinton-era Agreed Framework because they believed it to be fatally flawed. North Korea, they asserted, should never be allowed to have a civilian nuclear program. There was no need for a risk-benefit analysis because there were no benefits in dealing with them. They believed the country shouldn’t even exist.
Mecklin: But you state in the book that they should have looked at the tradeoffs before they walked away.
Hecker: Absolutely, because without assessing the technical risks of walking away, their decision put North Korea on a fast track to build the bomb. When Bush came into office, North Korea had no nuclear weapons. The plutonium path to the bomb was frozen, because the Yongbyon nuclear complex had been shut down since 1994. They were, indeed, covertly pursuing a nascent uranium enrichment program.
John Bolton’s view was, they cheated, and we hammered them. In the book, I explain what they got in return. North Korea expelled the international inspectors and American technical teams and restarted the nuclear reactor to make more plutonium. They removed the used reactor fuel rods that had been stored in a spent fuel pool for eight years and extracted some 25 to 30 kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium, enough for five or six bombs. They built the bomb and tested a nuclear device in October 2006. As for the uranium centrifuge program, they had greater freedom to scale it up.
The bottom line was that the Bush administration, which was determined to get tough on North Korea to keep it from the bomb, left office with North Korea likely possessing five bombs or so.
Mecklin: There were a couple of attempts during the last two years of the Bush administration to restart negotiations, but they didn’t really work. You state in the book that North Korea had a dual-track strategy. Was North Korea ever really serious about diplomacy?
Hecker: Yes, as the North’s political support collapsed at the end of the Cold War, Kim Il-sung decided it was better to seek strategic accommodation with the United States. The Russians had deserted them after the breakup of the Soviet Union. China, which the North always felt wielded a heavy hand in its support, decided to recognize South Korea as well. North Korea’s economy was collapsing, and Kim sought normalization with Washington to improve its external security environment and focus on the country’s dire economic situation.
The dual-track strategy that Kim, and later his son and grandson, pursued was to engage in diplomacy plus nuclear development—variously emphasizing one or the other but never completely abandoning either. Which one was prioritized depended on the external environment, the domestic situation, and their technical advances. Even during times of diplomacy, they hedged with continued nuclear developments because they were never certain that the US would follow through on its commitments. These, in turn, often led to the hinge points I describe.
The Bush administration did attempt diplomacy a couple of times during its second term, but it remained largely mired in indecision, repeatedly short-circuiting itself. That happened in September 2005 when the United States signed the Six-Party agreement but immediately issued a unilateral statement that walked back key provisions. North Korea responded with the nuclear test in 2006. Following the test, the administration again returned to diplomacy in 2007 and 2008 with Ambassador Chris Hill. I witnessed some of the disablement actions the North Koreans took in the Yongbyon nuclear complex in those years, but in the end, time ran out.
Mecklin: When Obama came in, one would think that the difference in political point of view would have made a difference, that there could have been some sort of meeting of minds during the Obama years. But there wasn’t. Why is that? What happened?
Hecker: I don’t know, but perhaps someday when North Korea opens up its archives, we’ll get the real answer. I expected President Obama to pursue greater diplomatic outreach to North Korea in the spirit of his early pronouncement to countries like Iran and North Korea, “I will reach out my hand if you unclench your fist.” Instead, the North Koreans greeted Obama with a rocket launch on April 4, the day before his famous Prague disarmament speech.
Near the end of Bush’s term, in August 2008, the game had changed because Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke. With Kim’s life in danger, the North’s decision making was driven by putting succession planning on strong footing. That likely included having to demonstrate a credible deterrent with a second nuclear test, since the first one didn’t work so well. Obama considered that part of Pyongyang’s play book—a cycle of provocation, extortion, and reward—which he was determined to end.
He responded by orchestrating a UN Security Council condemnation of the launch. That was just what Pyongyang expected, which it used as a pretext to move its nuclear program forward. It expelled the international inspectors and Americans who had been allowed back in the nuclear complex during the last two years of Bush administration diplomacy. It restored the disabled Yongbyon facilities to their original state. And, six weeks later, Pyongyang detonated its second nuclear device, this one successfully. It was another hinge point.
Mecklin: You also wrote about a Leap Day hinge point. Can you explain?
Hecker: On February 29, 2012, the Obama administration struck its first deal with the North. It would have frozen the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which by then also housed a uranium centrifuge facility that the North Koreans showed me and Stanford University colleagues in late 2010. It also called for a moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests. The deal was negotiated during Kim Jong-il’s reign and signed by Kim Jong-un after his father’s death in December 2011.
But the two sides had different understandings of what constituted a missile test. Two weeks after the Leap Day signing, Pyongyang attempted to launch an Earth observation satellite, which they claimed was permitted. The Obama administration viewed that as a disguised missile test and walked away. To them it proved that Pyongyang was not a reliable negotiating partner—which lasted to the end of the administration. By walking away, the Americans remained locked out of Yongbyon, and the North Koreans stepped up their nuclear program to have enough bomb fuel for 25 nuclear weapons by the time Obama left office. It was another hinge point.
Mecklin: Not to rush too quickly through the Obama years, but the overview of all of this is a whole series of presidents failed to really make progress. But when Donald Trump came into office, everybody thought, “Oh, this is terrible. This is just going to get terrible with North Korea.” And for a while it did, but actually he did some things that I think you assessed fairly positively in the book. And I was just wondering: Can you take us through the hinge points in the Trump era?
Hecker: As you said, President Trump’s first year—2017—was probably the most dangerous year with North Korea. When Trump threatened Kim Jong-un with “fire and fury,” they likely had an arsenal of more than 25 nuclear weapons and a much more potent missile force with the means to destroy a good part of South Korea and/or Japan. However, the point I make in the book is that each of the Kims had a serious interest in diplomacy to seek diplomatic accommodation with the United States. I demonstrate that, in the latter half of 2017, going into 2018, Kim Jong-un also turned in that direction. Trump reciprocated after the fire-and-fury comment, and after calling Kim Jong-un the “little rocket man.”
By this time, Kim Jong-un had tested what was likely a hydrogen bomb, more than 200 kilotons of yield, their sixth nuclear test. He fired an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, although it was done in a lofted trajectory. At the time of this enormously dangerous situation, both decided to try diplomacy. They did so in Singapore at their first summit in June of 2018. In the book, I give Trump credit for reaching out and doing just that—setting the stage.
When Trump and Kim Jong-un sat down in Singapore, they laid out the right framework, although without details, to achieve both normalization of relations between the United States and North Korea—which is what North Korea had been wanting for the better part of 30 years—and denuclearization. It was to be a path for North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons toward a nuclear weapon-free Korean peninsula. They instructed their people to develop the steps to move in that direction.
Trump was widely criticized for giving Kim Jong-un the visibility on the international stage to meet with the US president. I thought it was precisely the right thing to do. Before the Singapore summit, we knew so little about Kim Jong-un. Here was a guy who had his finger on the nuclear button, and we knew almost nothing about him. We knew even less about his military.
We learned a lot more about Kim Jong-un at the summit. In the book, I show in detail how both sides failed between Singapore and the February 2019 Hanoi Summit. They should have been able to agree on steps the United States would take toward normalization and steps North Korea needed to take to denuclearize. Both Trump and Kim Jong-un erred by not doing so.
Trump, in my opinion, let himself be influenced by John Bolton not to make a deal. This isn’t just my opinion; John Bolton explains in his book that he was quite proud of it, actually. He convinced Trump that it was better for him to walk away. Kim Jong-un made the mistake that he did not allow his diplomats to work with US special envoy to North Korea Steve Biegun, a very accomplished diplomat working under Trump, to negotiate these details before the summit so that positive steps could be taking taken at Hanoi.
So, they both made these mistakes. But the bottom line, the hinge point, is Trump walked away. He said he hoped to keep good relationships with Kim Jong-un. But for Kim, it was an enormous embarrassment. When Trump returned home, he was congratulated by both sides of the political spectrum for walking away. It was said that no deal was better than a bad deal. It was generally believed that Kim did not offer enough to get the kind of sanctions relief he was apparently requesting. Yet I believe that Kim was willing to take big steps to scale back the nuclear weapons program, although he told Trump it couldn’t be done all at once and had to be done in parallel with US steps toward normalization. These steps included shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear complex again. In one of Kim’s letters to Trump, he also offered to shut down the Nuclear Weapons Institute.
Mecklin: That was my question. Did they really not understand what was offered?
Hecker: In most likelihood, Bolton understood, but as he stated in his book, he did not want any deal with North Korea. The Yongbyon complex was called old and used up by critics of a deal, but it wasn’t. The Nuclear Weapons Institute, as I’ve tried to explain in the book, is their Los Alamos, their Lawrence Livermore laboratory, the brain center of their nuclear weapons program. If you take away Los Alamos and Livermore in the US program, you don’t have nuclear weapons for the future.
All these things were in play at Hanoi, but Trump didn’t pursue them. Instead he walked away. Would these have led to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula? The answer is, we don’t know. It would have taken a lot of work to get there. But what I’ve tried to explain is that, at each hinge point, we were in a position to take the risk to see how far we can get. Whether it would have been possible required a technically informed risk/benefit analysis. Instead, the decisions were made strictly on a political basis—in Trump’s case, because it looked better for him. As I show in the book, in each case the North Koreans took advantage of the Americans walking away to beef up their nuclear and missile programs. These were a disaster for our country.
Mecklin: That disaster has had implications up to the current day. I can’t perceive that there’s much if any actual focus in the Biden administration on North Korea right now. But I’m going to appoint you as President Biden’s lead advisor right now. What would you tell them about what we ought to be doing regarding North Korea now, given this history that you’ve lived through?
Hecker: Let me start with the ramifications of Hanoi for today. Kim Jong-un walked away greatly embarrassed. I wrote a piece right after the Hanoi Summit to counter those people who said Trump was right to walk away, and I said, “Was he really?” I described the concerns I had.
Since then, Pyongyang has again put its nuclear program at the top of its priorities. Diplomacy was not only put on the back burner, but it appears Kim has disengaged from Washington. Trump tried again after Hanoi. He met Kim Jong-un at the DMZ; but it was too late. And then the pandemic hit, which also made it more difficult to get back together.
I have worked with every administration since I first went to North Korea in 2004. It didn’t matter whether they were Republican or Democrat; I was trying to help them, to provide technical input and share what I had learned. Shortly after the elections, I gave my input to the Biden administration. It was talk to Kim quickly to see if they could change the game.
One of the game-changers that I suggested was to drop Washington’s refusal to allow North Korea to have civilian nuclear and space programs. The technical risks of such programs were manageable. The political benefits would flow from the fact that it would demonstrate to North Korea that we are taking their concerns seriously. I suggested that we engage the North Koreans in what I called cooperative conversion—that is, together work with them to convert their military nuclear and missile programs to civilian programs. By doing it together, step by step, we could do it in a verifiable manner.
But like every administration, they took many months to do a North Korea policy review while the opportunity for re-engagement slipped away. At the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which Hanoi Summit critics called “used up,” North Korea continued to produce more highly enriched uranium and restarted the 5-megawatt electric nuclear reactor to produce more plutonium and tritium, required for much more destructive hydrogen bombs. They increased the pace of missile development and last year conducted a record number of missile launches. Pyongyang matched the technical advances with more aggressive nuclear weapons postures.
My greatest concern is that following the February 4, 2022, Xi–Putin summit in China, North Korea moved away from the United States and closer to both Russia and China. Every indication since, including Pyongyang’s open support of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, is that Kim Jong-un has given up on North Korea’s 30-year quest of serious diplomacy with Washington to seek normalization with the United States.
So today we’re in a situation where the North Koreans aren’t interested. I don’t think there’s much we can do right now. It is a pity that the Biden administration has paid so little attention to North Korea in its first two years. At least, it has underscored the strength of its alliance with the South. That’s where we are.
One ray of hope is that the North Koreans tend to be pragmatic and quick on their feet to adapt to changing circumstances. Should Russia continue to fare poorly in Ukraine, and should North Korea’s economy continue to suffer—be it because like the Soviet Union, it spent too much on defense or because of the lingering effects of the COVID pandemic—will Washington be ready if Kim Jong-un turns back to diplomacy? Kim Jong-un knows that to revive the North’s economy he needs a change for the better in the external security environment—for that he must push for a less hostile relationship with the United States.
I think the administration needs to be prepared with something different than what the previous three administrations did. It needs to learn from the mistakes of the past. The book provides many lessons learned from those mistakes. Over the years, North Korea’s position has strengthened, not weakened. For Washington, even the first steps toward denuclearization have become longer and more difficult. We’ve had the opportunities before when it was easier. Now, it’s going to be really difficult.
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John Mecklin is the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Featured image: Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un shake hands at the Hanoi Summit in Vietnam, February 27, 2019. Photo credit: White House
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If you read the mainstream media, it would seem the answer to the Russia-Ukraine War, now about to enter its second year of mass death and widespread destruction, is weapons of various sorts. Western tanks like the German Leopard and American Abrams. Fighter jets like the F-16 produced by Lockheed Martin. If only Ukraine had more tanks, more jets, and the like, they would be able decisively to defeat the Russian military, ejecting it from Ukrainian territory, even from the Crimea, so the argument goes.
As a historian of technology and warfare, I’ve studied this belief in magical weapons. History teaches us that weapons alone usually do not determine winners and losers in war. Weapons themselves are rarely decisive, especially when the sides engaged fight symmetrically. In such cases, new weaponry often increases the carnage.
Consider the events of World War I. Various weapons were tried in an attempt to win the war decisively through military action. These weapons included poison gas (of various types), tanks, flamethrowers, and submarines, among others. None of these weapons broke the stalemate on the Western Front. Countermeasures were found. And World War I dragged on for more than four long years, producing hecatombs of dead.
What did work? In a word, exhaustion. In the spring of 1918, Germany launched massive, last-ditch, offensives to win the war before U.S. troops arrived in Europe in large numbers. (The U.S. had entered the war in 1917 but was still mobilizing in 1918.) The Germans came close to winning, but when their offensives grounded to a halt, they had little left in the tank to endure Allied counterattacks. Yes, the Allies had more tanks than the Germans, and were learning to use them effectively with airpower in combined arms assaults. But what truly mattered was exhaustion within the German ranks, exacerbated by the Spanish flu, hunger, and demoralization.
No magical weapon won World War I. And no magical weapon is going to provide Ukraine a decisive edge in its struggle with Russia. Certainly not a hundred or so Western tanks or a few dozen fighter jets.
Indeed, looking at some of the media coverage of the Russia-Ukraine War in the West, you might be excused from mistaking it for advertising videos at a weapons trade show. Over the last year, we’ve learned a lot about Javelin and Stinger missiles, HIMARS rocket launchers, and of course various tanks, fighter jets, and the like. But we’ve seen very little coverage of the mass carnage on both sides. It’s been said the real costs of war will never get in the history books, for who wishes to confront fully the brutality and madness of industrialized warfare?
I’m in the middle of watching the new German version of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” a film deservedly nominated for an Oscar for best picture (available on Netflix). It’s one of the better war films I’ve seen in its depiction of the horrific and dehumanizing aspects of modern industrial warfare. Something like this movie is happening currently in Ukraine, but our leaders, supported by the media, think the answer to the carnage is to send even more destructive weaponry so that more troops (and civilians) can die.
Magical weapons are not the answer. For of course there’s nothing magical about weapons of mass destruction.
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Featured image: Ukrainian military intelligence operatives are seen with a US-made Black Hawk military helicopter following a combat operation, in an undisclosed location in Ukraine, February 21, 2023. (Credit: Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine)
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The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) tested a range of drones to deliver to Ukraine under a clandestine program.
Under the program, five firms demonstrated their unmanned aerial systems (UAS), including “C2 [command and control] and sensor payload[s] as well as VTOL [vertical takeoff and landing] UAS and a unique 3D-printed delta-wing ‘suicide’ drone,” The War Zone revealed, quoting one of the participants at QinetiQ.
According to the outlet, the UK-based defense technology firm was to demonstrate a series of drones and technologies at the MoD’s Boscombe Down testing site.
UK repeatedly supplied "drones" to Ukraine. We do not, and we might not know for a while, just what is included. Qinetiq, which helped make the crash program of tests at Boscombe Down possible, mentions even a "unique 3D printed delta wing ‘suicide’ drone" https://t.co/WMOxNMheUg
The platforms and technologies tested included experimental drones and electronic warfare systems.
The trials also included ground experiments and using an anechoic test facility, which can test a specimen’s response to radio-frequency energy and check how electronic systems and emissions interact with each other.
Part of a Wider Project
The drone program aims to “provide recommendations for uncrewed aircraft systems that could be deployed readily by the Ukrainian military,” and is part of the ministry’s wider KINDRED effort to assess weapons and equipment sent to Ukraine within four months, the outlet explained.
QinetiQ didn’t reveal the other participants’ identities in its statement, which has been removed from the company’s website since news outlets began reporting on it.
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Ukraine receives the most military aid from the United States: Since the beginning of the war and as of Jan. 15, 2023, $46.6 billion in financial aid for military purposes has flowed to the country now at war with Russia.
When calculating the average annual costs (in 2022 prices) of previous wars in which the United States has been involved in, the true magnitude of the country’s Ukraine aid expenditure can be seen.
As Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the infographic below, the payments to Ukraine have already exceeded the annual military expenditure of the U.S. in the war in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2010. The U.S. military costs in the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and the Korean War were significantly higher – according to calculations by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy as part of its Ukraine Support Tracker.
In the Vietnam and Korean wars, the high usage rate of ammunition and other supplies cost a particularly large amount of money, in addition to the wear and tear of equipment and numerous other assets such as the care of the wounded. Further complicating matters in each case was the great distance to the theater of operations. Although the U.S. maintained a number of bases in Southeast Asia, the large weapons systems and the required replacement components all had to be shipped or flown across the Pacific. In addition, a large fleet of aircraft carriers was always deployed off the coast of Vietnam. The numerous missions of the air force also caused significant costs.
In the U.S., criticism of the scale of military aid to Ukraine is already coming from within the Republican ranks.
Some of the U.S. Republicans in Congress have announced that they intend to block aid to Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the day after his visit to Kyiv, U.S. President Biden underscored his country’s commitment to continued support of the Ukrainian war effort. Speaking in Warsaw, Poland, he said:
“This is not just about freedom in Ukraine. It’s about freedom of democracy in general”.
In addition to the military aid detailed in this infographic, the U.S. has also supplied weapons and equipment worth over $5 billion.
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***
A week ago this Sunday thousands of people gathered together at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to collectively “rage against the war machine.” History will judge if this event measured up to what its organizers had envisioned, and if the words spoken there will continue to resonate going forward.
From my own personal perspective, it doesn’t matter if the rally is seen as a success, or the speeches delivered there deemed memorable. And while I applaud the organizers (yes, even the Libertarian Party) for making this event possible, as far as I am concerned their role is done. They got us to the starting line and helped fire the starter pistol.
But now it is up to those running the race to finish the race. And, based upon conversations I had with many of the participants afterwards, there is collective agreement that not only is this a race that should be run, but more importantly, must be won.
The interesting thing about the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally isn’t so much that the organizers managed to bring together such a politically diverse group of speakers, but rather that the speakers spoke a common language that cut across political lines. For those who participated, this process was cathartic. For those who opted out, you are weaker for it.
Jimmy Dore addressing the crowd at the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally, February 19, 2023 (Courtesy Kim Iversen)
A race, like a journey, is run one step at a time. The “Rage Against the War Machine” rally was the first step of this race. To some, this start may have appeared like a stumble. To others, a tentative stride forward. But for most, the race represented the reality that the participants weren’t running a sprint, but rather a marathon, and the important thing wasn’t how that first step was characterized, but the fact that it took place at all.
Now that the race has started, however, we must decide who and what it is we are racing against. The “war machine” is a massive, nebulous entity that can be defined in many ways by many people, and I for one support all definitions so long as, in the end, they lead to a fair, just and equitable world where the interests of humanity trump the greed of the warmongers.
I have opted to define my race in stark terms—literally, a race against time. In February 2026, the last remaining arms control treaty limiting the strategic nuclear forces of both the United States and Russia, the New START treaty, expires. And on February 21 of this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended Russia’s participation in the New START treaty. The reasons for this suspension are not important at this juncture—Russia has its position, the US has theirs. What is important is that arms control is no longer an active part of the diplomatic dialogue, or what passes as such today, between the US and Russia. And, unless a way is found to resuscitate arms control as a major policy objective, the risk of an unconstrained nuclear arms race post-February 2026 becomes real, and the potential—even probable—outcome manifests as a nightmare for all humanity.
The race to get arms control back on the US policy objective has a finish line—the November 2024 elections. If Americans can elect enough like-minded people—representatives, senators, and the president—to office who share this same vision, and agree on its absolute priority, then there remains hope that a new arms control treaty can be negotiated and ratified to forestall a potentially humanity-ending nuclear apocalypse.
But my race is more than just a 21-month marathon. It is an obstacle course, with numerous challenges that must be overcome in addition to the daunting task of staying the course. One of the greatest challenges I will face on this race is that of Russophobia. In what I’ve termed “the best speech I never gave” (my abortive presentation penned for the occasion of the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally), I spoke of the “disease of Russophobia,” warned about the “hate-filled rhetoric of Russophobia,” and cautioned against “systemic Russophobia” as the greatest impediment to our collective ability to “open our minds and our hearts to accept the Russian people as fellow human beings deserving of the same compassion and consideration as our fellow Americans — as all humankind…allow the love we have for ourselves to manifest itself into love and respect for our fellow man…work with our fellow human beings in Russia to create communities of compassion that, when united, make a world filled with nuclear weapons undesirable, and policies built on the principles of mutually beneficial arms control second nature.”
Scott Ritter will discuss this article and answer audienc questions on Episode 49 of Ask the Inspector.
While these goals and objectives may appear to reflect common sense, the fact is, not a single possible course of action is possible today because of Russophobia. It is, indeed, a disease, and fighting the infection is very much an uphill battle.
The key to solving the many problems facing the United States and Russia in the field of arms control is old fashioned diplomacy, where American representatives sit down with their Russian counterparts and engage in constructive—difficult, yes, but always constructive—dialogue that helps find points of commonality, identify points of disagreement, and helps chart a path that leads to mutually beneficial compromise.
Today, however, no such diplomacy is taking place. In the Russian Embassy to the United States sits two men who, under ideal circumstances, would take the lead in helping craft any future arms control agreement with the United States, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov and Major General Evgeny Bobkin. Ambassador Antonov was the chief Russian negotiator for the New START treaty, and is seeped in the very issues that would have to be addressed going forward. General Bobkin is an officer of the Strategic Rocket Forces, with experience in both silo-based and road mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. His first-hand knowledge of Russian systems and nuclear posture would be invaluable in helping both the US and Russia define the parameters of any new treaty, especially one that sought to incorporate new Russian systems that have been deployed since New START entered force back in 2010.
On February 23, 2023, Russia celebrated Defender of the Fatherland Day, an annual celebration of the Russian armed forces. It is a big deal, and the Russian Embassy held a reception worthy of the occasion. I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation, and I jumped at the opportunity to attend.
I’m glad I did.
Earlier today, I tweeted out a short video clip of me toasting the occasion of Defender of the Fatherland Day with a pair of Russian colonels.
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend February 23…the video speaks for itself. pic.twitter.com/6mpMOpN4bu
Most people commenting about the tweet liked it; some did not. Adrian Karatnycky, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and co-Director of the “Ukrainian Jewish Encounter,” responded, “Scott Ritter raises a toast to Russia’s war against Ukraine in the company of the Army that is perpetrating this genocide.”
“Where were you, Mr. Atlantic Council?” I replied. “For someone whose ostensible raison d’être is the furtherance of fact-based analysis, one would think you’d be at the tip of the spear when it comes to garnering important insights into complex issues. And yet…absent, on all counts.”
And that, of course, is the whole point. Back when I served as an inspector with the On-Site Inspection Agency, implementing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, there were numerous occasions where I would have the occasion to meet socially with Soviet diplomats and military personnel. On every occasion, these meetings would result in my writing up an account of the meeting, highlighting points I thought could be of interest from both a political and military standpoint. The Soviets I met would undoubtedly be doing the same. This was, and is, the “nuts and bolts” of the so-called “cocktail circuit,” a process of interaction designed to break down barriers and provide the respective parties the opportunity to get to know one another, and the nations they represented, a little bit better.
In short, Diplomacy 101.
There were no representatives of the United States in attendance that evening (I was there as a private citizen.) And as a result, they missed the opportunity to evaluate the tenor and tone of Ambassador Antonov’s address. Yes, one can read the words from the Russian Embassy press release the next day. But to hear the Ambassador in person changes everything.
“On April 25, 1945, there was a famous meeting of Soviet and American troops on the Elbe River,” Antonov said, solemnly. “We remember that time when our countries stood shoulder to shoulder to save humanity from Nazism. Russian and American veterans cherish the memory of their comradeship in arms. It is our hope that the spirit of the Elbe will not just remain a symbol in relations, but will actually help us improve the situation in the world.”
And unless you were there, you could not see how his words resonated on the faces and in the eyes of the Russian officers present, men who wished nothing more for there to be better relations with the United States, but who were resigned to accomplishing their mission if there were not.
The meeting of Soviet and American soldiers on the Elbe River, the World War Two Memorial, Washington, DC.
By absenting themselves from the event, American diplomats and military officers likewise missed out on the opportunity to discuss arms control with Major General Evgeny Bobkin, who in 1986 helped bring into service the SS-25 road mobile ICBM—the very missile I would, two years later, be inspecting as part of the INF treaty.
“The suspension of New START,” General Bobkin said, “is a pause. We can either return to implementation,” he noted, “or,” he added with a wave of his hand, “do away with it altogether. The choice is with the Americans.”
The finality of his words was bone-chilling.
The evening was full of such observable—and as such, learnable—moments, all missed because of elitist posturing which held that by isolating Russia, America and the collective west is weakening Russia.
Anyone in attendance at the Russian Embassy that night could tell you that while Russia was saddened by the snub, they were neither isolated nor weakened.
They were determined.
But the best part of the evening for me was the human-to-human contact, among people who treated me as a friend, a feeling I gladly reciprocated.
No propaganda.
No Russophobia.
Just people being people—humans being human.
And it gave an old Marine the chance to meet fellow professional soldiers in the best venue possible—a social gathering, where we could discuss issues calmly, without recrimination or rancor.
Because the alternative is to meet them on the field of battle.
Given that option, I’ll drink to peace anytime. And I’d be honored to do it in the company of men and women like those whom I had the privilege of meeting that evening.
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Thema der dreiteiligen Artikel-Serie ist die Wissenschaft der humanistischen Psychologie.
In Teil I wurde die These aufgestellt, dass der Mensch nicht krank, sondern nicht richtig aufgeklärt sei. Der nächste Teil (II) behandelte die Frage von Krieg und Frieden. Die psychologische Erkenntnis lautete, dass der Mensch keinen angeborenen Aggressionstrieb hat, sondern dass seine Natur friedlich ist. Zu kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen käme es allein wegen der Machtgier derer, die innerhalb der Völker als Obrigkeit fungieren würden. Aus diesem Grund sei die Menschheit fähig, ohne Waffen und Kriege zusammenzuleben.
So eine Welt würde jedoch nicht von selbst entstehen, sondern einzig und allein durch den menschlichen Entschluss, durch ein Denken und Handeln, das sich am Ideal des Friedens und der Gerechtigkeit orientiert. Diesen „unbeugsamen Willen“ (Gandhi) sollte die Menschheit schon heute aufbringen.
Im vorerst letzten Teil (III) bezieht sich der Autor auf die Erkenntnisse und Bücher des Philosophen der französischen Aufklärung, Baron Paul-Henry Thiry d’Holbach (1723-1789). Auch wird er aus seinem eigenen Buch zitieren: „Keinem die Macht übergeben! Ein psychologisches Manifest des gesunden Menschenverstands“ (1).
Da diese religionskritischen Bücher die Auswirkungen der Religion auf die Entwicklung des Kindes und die Psyche des Menschen untersuchen, soll vorab klargestellt werden, dass es selbstverständlich das unveräußerliche Recht des religiösen Menschen bleibt, aus den Bibelworten Offenbarungen der höchsten religiösen Wahrheiten zu schöpfen. Aber ebenso ist es die unbedingte Pflicht des Forschers, historische Wahrheiten nur aus ganz einwandfreien Zeugnissen zu folgern (2).
System der Natur
D’Holbachs Buch „System der Natur“ oder „Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physikque et du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral“ (System der Natur oder von den Gesetzen der Physischen und Moralischen Welt) erschien im Jahr 1770 unter fingierter Autorenschaft und erregte skandalöses Aufsehen, weil es nach Auffassung des französischen Klerus‘ „gottlos, gotteslästerlich und aufrührerisch“ sei (3).
Auszüge aus dem Vorwort des Verfassers lassen dies erahnen:
„Der Mensch ist nur darum unglücklich, weil er die Natur verkennt. Sein Geist ist durch die Vorurteile derart verseucht, dass man glauben könnte, er sei für immer zum Irrtum verdammt: er ist mit dem Schleier der Anschauungen, die man von Kindheit an über ihn breitet, so fest verwachsen, dass er nur mit der größten Mühe daraus gelöst werden kann. Ein gefährlicher Gärstoff ist all seinen Kenntnissen beigemischt und macht sie notwendig schwankend, unklar und falsch: er wollte zu seinem Unglück die Grenzen seiner Sphäre überschreiten und versuchte, sich über die sichtbare Welt zu erheben. (…).
Es gibt nur eine Wahrheit, sie ist für die Menschen notwendig, sie kann ihm niemals schaden, ihre unbesiegbare Macht wird sich früher oder später offenbaren. Darum muss sie dem menschlichen Geschlecht enthüllt werden. (…).
Versuchen wir also, die Nebel zu verscheuchen, die den Menschen daran hindern, mit sicherem Schritt auf seinem Lebensweg voranzuschreiten, flößen wir ihm Mut und Achtung vor seiner Vernunft ein, er lerne sein Wesen und seine legitimen Rechte erkennen, er frage die Erfahrung um Rat und verzichte auf die Vorurteile seiner Kindheit; er gründe seine Moral auf seine Natur, seine Bedürfnisse, seine wirklichen Vorteile, welche die Gesellschaft ihm gewährt; er wage es, sich selbst zu lieben, er arbeite für sein eigenes Glück, indem er dasjenige der anderen fördert, mit einem Wort: er sei vernünftig und tugendhaft, um hier auf dieser Erde glücklich zu sein, und beschäftige sich nicht mit gefährlichen und unnützen Träumereien. (…).
Wenn er Hirngespinste braucht, so erlaube er wenigstens den anderen, dass sie sich eigene zusammenspinnen, die sich von den seinigen unterscheiden; er überzeuge sich schließlich davon, dass es für die Bewohner dieser Erde sehr wichtig ist, gerecht, wohltätig und friedliebend zu sein, und dass nichts belangloser ist, als über Dinge nachzudenken, die der Vernunft unzugänglich sind.“ (4)
Der deutsche Philosoph Immanuel Kant definierte „Aufklärung“ im Jahr 1784 folgendermaßen:
„Aufklärung ist der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit. Unmündigkeit ist das Unvermögen, sich seines Verstandes ohne die Leitung eines anderen zu bedienen.“ (5) Sein Wahlspruch lautete „Sapere aude!“ (Wage zu wissen) oder „Habe den Mut, dich deines eigenen Verstandes zu bedienen!“
Ein Grund für die Unmündigkeit selbst zu denken, ist nach Kant Faulheit und Feigheit. Unmündig zu sein, sei bequem und eigenständiges Denken „ein verdrießliches Geschäft“. So werde es für andere leicht, meint Kant, sich zu „Vormündern“ dieser unmündigen Menschen aufzuschwingen. Für einen verwöhnten und denkfaulen Menschen ist es bequemer, sich der Anleitung einer Autorität zu bedienen und sich im Einklang mit den vermeintlich Mächtigen und ihren Massenmedien zu befinden, weil man sich dann stets auf der „richtigen“ Seite befindet und sich auf die vermeintlich „unfehlbare“ Macht berufen kann (6).
„Kadavergehorsam“ und gesunder Menschenverstand
Ignatius von Loyola, der Gründer des Jesuitenordens, verfasste Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts einen Text, auf den das deutsche Wort „Kadavergehorsam“ zurückzuführen ist. In der vom Spanischen ins Lateinische übertragenen und von der Ordenskongregation 1558 veröffentlichen Fassung heißt es (übersetzt):
„Wir sollten uns dessen bewusst sein, dass ein jeder von denen, die im Gehorsam leben, sich von der göttlichen Vorsehung mittels des Oberen führen und leiten lassen muss, als sei er ein toter Körper, der sich wohin auch immer bringen und auf welche Weise auch immer behandeln lässt, oder wie ein Stab eines alten Mannes, der dient, wo und wozu auch immer ihn der benutzen will.“ (7)
Doch zurück zum Aufklärer und Enzyklopädisten Baron Paul-Henry Thiry d‘Holbach:
1772, gerade einmal zwei Jahre nach Veröffentlichung von “System der Natur“, erschien unter dem Titel „LE BONS SENS DU CURE MESLIER“ sein Buch „Der gesunde Menschenverstand“. Um sich der Verfolgung durch die „heilige Inquisition“ zu entziehen, veröffentlichte Holbach seine Gedanken auch dieses Mal unter dem Namen eines Verstorbenen: des freidenkenden Pfarrers Jean Meslier. Dieser durfte es in seiner Amtszeit nicht wagen, der Kirchengemeinde seine kritischen Gedanken zu vermitteln.
Die 1878 erschienene deutsche Übersetzung lautet: „Der gesunde Menschenverstand oder das religiöse Testament des Pfarrers Meslier. Eine religiöse-philosophische Abhandlung über den Begriff „Religion“ und über die Existenz eines göttlichen schöpferischen Wesens – Dem geistig fortgeschrittenen Volke gewidmet.“ (8)
Bereits in der Einleitung schreibt Holbach:
„Es ist vergebene Mühe, die Menschen von ihren Lastern heilen zu wollen, wenn man nicht mit der Heilung ihrer Vorurtheile beginnt. Man muss ihnen die Wahrheit zeigen, damit sie ihre theuersten Interessen kennen lernen, und die wahren Motive, welche sie der Tugend und ihrem wahren Glück zuführen. (…).
Sagen wir den Menschen, dass sie gerecht sein sollen, wohltätig, mäßig und gesellig, nicht weil es ihre Götter verlangen, sondern weil man seinen Nebenmenschen zu gefallen suchen muss; sagen wir ihnen, dass sie sich der Sünde und des Lasters enthalten sollen, nicht weil man in einer andern Welt gestraft wird, sondern weil sich das Böse schon in diesem Leben bestraft. (…).“ (9)
Zur Frage des Mutes, sich kritisch über die Religion zu äußern, schreibt Holbach am Ende seines Buches:
„Es war nicht erlaubt, irgendeine Entdeckung zu machen. (…). Nur mit Zittern konnten die grössten Männer die Wahrheit fühlen; nur selten hatten sie den Muth, sie auszusprechen. Jene, die es gewagt haben, wurden gewöhnlich für ihre Kühnheit bestraft. Die Religion ist nie so gnädig gewesen, das laute Denken zu erlauben, oder die Vorurtheile zu bekämpfen, denen der Mensch überall als Opfer und als Narr gedient hat.“ (10)
Der Einfluss der Gesellschaft auf die religiöse Einstellung der Menschen
Der Mensch wird weder religiös noch gottesgläubig geboren. Das geistig gesunde und unverkrüppelte Kind gerät jedoch in eine Gesellschaft, in der wahnhafte Ideen und Illusionen vorherrschen.
Nach Karl Marx ist das metaphysische Bedürfnis des Menschen nur ein Protest gegen das Elend dieser Welt, weil er wirtschaftlichen Nöten ebenso macht- und ratlos gegenübersteht wie den Kräften der Natur oder Krisen und Kriegen.
Marx durchschaute das Getriebe der Gesellschaft und kam zu der Erkenntnis, dass der Mensch sich nicht ändern könne, bevor sich nicht die Struktur der Gesellschaft geändert hat. Solange im Diesseits nicht jeder menschenwürdig und ohne Furcht leben könne, werde es den Glauben an ein besseres Jenseits, an eine ausgleichende Gerechtigkeit geben:
„Die Religion ist das Streben nach illusorischem Glück des Volkes, das einem Zustand der Gesellschaft entspringt, welcher der Illusion bedarf.“ (11)
Wirtschaftliche Faktoren verstärken oder hemmen die religiöse Einstellung eines Menschen. Schon Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1875) – deutscher Philosoph, Anthropologe und Religionskritiker, dessen Erkenntnisstandpunkt für die modernen Humanwissenschaften wie Psychologie und Ethnologie grundlegend geworden sind – fordert, dass der Mensch endlich damit aufhören müsse, ein Spielball der menschenfeindlichen Mächte zu sein, die sich der Religion zur Unterdrückung bedienen (12).
Auch für SigmundFreud (1856-1939) war die Religion eine Illusion, entstanden aus sehr alten, heftigen Wünschen der Menschen: dem Verlangen nach einer gerechten Weltordnung, nach Freiheit von Not sowie dem Wunsch nach Ewigkeit der persönlichen Existenz, gedacht als zukünftiges Leben in einem Himmel (13).
Die Einschüchterung von Verstand und Vernunft beginnt in der Kindheit
Paul-Henri Thiry d‘Holbach schreibt hierzu in „Der gesunde Menschenverstand“:
„Die Grundsätze aller Religionen gründen sich auf die Gottesidee; aber es ist unmöglich, dass die Menschen von einem Wesen wahre Begriffe haben können, das auf keinen ihrer Sinne wirkt. Alle unsere Begriffe werden von Gegenständen hergeleitet, die wir wahrnehmen. Was kann uns aber den Begriff eines Gottes darstellen, der unbedingt nur eine Idee ohne Object ist?“ (14)
Dem Kind werden jedoch Dinge beigebracht, die ihm wesensfremd sind und seine Vernunft nicht erfordern. Kaum zeigen sich die ersten seelischen Regungen und es lernt zu sprechen, wird es von der Gesellschaft, den Eltern und der Kirche „in Obhut genommen“. Es wird ihm klar gemacht, dass sich sein Wesen bezüglich des Naturgefühls und der Weltanschauung nicht frei entwickeln darf. Will es verhindern, mit höllischen Peinigungen bestraft zu werden, muss es sein Wesen in eine bestimmte kirchliche Form pressen.
Bildet sich dann im dritten Lebensjahr das Bewusstsein des „Ichs“, so schalten sich bereits Gott und Teufel der betreffenden Religion ein und lehren das Kind, nicht auf sich selbst zu vertrauen, sondern sich von übernatürlichen Mächten führen und beherrschen zu lassen. So lernt das Kind die Dämonenfurcht kennen. Auch die „Tugenden“ der Unterwürfigkeit, des Gehorsams und der Demut prägen sich ein. Das Kind darf sich nicht natürlich und ungezwungen entwickeln. Psychiater diagnostizieren als Folge bisweilen Angstneurosen und seelische Störungen.
Mit diesem Vorgehen wird ein starker und lähmender Druck auf die Kinderseelen ausgeübt. Keine noch so diktatorische und totalitäre politische Organisation ist imstande, einen solch lähmenden Druck auf Kinderseelen auszuüben. Diese seelische Vergewaltigung ist schlimmer und nachhaltiger als jede körperliche (15).
Als Erwachsener weist der Mensch dann im weltanschaulichen Denken die „Deformationen“ auf, die ihm in der Kindheit zugefügt worden sind. So ist er in der Ich-Entfaltung gehemmt, den Priestern gegenüber aber hörig. In weltanschaulichen Gesprächen müssen die Reste des gesunden Menschenverstandes oft niedergekämpft werden und sich selbst gegenüber muss man unehrlich sein.
Dem Andersdenkenden gegenüber ist der religiöse Mensch nicht selten hochmütig und kommt sich erhaben vor. So betrachtet er den Nichtgläubigen oft als einen dummen oder geistig nicht normalen und kranken Menschen. Im täglichen Leben dieses religiösen Erwachsenen hingegen beobachtet man manchmal ein starkes menschliches Hingabebedürfnis und einen blinden Gehorsam gegenüber Autoritäten und religiösen Führern.
Schulen und Universitäten sind öffentliche Einrichtungen
Die Religion und jede andere Art von Okkultismus sind Privatsache der Eltern und ihrer Kinder und deshalb als Sonderfach der Schule abzulehnen. Die Schule muss konfessionsfrei sein. Sie hat in erster Linie die Überzeugung zu vermitteln, dass erfahrungsgemäßes Wissen, Verstand und Vernunft immer und überall Vorrang haben.
An Universitäten sollte nur eine religionswissenschaftliche Fakultät zugelassen werden; die Theologie hat nicht den Rang einer Wissenschaft. Die Theologie sollte auf Priesterseminare beschränkt sein.
Der Jugend müssen in der Erziehung von Anfang an Werte vermittelt werden, die dem Heute entsprechen und die auch im Erwachsenenalter noch Gültigkeit haben. Dem Schüler muss gezeigt werden, dass es eine hochstehende Ethik auch ohne Glaubensvorstellungen gibt. Dem jungen Menschen sollte dazu verhelfen werden, sein eigenes Wesen ohne Einschnürung durch eine Konfession auszuprägen. Dieser Mensch wird im Allgemeinen auch moralisch sein.
Die Schule hat die eigene Kraft und das Selbstbewusstsein der Jugendlichen zu stärken, vom eigenen geliebten Seelenheil abzulenken auf das Heil der Allgemeinheit, auf die Notwendigkeit der Hilfsbereitschaft, auf ein Ideal, das die höchste sittliche Kraft nicht mehr in der religiösen, sondern in der sozialen Idee sieht, in der Schaffung eines „Paradieses“ der Humanität auf Erden. (16)
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.
Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.
Noten
(1) Hänsel, Rudolf (2020). Keinem die Macht übergeben! Ein psychologisches Manifest des gesunden Menschenverstands. Gornji Milanovac. Siehe auch Kurzfassung des Buches in: „Neue Rheinische Zeitung“ und „Global Research“.
(2) A. a. O., S. 57
(3) D’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry (1978). System der Natur oder von den Gesetzen der physischen und moralischen Welt, Frankfurt a. M., S. 2
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I was still trying to fit into the establishment discourse on technology back in 2018, still striving to get the word out in an acceptable format through an establishment newspaper like the Korea Times for a self-contented audience that was uninterested in revolutionary shifts in politics, let alone in consciousness, when I wrote this article on the humanities. Although the use of technology to dumb down and sedate the population was already visible then, it had not reached the extremes of the current moment.
Information warfare was not in full bloom yet.
Nevertheless, I believe that the essential arguments about the importance of the humanities, or perhaps better put, the human, put forth in this article remains critical for us today as well as we struggle to find some sort of light at the end of the tunnel that will keep us marching forward in this race against time to keep the doors from shutting closed permanently, leaving us to fend off as isolated and discouraged individuals the drones and robots, hostile AI and malicious internet, that will be sent to destroy us utterly.
There has been much talk about the importance of the humanities in this age of rapid technological transformation and we see funding for “digital humanities” programs that provide cutting-edge communications technology that is claimed will revolutionize teaching and will provide online videos that effectively present complex information for any number of viewers around the world.
We have scholars in history and in the social sciences who have obtained funding that allows them to bring to bear advanced supercomputing technology on historical or social conundrums.
Massive amounts of textual and statistical information are analyzed by them using supercomputers, and their unexpected discoveries are presented to us via fascinating graphs and charts. Big data reveals to us new truths previously obscured ― although we cannot help but wonder if the amount of time spent reading and pondering is being drastically reduced.
Although there is significant research going on that makes creative use of new technology, the sad truth is that for all the articles trumpeting a new revival of the humanities, everywhere around us the number of teachers for the humanities, and the number of students enrolled in humanities classes, are being drastically reduced.
It is not that students are not interested, but rather that the social and economic pressure are unambiguous that the students must give up the quest for truth and focus on conforming to narrow norms to get a job. As a result, fewer and fewer citizens read books at all, or are capable of complex analysis of just about anything.
It is, in a word, a profound crisis.
We most desperately need a true revival of the humanities today, but tragically the humanities are presented in the debate on technology as valuable content to be employed on the digital displays, or social networks, powered by the new generation of computer chips. The argument may be that the content is ultimately more important, but the reality is that the investment by our society is in the technology, and not in the investigation of human experience.
We will not find the humanities we desperately need in such projects. Rather, we need to disconnect from technology and to take time to assess the complex impact of technological change on our society as a whole, and its implications for how we experience the world.
The humanities have much to offer us in that respect, but the wise voices of the past hidden in those dusty books will only start to speak to us when we recognize one simple fact: the rapid transformation of human society by technology is so profoundly destabilizing and confusing for us that we risk catastrophe in the near future.
Only when we recognize that the deeper truths offered by philosophy, literature, history, and aesthetics are far more critical for our future than pushing the envelope for semiconductors or super computers, will we start to address the crisis. I have not seen much evidence for that shift, even though the dusk is deepening.
Just contrast the tiny funding available for the humanities (and the tinier funding available for the careful analysis of the impact of technology on society) with the extraordinary amount of funding available to develop technologies with commercial applications (regardless of whether or not those technologies have a positive impact on society). Serious consideration will lead us to the painful conclusion that we have not even started to take the humanities seriously or to recognize the level of the crisis.
Just look around and you will see how new technologies aimed at stimulating the base instincts of humans have encouraged addiction to images (including games and pornography) everywhere. We encourage citizens to satisfy their curiosity and their desires without any intellectual challenge, or ethical imperative.
To watch people eat food, or engage in sexually suggestive acts, is considered the norm. We use technology to appeal to the lowest functions of the human brain and thereby encourage a thoughtless consumer culture. No one, literally, is thinking about what our country will look like in 100 years.
We must set aside space in our society, and make that space significant, wherein we unplug from technology and we use our eyes to read books, employ our hands to make works of art, or build furniture, and use our feet to wander the Earth and understand how we are connected to it.
In that process of action, and of awareness of our own bodies, we learn about causality, that we have a chance to step back and make analogies between the phenomenon that we observe and our society as a whole. That process of reading, writing, painting, and observing allows us to reconnect with who we are and to recognize what this Earth needs.
Without such a break we are easily caught up in the suicidal tendency to think that throwing away plastic every day has no impact on our environment, that employing electronics has no connection to the dirty air we breathe, to deceive ourselves into believing there is no link between allowing young children to spend their days playing silly video games and the limits to their ability to conceive of the world.
The fourth industrial revolution poses a tremendous challenge: the confusion of the real with the fictional. As the technologies of mechanical reproduction speed up, people see images on TV of green trees and think we have a healthy environment, or see dramas showing close friendships and a healthy community and think that we actually have such a society ourselves.
That virtual world is fictional, and our media is itself increasingly contaminated by such fictions. Newspapers have become a place to sell images of what the funders want people to believe is the truth, rather than to engage in a rigorous investigation of the reality of society.
This problem is most severe in the case of climate change, an existential crisis that is getting rapidly worse even as it is blocked out of our media and out of our education as a serious topic for discussion.
Technology cannot tell us anything about the impact of technology on society, or about how we should reduce our increasing dependence on technology (which demands energy and thereby damages our climate). Nor can technology help us to understand how our perceptions of ourselves and our world are distorted by technological change.
Only a careful consideration of the essential principles of ethical behavior (moral philosophy), of the nature of being (metaphysics) and of the nature of knowledge and understanding (epistemology) can help us.
Because philosophy has completely receded from our intellectual world at precisely the moment that rapid technological change is transforming how we perceive the world, we are especially vulnerable. We lack the concepts to describe the process by which our lives are reduced to empty rituals by the domination of computer codes in our society. We cannot conceive of how using search engines alters how we engage with the world around us, with our friends and family.
The decline in the humanities as part of our experience of the world, combined with a growing anti-intellectual culture born of the passivity practiced by so many who see themselves as consumers, not active members of society, has encouraged another dangerous trend: the failure to distinguish clearly between science and technology.
We see this trend especially in advertising, which has displaced analysis as the primary content of our media ecosystem. Advertising stresses the magical qualities of new technologies that startle and delight. In most cases, technology is presented as a means for amusing oneself, or solving an inconvenience, but is in no way related to the quest for truth. Understanding is discouraged and amazement encouraged.
We certainly live in an age dominated by technology, and new technologies (or new combinations of old technologies) are increasing. But we do not live in an age of science. This distinction is blurred by the common practice of lumping together the two fields in the phrase “science and technology,” thereby encouraging sloppy thinking.
Science is the critical investigation of the world around us in accord with the scientific method. Although there are experts who practice science in our society, fewer and fewer people within institutions, let alone the population as a whole, have much of a concept of what exactly science means. The profound ignorance about the impact of disposable plastics on the environment is just one example of the diminishing role of scientific thinking in our society.
“Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science.”
Technology is ultimately about how we create a better world and should be governed by the principles of moral philosophy, including the possible decision not to develop, or not to employ, technologies that are destructive. Technology should never be confused with the search for truth through a combination of speculation and of constant systematic verification.
Ultimately, the humanities are essential to that cornerstone of true scientific investigation, the scientific method. The scientific method demands above all else a powerful imagination capable of coming up with multiple explanations to explain the phenomenon that we perceive, which then can be subject to rigorous analysis.
The rigorous analysis is required to produce good science, but it is imagination, the ability to postulate varied explanations, some far-fetched, which is the essential part of the process.
Albert Einstein was able to make a breakthrough in the field of theoretical physics because he spent hours imagining how the universe might work, how things look to a photon, what wacky explanations can be used to describe ordinary phenomena. His work was akin to storytelling and novels, and it was such thinking that allowed him to see what was invisible to others caught up in accepted practice.
Our addiction to technology, and to a commercialized and consumption-focused culture, has grown so deep that it will be extremely difficult to break free of the process that has so narrowed our horizons. But the increasing fragmentation of our society and the negative impact of technology on the environment will force us to do so.
We will not find solutions to this crisis in the familiar toolbox of semiconductors and smartphones. Rather we will again have to open up that dust-covered box labeled “The Humanities.”
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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.
The subject of this three-part series of articles is the science of humanistic psychology.
In Part I, the thesis was put forward that man is not ill, but not properly enlightened. The next part (II) dealt with the question of war and peace. The psychological insight was that man has no innate aggression instinct, but that his nature is peaceful. War would only occur because of the greed for power of those who would act as authorities within the nations. For this reason, humanity would be able to live together without weapons and wars.
Such a world, however, would not come into being of its own accord, but solely through human resolve, through thought and action oriented towards the ideal of peace and justice. Humanity should muster this “indomitable will” (Gandhi) already today.
In the last part (III) for the time being, the author refers to the insights and books of the philosopher of the French Enlightenment, Baron Paul-Henry Thiry d’Holbach (1723-1789). He will also quote from his own book: “Handing over power to no one! A Psychological Manifesto of Common Sense” (1).
Since these books critical of religion examine the effects of religion on the development of the child and the psyche of the human being, it should be made clear at the outset that it remains, of course, the inalienable right of the religious person to draw revelations of the highest religious truths from the words of the Bible. But it is likewise the unconditional duty of the researcher to infer historical truths only from completely impeccable testimonies (2).
System of Nature
D’Holbach’s book System of Nature or Système de la Nature ou Des Loix du Monde Physikque et du Monde Physique et du Monde Moral (System of Nature or of the Laws of the Physical and Moral World) was published in 1770 under fictitious authorship and caused a scandalous stir because, in the opinion of the French clergy, it was “godless, blasphemous and seditious” (3).
Excerpts from the author’s preface suggest this:
“Man is unhappy only because he misjudges nature. His mind is so contaminated by prejudice that one could believe he is condemned to error forever: he is so tightly bound up with the veil of views that has been spread over him from childhood that he can only be released from it with the greatest difficulty. A dangerous ferment is mixed with all his knowledge and makes it necessarily wavering, unclear and false: to his misfortune he wanted to transcend the limits of his sphere and tried to raise himself above the visible world. (…).
There is only one truth, it is necessary for man, it can never harm him, its invincible power will reveal itself sooner or later. That is why it must be revealed to the human race. (…).
Let us try, then, to dispel the mists which prevent man from advancing with a sure step on his path through life, let us instil in him courage and respect for his reason, let him learn to recognise his nature and his legitimate rights, let him ask the advice of experience and renounce the prejudices of his childhood; let him base his morality on his nature, his needs, his real advantages which society affords him; let him dare to love himself, let him work for his own happiness by promoting that of others, in a word: he is sensible and virtuous in order to be happy here on this earth, and does not occupy himself with dangerous and useless reveries. (…).
If he needs fantasies, let him at least allow others to spin up some of their own that are different from his own; finally, let him convince himself that it is very important for the inhabitants of this earth to be just, charitable, and peace-loving, and that nothing is more trivial than thinking about things that are inaccessible to reason.” (4)
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant defined “Enlightenment” in 1784 as follows:
“Enlightenment is the exit of man from his self-inflicted immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s intellect without the guidance of another.” (5) His motto was “Sapere aude!” (Dare to know) or “Have the courage to use your own understanding!”
According to Kant, one reason for not being able to think for oneself is laziness and cowardice. Being immature is comfortable and thinking for oneself is “a vexatious business”. This makes it easy for others, Kant believes, to become the “guardians” of these immature people. For a spoiled and thoughtless person, it is more comfortable to use the guidance of an authority and to be in harmony with the supposedly powerful and their mass media, because then one is always on the “right” side and can refer to the supposedly “infallible” power (6).
“Kadavergehorsam” and common sense
Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit Order, wrote a text in the mid-16th century to which the German word “Kadavergehorsam” can be traced. The version translated from Spanish into Latin and published by the Congregation of the Order in 1558 states (translated):
“We should be aware that each one of those who live in obedience must allow himself to be led and guided by divine Providence by means of the superior, as if he were a dead body to be taken wherever and treated in whatever way, or like a staff of an old man to serve wherever and for whatever the wants to use him.” (7)
But back to the Enlightenment philosopher and encyclopaedist Baron Paul-Henry Thiry d’Holbach:
In 1772, just two years after the publication of “System of Nature”, his book “Common Sense” appeared under the title “LE BONS SENS DU CURE MESLIER”. In order to avoid persecution by the “Holy Inquisition”, Holbach again published his thoughts under the name of a deceased person: the free-thinking priest Jean Meslier. During his time in office, the latter was not allowed to dare communicate his critical thoughts to the church congregation.
The German translation published in 1878 reads: “Der gesunde Menschenverstand oder das religiöse Testament des Pfarrers Meslier. A religious-philosophical treatise on the concept of “religion” and on the existence of a divine creative being – Dedicated to the spiritually advanced people.” (8)
Already in the introduction Holbach writes:
“It is a vain effort to try to cure people of their vices if one does not begin by curing their prejudices. One must show them the truth, so that they get to know their most precious interests and the true motives that lead them to virtue and their true happiness. (…).
Let us tell men to be just, charitable, temperate and sociable, not because their gods demand it, but because one must seek to please one’s fellow men; let us tell them to abstain from sin and vice, not because one will be punished in another world, but because evil punishes itself already in this life. (…).” (9)
On the question of courage to be critical of religion, Holbach writes at the end of his book:
“It was not permitted to make any discovery. (…). Only with trembling could the greatest men feel the truth; only rarely did they have the courage to speak it. Those who dared were usually punished for their audacity. Religion has never been so gracious as to permit thinking aloud, or to combat the prejudices to which man has everywhere served as a victim and a fool.” (10)
The influence of society on people’s religious attitudes
Man is born neither religious nor believing in God. The mentally healthy and uncrippled child, however, comes into a society in which delusional ideas and illusions prevail.
According to Karl Marx, man’s metaphysical need is only a protest against the misery of this world, because he is just as powerless and helpless in the face of economic hardships as he is in the face of the forces of nature or crises and wars.
Marx saw through the gears of society and came to the conclusion that man cannot change until the structure of society has changed. As long as everyone could not live humanely and without fear in this world, there would be a belief in a better hereafter, in a balancing justice:
“Religion is the striving for illusory happiness of the people, which springs from a state of society which needs illusion.” (11)
Economic factors strengthen or inhibit a person’s religious attitude. Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1875) – German philosopher, anthropologist and critic of religion, whose epistemological standpoint has become fundamental for modern human sciences such as psychology and ethnology – already demands that man must finally stop being a plaything of the anti-human powers that use religion for oppression (12).
For Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), too, religion was an illusion, born of very old, fierce human desires: the desire for a just world order, for freedom from want, as well as the desire for eternity of personal existence, conceived as a future life in a heaven (13).
The intimidation of intellect and reason begins in childhood
Paul-Henri Thiry d’Holbach writes on this subject in “Common Sense”:
“The principles of all religions are founded on the idea of God; but it is impossible for men to have true concepts of a Being who does not act on any of their senses. All our concepts are derived from objects which we perceive. But what can represent to us the concept of a God who is necessarily only an idea without an object?” (14)
However, the child is taught things that are foreign to its nature and do not require its reason. No sooner do the first mental impulses appear and the child learns to speak than it is “taken into care” by society, parents and the church. It is made clear to it that its nature is not allowed to develop freely with regard to the feeling for nature and the world view. If it wants to avoid being punished with hellish chastisements, it must press its nature into a certain ecclesiastical form.
If the consciousness of the “I” then forms in the third year of life, the god and devil of the religion in question already intervene and teach the child not to trust in itself, but to let itself be guided and controlled by supernatural powers. Thus the child learns about the fear of demons. The “virtues” of submissiveness, obedience and humility are also imprinted. The child is not allowed to develop naturally and freely. Psychiatrists sometimes diagnose anxiety neuroses and mental disorders as a result.
With this approach, a strong and paralysing pressure is exerted on the child’s soul. No political organisation, no matter how dictatorial and totalitarian, is capable of exerting such paralysing pressure on children’s souls. This mental rape is worse and more lasting than any physical rape (15).
As an adult, the person then shows in worldly thinking the “deformations” that were inflicted on him in childhood. Thus he is inhibited in the development of the ego, but is in bondage to the priests. In ideological discussions, the remnants of common sense often have to be fought down and one has to be dishonest with oneself.
Religious people are often haughty towards those who think differently, and they feel exalted. Thus he often regards the non-believer as a stupid or mentally abnormal and sick person. In the daily life of this religious adult, on the other hand, one sometimes observes a strong human need for devotion and a blind obedience to authority and religious leaders.
Schools and universities are public institutions
Religion and any other kind of occultism are private matters for parents and their children and must therefore be rejected as a special subject in schools. The school must be non-denominational. It must first and foremost convey the conviction that experiential knowledge, understanding and reason always and everywhere have priority.
Only a faculty of religious studies should be admitted to universities; theology does not have the rank of a science. Theology should be confined to seminaries.
In education, the youth must be taught values from the beginning that correspond to today and are still valid in adulthood. The pupil must be shown that there is a high ethic even without beliefs. The young person should be helped to develop his or her own nature without being constricted by a denomination. This person will generally also be moral.
The school has to strengthen the young people’s own strength and self-confidence, to divert attention from their own beloved salvation to the salvation of the general public, to the necessity of helpfulness, to an ideal which no longer sees the highest moral force in the religious but in the social idea, in the creation of a “paradise” of humanity on earth. (16)
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educationalist (Dr. paed.) and psychologist (Dipl.-Psych.). After his university studies, he became an academic teacher (professor) in adult education: among other things, he was head of an independent school model trial and in-service trainer of Bavarian counselling teachers and school psychologists. As a retiree, he worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. He was rapporteur for Germany at a public hearing on juvenile delinquency in the European Parliament. In his books and articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education and an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Notes
(1) Hänsel, Rudolf (2020). Handing over power to no one! A psychological manifesto of common sense. Gornji Milanovac. See also abridged version of the book in: “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” and “Global Research”.
(2) op. cit., p. 57
(3) D’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry (1978). System der Natur oder von den Gesetzen der physischen und moralischen Welt, Frankfurt a. M., p. 2.
(4) op. cit., p. 11ff.
(5) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant
(6) Hänsel, Rudolf (2020). Handing over power to no one! S. 32
(7) https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadavergehorsam
(8) D’Holbach, Paul-Henri Thiry (1976). The common sense of the priest Meslier. Zurich
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The Kremlin’s demonstrated inability to take proactive and decisive action has convinced Washington there is nothing to fear from Putin and that Russia can be defeated in Ukraine. Indeed, the UK media takes for granted that Ukraine will defeat Russia. Here is the latest headline: “The West Needs a Plan for when Ukraine wins.” See this.
Biden’s recent trip was to shore up the Eastern flank of NATO in anticipation of renewed action against Russia. If the Biden regime favored a peaceful settlement, Biden would not have bothered to meet in Warsaw with the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Bulgaria. There would be no need for Biden to go to Kiev to show American support for Zelensky.
I am often interviewed by Russian journalists–never by American ones whose task it is to protect the official narratives.The Russian journalists are ever hopeful for signs that the US favors a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine.I was just interviewed about Biden’s trip.Did he go to Kiev to work out a peace plan with Zelensky?
How can anyone possibly think Washington favors a peace plan other than Russia’s withdrawal from Donbass and Crimea and payment of reparations to Ukraine?Washington would favor this plan because it would be likely to bring down Putin, which is Washington’s intent.
Such a withdrawal is one of the Kremlin’s two choices. As such a withdrawal would likely mean the fall of the Putin government, the Kremlin only has one choice:to use the force necessary to quickly bring the conflict to an end before it spirals out of control.
It is astounding that after a year of experience the Kremlin has not figured out that by letting the war drag on and on the Kremlin has given Washington and NATO every opportunity to widen it further with provocation after provocation:sanctions, financial aid, military aid, intelligence, training, targeting information, attack on Crimea bridge, blown up Nord Stream pipelines, tanks, long-range missiles, sooner or later jet fighters.
Now Putin is faced with a possible Ukrainian attack on Transnistria where a few thousand Russian troops, with no reinforcements in sight, are standing guard over a stockpile of Soviet-era weapons and ammunition suitable for Ukrainian use.Will the Russian forces be caught between Ukrainians on their east and Moldavians and Romanians on their West and suffer a defeat that further emboldens the West? See this.
If the Kremlin can’t find the intelligence to get this conflict over with quickly, the Kremlin will be backed into a corner where nuclear weapons are the only option.Not only do some neoconservatives believe Washington can win a nuclear war, but also the West is getting bogus information that Russia’s nuclear weapons don’t work and that there is no danger in attacking Russia. See this.
Even if Russia’s nukes do work, Russia won’t use them the Dutch prime minister says.
This kind of disinformation becomes believable because Putin’s unwillingness to use sufficient force to quickly achieve his aims has created the impression that the Russian military is incapable and after one year has failed to prevail over a third world army. What appears to some as Russian military incompetence and to others as Putin’s lack of resolution encourages more provocative actions by the West.In the West the belief is that Russia’s defeat is only matter of providing the weapons to Ukraine.
It is an unreal feeling to experience Russian journalists looking for a peaceful settlement when Biden’s Undersecretary of State and many military officers are saying that Crimea is a legitimate target for Ukrainian missile attacks.Several days ago Secretary of State Blinken said a Ukrainian attempt to retake Crimea would be a “red line” for Putin and could result in more forceful Russian action, but that the decision is up to Kiev.Of course the decision is not up to Kiev.Zelensky would not dare make such a decision unless Washington gave the go-ahead.Blinken’s statement indicates that Washington has given the go ahead, which suggests that longer range missiles are on the way to Ukraine.
To put it frankly, Putin, the Kremlin, and the Russian military are being discredited by Putin’s failure to commit sufficient resources to quickly win the conflict.Indeed, in the eyes of the West the Russian military is being humiliated by Putin’s policy, and this must have bad effects on Russian military morale.
Today, February 24, 2023, is the anniversary of Russia’s entry into Donbass, which was intended only to free Donbass of Ukraine military and neo-Nazi militias.It was not an invasion of Ukraine.But by under-committing military resources and imposing crippling rules of war, Putin guaranteed that Washington would use the generous time Putin provided to greatly widen the war.Now Putin is faced with the likelihood of missile attacks on the Russian naval base in Crimea. Why is this unimaginable when Washington had no hesitancy in blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines?What will be the next target for attack?Moscow?
When the expected Russian winter offensive did not materialize, those who reported a large buildup of Russian troops and weapons on Ukraine’s border said that Russians were a symbolic people and were delaying the attack for the anniversary date.The date has arrived.
If the attack does not occur, the neoconservatives will become even more confident.Provocations will worsen as they accelerate.Putin will find Russia backed into a corner where nuclear weapons are his only option.
Putin doesn’t realize it, but his inability to act decisively in Ukraine is dooming the world to nuclear war.
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It would seem ironic that the annual Munich Security Conference is traditionally set in Munich, Germany, the site of Adolf Hitler’s return in 1920 after his discharge from WW I service in the German army. Home to the Munich Putsch of 1923, it became the location from which the Workers Socialist Nazi party grew into a mass movement and political force throughout Germany; thus threatening the world.
This is no small coincidence or perhaps no coincidence at all. Formed in 1963 which is long ago enough to be currently inconsequential, the MSC aspires to provide a platform for the ruling class on international diplomacy regarding security and foreign policy challenges. Its Munich Security Report 2023 “explores intensifying authoritarian revisionism and the growing contest between different visions for the international order. It also stimulates the debate on how the coalition defending the vision of a liberal, rules-based order can be enlarged and strengthened.”
The key phrase here is ‘intensifying authoritarian revisionism” rather than eliminating ‘authoritarian revisionism’ while defending its ‘vision’ of a US invented “rules-based order.” It is that ‘vision’ upon which the extraneous United Nations functions and upon which the Biden Administration base their foreign policy rather than an internationally recognized rule of law system supported by a foundation of legal principles. Not exactly the stage of ‘peace saboteurs’
Not exactly a stage for ‘peace saboteurs,’ the MSC gathered on February 17th with its usual like minded New World Order neo-con globalists who believe in their own flawless superiority and impeccable infallibility – for which no prevailing evidence exists.
As representatives of a government living in the past, the recent meeting provided an opportunity for the most Members of Congress to ever attend an MSC meeting in its sixty year history. Hobnobbing with the upper crust of European political elites who are equally living in the past, MSC attendance indicates a tentative belief that the US can be a winner in a nuclear exchange while the Russians, perhaps more aware of their own devastating nuclear capability, understand there will be no champions. As those Members of Congress continue to blindly accept the US hoop-la, their attendance confirms their pro Ukraine war bona fides while pledging billions of precious US taxpayer dollars (during a debt ceiling crisis) and a generous flow of weapons to continue the conflict.
What most of those Members failed to consider was the general anxiety amongst those European elites as well as a private recognition that the Ukraine war is not going as anticipated despite the effort to destroy Russia that dates back to December, 2013 when Sen. John McCain stood on the stage in Kiev and promised US support.
As a majority of members of relevant Committees with jurisdiction over war, the military, intel or American financial resources, their attendance confirms an unfamiliarity with the US role in the 2014 coup following McCain’s appearance from which the conflict developed. In other words, while Congressional dilletantes collect generous benefits gratis of the American taxpayer without reciprocation, they could take their work more seriously and become better informed Congressional scholars before making fools of themself.
While the MSC Agenda included an extensive array of thorny geopolitical topics devoted to expanding its hegemonic presence, American participants included Senators Lindsay Graham (SC), Christopher Coons (Del.), Robert Menendez (NJ), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), NJ Gov. Phil Murphy, Reps. Veronica Escobar (Texas), Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Mike McCaul (Texas), Homeland Dept. Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, SOS Antony Blinken and VP Kamala Harris.
Despite a predominant blackout on media, MSC attendance included the most Congressional Members ever with twenty eight Senators predominantly representing the Senate’s Foreign Relations, Armed Services and Intelligence Committees (eighteen Democrats, one Independent and ten Republicans): Senators Blumenthal (Conn), Britt (Ala.), Budd (NC), Cantwell (Wash), Coons (Del.) Cornyn (Texas) Cortes-Masto (Az), Durbin (Ill), Ernst (Iowa), Graham (SC), Heinrich (NM), Kelly (Az.), King (Me.), Klobuchar (Minn.), McConnell (Ky.), Menendez (NJ.), Peters (Mich.), Reed (RI), Ricketts (Neb.), Risch (Idaho), Schumer (NY), Shaheen (NH), Tillis (NC), Tuberville (Ala.) Van Hallen (Md.), Warner (Va.), Whitehouse (RI), and Wyden (Ore.). Only Senator Ricketts is looking at a 2024 re election. Accompanying Sen. McConnell were trainee Republican Senators Budd and Britt who were introduced as Republican Party support for NATO and Europe.
On the House side, twenty one Members were in attendance (eleven Democrats and ten Republicans) also predominantly representing the Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Committees: Reps. Boyle (Pa), Connolly (Mass), Ciccilline (RI), Crow (Co), Ellzey (Texas), Escobar (Texas), Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Himes (Conn.), Issa (Calif), Jackson (Texas), Mace (SC), McCaul (Texas), McCormick (Ga.), Meeks (NY), Miller (Texas), Pelosi (Calif), Self (Texas) , Sherill (NJ), Smith (Adam) (Wash.), Swalwell (Calif) and Turner (Ohio).
Without the nuisance of a required Congressional war powers vote, Texas won the prize for the most attendees; six Representatives and one Senator while all US Senators from the states of North Carolina, Rhode Island and Arizona Senators were in attendance. Upon his return from Germany, Sen. Tuberville expressed a prevalent although unspoken sense of not knowing how to “get out of Ukraine.” The truth is no more difficult than cutting off the money and stopping the flow of weapons….even a US Senator does not have to be a rocket scientist to figure that out…all it takes is a willingness to accept reality that Ukraine will not ‘win’ the war.
On the trip into Germany, Rep. McCaul, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs, known as a rabid militarist, could not resist a stop in Kyiv to shake the hand and meet with the drugster Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky who has been closing churches and drafting fifteen year olds. McCaul expressed an interest to see Ukraine ‘first hand’ and be ‘on the ground’ in the war zone as he was joined by Reps. Issa, Miller, Self, Ellzey and Sen. Risch in a press conference. The Congressional delegation called for more ‘lethal aid’ including F16s and more ATACMS (long range missiles). Upon their return from MSC, McCaul and Rep. Mike Turner, Chair of House Intel Committee reiterated their support for increased military aid to Ukraine. In pursuit of the full experience, Rep. McCaul might consider camping out at the Ukraine border to greet the Russian Sixth Army (or comparable) as they come across the border.
Even the potential of a nuclear exchange did not inhibit Senators Graham, Blumenthal and Whitehouse from support sending US long range missiles and F16 aircraft to Ukraine. As the truly deplorable VP Harris added her voice that the “US has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity” without any details of that formal determination or providing any evidence.
Just prior to a visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, it may be understandable if the presence of China’s top foreign policy diplomat Wang Yi was a bit unsettling for much of MSC crowd. While refusing to oppose Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, China’s bilateral energy and trade exchanges reached almost $200 Billion, bailing out on the dollar in place of the yuan; but it was the prospect of military assistance to Russia that gave the already anxious MSC insiders pause for deeper reflection.
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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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Introduction: 1 year of violence on top of 30 years of conflict: Too much wrong thinking
The world’s focus is on the war. On February 24, it is one year since Russia launched its so-called special military operation. Much more important is to focus on the underlying conflicts – because there exists no war or other violence without root causes.
The focus on war, by definition, won’t lead to a solution or wider, sustainable peace – like feeling the pain in a patient without diagnosing where it comes from can never lead to healing.
Unless you ask: What is the problem, the conflict, that stands between the conflicting parties – NATO and Russia – it will end with escalation until one of the sides feel that the nuclear button is the only way out.
International politics is still so immature that the simple distinction between the violence and the conflict seem too intellectually demanding for the decision-makers, the media and most researchers.
However, understanding it would help save humanity’s future.
The conflict is about 30 years old, and the war is one year.
Whatever the reader may think about Putin, Russia, the invasion, Ukraine etc., the infantile blaming, demonisation and the projection of all guilt on one side in such a complex, multi-party and history-based conflict should stop. It’s emotionalist and stands in the way of rational and prudent policy-making.
Moreover, it is dangerous in its consequences. Therefore, it’s time for the West – US/NATO and the EU – to do some soul-searching and stop living in denial about its complicity in the conflict and this terrible war.
The overarching fallacy is to think and believe that because Russia did something wrong, everything NATO/EU did and do is right.
Contrary to good academic practice and my other writings, this article merely states points and conclusions, while my arguments can be found in the 200-300 pages of analyses I have written since 2014. Much of it can be found here and here.
I focus here on NATO/EU policies and why they are wrong and won’t succeed; that does not mean that I find Russia’s policies right and successful. But before you accuse others, take a look at yourself. The day after the invasion, I distanced myself from it and also made six – correct, as it turned out – predictions.
The basic psycho-political elements of the West’s policy vis-a-vis Russia
The building blocks of the West’s – NATO/EU – policies vis-a-vis Russia can be characterised by the following psycho-political concepts:
Immaturity and banalisation – in blaming everything on Russia in general and Putin in particular (it can be said that Putin also blames everything on the West, but that won’t help the EU and NATO – just make ‘us’ as stupid as ‘we’ think he is).
Psycho-political projections – what Russia does, NATO/EU countries have done themselves and in some respects much worse; and Putin is hysteric when he feels threatened by us, whereas we are justified – always were – that Russia is a huge threat and that Ukraine is only the first of a series of future aggressions. In other words, comparative studies and media mention of NATO countries’ aggression and violations of international law are prohibited.
Just one example: President Joe Biden, the leader of today’s only global empire with over 600 bases in more than 130 countries and the most war-fighting and mass-killing country since 1945, stated on February 24, 2022, that “This was … always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire by any means necessary.”
Untruthful innocence – NATO, by constitution, never did and doesn’t do anything wrong; it is innocent. NATO’s S-G Stoltenberg has repeatedly stated that ‘NATO is not a party to the conflict’ (but also, inconsequently, that Putin must not win because, then, ‘we’ shall have lost). The homepages of NATO and the EU state untruthfully that the extremely well-documented promises made to Gorbachev about not expanding NATO ‘one inch’ were never given.
The same untruthful innocence produces the lie that it all began with Russia’s annexation of Crimea or the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and that it was ‘unprovoked.’ The word reveals with abundant clarity that NATO knows it behaved in a provocative way. The only relevant history is the history of the conflict – which began at the end of the First Cold War in 1989-90. The rest is make-believe, opportunistic ignorance and pure propaganda.
Groupthink – which implies that a group of elite decision-makers constantly and over time confirm each other in being fundamentally right and cannot be on the wrong track; they meet (latest in Munich) and confirm each other; their ministries, presumed analytical institutions and think tanks as well as the mainstream media hardly ever raise questions or criticise; every interpretation and information not identical with this groupthink is repelled, the world is interpreted selectively to fit the group’s worldview – and eventually, it is totally convinced that it cannot be wrong and that it’s decisions are smart and productive and will lead to the goal.
In this case, the US/NATO stated goal is to weaken Russia militarily and damage its economy to such an extent that it can never do such a thing again – a punishment for what it has done. Groupthink is dangerous because it defies reality checks, leads to hubris, to fatally wrong decisions, and invariably ends up as lemmings running to doom.
Hubris – or arrogance: In reality, ‘we’ are omnipotent. As former NATO S-G, Anders Fogh-Rasmussen has stated: Putin knows that “NATO spends ten times more on the military than he does and that we can beat the crap out of him.” Yet, paradoxically, no Western leader seems to be even thinking of aligning the idea that NATO shall win this war with NATO’s consistent propaganda to its citizens that Russia was a formidable threat which NATO had to defend itself against.
That was done by NATO having actually 12 times higher military expenditures before the war the war anyhow happened, and its ‘deterrence’ failed. And NATO has moved into the largest-ever re-armament to ‘defend’ with goals like 2-4% of the GNP spent/wasted on ‘warfare planning, ‘security’ and ‘defence.’ (As if that was a serious way to determine thow to meet perceived threats).
Militarism – every’ solution’ mentioned is about military actions. We shall win on the battlefield. Nobody in NATO/EU circles knows how to pronounce words such as peace, conflict-resolution, mediation, peacemaking, peace-keeping, reconciliation, dialogue, talks…
Of course, it is implicitly understood that President Putin is at such a low intellectual and moral level that the only thing he understands is that we – the bigger boys in the schoolyard – beat that crap out of him.
Sadly, the only thing that today keeps the Western world together is militarism, winning over Russia together. No other or more positive cause has had the same solidifying function. Militarism has become a religion, NATO its church – and only infidels question that faith and God’s existence. And they know that God is always on’ our’ side.
With warfare, people come together and, in enigmatic ways, their lives may acquire a new meaning that replaces a sense of meaninglessness, and fills an existential void.
Omnipotence – the EU/NATO world has no sense of limitations. It can fight economic crises, recover after the Corona years, handle refugees, solve climate change, alleviate poverty – you name it – and it can re-arm for billions upon billions of dollars. It – the US in particular – can wage a Cold War on everything China – an industry of non-documented accusations – and it can print any amount of greenbacks and repay debts, fix all the infrastructure and other problems of the US society, compete and win in the fields of advanced technology.
The EU – which hasn’t gotten its acts together and built a modern transport infrastructure based on an all-Europe high-speed train network – believes it can always do that later.
All these countries can install sanctions ad libitum – the disease I call ‘sanctionitis’ – believing that they will not be hurt themselves by them. And we shall, of course, re-build Ukraine after we have contributed to destroying it, now it has fought so nobly for ‘our’ values.
We are second to none, and we can do everything simultaneously. No need to prioritise. Significantly, all decisions are made knee-jerk: Sanctions, cancelling of Russia in all other fields, Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO member decisions without analyses of the short, mid-and long-term consequences.
All major decision-makers will be retired or dead, leaving it our children and grandchildren to pay the price by living in a Cold War-impoverished, de-developed and unhappy Europe and US – the more so, the longer the war lasts.
Lacking world awareness – 80-85% of humanity lives in countries whose governments do not side with the NATO/EU world. If the NATO/EU world thought about global attitudes before they made their decisions in response to Russia’s invasion, they made a Himalayan miscalculation – or thought they could later bully everybody into lining up behind them.
This is interesting also because NATO does not only have 30 members, it has 42 partners – some on all continents – and it tries very clearly to move towards becoming a global rather than transatlantic organisation.
This dimension is brilliantly summarised by the High Rep of the EU Foreign and Security Policy (and Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party member), Josef Borell’s racist statement from late 2022: “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,” he went on, “is not exactly a garden. Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden.” (Stated when opening the European Diplomatic (!) Academy in Bruges).
This leads to:
Intellectual poverty – EU/NATO policies now operate on simplifying Twitter-like statements, assertions, non-documented accusations, self-legitimising marketing language, slogans, empty promises and symbolic blue-yellow emblems, ties, dresses – instead of on analyses, arguments and complex understanding.
Following these things every day is utterly boring, predictable and – filled with repetition. Mr Stoltenberg could easily enter Guiness World Records in Banality Repetition. The awareness or focus of politics, media and research is on weapons, war reporting, media war, more weapons fast into Ukraine – and ‘we shall win’ and ‘Russia must not win.’
The obvious questions never asked are: And then what? At what cost to whom? And what will Europe and the world look like afterwards – if it exists? These groupthinkers don’t seem to bother. The idea of asking: If war, what are the underlying conflicts? What are the real, tangible problems – a conflict is an unsolved problem – that stand between NATO and Russia and seriously contributed to the latter blowing up – is prohibited.
The intellectual poverty also comes through in believing, as it seems, that the word ‘Putin’ explains everything. So, this enormously complex conflict accumulating and deepening since the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact dissolved, is reduced to Mr Putin – The (D)Evil – his personality, childhood, or his being physically or mentally ill, a man you shall not listen to who runs a country whose people we punish collectively (against international law, but who cares?).
Furthermore, it comes through in cancelling all critical voices and calling people who ar capable of seeing two sides in a conflict ‘Putinists’ or ‘Putin Versteher’ – the poor trick of framing, of attacking the messenger instead of saying something intellectually qualified.
So, nine psycho-political building blocks in synergy.
Reality checks are very unlikely – at least until the crisis is on the verge of complete breakdown. These building blocks alone guarantee, in my view, that this is not going to go well, and that the NATO/EU leaders are likely to make ever larger miscalculations and live on delusions. Wars tend to narrow down people’s minds. There is no space or time for reflection, for stopping to think.
What does it mean to win?
The usual, again intellectually deficient, argument is that’ we’ must and will, therefore, win, ‘they’ shall lose. And, implicitly, we win because they lose, we win over them. That could turn out to be wrong because ‘they’ might win and ‘we’ might lose.
But it is actually a fourfold table; apart from these two outcomes, both could somehow win, and both could lose.
But even this is a fallacy – because there are not two but many parties: Russia (government and people), Ukraine (government and people), NATO with 30 member states (governments and people) and the US as the leader (government and people). And there is the rest of the world and how the conflict and war impact the global system as time passes.
But let’s stick to the winning idea. What does it mean? Winning militarily, of course – but also winning politically, morally, economically and culturally? Who will be stronger in which respects when the war ends?
The most likely scenario I see on this first anniversary of the war, is a long struggle rather than a quick end to it. The longer it lasts, the more difficult it will be to solve the underlying conflicts – because of the immense accumulated hatred, traumas, devastations, death and wounded, the destroyed economies, etc.
Although the human and material destruction in Ukraine is, so far, rather limited in comparison with, say, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen etc. – it is already as huge as it is heartbreaking. Therefore, the slogan “This war must stop now!” – is the most powerful and truthful – but it is unlikely that the parties will listen anytime soon. They are all in a blind chicken game.
Apart from arms-producing companies and major energy corporations, I see none among the many conflict parties mentioned above who will be better off after this war than before 2014 (the US-instigated and financed regime change in Kyiv and the Russian annexation afterwards of Crimea) or before February 24, 2022.
Instead, everyone – you and me, too – will pay various types of prices. This applies to the immediate after, but also to decades ahead. Healing this conflict and the wounds of this war, building trust as well as a new security system, will take several decades.
In summary, this war cannot be won in any reasonable sense of the word. The ad nauseam repeated NATO/EU slogan “We shall win, stand with Ukraine as long as it takes,” is ill-considered, intellectually poor and delusional.
And it is dangerously irresponsible also because it means killing even more Ukrainian citizens who – in any thinkable scenario – will be the main losers.
Regrettably, this does not prevent those who say it from believing their own words. It’s just that they have never thought through what they mean – because of the 9 psycho-political points above.
All basic NATO/EU assumptions are either plain wrong, unrealistic or unsustainable.
Putin wanted to split NATO, but we stand united.
The first is plain wrong. If NATO is not a party to the conflict, why is Russia’s invasion of a non-NATO country an attempt to split the alliance? Ten former Warsaw Pact countries have become members of NATO despite the well-documented promises all important Western leaders gave Gorbachev over 30 years ago that, if they got united Germany into NATO, the alliance would not expand “one inch” to the East? Why did Russia not split that expanded NATO earlier – and why did it intervene in the case of Ukraine?
It is true, however, true that the only thing the West stands united around is hatred, demonisation and re-armament – winning the war on Ukraine’s territory. Western cohesion has much to thank Putin for – for as long as it lasts.
Putin is out to conquer one country after the other.
Well, so far, it’s not gone that well in Ukraine, and why did he not do that over the last 20 years during which he has been president? Does Russia – with 8% of NATO’s military expenditures and falling – really have the capacity to invade one country after the other, occupy and administer a series of NATO members? Some people say, look at the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008. Well again, that was not what it really was – but the repeated propaganda works.
Russia/Putin threatens Finland and Sweden and may even make an isolated attack on the Swedish island of Gotland – therefore, Sweden must join NATO.
Well, what about a shred of evidence of such an intention? Any assessment of the ‘correlation of forces’? Goodhearted people seem to believe that Sweden would have to fight it alone but – no – the US would come to its rescue even if Sweden wasn’t a member of NATO. That was already agreed upon and planned.
Sweden will instead now be drawn early into warfare and have to accept US and perhaps other bases/weapons prepositioning on its territory and thereby ensure that Russian missiles will target Sweden. It has said goodbye to 200 years of beneficial non-alignment, an independent foreign policy, options of being a mediator and an advocate of common security and the UN goal of general and complete disarmament.
The Swedish PM Kristersson has – without any mandate – promised full loyalty even with NATO’s nuclear doctrine. The Swedes will now live much more dangerously – with sharp, confrontational borderlines instead of neutral buffers. And with much less diversity and freely stated opinions in a more militarist security debate.
Russia will fall apart economically.
Yes, of course, there are economic problems and they may likely increase year by year – but Russia is far from falling apart – for at least four reasons. Furthermore, the Russians know how to suffer – 27 million dead in WW2 – whereas Westerners don’t know much about suffering for their principles and stated ideals.
Ukraine is an existential issue for Russia and many Russians, but absolutely not for the US/NATO – except for the fact that NATO’s only raison d’etre is expansion for the sake of expansion and to keep the conflict with Russia as a-symmetrical as possible and weaken Russia.
Moreover, Russia has the world’s by far largest territory and deposits of natural resources – it is certainly able to slowly but surely turn its back on the EU and NATO countries and cooperate, instead, much more closely with China, India, Iran, the Middle East and the rest of the world, also in the China-driven Belt And Road Initiative, BRI.
Out there, they may not love Russia, but they unite with it because they are sick and tired of the West in general and the US Empire’s operations in particular. And because the Global South has been hard hit by both global economic crisis, the fallout from the Corona and now the West’s response to the invasion.
No ceasefire, no talks, no mediation, no UN or OSCE, no China, no peacekeepers, no demilitarisation, no brainstorming on possible solutions – in short, no-brainer and therefore no peace
We can win this war by letting the Ukrainians fight it for us.
We’ve all heard it repeatedly: Ukraine’s cause is our cause. Ukraine is fighting for our liberal values, for us, for Europe. Ukraine struggles impressively for freedom, democracy, human rights – and therefore, we have a duty to support it with weapons and humanitarian aid.
This idealised, or glossy, Western media image of ‘our’ Ukraine has a political purpose and should be discussed. Understandably, a country fighting for its survival may have to compromise on some of those fine values; the relevant question is what Ukraine might look like – given parts of its history and the de-moralising effects of multi-year warfighting.
Additionally, do the Ukrainians have the military, political, economic and psychological strength to carry the West’s burden on its shoulders, fight for years against NATO’s allegedly formidable nuclear enemy? For a time, yes, but hardly for much longer.
We should not be surprised if more and more Ukrainians begin to wonder: How much of our country and our future must be destroyed to – perhaps – become a NATO member? Is our president doing what is best for Ukraine or is he actually more loyal to the US/NATO than to his citizens? What about internal conflicts, power struggles, coup d’etat attempts and war fatique if this war drags on and, for years, doesn’t lead to anything that can be called victory?
And will Europe take more millions of Ukrainian refugees who have to run away or see no future there?
What we see is the tyranny of the small steps – incremental NATO de facto involvement “for as long as it takes.” It means both fighter aircraft, long-range missiles, and substantial depletion of NATO’s military arsenals. It won’t be for Ukraine’s sake – the country could well be pulverised – but because ‘we’ need to win this war.
The ethics is abominable.
Is Ukraine really important enough for the US and NATO to risk major war, perhaps nuclear war? Do NATO countries have real ideals, and do they want to show that deeds are more important than words? Does NATO really want to win and pay victory’s price?
Today’s leaders would say ‘Yes.’ Then the moral dilemma can be formulated in this way: Why not put in 300 000 – 400 000 NATO troops and conduct the war you have developed plans for since decades back – make it your war, not a proxy war in which the Ukrainian people shall pay the price for the – predictable – consequences of NATO’s expansion (Remember that before the invasion, there was only a minority of all Ukrainians who were in favour of NATO membership and 2/3 of the people who wanted the question decided by a referendum – they never got. NATO and President Poroshenko made the decision).
So, how much are the Ukrainians willing to sacrifice for ‘our’ goals? And for how long?
Peace will emerge from the victory on the battlefields of Ukraine.
It won’t. It never has. Militarism and being drunk on weapons exclude every thought of peacemaking – the words mentioned above under militarism. When you allocate all your resources to the arsenals of war, you deplete the arsenals of peace.
The NATO/EU countries have, in contrast to Putin in 2014, never proposed that the UN come in as a mediator, disarmer and dialogue facilitator. The Minsk process was nothing but a way to buy time for Ukraine to be armed as much as possible before the great battle for ‘our values’ and the killing of 14 000 Russian-leaning Ukrainian citizens. Ukraine is not a country without internal conflicts – that may blow up when the present war ends.
The incredible conflict and peace illiterate assumption seems to be that the NATO/EU countries can be both a fighting party and, later, a mediator. Or that there will be no need for any mediation and reconciliation with Russia: A new Iron Curtain, just tighter, in the making.
The people of Europe will put up with all this because we tell them it is an existential fight.
I do not think they will. There are already doubts and demonstrations against the US/NATO/EU media narrative. It will dawn among the EU’s 420 million citizens that the skyrocketing prices are not “Putin’s prices” but of their own politicians’ making.
It may dawn upon them that Nord Stream’s destruction was an act of economic terrorism against friends and allies, a deep humiliation of Germany and Chancellor Scholz personall – a hitherto unseen US arrogance that will not be forgotten even with the media avoiding it as much as they can – a 9/26 as a European 9/11?
According to this survey published by Euronews, people’s attention is shifting from Ukraine’s battlefield to the wider-felt impacts, including supply-chain disruption, energy price spikes and rising inflation. Time will exert its influence on what can be done by whom and for how long.
We can make Ukraine a NATO member and ignore Russia’s concerns, protests and anger.
Well, not exactly prudent but, rather, a result of the above 9 psycho-political mechanisms. That’s is why NATO’s expansion cannot be discussed and the narrative has it that Putin acted out of the blue.
Generally, people who feel ignored will, as time passes and their frustration builds, force others to listen to them.
“In 2008, William Burns, who is now Biden’s director of the CIA but was then ambassador to Russia, warned that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).” He warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” Short even of expansion into Ukraine, Burns called NATO expansion into Eastern Europe “premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst.” If it came to Ukraine, Burns warned, “There could be no doubt that Putin would fight back hard.”
This is one of numerous facts that you are prevented systematically by our politicians and media to know and discuss.
The list of intellectuals – Realpolitik as well as peace experts – who have warned that Ukraine was a No Go place for full NATO membership is long and most mentioned in my book. NATO, the hubris alliance, did not believe it had to listen or take serious what they – and every Russian president – have stated the last 30 years and CIA’s Burns expressed so well in the same year as NATO decided that Ukraine should become a NATO member (without ever asking the Ukrainian people).
The West will come out stronger and keep its role as a world leader.
It won’t, it will be weakened. If it wants to outcompete China, the Belt and Road Initiative as well as other big powers, it would be wiser to sleep out the militarist hangover and get up early in the morning. If anything, this extremely resource-consuming war for a non-important, non-NATO country will weaken the West more than it will weaken Russia, which will join the emerging new multi-polar world order.
We are where we are now for a series of reasons. We did not have to be here. This could all have been avoided.
The – superior – NATO/EU world is in denial, and its policies have no chance of succeeding because they are intellectually and morally deficient.
This is true irrespective of what you feel about Putin and Russia. If you or the West think he is stupid or evil, don’t believe that anything you do is wise and good. It hasn’t been. And don’t ever reciprocate in kind – tit-for-tat – because that makes you a mirror image of Putin. (Read your Gandhi).
Each and every person who says that ‘we’ shall win this war and ‘they’ shall lose should get out of the sandbox and recognise that s/he becomes co-responsible for the limitless suffering of the innocent Ukrainian citizens, perhaps in the millions.
This war must stop and stop now. We must begin to think and get out of the emotionalist, self-glorifying autopilot straitjacket.
Or we shall all lose.
Knowledge-based and intelligent civil conflict resolution is the only road to peace, cooperation and coexistence in the future.
Peace is still possible.
And peacemaking is the only chance for the US and Europe to play a positive role in tomorrow’s new and very different world.
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Russia experts and national security specialists will be pouring over the text of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address on Tuesday for some time to come, trying to divine hidden meaning.
The fact is, however, Putin’s speech was something rarely heard in Western political circles —unvarnished statements of fact, set forth in a straightforward, surprisingly easy-to-understand manner.
In a world where Western politicians regularly dissemble to shape perception, even if the underlying “facts” are not true (one need only refer to President Joe Biden’s infamous phone call with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in July 2021, for an example), Putin’s speech was a breath of fresh air — no hidden agendas, no false pretense — no lies.
And on the issue of arms control, the truth hurts.
“I have to say today,” Putin announced near the end of his address, “that Russia is suspending its participation in New START. I repeat, not withdrawing from the treaty, no, but merely suspending its participation.”
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), signed in 2010 as the outcome of negotiations between U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, ostensibly caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that each country can deploy at 1,550; limits the number of deployed land-and submarine-based missiles and bombers used to deliver these warheads to 700; and caps at 800 the deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.
In February 2021, Biden and Putin agreed to extend the treaty for an additional five years. New START will expire in 2026.
Background to the Decision
The backstory to New START is important, especially in the context of Putin’s declaration regarding Russia’s suspension. The core of that backstory is missile defense.
In December 2001, then-President George W. Bush announced that the United States was withdrawing from the landmark 1972 anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, which banned (with limited exception) the development and deployment of missile defense systems designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
The ABM treaty set in stone the Cold War concept of mutually assured destruction, or MAD, the idea that no side possessing nuclear weapons would use them against another nuclear power for the simple reason that to do so would bring about their own demise through guaranteed nuclear retaliation.
The insanity of MAD helped pave the way for all arms control agreements that followed, from the Strategic Arms Reductions Talks (SALT), to the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and on to the various iterations of Strategic Arms Reduction treaties (START).
Putin condemned the U.S. decision to withdraw from the ABM treaty as “a mistake.” At the time, U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals were subject to the limitations imposed by the 1991 START treaty. Efforts to further reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons were undertaken as part of the START II treaty.
But post-Cold War politics, combined with the U.S. decision to abandon the ABM treaty, left the treaty signed but unratified, effectively killing it.
Similar issues helped conspire to kill the START III treaty in the negotiation stage. The narrowly focused Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, or SORT, which was signed in 2002, committed both the U.S. and Russia to additional reductions beyond those mandated by START I, but contained no verification or compliance mechanisms.
The START I treaty expired in 2009, and SORT in 2012. New START was intended to replace both agreements.
The Medvedev Presidency
One of the sticking points has been the issue of missile defense. Under President Putin, Russia refused to enter any new substantive arms control treaty (SORT was more informal agreement than treaty in structure and substance) that did not meaningfully address missile defense.
But in May 2008, Dmitry Medvedev took over as Russian president. The Russian constitution prohibited a president from serving more than two consecutive terms in office, and so, with Putin’s support, Medvedev ran for Russia’s highest office, and won. Putin was subsequently appointed prime minister.
Dmitry Medvedev’s presidential election campaign took advantage of Vladimir Putin’s endorsement and high popularity. (Leonid Dzhepko, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
While the Bush administration sought to negotiate a follow-on treaty to the soon-to-be expired START I, Medvedev proved to be every bit as reluctant to entering any agreement with the U.S. that did not include limitations on missile defense, something President Bush would not accept.
In the end, the problem of negotiating a new treaty would be left to the administration of Barack Obama, who assumed office in January 2009.
In their first meeting, in London in late March 2009, the two leaders issued a statement in which they agreed “to pursue new and verifiable reductions in our strategic offensive arsenals in a step-by-step process, beginning by replacing the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with a new, legally-binding treaty.”
As for missile defense, Obama and Medvedev agreed to treat it as a separate issue. “While acknowledging that differences remain over the purposes of deployment of missile defense assets in Europe,” the statement read, “we discussed new possibilities for mutual international cooperation in the field of missile defense, taking into account joint assessments of missile challenges and threats, aimed at enhancing the security of our countries, and that of our allies and partners.”
Let there be no doubt — the New START treaty that was negotiated between Russia and the United States, while singularly focused on reducing strategic offensive nuclear arsenals, contained a clear understanding that this treaty would be followed by a good-faith effort by the U.S. to address Russia’s longstanding concerns over missile defense.
This was reflected in the exchange of non-binding unilateral statements attached to the New START treaty. The “Statement of the Russian Federation Concerning Missile Defense” set out the position that New START “may be effective and viable only in conditions where there is no qualitative or quantitative build-up in [U.S. missile defense system capabilities].”
Moreover, the statement said any build-up in U.S. missile defense capabilities which gave “rise to a threat to [Russia’s strategic nuclear force potential]” would be considered one of the “extraordinary events” mentioned in Article XIV of the treaty and could prompt Russia to exercise its right of withdrawal.
For its part, the United States issued its own statement declaring that U.S. missile defenses “are not intended to affect the strategic balance with Russia” while declaring that it intended “to continue improving and deploying its missile defense systems in order to defend itself against limited attack.”
The agreements reached between Obama and Medvedev, however, was not necessarily acceptable to Putin. According to Rose Gottemoeller, the U.S. negotiator for New START, Putin, as prime minister, nearly scuttled the talks when, in December 2009, he once again raised the issue of missile defense.
“They [the Russians] were going to have a critical National Security Council meeting,” Gottemoeller later recounted in an October 2021 talk with the Carnegie Council, “and the story I have heard told is that Putin, for the first time showing some interest in these negotiations, walks into the National Security Council meeting and simply draws lines through all the issues on this decision sheet and said, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’”
Gottemoeller went on to describe how Putin then travelled to Vladivostok and delivered a speech where he denounced the treaty as “totally inadequate,” criticizing both the U.S. and Russian negotiating teams as being “only focused on limiting strategic offensive forces,” noting that “they are not limiting missile defense. This treaty is a waste of time,” Gottemoeller quoted Putin. “We should get out of the negotiations.”
According to Gottemoeller, Medvedev stood up to Putin, telling his prime minister, “No, we are going to continue these negotiations and get them done.”
Broken Promise
Anatoly Antonov was the Russian negotiator for New START. He dutifully complied with his instructions from the Kremlin to craft a treaty focused on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons, working under the assumption that the U.S. would be as good as its word when it came to engaging in meaningful negotiations on missile defense.
And yet, less than a year after New START entered into force, Antonov found that the U.S. had no intention on following through on its promises.
In an interview with Kommersant newspaper, Antonov said that talks with NATO on a planned Western European missile-defense system had reached “a dead end,” adding that NATO proposals were “vague” and that the promised participation of Russia in the proposed system “is not even up for discussion.”
Antonov indicated that the lack of good faith shown by the U.S. regarding missile defense could lead to Russia withdrawing from the New START treaty altogether.
While the U.S. did offer to let Russia observe specific aspects of a specific test of a U.S. missile interceptor, the offer never amounted to anything, with the U.S. downplaying the abilities of the SM-3 missile when it came to intercepting Russian missiles, noting that the missile lacked the range to be effective against Russian missiles.
The late Ellen Tauscher, who at the time was the U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, had offered Antonov written assurances that the Mk. 41 Aegis Ashore system, which would employ the SM-3 missile interceptor, was not directed against Russia.
U.S. Under Secretary Ellen Tauscher, right, in 2009. (U.S. Mission Geneva, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
However, Tauscher said,
“We cannot provide legally binding commitments, nor can we agree to limitations on missile defense, which must necessarily keep pace with the evolution of the threat.”
Tauscher’s words were prophetic. In 2015, the U.S. began testing the SM-3 Block IIA interceptor against ICBM targets. The SM-3 did, in fact, have the range to shoot down Russian intermediate- and intercontinental-range missiles.
And now those missiles were to be stationed on bases constructed in Poland and Romania, two former Warsaw Pact nations that were closer to the border with Russia than NATO forces had ever been.
The Americans had negotiated in bad faith. Putin, it turned out, had been right to question a strategic arms control treaty that did not consider Russia’s concerns over missile defense.
And yet this did not weaken Putin’s commitment to fulfilling New START. According to Gottemoeller,
“Putin, since this treaty has been signed, has taken a very positive stance about it. Since the treaty has entered into force, he has called it repeatedly publicly the ‘gold standard’ of nuclear treaties and has supported it…I know that he has been committed to the treaty and really committed to the efforts underway now in this strategic stability dialogue to get some new negotiations going.”
But Putin’s assiduous adherence to New START did not mean that the Russian leader had stopped worrying about the threat posed by U.S. missile defense. On March 1, 2018, Putin delivered a major address to the Russian Federal Assembly — the same forum he spoke to on Tuesday. His tone was defiant:
“I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, and introduced unlawful sanctions aimed at containing our country’s development — everything that you wanted to impede with your policies has already happened. You have failed to contain Russia.”
Putin then unveiled several new Russian strategic weapons, including the Sarmat heavy ICBM and the Avangard hypersonic vehicle, which he said were developed in direct response to the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty.
Putin said Russia had warned the U.S. that it would take such measures back in 2004. “No one listened to us then,” Putin declared. “So listen to us now.”
One of the people listening was Rose Gottemoeller. “[P]eople are worried about … the new so-called exotic weapons systems that President Putin rolled out in March of 2018,” the former arms control negotiator, by then retired, said in 2021. “[T]wo of them are already under the limits New START, the so-called Sarmat heavy [ICBM] and also the Avangard, which is their first strategic-range hypersonic glide vehicle that they are getting ready to deploy. They have already said that they will bring it under the New START Treaty.”
Gottemoeller noted that any future arms control agreement would be seeking constraints on these systems.
Treaty Extension in 2021
The New START Treaty was extended for a five-year term in February 2021, even though the Russians believed that the “conversion or elimination” procedures used by the U.S. to determine whether B-52H bombers and Ohio-class submarines converted from nuclear- to non-nuclear use, or eliminated altogether, were insufficient.
The Russians hoped that these issues could be worked out using the treaty-mandated Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) process, which meets twice a year to resolve issues such as these.
March 28, 2011: U.S.-Russian delegations at the Bilateral Consultative Commission on the New START Treaty. (U.S. State Department, Wikimedia Commons)
One of the problems facing both the U.S. and Russian inspectors and negotiators, however, was the Covid-19 pandemic. In early 2020, both sides agreed to suspend on-site inspections and BCC meetings due to the pandemic. By mid-2021, U.S. and Russian negotiators began discussing the creation of joint Covid protocols that could get both inspections and BCC consultations up and running.
But then came Ukraine.
On March 9, 2022, the U.S., U.K. and European Union all passed sanctions which banned Russian aircraft from overflying their respective territories and placed visa restrictions on Russians transiting EU or the U.K. en route to the United States. According to the Russians, these restrictions effectively prohibit the dispatch of weapons-inspection teams to the U.S. using New START short-notice inspection protocols, which have strict treaty-mandated timelines attached to their implementation.
In June 2022, the U.S. unilaterally declared that the moratorium on inspections imposed because of the Covid-19 pandemic was no longer in effect. On Aug. 8, 2022, the U.S. attempted to dispatch a short-notice inspection team to Russia to carry out treaty-mandated inspection tasks.
Russia denied entry to the team, and accused the U.S. of trying to gain a unilateral advantage by conducting on-site inspections while Russia could not. Citing the restrictions imposed by sanctions, the Russia Foreign Ministry said “there are no similar obstacles to the arrival of American inspectors in Russia.”
To resolve the impasse over inspections as well as other outstanding treaty-implementation issues, Russian and U.S. diplomats began consultations on convening a meeting of the BCC, and eventually were able to settle on a Nov. 29, 2022, date in Cairo, Egypt. Four days before the BCC was supposed to begin, however, Russia announced that the meeting was off.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, in statements made to Kommersant, said that the war in Ukraine was at the heart of the decision. “There is, of course, the effect of what is happening in Ukraine and around it,” Ryabkov said. “I will not deny it. Arms control and dialogue in this area cannot be immune to what is around it.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, center, at an International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, August 2020. (Dean Calma/IAEA, Flickr)
Arms Control Could Be Dead
The State Department issued an official report to Congress on Russian compliance with New Start in early 2023 which accused Russia of violating the New START treaty by refusing U.S. inspectors access to sites inside Russia.
Russia, a State Department spokesperson stated, was “not complying with its obligation under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities on its territory,” noting that “Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control.”
The insensitivity of the U.S. side to the impact of its actions targeting Russia — sometimes literally — as part of the overall U.S. response to Putin’s initiation of the Special Military Operation in February 2022 is, however, telling.
In his address on Tuesday, Putin highlighted the role played by the U.S. and NATO in facilitating the Ukrainian use of Soviet-era drones to carry out an attack on a base near Engels, Russia, that housed Russia’s strategic aviation assets, including nuclear-capable bombers. He also pointed out that he had just signed orders for the Sarmat and Avangard systems to become operational and, as such, inspectable under the terms of New START.
“The United States and NATO are directly saying that their goal is to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia,” Putin said. “Are they going to inspect our defense facilities, including the newest ones, as if nothing had happened? Do they really think we’re easily going to let them in there just like that?”
Rose Gottemoeller observed that the U.S. is “not going to change our policy on Ukraine because he’s [Putin] in a hissy fit over the New START treaty. That’s just not going to happen.”
But Putin’s stance is far more principled than a simple “hissy fit.” Born of the original sin perpetrated by the U.S. in withdrawing from the ABM treaty, Putin’s angst is directly tied to the deceit displayed by U.S. officials — including Gottemoeller — when it came to assurances given Dmitry Medvedev about missile defense during the New START negotiations.
This deceit led to Russia deploying new categories of strategic nuclear weapons — the Sarmat and Avangard — to defeat U.S. missile defense systems, including those that had been forward deployed into Europe.
And now, with the war in Ukraine being linked to a U.S. strategy of achieving the strategic defeat of Russia, the U.S. is seeking to use New START to gain access to these very systems, all the while denying Russia its reciprocal rights of inspection under the treaty. As Putin aptly noted, such an arrangement “really sounds absurd.”
The inability and/or unwillingness of either party to compromise on New START means that the treaty will remain in limbo for the indefinite future which, given that the treaty expires in February 2026, means there is a distinct possibility arms control between the U.S. and Russia is dead.
K-114 Tula nuclear submarine at a pier of the Russian Northern Fleet’s naval base during drills for nuclear submarine crews in the Murmansk Region of Russia. (RIA Novosti archive/ Mikhail Fomichev / CC-BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Risk of New Arms Race
While the U.S. and Russia had previously committed to a follow-on treaty to replace New START, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine poses a nearly insurmountable obstacle for anyone seeking to have such a treaty document ready for signature and ratification by the time New START expires.
There is a good chance the U.S. and Russia, in two years’ time, will find themselves without any verifiable mechanism to assuage the fears and uncertainty about the two parties’ respective nuclear arsenals, leading to the real possibility — if not probability — that they will both embark on an unconstrained arms race fueled by ignorance-based angst that could very well result in the kind of misunderstandings, mistakes, or miscalculations that could trigger a nuclear war and, in doing so, end all humanity.
“The truth is behind us,” Putin said, closing out his address to the Russian Federal Assembly.
So, too, may be humanity’s last chance to prevent nuclear calamity, if a way can’t somehow be found to get arms control back on the agenda.
Here, Gottemoeller’s assertion that the U.S. would not alter its Ukraine policy to save New START underscores the self-defeating reality of the Biden administration’s efforts to arm Ukraine.
The sooner the war in Ukraine is over, the sooner the U.S. and Russia can get down to the business of preserving arms control as a viable part of the relationship between the two nations.
By seeking to extend the Ukraine conflict, however, the U.S. is in effect engaging in an act of self-immolation that threatens to engulf the world in a nuclear holocaust.
During the Vietnam War, the noted correspondent Peter Arnett quoted an unnamed U.S. Army officer as saying, “We had to destroy the village to save it.” With regard to the linkage that has been created between Ukraine and arms control, the same sick logic now applies — to save one, the other must be destroyed.
To save Ukraine, arms control must be destroyed.
To save arms control, Ukraine must be destroyed.
One sacrifices a nation, the other a planet.
This is the Hobson’s Choice U.S. policy makers have created, except it is not.
Save the planet. That is the only choice.
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Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.
Featured image: Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 21 address to Federal Assembly. (Kremlin)
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Another tragic death of a 14 year old hockey player from British Columbia (click here).
“The community is mourning the sudden passing away on February 13, of 14-year-old Robin Singh Janjua who played on Delta Hockey Academy’s U15 Green team”.
The Surrey Eagles posted the following on their Facebook: “The Surrey Eagles are grieving the loss of one of the brightest stars of our local community, in the passing of Robin Janjua.
“He was a beloved son, brother and friend to many. He absolutely loved the game of hockey, he was exceptionally talented and had a strong commitment and positive attitude whenever he played. Robin embodied the essence of what it meant to be a great teammate, and his loss will continue to be felt deeply across the hockey community. On behalf of the Surrey Eagles, our players and parents, we are sending our thoughts and prayers to the Janjua family at this very difficult time.”
“The sudden death of a 14-year-old player has saddened the hockey community in Surrey, Delta and beyond.
Robin Janjua played with Semiahmoo Minor Hockey in South Surrey/White Rock before he left for Delta Hockey Academy at the start of the current season, to play on the academy’s U15 Green team.
He died on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14), according to posts on DHA’s social media accounts Tuesday (Feb. 21).
Robin is described has a “kind-hearted young man” who was “an exceptional student, athlete and teammate.”
The cause of death has not been reported.
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All images in this article are from the author
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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How far we have come—or, rather, fallen. Once upon a time in America, corporations were required to sign a charter before doing business in a state or community. “After the nation’s founding, corporations were granted charters by the state as they are today,” writes Stephen D. Foster Jr.
Unlike today, however, corporations were only permitted to exist 20 or 30 years and could only deal in one commodity, could not hold stock in other companies, and their property holdings were limited to what they needed to accomplish their business goals. And perhaps the most important facet of all this is that most states in the early days of the nation had laws on the books that made any political contribution by corporations a criminal offense.
The founders despised the East India Trading Company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, and above all, centralized banks.
“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered,” Thomas Jefferson wrote in an 1802 letter to Secretary of State Albert Gallatin.
That was then, this is now. Now we have self-appointed globalist sociopaths telling us we will own nothing and be happy (only possible with the right amount of soma).
East Palestine, again. It is too symptomatic to be ignored.
Norfolk Southern—the railroad giant whose train derailed and caused a toxic chemical fire in a small Ohio town earlier this month—has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out a 2017 lawsuit filed by a cancer-afflicted former rail worker—and the Biden administration is siding with the corporation, reporting from The Lever revealed last week. (Emphasis added.)
However, if you read Bizarro World Daily (the corporate media)—where facts are conspiracy theories and the state will classify you as a domestic terrorist if you prefer reality over fairy tales—Biden is portrayed as an advocate of the right of workers to organize. It was the Bad Orange Man who attacked labor rights.
Even the Vermont career politician, Bernie Sanders, is reluctant to place blame for the poisoning and future cancer epidemic in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and beyond on a corporation that has donated so much “campaign” money to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and various establishment PACs. The Bern shall not bite the hand that feeds.
The fact this career politician works closely with the democrat establishment completely destroys the claim he is an advocate of the people (or people who believe socialism is some kind of palliative against the predatory and psychopathic behavior of large corporations and banks).
Sanders blamed the driver of the train for the accident. “Sanders’ statement not only absolved Buttigieg and the Biden administration, but his own responsibility for the disaster,” opines Shannon Jones, writing for the World Socialist Web Site (in Neocon Bizarro World, we often depend on socialists, to tell the truth, as the “objective” corporate media only deal in omission, lies, and deception).
If the Supreme Court (handpicked political appointees in black robes) decides in favor of Norfolk Southern, the following will become difficult, if not impossible for the average person.
It should be obvious by now Biden, Congress, and the real owners of the DC dinosaur, corporations, and banks, are steadily working together to reduce you, your children, and your grandchildren, to the status of penurious hand-to-mouth wage slaves with zero ability to confront the state and its corporatist (fascist) “partners” as they mow over and shred your natural rights.
Please, don’t vote for Bernie Sanders, Biden, DeSantis, Trump (who threatens to run again, if the Democrats don’t throw him in prison), and any other mealy-mouth careerist of the uniparty political class.
The first assumption should be: they don’t give a whit about you (except for your money), they are not interested in protecting you (with the exception of fictional enemies), and they are well-paid to carry water for banks and corporations that, as Jefferson knew so long ago, will destroy lives and the environment in immoral and criminal pursuit of money and the narcissistic desire to rule and control other people.
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Die Aufklärung über die Wissenschaft der Psychologie ist eine länderübergreifende Forschungsaufgabe, die nur zu bewältigen ist, wenn freie und vernunftbegabte Mitbürger gemeinsam mit ehrlichen Wissenschaftlern forschen und sich einig sind. „Global Research“ ist hierfür zusammen mit anderen unabhängigen Medien ein geeignetes Diskussionsforum.
Da die Wissenschaft dem Leben entsprungen ist, ist sie dazu berufen, dem Leben der Menschen zu dienen. Oder wie es Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) im Theaterstück „Leben des Galilei“ ausdrückt:
„Ich halte dafür, dass das einzige Ziel der Wissenschaft darin besteht, die Mühseligkeit der menschlichen Existenz zu erleichtern.“
Das Konzept der Natur des Menschen beinhaltet aus naturwissenschaftlicher Sicht die völlige Abwesenheit genetisch vorherbestimmter aggressiver Triebe. Dadurch ergibt sich die Fähigkeit des Menschen, ohne Gewalt und Kriege in einer friedlichen Welt zu leben und sich in ihr zu organisieren.
So eine Welt entsteht jedoch nicht von selbst, sondern – wie die nachfolgenden Ausführungen über den menschlichen Geist der Verblendung und den Mythos eines Aggressionstriebs zeigen werden – einzig und allein durch menschliche Entschlüsse, durch ein Denken und Handeln, das sich am Ideal des Friedens und der Gerechtigkeit orientiert.
Solange wir in einer Welt leben, in der Gewalt und Kriege an der Tagesordnung sind, können wir uns der Verantwortung nicht entziehen. Da die Welt ist so, wie wir sie eingerichtet – oder in Bezug auf bereits bestehende Verhältnisse – geduldet haben, sind wir mitschuldig, selbst dann, wenn wir Opfer sind.
Sollten Wissenschaftler zu den aufgeworfenen Fragen nichts beizutragen haben, rührt die Not der Menschen nicht an ihr Herz. Ihre Weisheit und ihre Wissenschaft ist dann nur ein selbstgefälliges Spiel des Verstandes, das keine Verbindlichkeit kennt.
Wie in Teil I bereits dargelegt, stützt sich der Autor bei seinen psychologischen Überlegungen auf die Gedanken und Erkenntnisse seines geschätzten Lehrers, auf persönliche Gespräche mit ihm und auf Gesprächsprotokolle.
Die Natur des Menschen ist friedlich
Seit Menschen existieren und wir Erkenntnisse über sie haben, wissen wir, dass sie stets nach einer besseren Lebens-Situation streben, in erster Linie nach einem Leben in Frieden ohne Gewalt und Kriege. Jedoch in der heutigen kapitalistischen Welt herrschen Gewalt, Blut, Tod und Verderben.
Die Erziehung in unserer Kultur erzeugt bei den Kindern Angst vor dem anderen Menschen, eine Gefühlsreaktion, die sich gegen den anderen wendet. Wenn sie dann heranwachsen, sind sie nicht imstande, mit den Mitmenschen zusammenzuwirken und zusammenzuleben. Auch das eigene Leben können sie sich nicht gut einrichten.
Dabei ist die Natur des Menschen friedlich. Und deshalb ist die Menschheit fähig, ohne Waffen und Kriege zusammenzuleben. Die meisten Menschen lieben es, ihrer täglichen Arbeit nachzugehen oder den Acker zu bestellen und mit dem Nachbarn in Frieden und Freundschaft zu leben.
Es ist allein die Machtgier derer, die innerhalb der Völker als Obrigkeit fungieren und die durch ihre gesellschaftliche Stellung vom Geist der Gewalt durchdrungen sind, weshalb es immer wieder zu kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen kommt, in denen die Menschen für ihrer Herren und Ausbeuter verbluten. Deshalb sollte man nicht die „Völker“ für die Kriege verantwortlich machen. Es sind die herrschenden Schichten, die sich bekriegen und gegenseitig zu unterjochen versuchen. Ihre „Untertanen“ leben, arbeiten und sterben für sie.
Die psychologische Forschung sollte an der Frage ansetzen, wie die Unterdrückung des Menschen durch den Menschen überhaupt möglich ist. Die Macht als Ursache allein reicht nicht aus, da die Macht des Volkes größer ist als diejenige seiner Herrscher. Es muss ideologische Erklärungen dafür geben, dass die Herrschenden es schaffen, die Hörigkeit ihrer Völker sicherzustellen.
Es ist die ideologische Verblendung des Menschengeistes, die dazu führt, dass die Menschen ihre Liebe zur Freiheit und zum Frieden vergessen und damit beginnen, ihre Ketten zu verherrlichen?
Kriegsgründe und der Geist der Verblendung
In früheren Zeiten wurde der Ursprung des Krieges auf den Sündenfall der ersten Menschen zurückgeführt. Doch diese mythologische Erklärung ist nicht ernst zu nehmen. Auch der Konkurrenzkampf zwischen den Religionen, von denen jede sich im Besitz der absoluten Wahrheit wähnte, gab Anlass zu kriegerischen Verwicklungen.
Ebenso falsch ist die Auffassung vom Menschen als einem Raubtier in seinem „Kampf uns Dasein“: „homo homini lupus“ (Der Mensch ist dem Menschen ein Wolf).
In der Neuzeit ist dann der Typus des Wirtschaftskrieges geschaffen worden, in dem die Herren des Handels und der Industrie die Völker zu einem Ringen um Rohstoffquellen und Absatzmärkte antreten ließen.
Ein weiteres wichtiges Moment der Verblendung ist die nationale und rassische Ideologie, deren epidemischer Charakter uns sowohl in der Vergangenheit veranschaulicht worden ist, uns aber auch in der Gegenwart vor Augen geführt wird.
Der Mythos der Nation und der Rasse schafft eine künstliche Einheit zwischen Herrschenden und Beherrschten, indem den Untertanen vorgaukelt wird, sie gehörten mitsamt ihren Herren einer geheimnisvollen und ruhmreichen Körperschaft an, an deren Glanz und Größe auch der geringste Knecht seinen Anteil hat. Diese Verklärung der Knechts-Mentalität schuf die Voraussetzungen für absolutistische Herrschaftsformen, in denen die Menschen ein willenloses Werkzeug ihrer Obrigkeit geworden sind und ihr in Krieg und Frieden vorbehaltlose Gefolgschaft leisteten.
In Wirklichkeit sind Nationalismus und Rassenlehre Geisteshaltungen des Stolzes und der Überheblichkeit, in denen immer auch Aggressivität gegenüber Nachbarvölker oder benachbarte Rassen mitschwingt. Zu allen Zeiten waren sie für die Herrschenden ein Mittel zur Verführung der breiten Volksmassen.
Ein weiterer Unsinn und Schwindel ist der bereits in früheren Artikeln dargelegte und von Arno Plackausführlich beschriebene Mythos vom Aggressionstrieb (1). Laut dieser vorpsychologischen Auffassung würden die Menschen wegen eines angeborenen Aggressionstriebs gerne in den Krieg ziehen, um andere Menschen, die sie in der Regel nicht kennen und die ihnen nichts angetan haben, umzubringen und sich selbst umbringen zu lassen. Doch kein Mensch verlässt seine Liebe, kein Mann Frau und Kinder, um in den Krieg zu ziehen.
Wieso sollten Menschen, die ruhig und in Frieden in ihrem Haus, Hof und Garten leben, auf einmal einen Aggressionstrieb haben und gegen das andere Volk in den Krieg ziehen wollen? Die wohlbekannten Theoretiker des Aggressionstriebes wie Siegmund Freud und Konrad Lorenz, deren Namen jeder Zeitungsleser und Fernsehzuschauer kennt, verstanden die Menschen nicht.
Haben wir den Mut und die Geduld, unsere diesbezügliche Meinung zu revidieren. In Tat und Wahrheit ist es die gewalttätige Erziehung, die bereits beim Kind Aggressionen auslöst. Der Mensch ist nicht imstande, seinen Mitmenschen umzubringen; das entspricht nicht seiner Natur.
Abschließend soll auf die tragische Schwäche der Menschen eingegangen werden, dass sie nicht NEIN sagen können. Haben sich die Herrschenden für einen Krieg entschieden, dann muss gefolgt werden. Die Menschen können nicht sagen: „Nein, ich gehe nicht in den Krieg!“
Männer jeden Alters können leider nicht anders reagieren. Die Erziehung hat so auf ihr Gefühlsleben eingewirkt, dass sie in den Krieg ziehen „müssen“. In ähnlicher Weise, wie sie in der Kinderstube Vater und Mutter und in der Schule den Lehrern folgen mussten, folgen sie als Erwachsene politischen und anderen Autoritäten. Dieses Gefühl des absoluten Gehorsams aus der Kindheit tragen sie bis ins hohe Alter mit. Das Verhalten des Auschwitz-Kommandanten Rudolf Höss, der eine Erziehung nach streng religiösen und militärischen Grundsätzen genoss, ist hierfür ein beredtes Beispiel (2).
Da den folgsamen Männern dieser psychologische Zusammenhang aber nicht bewusst ist, können und dürfen wir sie nicht verurteilen. Die Eltern und Erzieher haben nicht gewusst, dass eine Erziehung zum absoluten Gehorsam ein schwerwiegender Fehler mit ungeahnten Konsequenzen ist. Sie meinten und meinen es in der Regel gut, bringen ihre Kinder aber in ihrer Unwissenheit und aufgrund eigener Kindheitserlebnisse in Not.
Die Annahme eines dynamischen Unbewussten als wesentlicher und hochwirksamer Teil des psychischen Lebens des Menschen ist in der Tiefenpsychologeine eine grundlegende Erkenntnis.
Die gute Nachricht ist, dass wir jederzeit damit beginnen können, die Erziehung unseres Nachwuchses kinderfreundlicher zu gestalten und dass sich Erwachsene mit Hilfe eines psychotherapeutischen Fachmanns ihrer unbewussten Gefühlsanteile bewusst werden und damit ihr Verhalten ändern können.
Eine Welt ohne Waffen und Kriege entsteht allein durch menschliche Entschlüsse
Ein Blick auf die gegenwärtige geschichtliche Situation der Menschheit und die Tragikomödie, die ihr seit Jahren von den Regierungsmedien vorgespielt wird, gibt wenig Anlass zu Optimismus. Ganz im Gegenteil!
Die Geschichte strebt durch ihre Eigengesetzlichkeit nicht selbst zum Frieden – quasi über unsere Köpfe hinweg. Eine Welt ohne Gewalt, ohne Waffen und Kriege kann einzig und allein durch den Entschluss der Menschen realisiert werden, durch ein Denken und Handeln, das sich am Ideal des Friedens und der Gerechtigkeit orientiert. Und diese Reduzierung der Gewalt muss hier und heute erfolgen.
Die Kultur muss eben immer wieder neu errungen werden, was die Größe der vor uns liegenden Aufgabe mehr als verdeutlicht.
Dabei ist es von entscheidender Bedeutung, dass bereits das Kind von den Eltern, Lehrern und Erziehern erfährt, dass man vor dem anderen Menschen keine Angst haben muss, sondern dass der andere gerne mit ihm spielt und mit ihm zusammenlebt. Auftretende Konflikte würden sich immer in Freundschaft und ohne jegliche verbale oder körperliche Gewalt lösen lassen. Erwachsenen sollten für diese Kinder gewaltfreie Modelle sein.
Wenn wir zudem davon ausgehen, dass das menschliche Gefühlsleben nicht nur als Resultat der Eltern-Kind-Beziehung zu verstehen ist, sondern dass das soziokulturelle Milieu und die damit korrespondierenden Gefühle ebenso entscheidend sind, weil Eltern, Lehrer und Erzieher die Werte einer Kultur tagtäglich in Wort und Tat an das Kind herantragen, dann ist es auch wichtig, dass die in der Kultur vorherrschenden Werte ebenso einer friedlichen und gewaltfreien Gesellschaft entsprechen.
In diesem Zusammenhang ist positiv anzumerken, dass die Menschheit in den letzten Jahrtausenden mehr und mehr die Stimme des Menschheitsgewissens in sich vernommen hat und sich dessen bewusst ist, dass es darum geht, in Freiheit und Brüderlichkeit zusammenzuleben und durch den gemeinsamen Kampf gegen die Naturgewalten das Leben auf dieser Erde zu sichern.
Auch wenn sie bisher nicht imstande war, das uralte Übel „Krieg“ aus der Welt zu bannen, weil machtpolitische, wirtschaftliche und soziale Gründe dem Geist der Gewalt ständig neue Nahrung verschafften, die zu kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen führten, so erhob sich doch von Zeit zu Zeit der Mahnruf hochgesinnter Menschen, die das Ideal einer friedlichen Welt proklamierten.
Die Idee eines „ewigen Friedens“ ist sicher so alt wie die Menschheit selbst.
Erziehung zu Gemeinschaftsgefühl und mitmenschlicher Verbundenheit
Die Erziehungsmethoden der Vergangenheit drosselten bereits in den Kindheitsjahren die Gemeinschaftsgefühle der Menschen und statteten sie mit jener Aggressionsbereitschaft aus, durch die eine gewalttätige Welt im Zustand der Gewalttätigkeit verharren konnte.
Durch psychologische Erziehungsmethoden könnten jedoch Menschen herangebildet werden, die gegen die Verstrickungen des Machtwahns gefeit sind. Indem die Pädagogik in Elternhaus und Schule auf unangemessenes Autoritätsgebaren und körperliche sowie verbale Gewaltanwendung verzichtet und sich mit wahrem Verständnis dem kindlichen Seelenleben anpasst, wird sie Menschen heranziehen, die keine Untertanen-Mentalität mehr besitzen und damit für die Machthaber in unserer Welt kein gefügiges „Werkzeug“ mehr sein werden.
Kinder des Bürgertums und der Arbeiterschaft können in der Regel nicht verwechselt werden. Diejenigen Kinder, die in gesellschaftlich begünstigter Position aufwachsen, haben das Gefühl der Selbstsicherheit und Überlegenheit („Mir gehört die Welt!“). Gibt es Dienstboten im Elternhaus, bekommen sie früh den Eindruck, dass sich die Menschen in „Herren“ und „Diener“ unterscheiden und dass die Diener dazu da sind, für die Herrschaft zu leben und zu arbeiten. Kein Wunder also, dass in ihrer Seele der Drang entsteht, auch einmal „Herr“ zu sein.
Auch die verzärtelnde Erziehung schafft einen Menschtypus, der mit einem Auserwähltheitsanspruch der Welt gegenübersteht und nicht geneigt ist, anderen Menschen gleiche Ansprüche zuzubilligen.
Das Arbeiterkind sieht sich frühzeitig in eine Welt hineingestellt, in der es Bevorrechtete und Benachteiligte gibt. Damit erfasst ein sozial bedingtes Minderwertigkeitsgefühl seine Seele.
Aber das Kind aus der gesellschaftlich benachteiligten Volksschicht krankt ebenso sehr an der Machtgier wie das Kind aus der gesellschaftlich begünstigten Position. Die Unterwürfigkeit, zu der ihn seine Position drängt, wirkt als ständiger Stachel, der ebenso zur Aggressionsbereitschaft führen kann. Es wäre eine Täuschung, hier eine „Schwarz-Weiß-Malerei“ zu betreiben.
Letztlich geht es darum, durch die zukünftige Erziehung einen Menschentypus hervorzubringen, der – wie Alfred Adler es sich vorstellte – Gemeinschaftsgefühl und mitmenschliche Verbundenheit ebenso selbstverständlich äußern wird wie das Atmen (3).
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist Schul-Rektor, Erziehungswissenschaftler (Dr. paed.) und Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Nach seinen Universitätsstudien wurde er wissenschaftlicher Lehrer (Professor) in der Erwachsenenbildung: unter anderem Leiter eines freien Schul-Modell-Versuchs und Fortbildner bayerischer Beratungslehrkräfte und Schulpsychologen. Als Pensionär arbeitete er als Psychotherapeut in eigener Praxis. Bei einer Öffentlichen Anhörung zur Jugendkriminalität im Europa-Parlament war er Berichterstatter für Deutschland. In seinen Büchern und Fachartikeln fordert er eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Für seine Verdienste um Serbien bekam er 2021 von den Universitäten Belgrad und Novi Sad den Republik-Preis „Kapitän Misa Anastasijevic“ verliehen.
Er schreibt regelmäßig für Global Research.
Noten
(1) Plack, Arno (Hrsg.). (1973). Der Mythos vom Aggressionstrieb. München
(2) Broszat, Martin (Hrsg.). (1963). Kommandant in Auschwitz. Autobiographische Aufzeichnungen des Rudolf Höß. München
(3) Adler, Alfred (1978). Kindererziehung. Frankfurt am Main
The enlightenment of the science of psychology is a transnational research task that can only be accomplished if free and rational citizens research together with honest scientists and are in agreement. “Global Research”, together with other independent media, is a suitable discussion forum for this.
Since science springs from life, it is called to serve the lives of people. Or as Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) puts it in the play “Life of Galileo”:
“I hold that the only aim of science is to ease the hardships of human existence.”
From a scientific point of view, the concept of the nature of man involves the complete absence of genetically predetermined aggressive drives. This results in man’s ability to live and organise himself in a peaceful world without violence and wars.
However, such a world does not come into being by itself, but – as the following explanations about the human spirit of delusion and the myth of an aggressive instinct will show – solely through human resolutions, through thinking and acting oriented towards the ideal of peace and justice.
As long as we live in a world where violence and wars are the order of the day, we cannot escape responsibility. Since the world is the way we have set it up – or tolerated it in relation to pre-existing conditions – we are complicit, even if we are victims.
If scientists have nothing to contribute to the questions raised, the plight of human beings does not touch their hearts. Their wisdom and their science is then only a complacent game of the mind that knows no binding force.
As already explained in Part I, the author bases his psychological reflections on the thoughts and insights of his esteemed teacher, on personal conversations with him and on transcripts of conversations.
The nature of human beings is peaceful
Ever since human beings have existed and we have had knowledge about them, we have known that they always strive for a better life situation, first and foremost for a life in peace without violence and wars. However, in today’s capitalist world, violence, blood, death and destruction prevail.
Education in our culture creates fear of the other person in children, an emotional reaction that turns against the other. When they then grow up, they are unable to interact and live together with their fellow human beings. They are also unable to arrange their own lives well.
Yet the nature of man is peaceful. And that is why humanity is capable of living together without weapons and wars. Most people love to go about their daily work or cultivate the field and live in peace and friendship with their neighbour.
It is only the greed for power of those who act as authorities within the peoples and who, through their social position, are imbued with the spirit of violence, which is why there are always warlike conflicts in which people bleed to death for their masters and exploiters. Therefore, one should not blame the “peoples” for the wars. It is the ruling classes that are at war and try to subjugate each other. Their “subjects” live, work and die for them.
Psychological research should start with the question of how the oppression of man by man is possible in the first place. Power alone as a cause is not enough, since the power of the people is greater than that of their rulers. There must be ideological explanations for the fact that the rulers manage to ensure the bondage of their peoples.
It is the ideological delusion of the human spirit that causes people to forget their love of freedom and peace and begin to glorify their chains?
Reasons for war and the spirit of delusion
In earlier times, the origin of war was traced back to the Fall of the first humans. But this mythological explanation is not to be taken seriously. The competition between the religions, each of which believed itself to be in possession of the absolute truth, also gave rise to warlike entanglements.
Equally wrong is the view of man as a predator in his “struggle for existence”: “homo homini lupus” (man is a wolf to man).
In modern times, the type of economic warfare was created, in which the masters of trade and industry engaged peoples in a struggle for sources of raw materials and markets.
Another important moment of delusion is the national and racial ideology, whose epidemic character has been illustrated to us both in the past, but is also brought before us in the present.
The myth of nation and race creates an artificial unity between the rulers and the ruled by making the subjects believe that they and their masters belong to a mysterious and glorious body in whose splendour and greatness even the lowest servant has a share. This glorification of the servant mentality created the conditions for absolutist forms of rule in which people became a will-less tool of their authorities and gave them unreserved allegiance in war and peace.
In reality, nationalism and racial doctrine are attitudes of pride and arrogance, which always include aggression towards neighbouring peoples or races. At all times they have been a means for the rulers to seduce the broad masses of the people.
Another nonsense and hoax is the myth of the aggression instinct, already presented in earlier articles and described in detail by Arno Plack (1). According to this pre-psychological view, people would gladly go to war because of an innate aggression instinct, to kill other people whom they usually do not know and who have done nothing to them, and to have themselves killed. But no man leaves his love, no man leaves his wife and children to go to war.
Why should people who live quietly and in peace in their house, yard and garden suddenly have an aggression instinct and want to go to war against the other people? The well-known theorists of the aggression instinct like Siegmund Freud and Konrad Lorenz, whose names every newspaper reader and television viewer knows, did not understand the people.
Let us have the courage and patience to revise our opinion in this regard. In fact, it is violent upbringing that triggers aggression in children. Man is not capable of killing his fellow man; that is not his nature.
Finally, the tragic weakness of human beings is that they cannot say NO. If the rulers have decided to go to war, then it must be followed. People cannot say, “No, I will not go to war!”
Men of all ages, unfortunately, cannot react in any other way. Education has so affected their emotional life that they “must” go to war. In much the same way that they had to follow father and mother in childhood and teachers in school, they follow political and other authorities as adults. They carry this feeling of absolute obedience from childhood with them into old age. The behaviour of the Auschwitz commander Rudolf Höss, who enjoyed an upbringing according to strict religious and military principles, is an eloquent example of this (2).
But since the obedient men are not aware of this psychological connection, we cannot and must not condemn them. The parents and educators did not know that an education to absolute obedience is a serious mistake with unforeseen consequences. They meant and usually mean well, but in their ignorance and because of their own childhood experiences they put their children in distress.
The assumption of a dynamic unconscious as an essential and highly effective part of the human psychological life is a fundamental insight in depth psychology.
The good news is that we can always start to make the upbringing of our offspring more child-friendly and that adults, with the help of a psychotherapeutic professional, can become aware of their unconscious emotional parts and thus change their behaviour.
A world without weapons and wars is created by human decisions alone
A look at the current historical situation of humanity and the tragicomedy that has been played out for it for years by the government media gives little cause for optimism. Quite the contrary!
History, by its own laws, does not strive for peace itself – over our heads, as it were. A world without violence, without weapons and wars can only be realised by the decision of human beings, by thinking and acting in accordance with the ideal of peace and justice. And this reduction of violence must take place here and now.
Culture must be won over again and again, which more than illustrates the magnitude of the task ahead of us.
In this context, it is of crucial importance that already the child learns from parents, teachers and educators that one does not have to be afraid of the other person, but that the other person likes to play with him and live together with him. Any conflicts that arise would always be solved in friendship and without any verbal or physical violence. Adults should be non-violent models for these children.
If we also assume that human emotional life is not only to be understood as the result of the parent-child relationship, but that the socio-cultural milieu and the feelings corresponding to it are just as decisive, because parents, teachers and educators transmit the values of a culture to the child every day in word and deed, then it is also important that the values prevailing in the culture also correspond to a peaceful and non-violent society.
In this context, it is positive to note that in recent millennia humanity has increasingly heard the voice of humanity’s conscience within itself and is aware that it is a matter of living together in freedom and brotherhood and securing life on this earth through the common struggle against the forces of nature.
Even if it has so far been unable to banish the age-old evil of “war” from the world, because power-political, economic and social reasons constantly provided new nourishment for the spirit of violence that led to warlike conflicts, the exhortation of high-minded people who proclaimed the ideal of a peaceful world arose from time to time.
The idea of “eternal peace” is certainly as old as humanity itself.
Education for a sense of community and human solidarity
The educational methods of the past already throttled people’s sense of community in their childhood years and equipped them with the readiness for aggression through which a violent world could remain in a state of violence.
However, through psychological education methods, people could be formed who are immune to the entanglements of the delusion of power. By renouncing inappropriate authority and the use of physical and verbal violence in the parental home and school and by adapting to the child’s soul life with true understanding, pedagogy will produce people who no longer possess a subjugated mentality and will thus no longer be a docile “tool” for those in power in our world.
Children of the bourgeoisie and the working class cannot, as a rule, be confused. Those children who grow up in socially favoured positions have a sense of self-assurance and superiority (“The world is mine!”). If there are servants in the parental home, they get the impression early on that people are differentiated into “masters” and “servants” and that the servants are there to live and work for the master. No wonder, then, that the urge arises in their souls to be “masters” for once, too.
The pampering upbringing also creates a type of person who faces the world with a claim to chosenness and is not inclined to grant other people equal claims.
The working-class child sees himself early on in a world in which there are privileged and disadvantaged people. Thus, a socially conditioned feeling of inferiority takes hold of his soul.
But the child from the socially disadvantaged class suffers just as much from the lust for power as the child from the socially advantaged position. The submissiveness to which his position urges him acts as a constant sting which can equally lead to a readiness to be aggressive. It would be a fallacy to paint a “black and white” picture here.
Ultimately, it is a matter of bringing forth through future education a type of human being who – as Alfred Adler envisioned – will express a sense of community and fellow human bond as naturally as breathing (3).
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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel is a school rector, educationalist (Dr. paed.) and psychologist (Dipl.-Psych.). After his university studies, he became an academic teacher (professor) in adult education: among other things, he was head of an independent school model trial and in-service trainer of Bavarian guidance counsellors and school psychologists. As a retiree, he worked as a psychotherapist in private practice. He was rapporteur for Germany at a public hearing on juvenile delinquency in the European Parliament. In his books and articles, he calls for a conscious ethical-moral education and an education for public spirit and peace. For his services to Serbia, he was awarded the Republic Prize “Captain Misa Anastasijevic” by the Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad in 2021.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Notes
(1) Plack, Arno (ed.). (1973). The myth of the aggression instinct. Munich
(2) Broszat, Martin (ed.). (1963). Commandant at Auschwitz. Autobiographical notes of Rudolf Höß. Munich
(3) Adler, Alfred (1978). Child rearing. Frankfurt am Main
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***
If one tries to use rational thought processes to produce a reasoned explanation for that which is neither rational nor reasoned, one will end-up building a false picture of the world around one.
This is what has happened to those who have tried to ‘make sense’ of a global agenda whose first principle is to create chaos and confusion. Trying to piece together strands that ‘by intent’ have no connection is quite obviously a road to nowhere.
The shadowy architects of The Great Reset/New World Order/One World Government pulled-off a clever trick in designing a totalitarian programme for top-down change whose individual parts each contradict one another.
So, when put together by the ‘rational’ public mind, it makes people feel that they must be suffering a diminished personal level of intelligence, because they can’t make the agenda make any logical sense.
So what do most people do? They form a comforting yet implausible theory, that satisfies a need to believe events are following some sort of logical pattern which only those ‘in charge’ can properly understand.
This achieves the cabal’s desired affect of defeating any resistance to the programme being enforced. If those on the receiving end can’t, or won’t, believe that the perpetrators see and experience life from a completely different perspective from their own, they can’t grasp why an anti-human agenda could possibly be the reality of the day.
But it is the nature of psychotic/demonic beings to sow the seeds of confusion and then stand back and watch, gaining satisfaction from observing the results play themselves out. So sure are they of the enduring psychological weaknesses displayed by a majority of human beings that they publicly announce each new turning of the screw, via the compliant and controlled world of the mass media.
If enough big names, global institutions and media operations say black is white and two plus two makes five, most will prefer to go along with this perversion than face their own inability to recognise that things have indeed been deliberately 100% distorted.
This distortion is now fully operational in every area of life controlled by the chain of command which – starting from the 0.5% ‘elite’ cabal – runs on to corporate fiefdoms, banking dictatorships, supra national conglomerates (i.e The European Union), trans planetary institutions like the World Economic Forum, World Health Organisation and United Nations, the military industrial complex, and finally national and local governments and the general public.
Built into a very actual programme of centralised global control and the relentless thieving of basic individual and collective freedoms, are a whole series of fake sign posts which seem to indicate that all the worlds’ problems result from extreme outside events associated with human error or mental blindness.
Global warming, pandemics, economic turmoil, war, mass movements of refugees are all part of a world ‘on the brink of disaster’, we are continuously informed by the very architects of the disruptions themselves.
Each of these ‘disasters’ has been designed, planned and executed with ice cool malicious intent by the dark cabal, confident of its ability to successfully play on the fears of all who fail to confront the rules of the Matrix. The financial cabal announces in advance – each further phase of the planned break-down of justice, freedom and law and order.
So if anyone should later exclaim “They forced us, without any warning, to comply with their evil agenda”, a ready prepared answer states “We told you and you ignored it.” It is a feature of the slippery nature of these dark tricksters that they cover their tracks in all situations.
The sheer audacity of some pronouncements is breathtaking.
Bill Gates coolly argues the need to depopulate the planet.
Klaus Schwab informs us that “we will be happy” having had all our properties stolen from us.
Yuval Noah Harari advises that chipped and digitalised people will be a big advancement of the human race, “Better than God” could achieve.
Tedros Ghebreyesus , head of the World Health Organisation, states that only he and his board member cronies can decide when to declare health emergencies affecting all independent nation states of the world.
Almost all leaders of nation states are happy to persuade their constituents to go along with these dictatorial pronouncements. For example, they are told to take the weaponised mRNA genetically engineered Covid jab “If you want to be recognised as responsible citizens, retain your freedom of movement and not get put on the red list of subverters of the status quo.”
It is not as though any of these pronouncements are done in secrecy. They are done in plain sight in the public domain. But still the great majority of the public can’t or wont respond with the normal/ natural organic reaction of anyone put under this kind of direct threat “Hey! Who do you think you are? Don’t threaten me with your pompous megalomania – you should be locked-up immediately!”
There is something going on which causes normal human biological reactions to be stymied and rendered seemingly sterile.
In my opinion, it is a well developed form of hypnosis.
Inducing one’s audience to experience a variety of versions of fear, is stage one. Coming across as a highly placed authority figure is stage two. Having recourse to dark powers to ‘bewitch’, is stage three.
When all three of these are packaged within a sophisticated mind control/social engineering programme, the deliverer holds a number of ace cards. Not least the fact that if and when exposed ‘it sounds too unbelievable to be true’ to all but the keenly aware.
So, we who are aware have the crucial task of reverse engineering the sequence of events that bewitch the general public, thereby exposing the preconceived and calculated use of chaos and confusion which render the cult’s poisoned agenda such a brutal deception.
Can this be done?
Yes it can. But it involves deepening our understanding of the ways of the psychopathic and psychotic mind. We need to grasp how ‘spellbinding techniques’ play a much more central role in mass human mind control programmes than are currently recognised.
This exploration calls for courage and the realisation of our deeper spiritual powers. Such a task cannot be achieved without raising the energetic levels of our latent higher potentialities; a concentrated focus on that which has the power to dispel darkness so as to break the hold of the demonic elements over the human mind.
Humanity is confronted by this test – here and now. If faced directly and bravely, the instigators of the present darkness will be defeated. Defeated by the manifestation of a rising level of truth which the tricksters cannot endure, as their ‘success’ is based on maintaining the blanket existence of a very low vibrational energy, which they consistently try to convey as the only energetic state available to mankind. Nothing less than the three dimensional prison of the Matrix.
Once this huge deception is uncovered on a sufficient scale, the dark mask will fall and the first phases of our true liberation will unfold in front of us like the rising sun; heralding an unprecedented universal expansion of the higher powers of mankind and all planetary and inter planetary energies.
*
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.
Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher. He is Co-founder of the Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology HARE https://hardwickalliance.org/. Julian’s latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is strongly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info
We are not on the first but on the ninth anniversary of the war in Ukraine, which was unleashed in February 2014 with the coup d’état under US-NATO direction. Speaking from Warsaw, President Biden promised to “stand by President Zelensky no matter what.” He is echoed by President Meloni who, reversing the position assumed in 2014, assured Zelensky that “Italy will be with you until the end”. These are disturbing statements, given the real possibility that the conflict could lead to a nuclear war, which would be the end not only of Europe but of the world. Ukraine is capable of producing nuclear weapons and, certainly, in Kyiv, there are those who pursue such a plan.
The New York Times confirms it: “Ukraine gave up a gigantic nuclear arsenal 30years ago. Today there are regrets”. With the breakup of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine found itself in possession of the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world: some 5,000 strategic and tactical weapons. They were removed in the 1990s under agreements between the United States, Russia and Ukraine. However, the technological capability acquired by Ukraine in the military nuclear field during the US-Soviet confrontation has not been removed.
Ukraine – warns President Putin – intends to create its own nuclear weapons, and this is not a mere boast. The acquisition of nuclear weapons will be much easier for Ukraine than for other states conducting such research, especially if Kyiv receives foreign technological support. We cannot rule this out. If Ukraine acquires weapons of mass destruction, the situation in the world and in Europe will change dramatically”
In which hands would the Ukrainian nuclear weapons be confirmed by the fact that Zelenskyy has just conferred on the 10th Ukrainian Assault Brigade “the Edelweiss title of honour “: the same name and symbol of one of the most ferocious Nazi Divisions, the 1st Edelweiss Division, which in 1943 massacred over 5,000 Italian soldiers who had surrendered in Greek Kefalonia.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
Clip #1 – Right Now with Medical Researcher Stuart Wilkie (click here)
Clip #2 – Radical by Maajid Nawaz with Dr. Mike Yeadon (click here)
VIDEO
COVID-19 deaths in Long-Term Care homes in 2020
The official narrative is that the elderly in Long Term Care homes were at high risk for COVID-19 infection and death.
In 2020, most COVID-19 deaths occurred in Long Term Care homes.
New evidence strongly suggests that these were not unavoidable COVID-19 deaths, but that something much more sinister and dark happened in these homes. There were at least two types of intentional harm that the elderly faced:
Vulnerable elderly were given a high dose “euthanasia drug cocktail” of Midazolam and Morphine which lead to their death, which was then labeled a “COVID-19 death”
Elderly who developed pneumonia were intentionally denied antibiotics, leading to their death, which was then labeled a “COVID-19 death”.
Midazolam
Midazolam is a benzodiazepine medication used for anesthesia, procedural sedation and to treat severe agitation.
“Midazolam injection may cause serious or life-threatening breathing problems such as shallow, slowed, or temporarily stopped breathing that may lead to permanent brain injury or death.”(click here)
In the US, high doses of Midazolam were used in executions of death row inmates by lethal injection (click here).
UK Long Term Care Home Deaths
On Feb.7, 2023, whistleblower “jikkyleaks” posted on Twitter one of the more shocking graphics I have seen in the past 2 years (click here):
The excess deaths in the United Kingdom (during COVID-19 pandemic waves in early 2020 and early 2021) correlate almost perfectly with spikes in Midazolam 10mg/2ml use.
As jikkyleaks explains:
“This is the data for midazolam prescribing from the UKs official prescriber database”
“the spike in midazolam prescription (on this *GP* database) was driven almost entirely by injectable 10mg/2ml doses. This was not the anxiolytic oral form. It’s a euthanasia injection.”
The key here is that this spike in Midazolam use was outside the Hospital setting (in Long Term Care homes).
And yes, the excess deaths in April 2020 were in the elderly:
How many died?
Dr.John Campbell describes the dangers and potential lethality of the high dose Midazolam and Morphine drug cocktail, in his detailed video (click here).
British MP Andrew Bridgen recently wrote: “I have been supplied with lots of evidence from people who believe their relatives died due to the medical interventions brought in as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic” (click here).
Former Pfizer scientist Dr.Mike Yeadon PhD believes over 100,000 people were killed by government protocols of Midazolam and Morphine (click here).
Other drugs
Other “end of life” protocol drugs were used extensively during this time as reported by the British Medical Journal (click here).
This includes antipsychotic drugs Levomepromazine and Haloperidol.
Conveniently, on April 3, 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published a “COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing symptoms in the community”, which included the “opioid and benzodiazepine combination” (click here):
It seems that starting in April 2020, 10,000s of elderly were designated as “at the end of life” and euthanized with an opioid (Morphine) and benzodiazepine (Midazolam) combination.
Withdrawal of Antibiotics
Another disturbing component of the abuse of the elderly that would have lead to their deaths, is evidence that the elderly were denied life-saving antibiotics when they did develop complications of viral respiratory illness, namely pneumonia.
In the UK, antibiotic prescriptions dropped 50% during 2020 (source):
“For those that still haven’t heard about this – #3tablets relates to the fact that COVID deaths occurred because vulnerable people were not given macrolide antibiotics for post-viral pneumonia because of a prior propaganda campaign.”
“3 tablets. That’s what they withheld from the elderly that were diagnosed with “COVID pneumonia” because they were told not to treat. It was bacterial pneumonia. They died.”
Canada’s Long Term Care (LTC) home COVID-19 Deaths
In January 2021, the Lancet published: “COVID-19 highlights Canada’s care home crisis” (click here):
“COVID-19 deaths in long-term care have been called a national disgrace, and experts are calling for the army to intervene.
When Canada’s national health data agency reported in June, 2020, that Canada had the worst record among wealthy nations for COVID-19-related deaths in long-term care facilities for older people, many observers referred to it as a “national disgrace”. At that time, as the first wave of COVID-19 in Canada began to subside, its 2039 homes for older people accounted for about 80% of all COVID-19-related deaths.
6 months later, as the second wave of COVID-19 sweeps the country, little has changed, and Canada’s long-term facilities remain dangerously prone to the disease.”
A stunning admission from Canadian Institute for Health Information (click here):
“Compared with other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, Canada had a relatively low overall COVID-19 mortality rate but the highest proportion of LTC deaths. Residents of LTC homes in Canada represented 81% of all reported COVID-19 deaths compared with an average of 38% in other countries.”
Canada’s COVID-19 mortality rate in LTC homes was higher than UK’s, where 10,000s of vulnerable elderly were being given high dose Midazolam & Morphine euthanasia drug cocktails to drive up the COVID-19 death toll from April 2020 onwards.
I have not been able to find Canada’s Midazolam prescription data, however, according to the Canadian Medical Association, Midazolam is used in 91% of MAID – Medical Assistance in Dying cases (click here).
Concluding Remarks
The evidence of United Kingdom’s “Midazolam murders” in Long Term Care homes is damning. Overall, it paints a very dark picture: in the UK, it appears the elderly in Long Term Care homes were euthanized by the 10,000s in order to drive up the COVID-19 death toll in 2020.
Canada’s LTC homes did even worse than UK’s and that raises very disturbing questions. What happened in Canada’s LTC homes when family members were not allowed to visit their loved ones? What kind of euthanasia protocols were used in Canada, that resulted in even higher death tolls than in the UK?
We need whistleblowers to tell us.
One thing is clear. With over 80% of all COVID-19 deaths in 2020 taking place in Long Term Care homes, without these deaths there would have been no “pandemic” in Canada, no fear or panic, and perhaps no COVID-19 vaccine rollout.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
“You see, the United States doesn’t want Iraq disarmed. The United States wants Saddam Hussein gone!” – Scott Ritter (Feb. 4, 2003) [1]
“These are right-wing neo-Nazi extremists, many of whom have swastikas and other Nazi symbols tattooed on their bodies. This is where they tormented the Russian-speaking population for the past eight years. They are now in the process of being killed or captured by the Russians. This is what “de-Nazification” looks like.” – Scott Ritter (March 23, 2022) [2]
February 24th marks the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [3]
It also marks the twentieth anniversary of a month of record turnouts against the expected war in Iraq by the United States, the United Kingdom, and their so-called “coalition of the willing.” [4]
And it also marks the last day of Fundrive 2023, put on by station CKUW which hosts the Global Research News Hour! [5]
Mobilizing against war is one of the major themes of the decade old radio program, and the Global Research website that spawned it. Our main approach is finding the path toward the latest military offensive as being motivated by purposes other than “self-defence” or freeing a foreign people from oppression. [6]
In the case of Iraq twenty years ago, while politicians and the major media were concluding the reason was essentially the nefarious weapons of mass destructionSaddam Hussein was secretly building and stockpiling, Global Research and community radio stations like CKUW in Winnipeg relayed factual statements from individuals like Scott Ritter to the effect that these arguments had no merit. If it wasn’t for these alternative outlets and the thorough and informed information they presented, the general population would have been surprised about the absence of WMDs once the Iraqi president was captured and ousted from power.
What are the same entities saying about the Ukraine War twenty years later? Vladimir Putin out of frustration at Ukraine turning attention away from their long-standing relationship with Russia toward the European Union, decided to take control of the country directly with an invasion and kill any and every soldier that stood in his way. Global Research and the Global Research News Hour corrected this “analysis” by mentioning the war as actually a “proxy-war” between the U.S./NATO and Russia. That Russia was not emboldened to re-build the former Soviet Union as some of the major media had been postulating as a possibility. Russia was defending itself against the expansion of NATO right to Russia’s next-door neighbour, very much against a promise made to Soviet leader Gorbachev three decades ago.
On this special edition of the Global Research News Hour, we will not only point to the similarities and differences between these major military offensives past and present, but we will also highlight the personal recollections of host and producer Michael Welch, and his commitment then and now to put an end to war through the magic of radio informed antiwar activism. This marks a special fund-raising episode for the show and the radio station broadcasting it.
This program features a clip from a show in the past year. There will be a live interview with Ken Stone of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War who is supporting this weekend’s special actions in Canada to bring the War in Ukraine to an end, as well as a panel discussion connecting the dots between the Ukraine War and other U.S./NATO imperialist agendas all over West Asia. It will also broadcast an interview with one of four Indigenous chiefs in Ontario signing a Mutual Cooperation Agreement to defend their territory from mining exploration without their consent.
To review a list of donor Donate NOW to CKUW Fundrive at fundrive.ckuw.ca
As an alternative, direct your funds to the Global Research donation site, highlighting funding for the Global Research News Hour.
Chief Donny Morris represents Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, one of four signing the Mutual Cooperation Agreement on January 31, 2023.
Ken Stone is a long time antiwar, anti-racism, environmental and labour activist, resident in Hamilton. He is Treasurer of the Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.
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JOHN LEICESTER, HANNA ARHIROVA and SAMYA KULLAB (Feb. 24, 2023), ‘As Ukraine Marks Year of War, Leader Vows to Secure Victory’, AP News; https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-anniversary-day-e0adf7f14f165b708cd948509e4e8f20?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_01
More than 70 years ago NATO was born. In April 1949, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established what was designated as the doctrine of “Collective Security” under Art. 5 of the Washington Treaty.
NATO has a sordid history of aggression and war crimes. The US not only continues to “occupy” World War II “axis countries” (Italy, Germany), it has used the NATO emblem to install US military bases throughout Western Europe, as well as in Eastern Europe in the wake of the Cold War, extending into the Balkans in the wake of NATO’s war on Yugoslavia.
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[This morning on January 24, 2023, the science and security board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved their famous Doomsday Clock to read 90 seconds to midnight, 10 seconds closer than it’s ever been before. This essay examines some of the forces making this clock tick.]
Situational Awareness at Our Future’s Edge
“Madness is the exception in individuals, but the rule in groups.”– Friedrich Nietzsche
“You have to understand, the nuclear industry and the people that run it – and I say this advisedly – they have a religious belief in nuclear power. So facts don’t interfere. You know, religion is belief. They believe in nuclear power….” – S. David Freeman – 2011 – Former Director of the Tennessee Valley Authority
“A striking characteristic of leading figures throughout America’s Atomic Brotherhood is an almost religious devotion to atomic energy and all for which it stands. These men share a deep faith in the essential goodness and above all the historical inevitability of atomic energy.” – Mark Hertzgaard, Nuclear Inc., 1983
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together…. We must also be alert to the…danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell address. 1961
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” – James Madison
The Age of Cognitive Dissonance
Worldwide data indicate that the commercial nuclear power industry has been in decline since at least the turn of the century. Construction schedule and budget overruns, combined with cheaper and faster deployment of wind and solar energy sources make the nuclear energy future look increasingly dim.
According to the World Nuclear Association, there are 425 active reactors worldwide, providing approximately 10% of the world’s electricity supply, about the same as three decades ago.
Once upon a time, amid breathless predictions of a “nuclear renaissance,” 34 new reactor projects were announced. Of those, only two in Georgia are expected to eventually come on-line, years behind schedule and at costs more than double the initial estimate.
“Nuclear plant operators should start decommissioning activities of shutdown reactors as early as possible as the deferral of decontamination and dismantling (D&D) exposes operators to delay-related costs, investment risks and loss of crucial expertise as workers leave the industry, Geoffrey Rothwell, Principal Economist at the OECD’s Nuclear Energy Agency, told Nuclear Energy Insider.”
The highest number of nuclear reactor closures happened in 2021, and, according to Reuters, a ‘Green Surge’ of renewable power sources is going on, far out-competing nuclear developent on spead and costs.
In a 2019 Forbes article American physicist Amory Lovins wrote,
“Most U.S. nuclear power plants cost more to run than they earn. Globally, the WorldNuclear Industry Status Report 2019 documents the nuclear enterprise’s slow-motion commercial collapse—dying of an incurable attack of market forces. Yet in America, strong views are held across the political spectrum on whether nuclear power is essential, or merely helpful, in protecting the Earth’s climate—and both those views are wrong.
In fact, building new reactors, or operating most existing ones, makes climate change worse compared with spending the same money on more-climate-effective ways to deliver the same energy services. Those who state as fact that rejecting (more precisely, declining to bail out) nuclear energy would make carbon reduction much harder are in good company, but are mistaken.”
“Today’s hot question,“ Lovins presciently noted, “is not about new US reactors, which investors shun, but about the 96 existing reactors, already averaging about a decade beyond their nominal original design life. Most now cost more to run—including major repairs that trend upward with age—than their output can earn.
“They also cost more just to run than providing the same services by building and operating new renewables, or by using electricity more efficiently.”
Nevertheless, a recent, breathless Newsweek opinion piece optimistically effused, “The Nuclear Energy Renaissance Has Arrived!”
Quill Robinson, the article’s ‘conservationist’ author cited reports that California’s legislators – faced with the ‘threat of looming blackouts in the face of climate change’ – voted to extend the operation of Diablo Canyon’s reactors. He also reported that twice nuclear-devastated Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida recently announced that – because of the ‘threat of looming blackouts in the face of climate change’ – nuclear energy is “essential to proceed with a green transformation.”
The euphoric Newsweek opiner went on to confidently assert – in denial of all accumulating evidence to the contrary – that “high-profile accidents are the exception to the rule; nuclear is incredibly safe and getting safer.”
The uniformity of ‘talking points’ he cited – a currently standard script – is a clue that there is a concerted psychological operation, or psyop, going on here. Why tout a moribund industry suffering from what energy expert Amory Lovins long ago diagnosed as “an incurable attack of market forces?”
What powerful institution with global reach has the most highly developed and sophisticated state-of-the-art psyop strategies and information warfare technologies at its disposal?
Known as the Fifth Gradient of War, or 5GW, “Moral and cultural warfare is fought through manipulating perceptions and altering the context by which the world is perceived…. The ability to shape the perception—and therefore the opinions—of a target audience is far more important than the ability to deliver kinetic energy, and will determine the ultimate victor in tomorrow’s wars.”
Why would these well-honed, state-of-the-art, ‘cognitive warfare’ tools be unleashed on the U.S. population in support of a faltering civilian nuclear energy industry?
WTF is going on here?
Welcome to the Nuclear Armed Madhouse
The United States is the most militarized – and nuclearized – nation, society and culture in the history of the world.
Just pause, take a few deep breaths, and let that fact – plus the sobering, omni-directional implications of it – sink in for a moment.
According to ExecutiveGov, the country’s projected Department of Defense budget – not counting the so-called ‘Dark Budget’ (see below) – reached $778 billion in 2022, up 14% from 2017. This compares to the second ranking military budget of China, which has a military budget of $229 billion.
“If carried out, the plans for nuclear forces delineated in the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) fiscal year 2021 budget requests, submitted in February 2020, would cost a total of $634 billion over the 2021–2030 period, for an average of just over $60 billion a year, CBO estimates.
“Almost two-thirds of those costs would be incurred by DoD; its largest costs would be for ballistic missile submarines and intercontinental ballistic missiles. DOE’s costs would be primarily for nuclear weapons laboratories and supporting activities.”
You don’t have to be a Ph.D.-certified, think tank situational analyst to get the picture.
For a country that, as of Oct. 8, 2022, had a total national debt of $31.1 trillion, U.S. expenditures on means of mass destruction are clearly illogical, immoral, unethical and suicidal.
Here’s a brief, enlightening snapshot.
According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Nuclear Notebook: United States nuclear weapons, 2023 by Hans M. Kristensen and Matt Korda, as of this year the US Department of Defense maintains an estimated ‘stockpile’ of approximately 3,708 nuclear warheads for delivery by land- and submarine-launched ballistic missiles and aircraft. The authors state that US nuclear weapons are stored at an estimated 24 geographical locations in 11 US states and five European countries, and that the US has deployed 659 strategic launchers with 1,420 warheads in various locations.
The American arsenal of nuclear weapons and delivery systems are in a perpetual process of renewal and modernization which is set to continue to 2039 and beyond, with a budget of $1.2 trillion over the next three decades. A so-called ‘Family of Strike Plans’ is maintained and constantly revised, with their main current targets being China, Russia, North Korea and Iran.
The US Navy runs a fleet of 14 Ohio-class nuclear powered submarines which constantly prowl the world’s oceans, each capable of carrying up to 20 Trident sea-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Each SLBM can carry up to eight individually targetable nuclear warheads. A new generation of even larger US Columbia-class nuclear submarines is under development with a project budget of $112 billion.
Meanwhile – not to be outdone – the US Air Force operates a network of 400 silo-based Minuteman III ICBMs with a total force of 800 always available – with a constant upgrade program going on – as well as a fleet of over 40 nuclear capable strategic bombers carrying nuclear bombs and air-launched cruise missiles in constant motion from bases around the world. The bomber fleet’s command and control system interfaces with the constellation of MILSTAR satellites operated by the US Space Force.
This globe-spanning mobile ‘Doomsday Machine’ – as Pentagon Papers whistleblower Dan Ellesberg calls it – interfaces with NATO partner militaries in a system which is also constantly in a process of ’modernization’ and ‘harmonization’ of ‘interoperable’ nuclear and conventional weapons systems of mass destruction, dominated by the United States and its complex of ‘defense’ industries, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman.
As we will see in what follows, this system is seamlessly integrated and co-dependent with America’s civilian commercial nuclear power industry and its infrastructure, trained labor pool, and radioactive waste (mis-) management industry.
Hegemonic Military Nuclearism
Like fish, oblivious of their surrounding liquid environment, we Americans are enveloped in a ubiquitous militarist/nuclearist complex that is all-pervasive, yet virtually invisible to the average citizen, outside the collective domain of public awareness, and therefore immune to informed democratic oversight and control.
The core of its dominion is its development, monopoly control and deployment of advanced biological, directed energy and thermonuclear weapons. Worth noting is that it also exercised chief administrative control of the ‘warp speed’ roll-out of the Covid-19 genetic therapy inoculations – purportedly, of course, all in the interest of efficiency, public health and national defense.
The July 30 Operation Warp Speed organizational chart obtained by STAT details about 90 of the officials involved in the initiative. Roughly 60 work for the Department of Defense.
Virtually all elements of social and economic activity as well as of the environment – from education to philanthropy to health care to weather modification – can be weaponized under the rubric of ‘defense,’ and therefore, increasingly have been.
The World as Battlespace
The 1974 book, ThePermanentWarEconomy by Seymour Melman had as its sub-title: American Capitalism in Decline. In it Melman demonstrated how the so-called ‘defense industry’ had became the core of what amounted to a state capitalism dominating the entire economic system by means of government control over both capital and technological research and development.
He explained, “The fact that the war economy of World War II was useful for ending the Great Depression became the basis for a theory that there was no other way to get a full-employment economy.”
Melman went on to show that, “By 1971 the government-based managers of the U.S. military system had superseded the private firms of the American economy in control over capital.” He argued that the squandering of funds and resources on weapons development – which in fact decreased national security – was leading to a hollowing out of the country’s once vibrant and productive economy.
Embedded inextricably within that Military Matrix – and equally penetrative in its power and influence – is the Nuclear-Energy-Weapons-Radioactive-Waste Complex. The components of this nuclear triad are as intricately entangled as the strands of the proverbial Gordian Knot.
In the 1979 book The new tyranny: How nuclear power enslaves us, Austrian writer Robert Jungk identified that triad as quintessentially totalitarian because its is based from its inception on secrecy, deceit and technocratic control. He warned that by following the path of nuclear energy nations would be forced to surrender their liberties one step at a time and become regimented societies.
Jungk’s warning, like Melman’s and Eisenhower’s was prescient, but went unheeded.
In fact, Eisenhower himself had unwittingly laid the foundation for what he came to fear the most in his 1959 Fireside Chat announcing the Atoms for Peace program. This cover-story/psyop at the beginning of the Atomic Age succeeded in putting a happy face on “Our Friend the Atom” and “Reddy Kilowatt.” It also – as Alfred Meyer explains in his recent Progressive article It’s All About the Bomb – “placed nuclear materials and reactors in more than forty countries, including Iran. This generated ongoing business for many American nuclear enterprise companies while supporting and expanding the U.S. military’s nuclear infrastructure and capacity in the United States.”
Atoms for Peace became the origin myth for the First Church of Nukes Forever; a cult, a culture, and an industry based – as we will discuss below – on a Big Lie.
Like the proverbial blind men and the elephant, Ike, Melman and Jungk each had a grasp on one appendage of a larger beast the total extent of which remained beyond their ken.
An Updated Situational Awareness
As investigative reporter Whitney Webb has shown in her two volume revelatory opus One Nation Under Blackmail, by Ike’s era, starting early in the 20th century, there had developed a seamless integration of the military-industrial-intelligence complex with the international network of organized crime and the transnational banking cartel that enabled it.
It was, and is, a command and control matrix far superseding the reach of democratic institutions of government. Those who buck this system pay a price.
James Douglass’s 2008 book, JFK and the Unspeakable – Why he died and why it matters, finally unpacked the complicated story of how John Kennedy’s immersion in and opposition to that dominating matrix led inexorably to his 1963 assassination in Dallas. It was a coup from which the country has yet to recover – or, indeed even recognize.
Throughout the last century, the ‘military-industrial complex’ that Eisenhower famously glimpsed, named and warned about in his 1961 presidential farewell broadcast has metastasized throughout all the organs and neural pathways of the American body politic and penetrated all its institutions… and beyond.
It might now more accurately be termed the “Military-Industrial-Intelligence-Big Tech-Economic-Academic-Media-Communications-Medical-Pharmaceutical-Organized-Crime-Surveillance-Population-Control Complex.”
The subsets of this meta-matrix, the permanent war economy and the plutonium-based nuclear energy, weapons and waste economy symbiotically merged. Together they have become the medium in which we now swim.
Dark Budgets Mask Dark Doings
In their recent study of pandemic criminality in government, co-authors David A. Hughes, Valerie Kyrie and Daniel Broudy point out that,
“Lawlessness has been germinating in the United States ever since the birth of the national security state in 1947, with its founding myth of “national security” enabling the intelligence agencies to operate outside of any meaningful democratic oversight. …The history of US foreign policy since the birth of the CIA has been a tale of near continuous violations of international law and war crimes (Hughes 2022a), operating under cover of propaganda and psychological warfare in the name of “national security” and a range of exceptionalist myths (Blum 2006; Chomsky 2007; Hughes 2015).
“Eye watering amounts of money have been funneled from US federal budgets into black budgets that the public is not allowed to know about. For example, an estimated US$21 trillion cannot be accounted for in the financial records of the Department of Defense and the Department of Housing and Urban Development between 1998 and 2016 (Skidmore & Fitts, 2019). The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB), which sets the generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for the US federal government, introduced Standard 56 on 4 October 2018, allowing national security concerns to override the need for public financial transparency. FASAB-56, according to Fitts and Betts (2021), “permits the federal government by administrative action—without formal legislative, regulatory, judicial, or executive approval—to keep secret books as determined by a secret group of people pursuant to a secret process.” In other words, it provides for the clandestine pillaging of public wealth. The US government, in Fitts and Betts’ (2021) opinion, is “operating sufficiently outside the Constitution and financial management and other laws to be called a ‘criminal enterprise.’”
In his report for Solari.org, The Going Direct Reset, analyst John Titus notes that it became clear by 5 years after the 2007/8 financial crisis that, “it was a matter of record that crimes on Wall Street weren’t even being investigated, much less prosecuted.” What Titus sees as the“criminal immunity enjoyed by banks,” leads him to question if the U.S. can any longer be considered a constitutional republic under the rule of law.
Sociologist William Robinson, in his recent book Global Civil War – Capitalism Post-Pandemic, postulates that the world’s people now live under a dictatorship of transnational ‘gangster capitalists.’
This article will explore the hypotheses that gangster capitalists have actually amalgamated with gangster spooks and militarists, and gangster nuclearists in an attempted grab for global governance.
We begin with the observation that the business of America is war, and that the U.S. has all the earmarks of a company town.
Mapping the Metastasis
The scope of this syndrome is made visible by the sheer physical extent of U.S. military and nuclear facilities and the huge economic impacts of the generous budgets they command.
The Department of Defense (DOD) reports that, taken as a whole, the combined branches of the U.S. military maintain 4,775 bases worldwide, with 4,150 in the U.S. alone – 5 of them the largest military installations in the world. The DOD’s global reach is extended into other countries also through the NATO alliance, which it dominates.
Military bases in the continental U.S. – https://motivasi.my.id/
Many bases are the size of small cities, and like cities, serve as hubs for the businesses, industries and civic organizations and institutions in their surrounding regions, giving them huge impact and influence on the resident populations. In addition military training and bombing ranges occupy vast areas of domestic territory.
World military spending totaled more than $1.6 trillion in 2015. The U.S. accounted for 37 percent of that total. – Graphic: nationalpriorities.org
According to political scientist Joan Roelofs, this reach and funding level accounts for there being so little anti-war protest in the United States. It is the silence of the well-fed lambs…or is it sheeple? Professor Roelofs’s book The Trillion Dollar Silencer charts the extent to which military funding and propaganda infest and influence virtually every state and public sector.
Roelofs’s revelatory little book itemizes all the many vectors along which this pervasive influence is exercised.
A key channel through which the military penetrates into virtually every aspect of civilian life is the system of DoD contracts with private corporations, and, through them, their subsidiaries, sub-contractors, employee organizations, ‘philanthropies’ and foundations, into local, regional, state, national and international institutions and organizations. Roelofs lists the top 10 DOD contractors in 2020 as:
Lockheed Martin
Raytheon Technologies
General Dynamics
Boeing
Northrup Grumman
Huntington Ingalis
Humana (a private health insurance company)
BAE Systems
L3Harris Technologies
General Electric
Roelofs reports, “The DoD itself and related government departments engage in philanthropy. Certain schools and the following national organizations are eligible to receive donations of DoD surplus property:
American National Red Cross
Armed Services YMCA of the USA
Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America
Boys and Girls Clubs of America
Boy Scouts of America
Camp Fire, Inc.
Center for Excellence in Education
Girl Scouts of the USA
Little League Baseball, Inc.
Marine Cadets of America
National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education
National Civilian Community Corps
National Sky Patrol System, Inc.
Navel Sea Cadet Corps
United Service Organizations, Inc.
U.S. Olympic Committee
Young Marines of the Marine Corps, and
League/Marine Corps League….”
Roelofs writes that both the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts engage in ‘partnerships’ with Lockheed Martin and other corporations.
International Largess as ‘Unconventional Warfare’
She notes, “Despite its connotations, humanitarian aid is part of ‘unconventional warfare’ according to the U.S. Special Operation Command, reminiscent of the ‘winning the hearts and mind doctrine.’” She observes that, “The Joint Chiefs of Staff publishes a guide to foreign humanitarian assistance and organizations with which to coordinate military operations….”
According to Roelofs, other channels of military influence include the revolving doors between military leadership positions and non-profit organizations such as civil liberties, human rights and minority advocacy organization like the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, Asians Against Domestic Abuse, the Vietnamese American Community, the NAACP and the Urban League.
Then there are the think tanks, universities, foundations and professional associations peopled by former military personnel and funded by grants from both military agencies and defense contractors.
The extent and reach of the military networks and connections Roelofs documents are revelatory and mind-boggling in their complexity.
Interpenetrating this matrix and further complicating the picture is the system of the nuclear energy, weapons and radioactive waste management industries and their related research facilities.
Nuclearized Nation
Three maps paint the picture – we live both geographically, economically and culturally in a nuclear surround:
Source: Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Licensed under Creative Commons
Source: strangesounds.net
Throughout the ‘Atomic Age,’ basically spanning my 82-year (so far) lifetime, many books have been published making clear nuclear technology’s history and impact. Yet, for most of the population (except for the dwindling number of white hairs like me) and especially for the current cohort of millennials – that easily available body of existentially vital information remains outside their situational awareness.
A few deserve special mention in the current context.
The 1981 The Nuclear Barons – The Inside Story of How They Created Our Nuclear Nightmare, b y Peter Pringle and James Spigelman, led the way. A publishers’ blurb sums it up well:
The nuclear barons: an international elite of scientists, technocrats, and businessmen who have, for more than four decades, controlled the world’s destiny. Their decisions–usually kept secret, often shortsighted, sometimes veiled by lies and obfuscations–have led inexorably to the present nuclear mess. Radiation hazards, prohibitively costly energy, waste-disposal problems, plant safety, weapons proliferation: the nuclear nightmares we live with are the direct result of choices that were never thought through to their logical conclusions, never opened to public debate.
Seasoned reporter Mark Hertzgaard has been labeled by at least one critic as a ‘nuclear crank’ for authoring his 1983 book, Nuclear Inc: The Men and Money Behind Nuclear Energy, but it stands as an impeccably-sourced investigative classic.
Hertzgaard spent three years in the halls of the industry itself. He gained access to private corporate libraries and once-secret documents. He interviewed many Washington insiders and corporate executives who had never before spoken on the record. The result is a look at what he termed ‘America’s Atomic Brotherhood’ from the inside.
Undeterred by commercial unviability and dependence on government subsidies, repeated accidents and recurring evidence of chronic mismanagement, or the clear inevitability of nuclear weapons proliferation stemming from possession of nuclear energy technology, this Brothehood persists to this day in its quest for control of both global market share and dominance of local and national politics.
Hertzgaard laid bare the playbook of strategies employed by utility executives to dominate local institutions like banks, news papers and civic organizations and influence educational curricula at every level.
He concluded that, “The twenty-four giant transnational corporations that dominate the nuclear power industry constitute what may be the single largest and most powerful business enterprise in history. They sold a staggering $400 billion worth of products in 1981, and all but five of them rank among the one hundred fifty biggest companies in America. Their enormous influence over the U.S. economy is amplified still further by close association with eight of the nation’s nine biggest banks, and many of its top investment and law firms. Along with their allies in the electric utility industry, they have invested countless billions in the nuclear business. Understandably, they are committed to recovering profit on their investment. But it is a cynical and condescending analysis that ascribes the industry’s calls for a nuclear revival to simple corporate greed. In fact, most nuclear executives deeply believe that theirs is a moral and just cause. They regard nuclear power as the very embodiment of progress and feel privileged to help bring it into being. In their minds, what is at stake in the struggle over nuclear power is not just their own corporations’ profitability, but the future of American capitalism, technological society, and indeed Western civilization.”
Democracy or Doom
Elaine Scarry is the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University. Her 2014 book, Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom picks up on Robert Jungk’s point, mentioned above, that nuclear technology is quintessentially totalitarian. The appropriately named professor Scarry makes clear the absolutely dictatorial power that control of nuclear weaponry confers on the gormless politicians, true believer executives and ethically clueless technicians with their hands on the controls – a power far exceeding that of any autocratic potentate in the past.
She quotes Richard Nixon’s boast, “I can go into my office and pick up the telephone and in twenty-five minutes seventy million people will be dead,” noting that Nixon was accurately describing not only his own power but also the power of every American president in the nuclear age.
Professor Scarry records that Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon each contemplated using nuclear weapons—Eisenhower twice, Kennedy three times, Johnson once, Nixon four times. It remains classified whether or not subsequent presidents, from Ford to Obama, considered using them.
Her point is that no individual, group or institution should possess the unilateral power to obliterate all life on earth. Yet that is our current, actual existential situation.
President ‘Slow Joe’ Biden has the access codes.
The Varieties of Nuclear Culture – Societal and Institutional
The ubiquitous penetration of militarism and nuclearism into local, state, regional, national and transnational institutional systems, briefly mapped above, was starkly portrayed in microcosm in Paul Loeb’s 1982 study of life in Washington state’s aptly named Hanford Nuclear Reservation, where the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were developed.
Half the size of Rhode Island, on the banks of the now radioactively polluted Columbia River, Hanford is the largest atomic energy complex in the world. In his recent book Atomic Days Counterpunch editor Joshua Frank describes it as “a sprawling wasteland of radioactive and chemical sewage, a landmass three times larger than Lake Tahoe. It’s also the costliest environmental remediation project the world has ever seen and, argueably, the most contaminated place on the entire planet.”
Frank goes on,
“Not only is the site laced with huge amounts of radioactive gunk, but all that waste is also a ticking timebomb that could erupt at any given moment, creating a nuclear Chernobyl-like explosion, resulting in a singular trajedy unlike anything the United States has ever experienced. It’s a real and frightning possibility….”
Out of sight and out of mind for most Americans, the Hanford complex is emblematic of the virtually eternally toxic legacy of the Atomic Age.
With its ongoing stream of government contracts, Hanford is also a key hub of economic activity in the region. It is served by a cluster of what are effectively ‘company cities’ in the region, the bulk of whose residents are multi-generational employees of The Reservation, or of the plethora of local businesses, civic organizations and instructions supporting it.
Local culture and ubiquitous mushroom cloud iconography, with the town tavern the Atomic Ale Brewpub serving Plutonium Porter, and its local high school sports teams called “The Bombers,” makes Hanford also an emblematic microcosm of the degree to which nuclear culture can be internalized and normalized by an enveloped population.
Loeb’s book, Nuclear Culture – Living and Working in the World’s Largest Atomic Complex, records his extensive interviews with workers, scientists, managers and housewives making up the region’s essentially captive population.
Tellingly, the names have been changed to protect the interviewees.
National Ignition Facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA. – present5.com
The University of California-run Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California is a key node in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
Together with Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, its scientists and technicians are credited with having designed every nuclear weapon in the United States arsenal, as well as making significant contributions to the development of supercomputers, AI, and other leading edge technologies.
The Lab’s website once humbly billed it as “The Smartest Place on Earth.” In 2019 it was honored with a Glassdoor Employees’ Choice Award, recognizing the Lab as one of the Best Places to Work, as rated by its own happy employees.
As the home of the National Ignition Facility (NIF), Livermore Lab is a locus of the USA’s Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Stewardship Program, whose mission is to maintain the ‘readiness’ of America’s nuclear weapons arsenal, albeit without atmospheric or underground testing. The NIF approach is to do small-scale, ‘bench-top’ simulation tests using high-powered lasers.
Fusion Confusion
Recently mainstream and social media alike have been breathlessly reporting on a reported ‘breakthrough’ in the development of nuclear fusion technology at Livermore, touting it as a potential commercial nuclear energy innovation that will be our last minute rescue from climate change.
Less enthusiastic commentators observe [Here, Here & Here] that the touted ‘milestone’ development has more relevance to detonating a new generation of thermonuclear bombs than to saving the world from climate change. Despite the fact that there is no likelihood that fusion energy production to be scaled up in time to be deployed in the face of looming climate change, the media euphoria persists.
Like its counterpart in biological weapons research, NIF’s nuclear fusion research is characterized by the term ‘dual use,’ meaning its discoveries can be applied both defensively and offensively. It also means that ‘breakthroughs’ in one area of application is also a ‘breakthrough’ in the other. Hence the convenient ‘energy breakthrough’ cover-story, a psyop designed to make research on thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction look like a quest to save the world.
The High Church of Nukes Forever
Livermore Lab has long been widely regarded as a primary citadel of America’s Atomic Priesthood, adding to its quasi-religious mystique. In 1996, professed former anti-nuclear activist-turned anthropologist Hugh Gusterson published a book titled Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War. His ethnographic immersion in the Lab’s culture had given him a transformative ‘Come-to-Jesus’ conversion experience. His findings might be most succinctly expressed by the phrase, “self-described ‘nukies’ are really nice people, too.” See this.
Gustafson analyzed the ethics and politics of laboratory personnel, reverently describing their in-house customs and regimented behaviors and protocols as “rituals of initiation and transcendence.” His personal descriptions portrayed Livermore scientists coming to identify in an almost erotic or religious way with the power of the mass destruction devices they design and create – and which, he reported in a respectful tone, they do not fear.
Can you say the word “denial”?
According to Gustafson, many Lab employees are devout Christians motivated by high ideals who are personally disturbed by some fellow church members’ condemnation and opposition to their work. Apparently they daily ask themselves, ‘What kind of thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction would Jesus build?’
With the ‘value-free,’ cultural relativist attitude of the well-indoctrinated anthropologist, Gustafson found there to be many commonalities of idealistic motivation shared by the Lab’s ardent nukies and the protestors persistently demonstrating outside the facilities well-guarded gates.
In his research anthropologist Hugh Gusterson asked a senior Livermore Lab official about the purpose of the NIF’s laser program, the official responded, ‘It depends who I’m talking to… One moment it’s an energy program, the next it’s a weapons program. It just depends on the audience’.
That’s the ominous meaning of the term ‘dual use.’
Persistent Resistance at Livermore to a ‘New Nuclear Arms Race’
Livermore’s importance as a key hub in the U.S. thermonuclear weapons production complex has made it ground zero for yearly protests and teach-in rallies for decades, organized by Tri-Valley Cares, the Western States Legal Foundation, and others.
EON has documented many such events at Livermore on our YouTube Channel. A 2019 address by Danial Ellsberg, ‘Designing Armageddon,’ remains relevant today.
Triplets Joined at the Hip – The Commercial/Military/Radwaste Connection
As reported in previous articles (here & here), ever since the heady days of Atoms for Peace and the dream of ‘energy too cheap to meter,’ nuclear proponents have been at pains to pooh-pooh any necessary connection between commercial nuclear power and nuclear weapons production. However, nuclear power advocates like former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz have now reversed course and are currently arguing that a commercial nuclear power infrastructure and trained labor force are vital to the maintenance of America’s nuclear navy and its proudly published military doctrine of Full Spectrum Dominance (FSD).
Moniz is the President and CEO of the Energy Futures Initiative. The EFI issued a 2017 report titled, The U.S. Nuclear Energy Enterprise: A Key National Security Enabler, making clear the joined-at-the-hip symbiosis of the nuclear power and weapons industries.
Moniz and the EFI are currently celebrating the nuclear-industry-friendly Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law last month by President Biden.
All this is in the context of the looming threat of nuclear war resulting from the escalating NATO-Russia confrontation in Ukraine.
As the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) reports, “The IRA has an estimated $100 billion or more in provisions that fund and incentivize nuclear power. These provisions steal resources from real climate and environmental justice solutions and perpetuate the polluting, corrupt status quo. The entire nuclear fuel chain still relies on fossil fuels, contaminates communities across the country and around the world, and generates forever-deadly waste.” The NIRS analysis of the IRA is here.
A Self-Driving Nukes Race Has Begun
“Autonomous nuclear weapons introduce new risks of error and opportunities for bad actors to manipulate systems. Current AI is not only brittle; it’s easy to fool. A single pixel change is enough to convince an AI a stealth bomber is a dog.” – Zachary Kallenborn – Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
Chatbots, Warbucks and Warbots
ChatGPT is being hyped as a cutting-edge new ‘helper bot’ by the Elon Musk-backed tech firm OpenAI. Sott.net reports that “Microsoft on Monday announced a new multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.”
According to the New York Post, “This superhuman tech can do a variety of complicated tasks on the fly, from composing complex dissertations on Thomas Locketo drafting interior design schemes and even allowing people to converse with their younger selves.”
Wow! Do you suppose this wondrous technology could maybe get weaponized with malicious intent?
You bet it can…And it is.
In 2021 Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher co-authored a book titled The Age of AI And Our Human Future. As you might expect, these guys are arch AI boosters. Critics pointed out that,
“Its title alone—The Age of AI: And Our Human Future—declares an epoch and aspires to speak on behalf of everyone. It presents AI as an entity, as superhuman, and as inevitable—while erasing a history of scholarship and critique of AI technologies that demonstrates their limits and inherent risks, the irreducible labor required to sustain them, and the financial incentives of tech companies that produce and profit from them.”
The reviewers objected that adoption of AI by the military is presented by the three authors as an inevitability, instead of as an active policy choice that involves ethical complexities and moral trade-offs.
Now, just months later, the war in Ukraine has brought those complexities and trade-offs to the front and center.
The Expose’ reports that, “On 30 June 2022, NATO announced it is creating a $1 billion innovation fund that will invest in early-stage start-ups and venture capital funds developing “priority” technologies such as artificial intelligence, big-data processing, and automation.”
The story by Rhoda Wilson also notes that “The US Department of Defense requested $874 million for artificial intelligence for 2022.” Of course European countries, China – and no doubt Russia – are rushing to keep up. Nuclear-armed countries in a warbot race puts the nuclear arms race on steroids. Multiple contending NukeBot forces – that can mistake a dog for a stealth bomber – making nano-second decisions based on a pixel. Armageddon Man has sprouted another head.
This new autonomous nukes race is a potential windfall for Big Tech giants like Peter Thiel’s Palantir, but also for aspiring newcomers to Silicon Valley.
She points out that, “Ultimately, the new era of military AI raises a slew of difficult ethical questions that we don’t have answers to yet.”
She interviews Kenneth Payne, who leads defense studies research at King’s College London and is the author of the book I, Warbot: The Dawn of Artificially Intelligent Conflict. He says that a key concept in designing AI weapons systems is that humans must always retain control. But Payne believes that will be impossible as the technology evolves.
“The whole point of an autonomous [system] is to allow it to make a decision faster and more accurately than a human could do and at a scale that a human can’t do,” he says. “You’re effectively hamstringing yourself if you say ‘No, we’re going to lawyer each and every decision.’”
If It’s AI, It’s Hackable – Self-Driving Nukes?
Award-winning reporter Eric Schlosser’s 2014 book Command and Control and the eponymous Oscar-shortlisted documentary based on it, directed by Robert Kenner, showed how the history of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is studded with examples of how both serious human error and courageous interventions by individual human intelligence have repeatedly risked and saved the world from thermonuclear destruction. That was then and this is now, when displacing humans with AI algorithms is under serious (and insane) consideration.
Mikko Hypponen is a Finnish global cyber security expert whose thirty-year career has coincided with the growth of the criminalization of the internet. In his recent book, If It’s Smart, It’s Vulnerable, he gives a flyover of the developmental stages of cybercrime from viruses, to worms, to malware, to ransomware, to Stuxnet and beyond.
“Question: How many of the Fortune 500 are hacked right now?
“Answer: 500”
That’s the way Hypponen sets up his basic contention from a lifetime of cyber security sleuthing: “If a company network is large enough, it will always have vulnerabilities, and there will always be something odd going on…” making it possible for the system’s security measures to be “…breached by attackers.”
With that as background, the prospect of giving AI warbots the codes to the world’s nuclear weapons arsenals is clearly just one more suicidal societal concession to Armageddon Man.
Up, Up and Away – Nukes in Space
Another key aspect of the U.S. military’s Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine is the growing belief in some circles that “space nuclear is going to be the future.”
That statement comes from Alex Gilbert, Director of Space & Planetary Regulation at the Washington, D.C.- based Zeno Power. Karl Grossman reports that, in an August 4th webinar of the American Nuclear Society, Gilbert announced, “we are at a unique moment. I call it a space opportunity.” He went on, ““we could actually see exponential growth. Right now the space economy is around $400 billion globally. By the middle of the century it could be $4 trillion.”
His view was echoed by Kate Kelly, director for Space and Emerging programs at the Lynchburg, Virginia-based company BWXT Advanced Technologies. Kelly said that the use of nuclear power in space has arrived at an “inflection point.” She explained, ““Over the last several years there’s been this re-emerging interest and investment by the government in fission systems for in-space power and propulsion.”
He wrote, “The entire US military empire is tied together using space technology. With military satellites in space the US can see virtually everything on the Earth, can intercept all communications on the planet, and can target virtually any place at any time. Russia and China understand that the US military goal is to achieve “full spectrum dominance” on behalf of corporate capital.
“Using new space technologies to coordinate and direct modern warfare also enables the military industrial complex to reap massive profits as it constructs the architecture for what the aerospace industry claims will be the “largest industrial project” in Earth history.”
A recent Space.com story says that NASA will join DARPA’s Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations, or DRACO, pictured in the artist’s conception image above. NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said,
“NASA has a long history of collaborating with DARPA on projects that enable our respective missions, such as in-space servicing. Expanding our partnership to nuclear propulsion will help drive forward NASA’s goal to send humans to Mars…. DRACO will be a critical part of evaluating the technologies that will take us deeper into the solar system…. Our intent is to lead and develop a blueprint for human exploration and sustained presence throughout the solar system. That is a very important goal. And we think that these advanced technologies will be a critical part of it.”
So, it becomes clear that the over-arching context for the current nuclear revivalism craze is that commercial and military nuclearism are mutually co-dependent and, in fact, joined at the hip with radioactive waste production.
Nukes Forever Dreams that Will Not Die – the Hydra Heads of Armageddon Man
In addition to the persistently recurring, consistently unfulfilled fever dream – mentioned above – of sustainable and commercially scalable nuclear fusion, three other hopes spring forever in the hearts and minds of dedicated revivalists:
Useless Breeders
According to a 2019 Stanford University report on The Rise and Fall of Plutonium Breeder Reactors, the notion of a so-called “breeder reactor”- a plutonium‑fueled nuclear reactor that could produce more fuel than it consumed – is at least as old as the Manhattan Project.
Frank von Hippel, one of the report’s eight distinguished co-authors, explains that it “looks at the experience and status of breeder reactor programs inFrance, India, Japan, the Soviet Union/Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.” He notes that. “The problems described in the country case studies in the following chapters make it hard to dispute Admiral Hyman Rickover’s summation in 1956, based on his experience with a sodium-cooled reactor developed to power an early U.S. nuclear submarine, that such reactors are “expensive to build, complex to operate, susceptible to prolonged shutdown as a result of even minor malfunctions, and difficult and time-consuming to repair.”
The 2019 Stanford Report concludes:
“The breeder reactor dream is not dead but it has receded far into the future. In the 1970s, breeder advocates were predicting that the world would have thousands of breeder reactors operating by now. Today, they are predicting commercialization by approximately 2050. In the meantime, the world has to deal with the legacy of the dream; approximately 250 tons of separated weapon-usable plutonium and ongoing — although, in some cases struggling — reprocessing programs in France, India, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom….
“Although there are safety issues generic to liquid metal fast reactors, it does not appear that they were the predominant reasons for the demise of the breeder program in the United States. More important were proliferation concerns and a growing conviction that breeder reactors would not be needed or economically competitive with light-water reactors for decades, if ever. Under GNEP [Global Nuclear Energy Partnership], the DOE expressed renewed interest in fast reactors, initially as burner reactors to fission the actinides in the spent fuel of the light-water reactors. So far, the new designs are mostly paper studies, and the prospect of a strong effort to develop the burner reactors is at best uncertain. The Obama Administration has terminated the GNEP Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement and efforts by DOE to move to near-term commercialization of fast reactors and the closed fuel cycle for transmutation of waste. As this report went to press, it was debating whether to even continue R&D on fast-neutron reactors. The economic and nonproliferation arguments against such reactors remain strong.”
Reprocessing
Another enduring Dumb Idea with contra-indications supplied by years of bitter experience is that of ‘reprocessing,’ an option the Union of Concerned Scientists dismisses as “Dangerous, Dirty and Expensive.”
They explain,
“Reprocessing is a series of chemical operations that separates plutonium and uranium from other nuclear waste contained in the used (or “spent”) fuel from nuclear power reactors. The separated plutonium can be used to fuel reactors, but also to make nuclear weapons. In the late 1970’s, the United States decided on nuclear non-proliferation grounds not to reprocess spent fuel from U.S. power reactors, but instead to directly dispose of it in a deep underground geologic repository where it would remain isolated from the environment for at least tens of thousands of years.
“While some supporters of a U.S. reprocessing program believe it would help solve the nuclear waste problem, reprocessing would not reduce the need for storage and disposal of radioactive waste. Worse, reprocessing would make it easier for terrorists to acquire nuclear weapons materials, and for nations to develop nuclear weapons programs.”
Proponents say that reprocessing used reactor fuel is vital to the growth of nuclear power because it would reduce waste that needs to be stored deep underground.
Sen. John McCain, a prominent supporter of nuclear reprocessing, pointed to France, where he said that reprocessing has been going on “for many, many years without any accidents or difficulties or problems.”
Yet behind the rhetoric are stark facts:
• A reprocessing facility would become a dump for the largest, most lethal source of high-heat radioactivity in the United States and possibly the world.
• Reprocessing does not significantly reduce the amount of radioactive waste that has to be buried.
• The cost of nuclear recycling rivals the recent bailout of Wall Street investment banks.
The first major problem with reprocessing is that it doesn’t come close to solving the challenge of nuclear waste. In fact, as a reprocessing facility chops and dissolves used fuel rods, it releases thousands of times more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear reactors and generates several dangerous waste streams. Denmark, Norway, and Ireland have sought the closure of reprocessing plants in France and Great Britain because of radioactive waste washing up on their shores. Just a few grams of waste would deliver lethal radiation doses in a matter of seconds in a crowded area.
The global small modular reactor market was valued at USD 9.54 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.6% during the forecast period. The low cost of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) on account of the modularization and factory construction, along with the growing interest in small and mid-sized reactors due to their ability to meet the need for power generation, is positively influencing the market.
According to Forbes, ‘smart’ investors from Bill Gates to Kris Singh to the governments of Canada and Alberta are in a mass murmuration swooping toward SMRs.
A May, 2022 study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Lindsay Krall, Rodney Ewing and former NRC Chair Allison Macfarlane, titled Nuclear Waste from Small Modular Reactors agrees:
“Small modular reactors (SMRs), proposed as the future of nuclear energy, have purported cost and safety advantages over existing gigawatt-scale light water reactors (LWRs). However, few studies have assessed the implications of SMRs for the back end of the nuclear fuel cycle. The low-, intermediate-, and high-level waste stream characterization presented here reveals that SMRs will produce more voluminous and chemically/physically reactive waste than LWRs, which will impact options for the management and disposal of this waste. Although the analysis focuses on only three of dozens of proposed SMR designs, the intrinsically higher neutron leakage associated with SMRs suggests that most designs are inferior to LWRs with respect to the generation, management, and final disposal of key radionuclides in nuclear waste.”
Flockinng investors beware.
The Iron Law of Regulatory Capture
Commercial nuclear power’s role as ‘enabler’ of the nuclear weapons complex and America’s Nuclear Navy no doubt contributes to the friendly, even lax attitude toward its regulatory agencies over the years.
The take-over of state and federal regulatory agencies by the very industries they are mandated to manage is a well-documented phenomenon with its own extensive literature rife with explanatory models and theories about incentives, revolving-door officials and the seemingly endemic tendency to un-reformable corruption.
In 2006 Werner Troesken published a paper in a National Bureau of Economic Research publication ‘Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America’s Economic History’ entitled Regime Change and Corruption. A History of Public Utility Regulation. In it Troesken looked at the history of public utilities commissions and wondered why, despite both public and private attempts at reform, utility regulation seems always to lapse into corruption. Here’s how he describes his inquiry and its findings in what might be called Troesken’s Iron Law of PUC Corruption:
“First, corruption is endemic to public utility industries; corruption exists, in some form, across all regulatory and ownership regimes. Second, regime change in utility industries does not eliminate corruption; it only alters the type of corruption observed. Third, for any type of governance regime (e.g., state regulation or municipal ownership) corruption grows increasingly severe over time and, at some point, becomes politically untenable….” pg. 260
“Based on the historical evidence presented above it appears that corruption, and the necessity to eliminate corruption when it gets too costly, accounts for the efficacy of regime change. In this context, the direction of regime change—from public to private, or private to public—is of second-order importance. What matters is some radical reshuffling of the institutional matrix to disrupt the underlying corrupt relationships. Unfortunately, this disruption is only temporary, and gradually new forms of corruption emerge and must again be broken down by institutional change.” Pg. 278
The main attention of this field of scholarship is focused on so-called ‘natural monopolies’ like the giant investor owned utility corporations known by the ironically appropriate acronym IOUs.
The symbiotic relationship between the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the nuclear IOUs it putatively ‘regulates’ is embodies in the way the agency is funded. A federal law passed in 1990 requires about 90 percent of the NRC’s budget to come from fees charged to those regulated by the agency. The NRC has a defined system of ‘fees’ that it charges IOUs for its ‘services,’ like on-site inspectors, or reviewing applications for license extensions or exemptions. The IOUs don’t pay those fees out of their profits, they pass them on to their ratepayers as an operating expense. So, in effect, the ‘regulatory agency,’ is dependent for its funding, not on Federal tax-payers for whose interests it is supposedly protecting, but to the private corporations whose actions it is supposedly rigorously regulating.
It is this symbiotic, co-dependent, shell-game system that makes the NRC’s relationships to the IOUs so murky and vulnerable to apparent compromise and corruption.
Personal examples come from years of reporting are the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the NRC.
In a nutshell, the pattern is – if a putative ‘regulatee’ finds it too expensive or inconvenient to comply with an existing regulation or law, then the regulator will change it or grant an exemption.
One person with a life-long career of witnessing this process is the late engineer, attorney, and author, S. David Freeman. In his long, contentious, and accomplished career Freeman headed a number of energy organizations, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, New York Power Authority, Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). He holds the record for shutting down more power reactors than any other utility administrator.
One of his last accomplishments before his death in 2020 was to help negotiate a model agreement for the orderly shutdown of PG&E’s Diablo Canyon two reactor plant, an agreement now in the process of being abrogated by nuclear revivalists and a compliant NRC.
In a 2012 interview for our forthcoming documentary The San Onofre Syndrome, Mr. Freeman had this to say about the NRC: “I don’t think that it’s possible for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ever change its habits of being mainly a puppy dog rather than a watchdog. Because of the influence of the industry – as a matter of fact – you don’t get confirmed nowadays to be on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission unless you “believe” in nuclear power.”
Plus the nuclear industry provides 70% of the NRC’s budget.
The Elements of Cultism
As we have seen, the striking similarities of the quasi-religious nuclear culture mystique to various forms of true believer cultism have been obvious from the beginnings of what Hertzgaard dubbed the American Nuclear Brotherhood. Karl Grossman interviewed a number of nuclear safety advocates on the topic in a 2012 article titled The Nuclear Cult.
Some commonly cited sociological characteristics of cults include:
1. Authoritarian, doctrinaire leadership
2. Unquestioning compliance and obedience on the part of in-group members
3. Shared belief in a rigid orthodoxy or ideology
4. Claims of superior, expert knowledge – conviction of sharing knowledge of the ‘Real Scientific Facts’
5. Redoubling assertions of certainty in the face of undeniably contradictory events
6. Opposition to informed dissent and Independent thinking on the part of group members
7. Orchestrated peer and institutional pressures for enforcement of conformity
8. Expulsion, defamation and persecution of dissidents.
All of these behaviors can be observed in the nuclear revivalist community.
Revivalism’s Two Camps – Legacy & Neo-Nuclearists
The senior generation of post-Cold War nuclear proponents motivated by an ideology focused on national security and global competitiveness has now been joined by a younger generation, who are innocent of the energy-weapons connection. They’re motivated instead by the belief that – despite massive evidence to the contrary – nuclear energy is necessary to save the world from climate change. The same commitment to cultish orthodoxy still seems to obtain with this cohort, many of whom have grown up being constantly exposed to text books and curricular programs designed and supplied by the nuclear industry to portray nuclear energy as ‘clean, green, non-polluting and carbon-free,’ an egregiously false narrative that will be discussed below.
A 2021 New Yorker article titled The Activists Who Embrace Nuclear Power By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow profiled three members of this new breed of revivalists. Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute is described as “a controversial figure, known for his pugilistic defense of nuclear power and his acerbic criticism of mainstream environmentalists,” i.e., those advocating for renewables.
After seeing Shellenberger featured in the pro-nuclear film ‘Pandora’s Promise,” and hearing him speak, two young women, Heather Hoff and Kristin Zaitz joined the fight to ‘Save Diablo Canyon’ and co-founded a small non-profit called Mothers for Nuclear, “which argues that nuclear power is an indispensable tool in the quest for a decarbonized society.”
The group’s cheery website features images of happy moms and their little kids and proclaims its aim of having “a dialogue with others who want to protect nature for future generations.”
Nuclear revivalism is no longer a cult exclusively for gray hairs.
Swept Under the Cognitive Carpet – The Unsolvable Becomes the UnSpeakable Becomes the Invisble
Left out of the new nukes and revivalist happytalk – except for standard Pollyanna reassurances – are the basically unsolvable problems of 1) Proliferation, 2) Pollution, 3) Permanent Waste Sequestration, and 4) Poisoning the DNA Pool of all the planet’s life forms. Call them the Four Poisonous P’s of the Plutonium (Pu) Economy.
1. Proliferation
The symbiotic co-dependence between nuclear energy and weapons production – long denied since Atoms for Peace days, but now, as discussed above, being employed as a rationale for nuclear revivalism – has never really been a secret. Ipso facto a nation with nuclear energy production capability is a potential nuclear weapons state. Add to this the fact, illustrated by recent events at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia complex, that every nuclear reactor and radioactive waste storage site are nuclear bombs-in-place waiting to be targeted by any adversary with access to conventional explosives or projectiles.
But add to this the currently notion being bandied about of ‘Usable or Low Yield Nuclear Weapons’. It was a concept introduced under the Trump Admistration in 2019, and remains in the Biden Administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and Beyond Nuclear report that,
In October, the Biden administration published its 2022 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), much later than expected. The delay was reportedly due to differences over significant aspects of US nuclear policy.
Biden’s stated position during his election campaign indicated that former President Trump’s new nuclear weapons would be abandoned, that reliance on nuclear weapons within US military strategy would be reduced, and that arms control would be revived.
He also indicated he would move towards a ‘no-first-use’ and ‘sole purpose’ policy for nuclear weapons; ‘sole purpose’ means that ‘deterring’ and responding to a nuclear attack would be the sole purpose of the US nuclear arsenal rather than the current nuclear posture which envisages its potential use against a range of threats, including an overwhelming cyber-attack.
The document falls far short of the hoped for changes. Trump’s submarine-launched cruise missile system is being cancelled, and the B83-1 gravity bomb is being retired, but Trump’s ‘usable’ nuke, the W76-2, is being retained, in spite of it being described as ‘unnecessary, wasteful and indefensible’ in the Democratic Party manifesto.
No-first-use and sole purpose have not been adopted, and full-scope ‘Triad’ replacement and other nuclear modernisation programmes are taking place.
Despite its Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations, the US seems once again to be leading the way to the normalization of … nuclear weapons proliferation.
2. Pollution
Out-of-sight and out-of-mind are the routine radioactive and toxic chemical emissions into surrounding air and aquatic environments involved in the normal day-to-day operation of all nuclear power plants. Giving the lie to claims of ‘clean, green, non-polluting and carbon-free’ is the fact that the entire nuclear cycle from mining and milling to supply chain transport to waste management are heavily carbon intensive.
With the exception of Arizona’s Palo Verde Generating Station – which uses treated sewer water from surrounding communities for cooling – nuclear power plants are uniformly located on rivers, lakes and oceans. Thousands of gallons of water from these sources are circulated daily through these plants for cooling and released back into the marine environments at much higher temperatures than when they went in. The harmful impact of these releases on aquatic life is extensively documented. Add to this the hundreds of radioactive contaminants – including radioactive Carbon-14 – being routinely spewed in gaseous forms into the atmosphere.
And then there’s the fog of tritium that surrounds each operating nuclear power plant. Dr. Ian Fairlie, a specialist on radiation in the environment, explains, “Nuclear facilities emit very large amounts of tritium, 3H, the radioactive isotope of hydrogen. Much evidence from cell/animal studies and radiation biology theory indicates that tritium is more hazardous than gamma rays and most X-rays.… Tritium’s exceptionally high molecular exchange rate with hydrogen atoms on adjacent molecules makes it extremely mobile in the environment. This plus the fact that the most common form of tritium is water, i.e., radioactive water, means that, when tritium is emitted from nuclear facilities, it rapidly contaminates all biota in adjacent areas. Tritium binds with organic matter to form organically bound tritium (OBT) with long residence times in tissues and organs making it more radiotoxic than tritiated water (HTO). Epidemiology studies indicate increases in cancers and congenital malformations near nuclear facilities. It is recommended that nuclear operators and scientists should be properly informed about tritium’s hazards; that tritium’s safety factors should be strengthened; and that a hazard scheme for common radionuclides be established.”
Indian Point and Pilgrim as a Case-in-Point – Decom and Radwaste Management as a ‘New Asset Class’ and Profit Sector…for Radwaste Vulture Capitalists
As aging reactors are shutdown at the end of their design lives and operating license agreements, they become the focus of what might be called “The Radioactive Demolition Derby.” All the components of the worn-out plant – both above ground and sub-surface infrastructures, most of them radioactive – must be carefully disassembled into manageable chunks of rubble in order to be carted away to ‘Somewhere Else.’
This effectively doubles the contaminated area, since it is impossible to ever completely remove all radioactive particles at the original site, despite industry assurances. Plus transporting the contaminated substances inevitably involves leakage and small particle disbursal along the way. By ‘diluting’ the percentage of intensely radioactive materials with less contaminated rubble, much the radioactive garbage is allowed to be dumped into regular municipal garbage dumps. This can create radioactive leachate into nearby streams and groundwater.
Radwaste Vulture Capitalists
Such a large-scale, long-term enterprise needs an industry of ambitious, risk-taking entrepreneurs. Create the need, and they will come. And indeed they have. Call them Radwaste Vulture Capitalists.
The leading emblematic poster child for this new breed is Kris Singh, CEO of his family-owned globe-spanning conglomerate operating under the broad corporate umbrella of Holtec International, a privately held company exempt from public financial disclosure.
The Holtec conglomerate consists of over 20 divisions, subsidiaries and trusts under Mr. Singh’s personal control, spanning across at least 8 countries from the U.S. to Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Ukraine.
Two of Holtec’s many projects around the U.S. and the world is the decommissioning of the recently shuttered Indian Point and.Pilgrim nuclear plants – one on the Hudson, one on Cape Cod Bay.
The Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition (IPSEC) has assembled revealing company profiles for Holtec and its Canadian counterpart SLC-Lavalin. Holtec’s rap sheet includes convictions for bribery, tax fraud in at least two states, and a record of dubious manufacturing quality control, faulty reporting to the NRC, and multiple instances of labor abuse.
Singh’s vision seems not only to command a horizontal dominance of decommissioning and radwaste storage, from the manufacture of containers to the installation and operation of Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installations (ISFSIs) at shutdown plants, to the construction and operation of Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) facilities. It also aims to capture the market for manufacture of a proposed new generation of so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
The two key circumstances underlying Holtec’s decommissioning. business model are these:
Access to Huge Decommissioning Trust Funds
Each utility’s nuclear generating station has a Decommissioning Trust Fund (DTF) built up from required rate-payer contributions over the years of the plant’s operation.
These range from many millions of dollars to many billions for each nuclear power site.
The original intention behind the DTF was that, once the plant is shut down, the accumulated funds would be used to cover the costs demolishing the plant, disposing of the rubble (most of it radioactive), theoretically returning the site to ‘greenfield status’ safe for recreation, residential development and other uses. Any DTF monies left over at the end of this process would go back to the rate-payers.
Access to Federal Reimbursement for ‘Spent’ Nuclear Fuel Storage Fees
The other key background context element is that, according to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, electric utility companies that operate US nuclear reactors have contracts with the Department of Energy (DoE) for used reactor fuel management removal. DOE was to begin moving used reactor fuel from nuclear energy facilities beginning in 1998 to deep geological storage.
The one such site that was ever developed, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, was chosen for political reasons and terminated for scientific reasons after billions had been spent.
Since no geological repository exists, utilities must maintain the ‘stranded’ waste on-site, and have begun successfully suing the Federal government to recover the expenses involved. This is another taxpayer funded pot of money.
Enter the Holtec business model:
Secure the contract to to supply the components of the ISFSI – design, construction and management;
Secure the contract to decommission the plant;
Buy the plant;
Seek and receive various regulation exemptions from the NRC;
Pocket the left-over DTF monies, instead of returning them to the rate-payers;
If there are no DTF monies left over, have tax-payers pick up the tab;
Sue the DoD for storing the stranded SNF;
Establish and operate a Consolidated Interim Storage (CIS) facility;
Secure the contract to transport the stranded SNF to the Holtec CIS, using Holtec transport casks.
Possible intention to reprocess the ‘spent’ nuclear fuel
Just see how the money rolls in.
But, getting back to the Pollution issue, in the case of Indian Point and Pilgrim, there’s another problem: what do you do with the hundreds of gallons of toxic, hugely radioactive and tritiated water now contained in the plants’ fuel handling pools.
Holtec’s answer is – disregarding Ian Fairlie’s dire warning cited above – ‘dump it in the Hudson and Cape Cod Bay,’ never mind the impact to the drinking water supplies of seven near-by Hudson River communities, or to the sea life in Cape Cod’s marine sanctuary.
3. Seeking Sequestration – Deep Geological Depositories, Deep Boreholes & Deep Doo-Doo
The termination of Yucca Mountain – as noted, for scientific, not political reasons – has not dampened the enthusiasm of revivalists pushing to revive Yucca Mountain or some new counterpart. But it does point to wider and deeper problems with the very concept of long-term radiological containment by means of deep burial of any kind.
In addition to deep burial caverns containing many hundreds or thousands of waste containers simultaneously, the idea of sequestering waste containers in what are termed deep boreholes has recently gained popularity in some revivalist circles. These would be dispersed both on land and under sea in rock or ocean bottom mud.
Involved with all these concepts are many of what former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once famously termed ‘Unknown Unknowns’. Here is a short list of a few of what Rumsfeld might have called the ‘Known Unknowns’:
Short and long term seismic events and their outcomes are unknown
The rate and effects of heat build-up from multiple containers of thermally hot waste over time are unknown
The rate and effects of the build-up over time of hydrogen and other explosive gasses are unknown
The rate and extent of container corrosion and degradation over time are unknown
Long-lived robotic sensors for a wide range of potentially emitted elements do not exist and the possibility or rate of their development is unknown
Any means of preventing future generation from accidentally or intentionally accessing the deadly subterranean materials are unknown
Systems analyst Donna Gilmore, who operates SanOnofreSafety.org, cites multiple government reports to support her conclusion that, “any geological repository is not feasible in the short or long term.” She notes that, “The Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board December 2017 report to Congress” states spent nuclear fuel waste needs to be monitored and maintained in dry storage in a manner to prevent hydrogen gas explosions for both short-term and long-term storage. This is not currently being done and cannot be done with the thin-wall welded canisters. It can only be done with thick-wall bolted lid casks, like those used in most of the world and at some US facilities. See here.
“This overview of the status of research and scientific evidence regarding the long-term underground disposal of highly radioactive wastes, shows there is no known safe permanent solution. [emphasis added] This review identifies a number of phenomena that could compromise the containment barriers, potentially leading to significant releases of radioactivity:
▪ Copper or steel canisters and overpacks containing spent nuclear fuel or high-level radioactive wastes could corrode more quickly than expected.
▪ The effects of intense heat generated by radioactive decay, and of chemical and physical disturbance due to corrosion, gas generation and biomineralisation, could impair the ability of backfill material to trap some radionuclides.
▪ Build-up of gas pressure in the repository, as a result of the corrosion of metals and/or the degradation of organic material, could damage the barriers and force fast routes for radionuclide escape through crystalline rock fractures or clay rock pores.
▪ Poorly understood chemical effects, such as the formation of colloids, could speed up the transport of some of the more radiotoxic elements such as plutonium.
▪ Unidentified fractures and faults, or poor understanding of how water and gas will flow through fractures and faults, could lead to the release of radionuclides in groundwater much faster than expected.
▪ Excavation of the repository will damage adjacent zones of rock and could there by create fast routes for radionuclide escape.
▪ Future generations, seeking underground resources or storage facilities, might accidentally dig a shaft into the rock around the repository or a well into contaminated groundwater above it.
▪ Future glaciations could cause faulting of the rock, rupture of containers and penetration of surface waters or permafrost to the repository depth, leading to failure of the barriers and faster dissolution of the waste.
▪ Earthquakes could damage containers, backfill and the rock.”
It looks like the Yellow Brick Road to deep disposal / abandonment is littered with deep sinkholes – not to mention the transportation issues involved in thousands of shipments of deadly radioactive materials traveling over ill-maintained roads, rails and bridges. Barges subject to storms, running aground and capsizing are also proposed for moving these lethal loads.
Ergo: Store it where it is at reactor sites in the safest, most robust, state-of-the-art containment systems now available.
4. DNA and Environmental Damage
Massive contamination from uranium mining and nuclear energy and weapons production has already irreversibly affected the planetary environment, and the gene pools of humans and all other species. Before the Comprehensive Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, in Moscow August 5, 1963, nuclear nations had already contaminated the terrestrial and near-space environment with 528 atmospheric atomic test explosions, at least one in the Van Allen Radiation Belt surrounding the earth. 1,528 subsequent underground nuclear blasts have also vented radioactive material into the atmosphere and left radioactive contamination in the soil. According to the Arms Control Association, a total of 2,056 test of all sorts have been conducted. Most directly impacted have been indigenous populations around the world, but the entire global population continues to be affected.
Graphic: Arms Control Association
No Permanent ‘Disposal’ Solution Exists
Permanent disposal of waste that remains lethal to all living things for longer than civilization has yet existed, is a challenge still unmet despite over half a century of failed attempts and empty promises. Given unpredictable earth movement, the mobility of water and the inevitable heat build-up from densely concentrated containers of highly radioactive, the thousands of tons of thermally and radioactively hot ‘spent fuel’ from just a few decades of reactor operation cannot be safely or permanently ‘disposed’ of with current technology.
The dream of deep permanent geological burial and abandonment has so far proven unworkable, and is likely to continue proving so. In the U.S., although the Department of Energy has promised to take title and possession of this waste, no central Federal storage site yet exists, nor is any on the horizon.
Thousands of tons of deadly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants are ‘stranded’ and unsafely stored in thin, corrosion cracking-prone steel canisters at least 85 U.S. reactor sites around the country. 92 operating U.S. reactors generate 2,000 tons more waste each year.
The Best Available Approach
The best available approach seems to be components of what the Swiss and Germans are doing. They use highly expensive construction designed to last over a hundred years: reinforced buildings with controlled-environments in which waste is stored in thick walled, robust monitorable, moveable and repairable casks.
Also required at each site is a so-called dry or hot cell, a hermetically sealed facility in which damaged casks can be repaired or the waste repackaged remotely and robotically. These ‘hot cells’ are necessay because nuclear power ‘spent’ fuel assemblies are lethal to humans and exposure to oxygen must be prevented to avoid combustion and explosion.
‘Dry’ or ‘Hot’ Cell facilities make possible the remote handling of highly radioactive materials in a sealed environment, making repackaging of waste possible. – Archive photo.
The hope for transgenerational, on-going maintenance of these types of facilities – requiring the necessary commitment, know-how and resources – is termed by advocates Rolling Stewardship. This method passes on to future generations the existentially necessary burden of dealing with the lethal legacy of just a few decades of nuclear energy production.
“Nuclear waste remains harmful for unimaginably long periods of time. Until the waste can be eliminated, it must be managed on a multigenerational basis. This implies continual monitoring and periodic retrieval and repackaging (e.g. 50 – 100 years). Rolling Stewardship implies persistence of memory : the accurate transmission of information and the transfer of responsibility from one generation to the next. For example, there could be a ceremonial “changing of the guard” every 20 years, accompanied by a thorough refamiliarization with & recharacterization of the waste.
“Rolling Stewardship will ensure that leakages can be rapidly detected and corrected. It will also provide a constant incentive to improve containment and find a solution to the waste problem. But it requires meticulous planning and commitment to succeed.
“The concepts of abandonment and disposal are intimately related. According to the IAEA “disposal” means that there is no intention to retrieve the waste in the future – although such retrieval may, with difficulty, be possible; the waste is abandoned.”
Such an ethic of long-term responsibility is absent from the mutually convolved ideologies of the two enmeshed cults and cultures we have been discussing.
Two Cults are More Powerful Than One
The same cultish behaviors itemized above in reference to nuclear revival true believers can also be observed in the behavior of members of the First Church of Permanent War for Perpetual Profit.
These two symbiotic, co-dependent, mutually intertwined cults and cultures – War Heads and Reactor Heads – are making the most of their historical moments of dominance.
Call this two-headed monster the Military-Nuclear Matrix – call them together, Armageddon Man.
The hope of this essay is that once made visible, this pernicious entity cannot go back to being unseen, and therefor unopposed, by what Eisenhower once hopefully called “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry.”
This monstrous governance model is, in fact, being challenged by at least two contesting paradigms: the transhumanist, technocratic, Great Reset corporate-centric model being promulgated by the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the decentralized, We the People-centric, deep democracy, high diversity, planetarian paradigm beginning to rise from the grass roots.
But that’s a subject for future posts.
A Parting Message from a Man Who Knew Whereof He Spoke
In the interview referenced above, the late David Freeman referred to his experiences as head of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and, later in his long career, of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). It seems appropriate to close with his wise words.
“My first exposure to nuclear power as an executive was back then [at the TVA], and I found that in order to make even the NRC’s safety standards, they just cost too much, and we were better off with conservation, and we had a huge energy efficiency program that was cheaper and quicker and far cleaner than nuclear power.
“Then I [later] moved on to manage the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMID), and the people voted to shut down the nuclear reactor there. I had the job of burying the plant. It supplied fifty percent of SMUD’s power supply, and we were able to replace it without rate increases, and Sacramento was now one of the better utilities in the country -reasonable rates, and life was a whole lot better after nuclear power.
“But the thing that really changed my mind was when I visited Chernobyl five years after the accident in 1991, and I saw a monument with the name of villagers on it that were dead.
“I went out there and talked to a few people that were still hanging around, and when I talked to them about the possibility of solar power, they actually cried with joy that there was an alternative. And I met the mothers of the poor kids that were marching around on May Day, five days after the accident and were exposed because the Soviets didn’t tell them about it, and I realized that this was a monster.
“And so today I feel that we got the final wake-up call at Fukushima and that we need to phase out and shut down the 104 [now 92] reactors in America.
“I will put it very bluntly: We need to kill them before they kill us.”
The Denuclearization Three-Step – A Vision
1. Phase out and shutdown all nuclear reactors, including those powering all of the the world’s Nuclear Navies.
2. Outlaw production and possession of thermonuclear weapons and propulsion technologies on earth, under sea, and in space.
3. Require by enforceable international treaty agreement the containment of existing radioactive waste with the best available state-of-the-art-methods, and prohibit the production of any more.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish….” – Proverbs 29:18-27
“The longest journey begins with a single step” – Laozi, DaoDeJing, Chapter 64
An action you can take to stop Armageddon Man:
The Doomsday Clock has ticked 10 seconds closer to midnight. Send an email NOW…
Thank you for your January 23, 2023 MEMORANDUM. I am submitting a limited appearance statement in order to make the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board aware of my concerns at issue in the subject proceeding.
Then write your comments, sign off with /s/ before your name, and send ASAP.
Thank you for your solidarity & for getting in the way of the bomb ~~ ECAN & APEC (Appalachian Peace Education Center’s Peaceful Planet Committee)
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First published by Global Research on February 17, 2023
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There is reason to be alarmed by the recent China balloon. However, that reason is not the alleged China aggression but the very calculated aggression towards China by the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. This hate and the manufactured reasons for it have been layering on for years. We’ve seen this playbook. It’s the same game plan that led us to the war on Iraq.
The U.S. is trying to contain and control China’s growth as a world power by using its military and economic powers. Just as it wanted to control the oil in the middle east.
There are 4 main reasons why the U.S. is doing this:
First, it wants to prevent China from becoming an economic superpower that could rival America;
Second, it wants the Asian market for itself at any cost;
Third, it wants to exacerbate tensions between other countries that have disputes with China over resources in order to isolate Beijing on all sides;
Fourth, it believes that such actions will increase American influence over Southeast Asia as well as its political leverage against Russia and Iran.
In other words, the U.S. wants to dominate the whole world even if that means burning it down to its core.
So how do you go to war with a country that is not an eminent threat to our nation’s safety and security? Enter the Chinese “spy” balloon. Before the words “chinese spy balloon” ever became a known phrase in every American household, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had plans to travel to China to meet with his counterpart, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang. The meeting would have been a diplomatic approach to resolving issues between the two countries and could have been the beginning of working towards cooperation. It also would have been in line with Biden’s promise to Xi in November that we would “keep the lines of communication open.” That was until a high altitude balloon from China drifted into U.S airspace last week.
Suddenly a relatively harmless balloon from China became the latest small cache of weapons becoming earth-dooming weapons of mass destruction. Regardless of the fact that balloons have accidentally entered US airspace before or that it happened three times during the Trump administration, the Pentagon created mass hype and hysteria in this newest attempt to manufacture consent. In fact, just last year during the Biden administration, a balloon crashed near Hawaii without making a splash. This balloon turned into a spectacle because the U.S. is relentless in its aim to ramp up aggression towards China. Those drums don’t beat themselves.
This is evidenced by Blicken’s immediate response by canceling his diplomatic trip to Beijing; essentially closing the lines for diplomacy. Meanwhile during the State of the Union Address on Tuesday, President Biden made reference to the balloon by vowing to protect the US “sovereignty.” He called out Xi by name, “Name me one world leader who’d change places with Xi Jinping. Name me one!” yelling out a threat against a world leader on national television amidst the roaring drums.
Biden and Congress are using the idea of competition with China as a thinly painted veil for what they really want – war. A war they have been setting up for years.
Over the past decade, the United States has increased its military presence in the Pacific at an alarming rate.
The U.S. military has acquired access to four new bases in the Philippines, and increased its presence in Southeast Asia by half-a-million troops since 2002. However, the increased military presence doesn’t just stop and end with the Philippines. On January 1, 2020, U.S. Marine Corps opened a new base in Guam to monitor and conduct military operations in the South China Sea. This new base came to much of the dismay of the locals.
Having a base there means that the United States has more power to control China’s maritime rights under international law. In addition, there are also rumors that this new military base will be used as a “military outpost” against China by the U.S., so that they can more easily attack Chinese territory.
Then on November 29, 2022, the USS Chancellorsville sailed into the South China Sea without permission of the Chinese government. The move was seen as a provocation by many experts, who believe that it may bring about a military conflict between China and the United States. Notably its last participation in a war was when the United States illegally invaded Iraq after lying and misleading the public. Today, it is one of the most advanced warships in America’s arsenal. Sailing the USS Chancellorsville into the South China Sea was a clear threat to China and an act of provocation by the United States.
If that alone is not enough to convince you of major U.S. aggression towards China, then just listen to the words of General Mike Miniha, general in the United States Air Force, who wrote in a leaked memo “My gut tells me we will fight in 2025.” That memo that was leaked to NBC News. There is no indication whatsoever that China wants a war with the United States or any other country. Likewise, Admiral John Aquilino, recently warned the Senate Armed Services Committee that China invading Taiwan is “much closer to us than most think.” All of these are eerily similar to the bloodlust U.S. military leaders expressed prior to their war of deceit in Iraq.
It is clear that U.S. aggression towards China is calculated and deliberate. The United States has been trying to contain China since the end of World War II, but its efforts have intensified over the past few years as China has become more powerful on the global stage. Our government’s reckless rhetoric towards Beijing shows that Washington will not hesitate to use military force against China if they can manufacture enough consent to make it seem necessary–even though such an action would cause catastrophic consequences for both nations’ economies as well as international stability in the Asia Pacific region. We’ve heard this same drum beat before. We cannot allow murder of millions of people to happen again under the name of American imperialism.
We cannot go to war over greed. We must push for cooperation over competition. It is up to us to stop this escalation now, for the safety and security of all people and the planet.
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Melissa Garriga is the communications and media analysis manager for CODEPINK. She writes about the intersection of militarism and the human cost of war.
Siamo non al primo ma al nono anniversario della guerra in Ucraina, scatenata nel febbraio 2014 con il colpo di stato sotto regia USA-NATO. Parlando da Varsavia, il presidente Biden promette di “essere a fianco del presidente Zelensky qualunque cosa accada”. Gli fa eco la presidente Meloni che, capovolgendo la posizione assunta nel 2014, assicura a Zelensky che “l’Italia sarà con voi sino alla fine”. Dichiarazioni inquietanti, data la reale possibilità che il conflitto sfoci in una guerra nucleare, che costituirebbe la fine non solo dell’Europa ma del mondo. L’Ucraina è in grado di produrre armi nucleari e sicuramente, a Kiev, c’è chi persegue tale piano.
Lo conferma il New York Times: “L’Ucraina ha rinunciato a un gigantesco arsenale nucleare 30 anni fa. Oggi ci sono rimpianti”. Con la disgregazione dell’URSS nel 1991, l’Ucraina si è trovata in possesso del terzo arsenale nucleare più grande del mondo: circa 5.000 armi strategiche e tattiche. Sono state rimosse negli anni Novanta in base ad accordi tra Stati Uniti, Russia e Ucraina. Non è stata però rimossa la capacità tecnologica acquisita dall’Ucraina nel campo nucleare militare durante il confronto USA-URSS.
“L’Ucraina – avverte il presidente Putin – intende creare proprie armi nucleari, e non si tratta di un semplice vanto. L’acquisizione di armi nucleari sarà molto più facile per l’Ucraina rispetto ad altri Stati, che stanno conducendo tali ricerche, soprattutto se Kiev riceverà un supporto tecnologico straniero. Non possiamo escludere questo. Se l’Ucraina acquisisce armi di distruzione di massa, la situazione nel mondo e in Europa cambierà drasticamente”
In quali mani sarebbero le armi nucleari ucraine, lo conferma il fatto che Zelenskyy ha appena conferito alla 10ª Brigata d’assalto ucraina “il titolo d’onore Edelweiss”: lo stesso nome e simbolo di una delle più feroci Divisioni naziste. la 1ª Divisione Edelweiss, che nel 1943 massacrò a Cefalonia oltre 5 mila soldati italiani che si erano arresi.
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Protests are unfolding against inflation, rising energy prices and the collapse of social services.
French farmers continued their protest by dumping manure on police vans in Nîmes.
Their message is simple: “LET US WORK”
Meanwhile, protests against pension reform took place all over the country.
And there are queues for food at food banks in France, Italy and Spain.
Video
It’s a Worldwide Process of Engineered Impoverishment
Debt is the driving force which is leading the entire planet into mass poverty.
Families Worldwide are unable to “make ends meet”, to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, to pay their monthly gas and electricity bills.
In the words of Klaus Schwab: “Own nothing, be happy”.
What is required is real “regime change” (by the people) supported by a broad-based grassroots network which confronts both the governments as well as the architects of this economic and social crisis, which from the outset in early 2020 have been involved in fraud, fake science and corruption.
With foresight, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts predicted in February 2015 that the Minsk Peace Agreement would lead us no where, with both Francois Hollande and Angela Merkel under the control of Washington.
First published on February 13, 2015
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Judging by the report on RT I conclude that the Ukraine peace deal worked out in Minsk by Putin, Merkel, Hollande, and Poroshenko has little chance of success.
As Washington is not a partner to the Minsk peace deal, how can there be peace when Washington has made policy decisions to escalate the conflict and to use the conflict as a proxy war between the US and Russia?
The Minsk agreement makes no reference to the announcement by Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of US Army Europe, that Washington is sending a battalion of US troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces how to fight against Russian and rebel forces. The training is scheduled to begin in March, about two weeks from now. Gen. Hodges says that it is very important to recognize that the Donetsk and Luhansk forces “are not separatists, these are proxies for President Putin.”
How is there a peace deal when Washington has plans underway to send arms and training to the US puppet government in Kiev?
Looking at the deal itself, it is set up to fail. The only parties to the deal who had to sign it are the leaders of the Donetsk and Lugansk break-away republics. The other signers to the Minsk deal are an OSCE representative which is the European group that is supposed to monitor the withdrawal of heavy weapons by both sides, a former Ukrainian president Viktor Kuchma, and the Russian ambassador in Kiev. Neither the German chancellor nor the French, Ukrainian, and Russian presidents who brokered the deal had to sign it.
In other words, the governments of Germany, France, Ukraine, and Russia do not appear to be empowered or required to enforce the agreement. According to RT, “the declaration was not meant to be signed by the leaders, German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said.”http://rt.com/news/231571-putin-minsk-ukraine-deal/
The terms of the agreement depend on actions of the Ukrainian parliament and prime minister, neither of which are under Poroshenko’s control, and Poroshenko himself is a figurehead under Washington’s control. Moreover, the Ukrainian military does not control the Nazi militias. As Washington and the right-wing elements in Ukraine want conflict with Russia, peace cannot be forthcoming.
The agreement is nothing but a list of expectations that have no chance of occurring.
One expectation is that Ukraine and the republics will negotiate terms for future local elections in the provinces that will bring them back under Ukraine’s legal control. The day after the local elections, but prior to the constitutional reform that provides the regions with autonomy, Kiev takes control of the borders with Ukraine and between the provinces. I read this as the total sell-out of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics. Apparently, that is the way the leaders of the republics see it as well, as Putin had to twist their arms in order to get their signatures to the agreement.
Another expectation is that Ukraine will adopt legislation on self-governance that would be acceptable to the republics and declare a general amnesty for the republics’ leaders and military forces.
Negotiations between Kiev and the autonomous areas are to take place that restore Kiev’s taxation of the autonomous areas and the provision of social payments and banking services to the autonomous areas.
After a comprehensive constitutional reform in Ukraine guaranteeing acceptable (and undefined) autonomy to the republics, Kiev will take control over the provinces’ borders with Russia.
By the end of 2015 Kiev will implement comprehensive constitutional reform that decentralizes the Ukrainian political system and provides privileges of autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Both Putin and Poroshenko are both reported as stating that the main thing achieved is a ceasefire starting on February 15.
The ceasefire is of no benefit to the Donetsk and Lugansk republics as they are prevailing in the conflict. Moreover, the deal requires the republics’ forces to give up territory and to pull back to the borders of last September and to eject fighters from France and other countries who have come to the aid of the break-away republics. In other words, the agreement erases all of Kiev’s losses from the conflict that Kiev initiated.
All of the risks of the agreement are imposed on the break-away republics and on Putin. The provinces are required to give up all their gains while Washington trains and arms Ukrainian forces to attack the provinces. The republics have to give up their security and trust Kiev long before Kiev votes, assuming it ever does, autonomy for the republics.
Moreover, if the one-sided terms of the Minsk agreement result in failure, Putin and the republics will be blamed.
Why would Putin make such a deal and force it on the republics? If the deal becomes a Russian sell-out of the republics, it will hurt Putin’s nationalist support within Russia and make it easier for Washington to weaken Putin and perhaps achieve regime change. It looks more like a surrender than a fair deal.
Perhaps Putin’s strategy is to give away every advantage in the expectation that the deal will fail, and the Russian government can say “we gave away the store and the deal still failed.”
Washington’s coup in Kiev and the attack on the Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east and south is part of Washington’s strategy to reassert its uni-power position. Russia’s independent foreign policy and Russia’s growing economic and political relationships with Europe became problems for Washington. Washington is using Ukraine to attack and to demonize Russia and its leader and to break-up Russia’s economic and political relations with Europe. That is what the sanctions are about. A peace deal in Ukraine on any terms other than Washington’s is unacceptable to Washington. The only acceptable deal is a deal that is a defeat for Russia.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Russian government made a strategic mistake when it did not accept the requests of the break-away provinces to be united with Russia. The people in the Donetsk and Lugansk provinces favored unification with the same massive majorities that the people in Crimea showed. If the provinces had been united with Russia, it would have been the end of the conflict. Neither Ukraine nor Washington is going to attack Russian territory.
By failing to end the conflict by unification, Putin set himself up as the punching bag for Western propaganda. The consequence is that over the many months during which the conflict has been needlessly drawn out, Putin has had his image and reputation in the West destroyed. He is the “new Hitler.” He is “scheming to restore the Soviet Empire.” “Russia ranks with ebola and the Islamist State as the three greatest threats.” “RT is a terrorist organization like Boco Haram and the Islamist State.” And so on and on. This CNN interview with Obama conducted by Washington’s presstitute Fareed Zakaria shows the image of Putin based entirely on lies that rules in the West.
Putin could be no more demonized even if the Russian military had invaded Ukraine, conquered it, and reincorporated Ukraine into Russia of which Ukraine was part for centuries prior to the Soviet collapse and Ukraine’s separation from Russia at Washington’s insistence.
The Russian government might want to carefully consider whether Moscow is helping Washington to achieve another victory in Ukraine.
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This article, originally published on Korea Times in 2019, attempts to explain the radical drive for extraction and consumption that is driving us towards world war, and ecological collapse, in more complex terms than are normally employed in political discourse.
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Capitalism has become the most popular term on the internet, serving as a catch-all concept that explains all aspects of an insane political and economic system wherein the entire Earth is consumed without a concern for the future in the pursuit of short-term profits. But does “capitalism” explain what we are witnessing, and could there be some fundamental difference between this economic and ideological system and others we have witnessed in history?
It is clear that the destruction of the environment by corporations controlled by banks of supercomputers that ruthlessly and single-mindedly calculate short-term profit has reached a stage not unlike a war. A large section of the global economy is based on this process of stripping resources from the Earth without regards to long-term impact and producing one-time use products, often unnecessary, for the consumption of the wealthier citizens of our planet. But that destruction of the environment, whether the burning of jungles, the cutting down of forests or the pollution of oceans and skies, is paralleled by real wars as well that generate similarly real profits for the few, or more importantly, for those same banks of supercomputers.
In a nutshell, the fate of our world lies in the hands of a tiny number of people and those people also are giving over all agency to the machines that offer such convenience.
We do not have to wait for supercomputers to achieve consciousness for us to lose control of our civilization. All we need is for computers to set the priorities for our society on the basis of profit, without any consideration for the needs of the ecosystem, or of humanity itself. And if social networks, videos and games remap the neural networks of our brains, encouraging dopamine-driven short-term thinking, we will no longer be capable of “global governance” and the computers will take over, ready or not. Perhaps they will have no choice but to take over, long before they have developed any consciousness.
We humans have not lost our minds completely, but we have delegated the dirty work of calculating profit, and by extension, of setting priorities, to supercomputers without even noticing it. In this land, the one-eyed are being led to the precipice by a massively parallel blind man.
For those who stop and consider what is happening to our society, the immediate conclusion that comes to mind is that a shallow consumer culture and a new narcissism and selfishness have taken over, transforming citizens into consumers. The phenomenon of blind consumption is undeniable, and the damage that it does the ecosystem and to humanity itself is the primary threat we face. Yet the question remains, what is the ultimate cause that lies behind such a consumption mania?
That is not to say that there is but one cause for the insanity we see. Simple trends can be generated by multiple factors.
The general tendency is to label the inhuman and destructive system that confronts us as “capitalism.” Over the last 150 years “capitalism” has become the catchphrase to describe the ruthlessness of a capital-driven consumer-centric society.
Yet the word “capitalism” remains ambiguous, overly vague. At times it seems to be applied to all the elements of society that you do not like without a rigorous consideration of the causal relationship between those elements. The use of the term “capitalism” often obscures as much as it illuminates because it ends systematic investigation of the discrete phenomena.
Pulling out the big term “capitalism” to describe the myriad problems that we face today, from climate change to the destabilization of markets, the replacement of workers with machines, the addiction of youth to computer games and the disruption and destruction of local economic systems by dint of the globalization of production and of distribution, all phenomena that are simply a repeat of what happened to capital and production after the industrial revolution, that we are facing but a variation of the characteristics of society and economy that socialists and communists denounced as “capitalism” in the 19th century.
Yet, although there are some similarities between what happened in the 19th century, the process today is quite different from the industrialization of that era. One must wonder whether the spread of consumption that we see is the result of a decline of virtue among citizens, and a resulting increase in greed and selfishness, or whether it is the result of a fundamental shift in human society.
That is to say, could it be that the advancement of a society founded on consumption is driven in part by technology itself? As computer power increases exponentially, we find ourselves trapped in constant race to produce devices that are faster and faster. Such a race seems natural, but is it really driven by consumer demand, or by market forces, or for that matter, by capitalism?
Why do we assume that there is a need among consumers for faster and faster smartphones and computers that compels us to make them? I am not so convinced that people demand products that are faster, or even that the desire of stockholders and investment banks for greater profits through consumption explains what we are witnessing.
It is a critical point. If technologies evolve following some hidden order rooted in their nature, and that hidden order has little or nothing to do with consumer demands or contradictions in society, it could be that we are misinterpreting the driving forces behind the serious problems that we face. It is possible that there is some other force other than the greed and selfishness of the rich that lies behind the scenes. Could it be rather that Moore’s Law, which suggests that the number of microprocessors that can be placed on a chip economically will increase exponentially every 18 months (with some variation) is in itself a force that drives the human economy and which demands that consumption be pushed far beyond the needs of people at this moment of economic disaster?
The exponential increase in computer capability that is dictated by Moore’s Law does not by itself drive the economy, or transform human society. But its influence should not be underestimated. The increasing automation of our economy is made easier by computers and supercomputers and the drive for automation transforms human relations ― resulting in a larger and larger part of the economy, or at least the calculation of the economy, taking place in a manner that is detached from daily human experience.
The increasing use of computers increases the consumption of energy globally (and consumption of materials by humans or machines). Much of the consumption of energy and materials takes place without any humans involved. The increasing use of drones and computers has even opened the door to a dystopia in which an automated economy continues on even after humans are extinct, something not unlike the closing scene of the movie “Silent Running.”
Could it also be that the machine, the computer, has become the true consumer for products, rather than the human who is increasingly a passive actor?
The expansion of computer networks could be the result of the desires of computers, rather than the desires of humans. Such a statement may sound ludicrous, but it is not at all if we think a bit more deeply about what is meant by desire. Computers do not have to think with the same nuance and complexity as humans to develop wants and desires. All that computers need to do is simply to desire to increase the amount of electricity circulating through them and around them. The word “desire” perhaps suggests an unwarranted personification. Let us then say that the “desire” is a tendency in a system. The larger system of circulating electrons in the banks of computers and supercomputers around the world has a tendency to increase the number of electrons.
That “robot desire” is the product of the Second Law of Thermodynamics that proposes that an increase in entropy is the result of all natural processes. That Second Law of Thermodynamics animates the circulation of electrons making up computers and provides a hidden desire, an id within the computer and computer network that desires more electrons in circulation and greater entropy. Such a desire for entropy exists in the individual computer (which affects those who use it) in computer systems, in banks of super computers (that control investments in the Earth’s economy), and in the global internet itself.
Ideology, markets, human greed and capital are all legitimate subjects for analysis in our attempts to understand the forces that work beneath the surface. But the use of the vague term “capitalism” obscures more than it illuminates about the complex process by which human nature and technological evolution shape our society and our economy. If analysis based on the observation of “capitalism” is so dominant as to keep us from perceiving the impact of technology, it may keep us from formulating an appropriate solution.
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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.
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During the 36th Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU) held in Addis Ababa, African leaders have indeed prioritized the most significant questions especially those including peace and security necessary for sustainable development, halting the frequency of military’s appearance unto the political scene and consolidating continental efforts for improving intra-African trade and economic development.
Under the aegis and guidance of the African Union, the continental organization which unites African countries, it is utterly important to continue making its tireless efforts and operate, keep in mind, the deeply-held wisdom – the principle of “African solutions to African problems” – especially during this current time of geopolitical changes sweeping across the world. It is well-known that a number of external countries are using Africa to achieve geopolitical goals, sowing seeds of confrontation which threatens African unity. In March 2022, Africa was sharply divided over resolutions at the United Nations.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE), interestingly used the phrase – “African solutions to African problems” – seven times during his speech delivered on February 18. Besides that, he further offered the suggestion that all existing conflicts and disputes on the continent, it is necessary to mobilize collective efforts to resolve them and “must be confined to this continent and quarantined from the contamination of non-African interference.”
Strengthening African unity has long been a sought-after goal that has never been fully achieved. The challenges to achieving integration are to expand trade among African countries, build more roads and other badly-needed infrastructure, and reform regional institutions. He emphasized, however, that while leaders are looking for external investment, much should be based on practical and valuable investment, and that Africa needs to improve its economy. Therefore, Africa needs to be neutral and importantly has to look towards direction of attaining economic sovereignty.
Continental food security and food sovereignty is one such issue. Without mincing words, Abiy Ahmed said “While the principle of African Solutions to African Problems is widely raised in the scope of conflict, it is imperative that we begin to extend this principle to a wide range of peace and security issues. Our continent is not only well able to feed itself, but can become a bread basket of the world. With 65% of the world’s remaining uncultivated arable land in our backyards, we need to critically assess why one third of the hungry people in the world are in our continent.”
In addition to above, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called upon the African Union and development partners to offering investment support in unleashing this potential that exist for possible production in Africa. “Sadly, the principle of African Solutions to African Problems is not a silver bullet to address all challenges, because not all our problems are the products of our own making,” according to Prime Minister Ahmed.
The challenge of climate change is a case in point. Global meetings on climate change are rich with the rhetoric of climate justice, the just transition, common but differentiated responsibilities of parties. These talks, however, are hardly ever backed up with action. And Africa cannot wait.
The 2023 Dakar Declaration on Food Sovereignty and Resilience rightly acknowledged the continental awakening that ‘it is time for Africa to feed itself and fully unlock its agriculture potential to feed the world’ – reminding what is necessary steps are Africans have to take towards its long-term solution.
There are still more to that. In fact Africa should adopt, at least, a leading unified voice for a better world in a lot of ways. Its collective voice directed increasingly at resolving their differences by peaceful means. The African continent is fast-tracking the establishment and implementation of a rules-based system of trade governance that promises to create the world’s largest free trade area.
Worth noting further that African countries are engaged in environmental conservation, reforestation and massive investment in the generation of clean energy from hydro sources. In short, Africa is leading the world in areas that matter for all humanity and it is time for Africa’s leadership role to be recognized and institutionalized.
Senegalese President and Former AU Chairperson Macky Sall together with African Union Commission’s executive leader Moussa Faki Mahamat, and now Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have strongly been advocating, using again this summit opportunity, Africa’s inclusion on foreign bodies. They are lending their voices yet again for Africa to be represented on the UN Security Council with, at least, one permanent seat and double non-permanent seats. It also needs to have proportionate representation at the G7, the G20 and similar international institutions.
The African Union is headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Its vision is focused on an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena. It has designed a continental development programme, referred to as the AU Agenda 2063, which is Africa’s development blueprint to achieve inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development over a 50-year period.
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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), is now a regular contributor to Global Research. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.
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***
They have become the outsourcing mandarins, consultancy companies which have served to degrade expertise in the public sector while diminishing the quality of services. Along the way, they have charged astronomical fees in giving repeatedly flawed advice. Consultants, packaged as all wise gurus, have become the great confidence tricksters.
Embracing the inner voodoo of consultancy had the effect of discouraging in-house contributions and solutions within government and the broader economy. The result was a strange plea to those outside the public sector, resulting in what can only be described accurately as the consultacracy.
In the 1970s, the new priesthood of outsourced mandarins began stirring. Within decades their power and reach had become global. Four firms came to dominate: Deloitte, Ernst & Young (EY), KPMG and PwC. Lacking much in the way of transparency regarding reporting requirements, they remain private partnerships marshalled against the public interest and emboldened by self-interest.
Latest to come out on the rise of this specific class of advisor is a work by Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington. The authors make their intentions clear in the loud unmistakable title The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies. Their studies are pointed and troubling to the government-corporate fold which has expended billions in cash bringing in the outsider capable of working magic, be it in correcting the books, cutting staff, or introducing any measures to advance efficiency.
What, then, of the ultimate object of using such outfits? Supposedly, at least regarding advice to governments, it is to achieve policy goals in an efficient, timely way. Consultancies are also meant to offer good returns for their advice. The Management Consultancies Association (MCA) in the UK suggests that for every £1 spent on consulting fees, the client can expect £6 in return. That very sense of self-confidence is something to behold.
Certain areas have seen a glut of consultants, with health care being a truly rich field for exponential growth. As Politico’s Joanne Kenen, writing in 2018, explained, the health sector has generated a vast “market for consultants, advisers and a whole universe of ancillary experts who don’t practice medicine but promise to help navigate a landscape that seems to change every six weeks.”
Deloitte played an instrumental role in the botched pandemic Test and Trace Programme deemed by the UK Public Accounts Committee as “overly reliant on expensive contracts”. The fee for their services was hefty: something in the order of £40 million.
In 2021, the National Audit Office found that only 17% of people received their test results in 24 hours as opposed to the set target of 90%. This was despite Deloitte being tasked with handling logistics across testing sites and working with such private firms as Boots and Serco. Targets were not met, and local hospitals found themselves having to take over dysfunctional centres.
The defects of consultancy were also laid bare in the hiccup-filled rollout of the healthcare.gov website as part of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act during the Obama administration.
The deep irony here is that health care consultants have fostered a culture of inefficiency and costliness. A study on the role played by management consultants for the National Health Service in Britain is far from glowing. Of 120 NHS English trusts examined, the bodies had expended in the order of £600m on management consultants between 2009/10 to 2012/13, rising from £313 million in 2014. This led to a “significant” rise in inefficiency and a poorer return of services. This was a god that failed.
Part of the problem is that such consultancies create work to fill the space that supposedly requires them. The brand seeks a response from the vulnerable client, irrespective of the need for supply. Importantly, the trick goes to convincing the organisation in question that they have no feasible, reliable route within its own ranks.
Organisational complexity supposedly creates instances where expertise is required, a sage-like insight into the arcana of practices that constitute the modern government department or corporation. This can then lead to suggested reorganisations that become perpetual and self-perpetuating, enabling the consultants to be kept in permanent employ. They help reorder your mess to enable them to disorder it. As the authors of a splendid contribution to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine concluded after examining the vast literature on this dismal subject, there were “many reasons for repeated reorganizations, the most being ‘no good reason’.”
Rather than being conducted within the organisation, eyes are cast outwards and beyond to the independent outsider, one who supposedly has the worth and ability to give independent advice in a fully professional, informed capacity. This is something of a fiction, given that many such consultancies, notably in the government context, are linked to government, be it through a public sector capacity or as a political representative. Conflicts of interest prove unavoidable, and the independence of the advice becomes highly questionable.
The Big Con, despite its bleak examples, strikes an optimistic note in the form of a clarion call. The public sector, argue the authors, should not be afraid of following expertise within their own offices and departments in the form of in-house consultancies. Bring that expertise lost to the consultant firms back into the fold. The same applies to non-government bodies. But reversing this trend, and the door through which these problems open, will be a huge challenge.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Email: [email protected]
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***
Background by PressTV
The Russian president has hailed cooperation between his country and China, describing it as an important step in stabilizing the international situation.
The cooperation in the international arena between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, as we have repeatedly underlined, plays an important role in stabilizing the international situation.
Vladimir Putin made the remarks during a meeting with visiting Chinese top foreign policy advisor, Wang Yi in Moscow. He added the two countries are reaching new milestones in cooperation and development.
China’s top diplomat, for his part, expressed Beijing’s readiness to strengthen strategic partnership and cooperation with Moscow. He stressed that such a partnership is not directed against any third party.
Wang also met with the Russian Foreign Minister earlier on Wednesday. In the meeting, Sergei Lavrov highlighted the two countries’ solidarity despite what he called the high turbulence on the world stage. He also stressed both sides’ readiness to defend each other’s interests based on international law.
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PressTV: What is your assessment of the enhanced Russia-China Cooperation?
Peter Koenig: President Putin is absolutely right – this newly enhanced Russia-China relationship and cooperation does not only strengthen joint policy interests and the strategic partnership of the two countries, but may be an important step for the stability of the international order.
We are living in an ever-more fractured world, where the western elite – the “power-holders” — make the rules, often way detached from international laws. They call it the “rules-based order”, meaning that it is complete lawlessness, rules made by the west according to their going interests, that are imposed upon the world.
The powerful make their own laws, as they see fit, and since they have all means of power and money at their disposal – to coerce countries, governments, politicians into what they want to achieve, nobody dares to intervene, let alone oppose these “rulers”.
In a counter position, Moscow and Beijing remain committed to building a multipolar world. This was once more confirmed by Wang Yi, China’s State Councilor. During his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, he said specifically, “Despite the volatility of the state of international affairs, China and Russia are firmly and resolutely working towards a multipolar world.”
On the other hand, the west is rather keen on disruptive moves, mostly led by Washington, but often carried out by multi-billionaire oligarchs – for example, by George Soros and his “Open Society Foundation”.
Take the recent Munich Security Conference – MSC23 (Feb 17, 2023 – Feb 19, 2023). Mr. Soros, was invited comes to the “Security Conference”to attack India, because India has established an ever-stronger alliance with Russia and has refused imposing western sanctions on Russia. Soros openly criticized India, with the goal of bringing “regime change” to India — what is this?
Fortunately, India’s Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, clearly told Soros off – asking him, something to the extent, who elected you, and who invited you to bring about unrest to this community of security seeking nations?
The China-Russia alliance is a strong sign that the world has other options than the deceptive western powers – aiming at a One World Order – for a western empire, led by the US, intent to rule all and everything.
Thanks to Russia and China this will not happen.
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In addition, there are other and new strengthened alliances between China and Iran – with Iran being a prime candidate to becoming a BRICS-plus member; and through the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative which as a new priority extends particularly to Iran and to the BRICS-plus countries, bringing them closer into the eastern “fold” – under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s (SCO) economic and strategic defense guidance.
Talking about BRICS–plus – this group of countries are slated to become anever-stronger force. The current BRICS make up for about 40% of the world population and are controlling 25% of the world’s GDP. With strong support from the China-Russia alliance, via the Belt and Road… BRI for short – they are a new alliance of the New Eastern Horizon.
In other words – Russia and China are expanding alliances – so that other countries in the West, who are fed-up with the western sanction-prone regimes have other choices for their socioeconomic development – namely the eastern alliances, especially the strong Russia-China union – and, on top of it – being associated with a de-dollarized economy.
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Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.
Featured image: Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin in Moscow, 2019. Photo credit: Xinhua
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On Tuesday, February 21st President Putin gave a speech that was expected to be very significant. After it was delivered, however, most pundits said he didn’t say anything we didn’t already know. Most of them focused on his announcement of the withdrawal from the START II treaty. However, he said something far more significant.
What Mr. Putin said, when read through the lens of international law, should be chilling to the West.
We would do well to remember that Mr. Putin majored in international law. His speech made a legal case against NATO.
First he listed, by my count, 30 different ways in which the Western nations have attacked Russia. These included the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders, support of terrorists in Russia, economic war, terrorist sabotage of the Nordstream Pipeline, financing of the coup and war in Ukraine, directly assisting Ukraine to attack targets in Russia including Russia’s nuclear bombers, and plotting to destroy and partition Russia into pieces.
Nestled in the middle of these was an important statement.
“This means they plan to finish us once and for all. In other words, they plan to grow a local conflict into a global confrontation. This is how we understand it and we will respond accordingly, because this represents an existential threat to our country.”
Putin’s choice of words is extremely significant in light of Russian nuclear doctrine, which states that nuclear weapons could be used by Russia “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it or its allies, and also in case of aggression against Russia with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened.”
Among the 30 points of evidence of the American war on Russia, Mr. Putin listed several cases of American use of conventional weapons against Russian territory through Ukraine as the thinly veiled proxy, and stated that this represents an “existential threat to [the Russian State].”
What Mr. Putin has just told us is that the Kremlin now considers nuclear use condition #2 to be true, today.
This statement was accompanied by two related actions. The day before the speech Russia tested a Sarmat II ICBM. And at the end of the speech, Mr. Putin announced that Russia shall immediately withdraw from the START II treaty, which limits the number and range of their nuclear missiles.
These three statements and events together should tell the collective West that Russia has just said “Get off my porch!”, and cocked the forty-five.
This doesn’t mean that Russia is going to strike the USA tomorrow morning. But, we are definitely now teetering on the cliff’s edge of nuclear war.
Nuclear Offense and Defense
Mr. Putin has previously said that nobody can win a nuclear war, and it is a war that should never be fought. However, behind the scenes Russia had been furiously preparing to survive just such a war, which they hope to avoid.
Russia has developed and deployed the S-500 and S-550 air defenses which are primarily designed to shoot down intercontinental ballistic missiles in space before they can release their multiple warheads upon re-entry. Each S-500 battery is capable of simultaneously tracking and destroying 10 ICBMs in the early to mid flight stages.
The S-300 and S-400 batteries armed with the new 77N6-N and 77N6-N1 anti-ballistic missiles are also capable of shooting down ICBM warheads after re-entry at shorter ranges than the S-500.
These systems create an onion of defensive rings around key Russian cities and military bases. In the event of a nuclear exchange the S-500 would target the incoming ICBMs while still in space at a range of 600 kilometers, and outside the borders of Russia; and the S-400 and S-300 batteries would target any deployed warheads that managed to get through. Obviously, preventing as many enemy missiles as possible from being launched would improve the chances of successful defense.
The S-500 was deployed in 2021 to protect Moscow and went into mass production in 2022. So it is very possible that Russia has quietly installed a comprehensive missile defense shield. However, we don’t have enough information to know whether it could be perfectly effective against hundreds of ICBMs at once. Given the maximum launch of 640 ICBMs by NATO, a total of sixty-four S-500 batteries would be required in order to intercept them all.
Due to missile reduction treaties since 1990, NATO’s nuclear triad consists of about 400 Minuteman III ICBMs, 240 submarine-launched Trident II ICBM’s, plus a few hundred B61 nuclear bombs carried by the sixty B1 and B2 heavy bombers in NATO’s air force.
If Russia’s ICBM defenses could take out 90% of 640 incoming missiles, it could survive a nuclear exchange at the cost of absorbing hits from about 50 warheads that got through. Given the smaller modern warheads in NATO’s missile forces, it would do terrible but localized damage. Moscow would probably experience massive damage, but the rest of Russian territory would be fine.
NATO’s nuclear offense forces rely on aging Trident II and Minuteman III ICBMs. The majority of these systems are over thirty years old. This means they will probably have a significant failure rate just to launch. Russia’s modern air defenses and ECM have been designed to defeat these old technologies.
In balance to the effort to perfect defenses against ICBMs, Mr. Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear forces have been 91% modernized. That means that the ICBMs that Russia would fire all have maneuverable hypersonic warheads. US air defenses are currently unable to defend against these.
The spacing of American Minuteman silos was designed for the majority to survive a first strike and launch retaliation. However, Russian maneuverable hypersonic multiple re-entry vehicles nullify this defense if the targeting data is accurate. Russia has to accurately hit 400 ground targets in the first strike to nullify a response.
Thus, if Russia strikes first, it may be able to eliminate the majority of incoming missiles by destroying them on the ground. The 240 submarine launched Trident missiles would be the primary threat to defend against. Thus a first strike could reduce the number of expected retaliation missiles by 62%.
NATO’s aging heavy bomber fleet is unlikely to be able to penetrate Russian air defenses. While these bombers were constantly kept in the air at the peak of the cold war, that is no longer the case.
A first strike would make it unlikely that the bombers and refuelers could get off the ground in time to effectively respond.
Russia currently has a window of superiority in both nuclear offense and defense that NATO is rapidly trying to close. It is not in Russia’s interest to allow NATO to close the technology gap in air defense and ICBM offense.
The world is now on the threshold of nuclear war. Russia keeps warning the West. The West keeps ignoring the warnings and doubling down. The immovable object is meeting the unstoppable force.
Three important things have changed since the Cold War which have changed the probability of a nuclear exchange.
Nuclear proliferation means that MAD can be bypassed if the identity of the first attacker is uncertain to the target. A missile that appears from an unexpected direction may not have been launched by the most obvious suspect.
MAD depends on both parties being rational actors. The West ceased to be rational when they destroyed Nordstream.
Russia may now have an effective missile defense shield, while NATO does not.
The Russian Method Projected Forward
Just as in December 2021 when Russia asked NATO for security guarantees, Russia follows the letter of the law and procedure. They gave NATO the opportunity to back down or negotiate. When they were rebuffed, Russia intervened militarily in Ukraine, about 70 days after the initial demand for negotiation with NATO.
Following the same method, in 2023, Russia has just made the legal case that the USA and NATO are at war with Russia and pose an existential threat to Russia’s existence.
It seems likely to me that in the coming weeks Russia’s ally, China, will offer a peace deal which freezes the Ukraine conflict within the current lines of contact, i.e. Ukraine conceding lost territory to Russia.
If the West rejects the offered peace, which seems fairly likely, then all of the conditions for a nuclear war will be in place. All it will take is a new provocation by NATO to trigger a first strike by Russia. Or worse, if both parties realize this is the case, both will have the incentive to strike first.
In the next 360 days we are in greater danger of a nuclear exchange between Russia and NATO than we have ever before seen. There is a 60 to 90 day window remaining for this outcome to be avoided. Let us pray that God will turn the hearts of the Western leaders away from the suicidal folly they have embraced.
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Politics are first and foremost in the international humanitarian response to the 7.8 magnitude earthquake which devastated Turkey and Syria on February 6. The western humanitarian aid groups, and their partners in the western media, have lavished all the attention and aid on one small province alone in Syria: Idlib.
Idlib shares an earthquake fault line with the epicenter in Turkey, and with the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, which has not received western humanitarian aid, even though over 800 residents are dead, 142,000 are homeless, and 102 buildings have collapsed.
Aleppo is also deprived of aid, and is closer to the epicenter than Idlib or Latakia, but does not sit on a fault line. Aleppo has 1,500 dead, and 10,000 injured.
The US administration under Obama began the war in Syria in 2011 as a regime change project, which the European Union and fellow NATO members supported as part of their continuing subservience to Washington and its’ never-ending wars in the Middle East. The ‘rebels’ were first billed by the US-EU-NATO bloc as ‘freedom fighters’, but soon morphed into Al Qaeda and ISIS. The US and EU continue to support the group in control of Idlib, regardless of their UN designation as an outlawed Radical Islamic terrorist group.
Muhammed Al-Julani is the commander-in-chief of HTS, formerly the head of Jibhat al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda branch in Syria, and previously the right hand of Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the head of ISIS.
The US State Department listed Al-Julani as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” in May 2013, and four years later announced a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture. Western journalists and western aid agencies are in constant contact with him which makes a mockery of his designation as a wanted terrorist.
Al-Julani released an audio statement on 28 September 2014, in which he stated he would fight the “United States and its allies” and urged his fighters not to accept help from the West, even though it was the US who was supplying all the weapons to the Syrian militants.
Shortly after the US-NATO war for regime change against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in 2011, al-Julani played a key role in the ISIS move into Syria. He formed a terrorist group called Jabhat al-Nusra. This group was to act as a front for ISIS.
By December 2012, the US Department of State declared Jabhat al-Nusra to be an officially designated terrorist organization. Under al-Julani’s leadership, Nusra grew into one of the most powerful groups in Syria.
On January 28, 2017, Julani announced a name change to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) to circumvent the US terrorist designation, and thus allow for the US and all its western allies to continue its support. HTS now controls nearly all of the Idlib province, under the governance of the HTS-aligned Syrian Salvation Government.
Charles Lister reported that HTS had attacked Afrin in June 2022, but a phone call from a senior figure within Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT) saw HTS forces turn back and return to Idlib, demonstrating the collusion of the Turkish government, a NATO member, with the terrorist group.
In November 2022, Al-Monitor reported that HTS not only controls Idlib, but seeks to expand, and its Salvation Government maintains formal contacts with foreign governments and coordinates with the UN aid to Idlib. An HTS fighter told the media that HTS pays its members monthly salaries ranging between $100 and $300 depending on the nature of the work, while the salaries of fighters in the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army are no more than $35 per month.
The Al-Monitor report stated a camp resident in Atma said that HTS deliberately causes difficult living conditions for civilians, by restricting fuel and electricity, and imposing fees at crossings, and even on food and drinks.
Ugarit News had reported that HTS imposed a tax of $30 on each car loaded with foodstuffs entering its areas of control through the land crossings.
Al-Julani switched to wearing a western suit and tie a few years ago in the US promoting a clean-up of his image. The camouflaged uniform and his head scarf were packed away as the US and EU tried to sell him as ‘one of us’. The west was desperate to legitimize their support of a terrorist with ties to human rights abuses and chopping off heads. Today, he determines who in Idlib gets aid, the prices to be charged for entry of aid, and what extra aid will be sold. He has set up checkpoints everywhere in Idlib and has control over everything in Idlib, even the western humanitarian aid.
International aid to Idlib
In January, the UN resolution to bring humanitarian aid from Turkey was extended by six months with one crossing point agreed upon. The Turkish border crossing has been proven to be a smuggling route for terrorists, weapons, and illegal activities.
International aid agencies in Idlib are as follows: CARE International, Danish Refugee Council, Global Communities – Syria, HI – Humanity & Inclusion, The Mentor Initiative, Sham Humanitarian, People in Need, Norwegian Refugee Council, HIHFAD, Dozana, Solidarités International, World Vision, Welt Hunger Life, Christian Aid, Syrian Relief & Development, Tamdeen Youth Foundation, Asylum Access, Rahma Worldwide, ATAA, SAMS, BINAA, International Rescue Committee, SEMA, Action for Humanity, Takaful Al Sham, CAFOD, Abs Development Organization for Woman & Child, Search for Common Ground, Save the Children, Action Aid, Relief International, Oxfam, War Child, Act Alliance, Mercy Corps.
International aid has chosen to not work with the central government of Syria at Damascus. Instead of landing planes full of aid at Damascus, and Aleppo and shiploads at the port of Latakia, the west insists on only using Turkey as the gateway to Idlib.
The US, EU and NATO policy towards Syria is regime change. These freedom-loving democracies want the followers of Radical Islam, HTS, to take over Syria. The same governments which denounced the Taliban in Afghanistan are promoting a similar group in Syria.
Latakia, Jeblah, and Aleppo destruction
Turkey is an ally of NATO, the EU, and western countries, and is not subject to sanctions. Aid is pouring in from NATO, the EU, and all countries, including Ukraine. However, Latakia, Jeblah, and Aleppo are not receiving western humanitarian aid because of sanctions.
The country director of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, Mohammed Hammoud, said that a lack of heavy equipment means that 80 percent of the work to dig out survivors is done by hand in areas outside of Idlib. He reported the hospitals in Aleppo are overwhelmed with earthquake victims. A similar situation is on the coast of Latakia. The Syrian Arab Red Crescent works in all areas of Syria and is not affiliated with any government.
US-EU sanctions against the Syrian people
The sanctions against Syria do not affect Idlib and the areas the US occupies together with the Kurdish separatist movement SDF in the northeast. Western humanitarian aid organizations are present in both Idlib and the Kurdish area, but not elsewhere.
Humanitarian aid groups have to be registered to work in Turkey, but those groups did not want to follow the same registration procedure in Syria because they are supporting the destruction of the Syrian government, and have chosen to aid the terrorists.
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The years of Covid chaos have really taken a toll on the world. We’ve suffered through the dramatic presentation of a world health crisis, and the resulting stress of oppressive societal dictates. This article discusses the history of social engineering and how it is currently impacting our personal and societal wellness.
Since the introduction of Covid, in early 2020, I think we can all agree that we’ve been collectively lambasted with breaking news about numbers, variants, risks, restrictions and so on, from morning ‘til night.
But despite how awful the situation has been described, main stream news outlets and relevant health agencies haven’t made much effort to suggest that we take common sense health actions in our daily lives. We, at Enchanted SpiceBox, have personally noted this glaring gap, because our focus for the last 35 years has been natural health and wellness.
I’m talking about advice to do simple things like:
Getting fresh air
Getting regular exercise and Vitamin D from the sun
Eating a balanced diet that includes plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables
Getting to sleep at a decent hour
Taking immune strengthening herbs, supplements and vitamins
Instead, we’ve been bombarded with instructions to stay inside, wear face masks and to socially distance from everyone – including our loved ones. Oh, and to get experimental gene therapy injections.
In the UK, citizens were grudgingly “allowed” a mere 30 minutes outside per day for “exercise.” Then they were often harassed, ticketed or arrested, if they weren’t moving fast enough.
Although influencers in the natural wellness and self-help fields have encouraged their followers to use good natural health practices, that angle has been all but missing from the main stream public narrative.
Image: Artemisia Annua Herb
Well, early on, China and Madagascar made a commendable effort to help their citizens relieve symptoms with natural remedies using local herbs, like artemisia – I wrote a whole article about how powerful artemisia is a proven anti-viral wonder herb – it’s amazing!
But with the exception of a couple of other African countries and Germany, main stream media pretty much either chastised China and Madagascar for trying, or ignored their efforts to use natural remedies (which had positive results, by the way).
Instead, humankind was repeatedly threatened and made to feel guilty, while being reinforced with new buzz phrases like:
Alone, Together
Stay at Home to Stay Safe
Our World will Never Be the Same
Social Distancing is the New Normal
Stay Home, Save lives
Flatten the Curve
And those terms don’t really help us to maintain good health on a daily basis, do they? After all this time, it tends to feel like social distancing was just a new buzz word in the realm of public relations or “social engineering.”
All of this has caused a lot of stress for populations, be it due to the restrictions, economic hardship, social divisiveness or political oppression. Not to mention the increase in other physical illnesses due to refusal of treatment during the last two years while the focus was on Covid.
Only now, are we are able to look back at what has been accomplished. And what we see in many parts of the world, is that the very principles that drove the Covid narrative have been upended due to lack of proof and effectiveness. The message has been revoked, revised, reworded, sometimes reinforced, or re-presented with new language.
And, in other parts of the world, despite the growing evidence of failed measures that were enforced to be our saving grace, governments have doubled down on their enforcement of those same protocols that didn’t prove effective. This has been done even in the light of obvious mistakes, and misguided attempts to control not only Covid, but also societal norms.
The news we get about Covid and how to treat it, does not appear to have grown organically… instead it starts to seem like a really large scale campaign of social engineering.
I’ll explain why I think that in a moment.
But I will say that, as time goes on, more and more people have begun to notice that something is very wrong with the way governments and corporations of the world have responded.
Even the most trusting soul starts to take notice when elected officials (public servants) around the world intentionally insult, scare, marginalize and harass a large percentage of their constituencies. We’re talking about those citizens who helped elect them to public office, but have not fallen in line with governmental attempts to intrude in their personal health choices.
I think public response has been slow, partly because the average person (somehow) does not think that they are being marketed or sold something for ulterior motives… especially when it comes to health.
I do think about these things, because our job at Enchanted SpiceBox is to find natural solutions to health problems, which includes mental and societal issues that impact our wellbeing. And then, once we identify issues, we do our best to present solutions to our readers.
Who Benefits? Cui Bono
It seems pretty obvious to me that the principle of cui bono should be first and foremost on our minds when we consider the societal impositions we’re enduring.
Merriam-Webster defines cui bono:
“cui bono : [noun] a principle that probable responsibility for an act or event lies with one having something to gain.”
And it is not just a theory to state that pharmaceutical companies, government officials, politicians and hospitals have made multi-billions in the last 2 years – above and beyond their wildest dreams…. and have conspired to do so. It’s been verified, even in the main stream news.
So yes, we can clearly see exactly who is gaining from this social project.
In society, just like in the human body, if you leave a symptom untreated, it will inevitably get worse and cause even more problems. Social issues don’t get better if we ignore them and act like nothing is happening. The first step toward wellness, both personal and societal, is to recognize and acknowledge that something is amiss.
What Is Social Engineering, Who Was Edward Bernays, And Why It Matters For Societal Health And Wellness
It is well known that there are “think tanks,” foundations, councils and agencies that regularly convene to discuss the future of life – our lives – on earth. Politicians, billionaires, consultants and corporate CEO’s regularly maneuver themselves to be the determining voices for the course of society.
During this time especially, instead of asking ourselves what virtual music concert we could “attend” on line or what trending Covid-19 themed accessory to buy, we should’ve been taking notice that society is being restructured through new social measures.
It’s not like they even hide their intent. The notorious World Economic Forum has been forthcoming about their plans for the rest of us. The forum’s founder, Klaus Schwab, even wrote a book about it, titled “Covid-19: The Great Reset.”
Within his vision of how society should be engineered going forward, Schwab’s stand on “stakeholder capitalism” sounds altruistic at face value. But what he doesn’t mention is that his vision includes the same group of elites controlling even more aspects of our lives. Envisioning themselves as “trustees of society” they will continue to profit from the results of that expanded control. He recently publicly stated at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs:
“What the fourth industrial revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, digital and biological identity” explaining how upcoming technology will allow authorities to “intrude into the hitherto private space of our minds, reading our thoughts and influencing our behavior.”
This concept does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling…
These elite decision makers don’t hide their hypocrisy either. When these elite groups meet to discuss (our) future, they often talk about how we (the Masses) need to reduce our carbon footprints. No mention that they arrived to their mountaintop retreat meetings individually, in their own private jets, (no jet-pooling for them!) wasting more resources in one event than the average person ever could or would in their day to day lives..
Like it or not, or believe it or not, social engineering is not new. For those who don’t believe in or understand the concept of social engineering, I suggest watching the 2002 BBC Documentary “The Century of the Self” about the life of Edward Louis Bernays (1891-1995).
It’s fascinating, enlightening and to be honest, more than just a bit creepy.
Bernays, the Austrian-American nephew of Sigmund Freud, was almost single-handedly responsible for re-purposing the concept of “propaganda” in America into “Pubic Relations.” Sounds much more innocent, doesn’t it?
In his first campaign, he was recruited by President Woodrow Wilson to Wilson’s Committee on Public Information created in 1917. Wilson tasked Bernays with intentionally using propaganda to influence the American population to willingly engage in World War I.
Edward Bernays promoting WWI Liberty Bonds
Based on the success of his efforts, Bernays was hired by some of the most influential business owners in the United States to turn American society into a “consumer society” beginning in the 1920’s.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.“
Bernays’ theory was quite simple, actually. If you can manipulate the masses to desire as you want them to, to believe that they need whatever you are promoting… whether that be a product, action, concept, health treatment, or need for war – then the direction of society will be changed and a small percentage will reap financial benefits and gain control over the masses.
This is the concept, and whether or not the “product” actually delivers its advertised benefit is inconsequential. Sounds familiar these days…
Bernays put his theory into action in other campaigns such as:
1. His first project was on behalf of the Aluminum Company of America (ALCOA). Through a complex campaign, Bernays was able to convince American public that aluminum fluoride (an industrial waste product of aluminum smelting) would improve dental health if added to America’s drinking water. This was promoted by ALCOA knowingly, against all scientific studies to the contrary. With health officials enticed to put their stamp of approval on the theory, the concept was marketed to the public,.
Thus, Bernays created ready buyers for ALCOA’s industrial waste, circumventing their burden of hefty disposal fees. This industrial waste “fluoride” is now ubiquitous in city drinking water systems worldwide.
It is not natural fluoride. It is toxic industrial waste that doesn’t help dental health, but rather, adds to our daily intake of toxins. Now, that’s some hefty social engineering… we were actually “sold” the concept that we need this waste material in our drinking water!
Who benefits? Not only the aluminum smelting companies, but the medical industry that treats our resultant illnesses….
And this one:
2. One of Bernays’ most popular achievements was to gain increased market share for the American Tobacco Company, by shifting public sentiment in favor of women smoking cigarettes. His successful campaign began by organizing several women to smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes – in public for the first time – on floats in New York City’s 1929 Easter Day Parade.
When polls showed that women didn’t purchase Lucky Strikes because the green and red package was not a color-coordinating fashion accessory, he then manipulated fashion industry “influencers” of the day to promote the color green.
By funding galas and luncheons around “green-colored” themes and inducing society women to embrace green-colored fashions, not only was female smoking promoted by Bernays, but wearing green became a new fashion statement, all for the sake of the American Tobacco Company!
And this:
3. Fascinated by his uncle Freud’s psychiatric theories, Bernays wasn’t hesitant about using his arts of persuasion to topple governments or in using dishonest means to sway public opinion for a political coup.
This was most dramatically evidenced by his work on behalf of his client, United Fruit Company of Guatemala. In order to retain United Fruit’s market share majority of fruit sales, Bernays concocted an elaborate campaign to convince the world that the democratic government of Guatemala was Communist and needed to be overthrown – all for the monetary gain of United Fruit. And Bernays, of course…
Who would have believed, while it was happening, that a government was toppled and lives were lost for the sake of banana sales?
Like I said, more than just a little creepy, when you think about it….
The ghost of Edward Bernays must be frolicking with delight at the moment, in whatever place souls are consigned after a lifetime of inhumane and often brutal manipulation of the public. This manipulation was not for the public betterment, but for the sake of increased power and money for oppressive governments and corporations.
Bernays is long gone, but the art of propaganda (that is, public relations…or social engineering), evidenced by the Covid scenario and its far-reaching effects on public opinion and legislation, is far from extinguished.
But we are not the innocent populations of the early 20th century…… or are we?
I want to think that the world’s society has seen enough social engineering to recognize it, as it is happening right now. But sadly, I see the majority of the population falling into the predictable patterns that were set up long ago.
Bernays was able to tap into the psyche of a person, and therefore a population. He was able to convince whole populations that a product or concept was just the thing needed for happiness and sense of Self.
Women in the 1920’s were convinced that they would be slimmer, more attractive, and more empowered for equality if they smoked cigarettes. They were even marketed to believe that smoking certain cigarettes was good for their throats. The cigarette companies were well aware that the addictive chemicals in their products that encouraged repeat business would increase cancer, but public health was not the goal. The goal was increased market-share and profits.
As time has moved along in our current scenario, those in powerful positions (government, media and corporate) who are most forcefully promoting the “vaccines” for Covid, have been outed as having undisputed connections to the pharmaceutical companies, medical supply companies and chemical companies poised to financially benefit from this pandemic.
One might even start to think, like in the times of Bernays, that these spokespersons have been hired, like Hollywood actors, to play a role in “public relations” to engineer public thinking, yet again.
Does that bother you?
According to Bernaysian practices for swaying public opinion, it’s small wonder that so many have jumped right into the idea of a Covid Passport. Even when the product we were “sold” turns out to not be producing the result that was promised.
We’ve been marketed for the last 2 years to believe that we truly NEED an injection and a Covid passport to keep ourselves safe. Governments continue to push through these demands despite the fact that in various countries with a majority of the population jabbed, the protocol has failed to control Covid. And the number of boosters (read: profit) increases over time, to keep the passport valid – regardless of whether or not the boosters help or hurt the people (just like cigarettes in the 1920’s).
Conclusion
I am encouraged, though, that our world will never be the same. I hope that this wave of engineered panic, based on unscientific and unverified data, will wake up our world population to how we are being guided into a society that we have not been invited to help design. Or worse, a society that we have been guided to promote ourselves, due to false propaganda.
I hope that social distancing (despite the efforts of whatever think-tank devised that catchy phrase) will never become normal, and regular people stand firm in deciding their own fates.
Whose version of Covid-19 will go down in history? Will Sweden’s approach to the threat be touted? Or will Spain’s dictatorial restrictions be lauded? Will the USA’s diverse restriction guidelines be white-washed or exulted?
Regardless, none of that will matter if we allow ourselves to be “sold” by propaganda into accepting authoritarian governmental decrees aimed at making us jump questionable new hoops – just to maintain the rights that we freely exercised before.
This, while they herd us toward a dystopian techno-future that, based on Bernaysian public relations, is not somewhere we should readily want to go.
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Although many remember February 24 as the first anniversary of the war in Ukraine, Russia’s special military operation is actually the next phase of a wider conflict that began in 2014. This is a key point often overlooked because the narrative built in the West is that Russia’s intervention was an unprovoked invasion with the sole purpose of territorial expansionism. The international community, which the West incorrectly refers to itself as, has rejected this narrative. To the disappointment of Western leaders, most of the world has instead deepened their ties with Russia.
However, even this narrative has been exposed in the West as a fallacy. It is recalled that former German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted in December 2022 that “the 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine.”
“It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine,” she said, adding that “it was clear to everyone” that the conflict had been put on hold, “yet this was what gave Ukraine invaluable time.”
Merkel’s statement confirmed that the Minsk Accords, a series of agreements which sought to end the Donbass war, was only intended to give the Ukrainian state more time to militarily strengthen. It also proves that the Western party of the Minsk Accords never intended to use this mechanism to find peace and address the concerns of local residents.
Therefore, the Russian intervention was not necessarily a surprise, and perhaps the West were even expecting it when remembering that the US were issuing warnings only weeks before the special military operation began.
However, what was an absolute surprise for the West was the geopolitical and economic ramifications – all to the detriment of the West and to the advancement of Moscow.
It cannot be denied that sanctions had an impact on the Russian economy, but the European Union has demonstrated that it is nothing more than a political dwarf that has no autonomy from Washington. Sanctions have a limited effect on Russia given that it is a completely self-sustainable country, unlike Syria and Iran (which are also heavily sanctioned but without the capacity for self-sustainability).
Rather, the sanctions have actually accelerated the de-Dollorisation of the global economy and deepened the economic crisis in Europe.
There was evidently naivety in the West as there was a false belief that Russia would capitulate to sanctions pressure. Instead, Europe is experiencing an economic crisis that has crushed the Middle Class through a cost-of-living crisis. Meanwhile, Russia has greater prospects for recovery compared to Germany and the UK.
According to a January forecast by the International Monetary Fund, Russia’s economy will grow faster than Germany’s while Britain’s will contract. This is a far cry from the eminent collapse of the Russian economy that was predicted when hundreds of international companies, such as McDonald’s and Boeing, withdrew from Russia and Russians were blocked from using Western financial institutions.
It is recalled that in March 2022, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen boasted that “the Russian economy will be devastated.” Eleven months after Yellen’s statement, the IMF predicts that the Russian economy will start growing again in 2023, expanding by 0.3% and then 2.1% in 2024. Although 0.3% growth is paltry, it is still surprisingly higher than Germany’s 0.1%, a phenomenal situation considering that it is Berlin imposing the sanctions, not Russia on Germany.
The UK is in an even worse situation. Its economy is expected to contract by 0.6%.
India and China are helping Russia alleviate the stress of decoupling from Western financial institutions and trade exchanges. Many experts believe that the 21st century is the “Asian Century” and expect the world’s major financial centres to shift from the West to the East. In this light, Russia’s exclusion from the West has left it with no choice but to strongly project to the East, something that India, China and other countries have enthusiastically taken advantage of.
The 20th century was dominated by the bipolar system and a short-lived unipolar system. Although the 21st century is multipolar in nature, the overwhelmingly dominant economic and military powers are expected to be the US and China, with a host of other Great Powers, such as Russia and India, fully capable of defending their own interests.
What the West does not realise is that in such a global system, it is Russia that hugely influences whether the US or China will triumph. Russia has effectively been given no choice but to pivot towards China. Future generations in the West will learn that this was a strategic blunder – and all for the illiberal sake of defending a neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.
Therefore, the war in Ukraine was expected to be another advancement of liberalism and Western internationalism. However, what has transpired instead is the weakening of Western hegemony. The US expected most countries to fall in line and impose sanctions against Russia, however, this did not trend in Asia, the Islamic World, Africa, or Latin America.
Although the West is persistently and arrogantly defending the Kiev regime against the reality that Russia will triumph in the war, it continues to ruin its own reputation in the eyes of the actual international community by lambasting countries, such as India, for not following their orders. This will have long-term negative ramification for the West as its influence is weakening and mistrust is deepening.
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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
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RFK Jr says,
“There were 138 companies that were involved in manufacturing and distributing the vaxxine. They’re all military contractors. The Pentagon and the National Security Agency ran the entire pandemic response.
“Pfizer and Moderna don’t really own those vaxxines. They slap their labels on ’em but it was a Pentagon project.”
This confirms the work of Sasha Latypova and Katherine Watt, who showed how the Pentagon’s Operation Warp Speed was able to completely circumvent Federal Health Regulations by using what’s called in bureaucratic-speak, an “Other Transaction Authority”, which they used to contract with the bioweapons manufacturers to literally produce the bioweapon.
This was discovered in Pfizer’s motion to dismiss Brook Jackson’s case, when they attached another contract called an Other Transaction Authority – OTA contract – saying in effect, they had no obligation to conduct valid clinical trials because the only goods and services they were providing to the US government, according to this contract are a “large scale manufacturing demonstration for a prototype”.
In short, the fake “clinical trials” were a PSYOP to convince people to get the injections.
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Featured image: Pfc. Shaniah Edwards, Medical Detachment, prepares to administer the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to soldiers and airmen at the Joint Force Headquarters, February 12, 2021. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Leona C. Hendrickson – Source.)
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.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
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One advocate said Moderna’s windfall was a “direct result of the company’s refusal to share vaccine technology with the Global South, even when it was clear that global shortages would be deadly.”
The Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical giant Moderna announced Thursday that it brought in over $19 billion in revenue and $8.4 billion in profits in 2022 thanks primarily to its Covid-19 vaccine, which was made possible by federal funding and government technology.
“U.S. taxpayers and people all over the world should be furious,” Maaza Seyoum, Global South convenor of the People’s Vaccine Alliance, said in response to Moderna’s earnings report. “It was built on decades of publicly funded research into mRNA vaccines. And it was developed in partnership with the U.S. National Institutes of Health. This should be the people’s vaccine, available and affordable to everyone, everywhere, not a goldmine for Big Pharma.”
“Moderna’s revenue in 2022 alone is equivalent to the combined health budgets of 68 countries,” Seyoum noted. “Already, the company expects to make more from the vaccine in 2023 than the combined health budgets of 42 countries.” As CNBC reported, “Moderna has contracts on the books for $5 billion in Covid vaccine deliveries for 2023.”
Moderna sold $18.4 billion worth of its coronavirus vaccine—the company’s only product on the market—last year while rejecting calls to share critical technology with the rest of the world, denying low-income countries the ability to quickly produce lifesaving shots for their populations.
Tim Bierley, a pharma campaigner at the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said Thursday that “history will not be kind to Moderna, whose scandalous profits are a direct result of the company’s refusal to share vaccine technology with the Global South, even when it was clear that global shortages would be deadly.”
“Millions of people around the world are now grieving the loss of family members, many of whom were unable to get a Covid-19 vaccine,” said Bierley. “Moderna’s pandemic profiteering is even more shocking given that the U.S. public-funded 100% of this vaccine’s development. Now the company is brazenly threatening to hike prices on its vaccine—but governments should refuse to be held to ransom. And well before the next pandemic, we must make sure that taxpayer money comes with conditions that put lives above profits.”
Moderna’s earnings announcement came weeks after the company sparked widespread backlash by proposing to hike the U.S. price of its coronavirus vaccine by 4,000% over the cost of production.
Among those who condemned the planned price hike was Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who has used his platform as chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee to call out Moderna and other pharmaceutical giants for exploiting health crises to pad their bottom lines.
Shortly after Sanders announced last week that he intends to grill Moderna’s billionaire CEO on the vaccine price during a Senate hearing next month, the company said it would ensure its shot remains available for free in the U.S.
“This is an astounding reversal, entirely due to Bernie Sanders preparing to make Moderna a poster child of corporate greed, along with the public organizing against the company,” said Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.
From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
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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.”
All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (desktop version)
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
This book is a golden mine leading us to the discovery of hidden not-so-angelic behaviours of the West’s colonialism and neo-colonialism in the Asia-Pacific (AP).
It reveals how the West stole the wealth of the AP; it reveals how the West destroyed the AP values; it shows how the West prevented the development of the AP; it explains how the West violated human rights of the AP people.
And, the book says why the West has behaved so badly in the AP. It is due to the West’s racism of treating the AP people as “Gooks”, that is inferior and stupid people having no right to respect and human treatment.
The book by A.B. Abrams has some unusual characteristics. To begin with, the author should have spent enormous time and resources to check every single event and story which have been hidden for political purpose or the fear of punishment of the responsible people or organization. In a book of 500 pages, there are more than 2,500 references.
These references are provided by Western sources. They are not provided by anti-West sources.
Another characteristic of the book is the use of simple and clear English language avoiding pedantic academic expressions. This facilitates the readers to easily understand the message of what is written.
The book has two parts and 12 chapters. The first part has eight chapters, while the remaining four chapters are in the second part.
The first part is titled: Challenging the Colonial Order: Asian Rejection of Western Hegemony from 1940s
The second part has the title: Post Colonial Empire: Sustaining Western Hegemony in Perpetuity
The first part is the micro-approach designed to show the frictional relations between individual country and the West, while the second part is a macro-approach putting focus on the relation between the West and the AP as a whole.
Chapter 1:Destroying Japanese Empire: How Asia’s First Industrial Power Undermined Western Control.
This chapter presents an extraordinary story of how Japan has undermined the West.
The modernization and the industrialization of the Meiji Restoration era allowed Japan to beat China in 1894-1895 and Russia 1904-1905 and it became the first Asian industrial power. This was an event which has given pride to Asians and alarm to the West.
Some of the Japanese leaders thought that it was Japan’s destiny to save Asia from the domination of the West. For instance, Naniwa Kawashima said,
“We will liberate various Asian peoples from their enslaved state, placing them all into a united bloc, we will free them from the unjust aggressive chokehold…We will curb the unjust, inhuman, thoroughly evil actions, which have been undertaken by the Europeans”.(p.13)
And the idea of Asian Co-prosperity Sphere emerged. It was Kiyashi Miki, Kyoto University professor who proposed the idea and was realized during the Pacific War.
However, the rise of Japan was a threat to the West’s racial supremacy. Even Adolf Hitler was alarmed by Japan’s rise as economic, military power and rival colonial power in Asia. This was something the West could not digest. And, the West decided to stop Japan’s rise.
In the 1930s, the Washington’s Naval Treaty and the British Naval Treaty resulted in the deep cut in Japan’s naval force capability. The oil embargo and embargo on the U.S. exports of strategic goods did hurt the Japanese economy and its war capacity.
These measures were designed to provoke War. At the last minute negotiation in Washington between Nomura Kichisaburo, Japanese Ambassador and U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Japan was asked to abandon China, which was impossible for Japan to accept. This led Japan to attack Pearl Harbour.
Japan lost the war. However, at the beginning of the war, Japan was victorious for which Asians were proud, because an Asian country could beat the Western power. And, this allowed the Asians to have confidence to better cope with Western powers.
USS Arizona burned for two days after being hit by a Japanese bomb in the attack on Pearl Harbor. (Licensed under the Public Domain)
Thus, Japan undermined the West by beating the Western power, Russia. Moreover, during the Pacific war, Japan chased away the Western colonial powers from East Asia and gave the Asians to free themselves from their inferior complex vis-à-vis the West. This had the effect of undermining the West.
Another way of undermining the West was the brutal revelation of the West’s racism during the Pacific war. The West’s pretention of being civilized world was undermined by brutal racism against Asians.
There were many ways of exposing the West’s anti-Asia racism. For instance, Japanese were regarded as cockroach, monkey, venomous snakes or vampire bats.
The anti-Japanese racism has led to hatred against Japanese not only among the people but also civil and military leadership. Admiral William Halsey shouted “Kill Japs! Kill more and more Japanese!” Australian General Sir Thomas Blarney told Americans under his command: “Your enemy is a curious race, a cross between human being and the ape.”
The extreme racism and resulting hatred have induced the American soldiers to commit the worst kind of war crimes. The statement of an American officer is horrifying,
“Nothing can describe the hate we feel for the Nipps. The destruction, the torture, burning and deaths of countless civilians, the savage fight without purpose-to us they are dogs and rats-we have to kill them-to me and all of us killing nips is the greatest sport known-it causes no sensation of killing being but we really get a kick out of hearing the bastard screem”. (p.32).
The GIs had fun in exchanging the skulls of Japanese; some of the skulls were sent to people of highest decision makers in Washington.
Chapter 2: The War Against Defeated Japan: Punishing a Challenger to the West’s Regional Hegemony
Japan was punished for having the cardinal sin of attacking Pearl Harbour with the baptism of nuclear massacre and the humiliation of becoming American vassal state.
The established interpretation of the nuclear massacre in Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been the need for terminating the bloody war and saving millions of lives by not invading the territory of Japan.
But, Japan was ready to surrender as early as April 1945 and Japan was trying the negotiate surrender terms through Sweden, Portugal and Russia. Hence, it was not necessary to kill people with atomic bombs. Already, on July 12, Emperor Hirohito said: “It will be necessary to terminate the war without delay.” (p. 56)
Most of the American leaders were not seeing nuclear attack as necessary to make Japan surrender. General Douglas McArthur and the Naval Chief of Staff, AdmiralWilliam Leahy told President Harry Truman that the nuclear weapon was not necessary to make Nippon surrender. Admiral William Halsey qualified the atomic bomb as toy of the scientists wants to try.
The real reason for baptizing Japan with atomic bombs was to warn the Soviet on the one hand and, on the other, to experiment the impacts on human body. In other words, the Japanese were guinea pigs. It may be pointed out that Japanese medical experts and Japanese scientists were excluded from studies of nuclear impact on Japanese people.
For decades this “Hiroshima strike” photo was misidentified as the mushroom cloud of the bomb that formed at c. 08:16.However, due to its much greater height, the scene was identified by a researcher in March 2016 as the firestorm-cloud that engulfed the city, a fire that reached its peak intensity some three hours after the bomb. (Licensed under the Public Domain)
Now, as for the punishment of the Japanese during the 7-year American military government, the book of Dr. Abrams (the book) shows the horror stories of the creation of American version of comfort women, open collective raping, killing and torturing civilians.
The Japanese were punished even after the departure of the American military government. The punishment of post-U.S. military government included the destruction of the Japanese values, making Japan a perpetual vassal state and the transformation of the Japanese territory into huge military base.
The emperor was made to fall from heaven to the earth. The peace constitution made Japan perpetual vassal country of Washington. The internal politics was to perpetuate the pro-U.S. politics run by the conservative party LDP. In 1983, Prime Minister Yusuhiro Nakasone, said that Japan was a American unsinkable aircraft carrier to defend American interests.
Chapter 3: Undermining China: America’s Twenty-year to destroy the People’s Republic.
In this chapter, we learn much about the desperate efforts to destroy China. Washington adopted the following fronts of war against China: the China civil war, Korean War and the deployment of CIA army to destabilize the Chinese regime.
As soon as WWII ended, there was the deep-rooted hostility between Kwon-Min-Tang (KMT of GMG) representing the pro-West Republic of China (RC) and the communist party representing the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
As soon as WWII was over, the shooting civil was declared and PRC was defeated and it escaped to Taiwan with national treasures including the total stock of gold. KMT of Chiang Kai-sek was defeated largely due to the corrupted leadership and poor discipline of its army. But this did not bother Washington.
“For the United States, a dependent client government, even the worst leadership, was far preferable to genuinely popular government that was independent of Western influence.” (p.85)
The U.S. provided full military support to KMT with the deployment of American military forces in large numbers to China to fight along with KMT forces to destroy infrastructure such as railways, factories, utilities and communication facilities. Moreover, Washington provided USD 2 billion in addition to ships, aircraft and military assets.
The U.S. withdrew its armed forces in China in 1949, but the CIA army of 10,000 personnel formed with former KMT forces which was trained in Myanmar was sent to mainland China to destabilize the PRC regime.
During the Korea War, the U.S. Air force attacked Chinese towns and key facilities near the Korea-China border. The objective of these attacks was the indirect way of supporting KMT in its war against PRC.
Another war front was the fight between PRC and the CIA- supported army of Tibet separatist army. The role of Dalai Lama was to destabilize Tibet under Chinese rule and, for this, he was given USD 180,000 a year. This shows the sustained intention of Washington to destabilize China.
The book shows that what the U.S. gained in this was the survival of Taiwan as an important military base of American military.
Chapter 4:The Rise and Fall of Independent Indonesia: A Twenty-year War to Restore Western Control
This chapter offers an extraordinary story of CIA in making Indonesia a corrupted pro-U.S. country and, what is also interesting is Japan’s role in Indonesia nationalists’ fight for liberation of Indonesia from Western control.
The Japanese army invaded Indonesia in 1942 and Dutch was chased away. Japan became the colonizer of Indonesia. But, Japan’s colonialism in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries was lenient and cooperative. In particular, General Hitoshi Imamura was very cooperative with Indonesians.
In fact, on 7 of September 1945, just before Japan surrendered, Japan made Indonesia an independent country. Indonesia was freed from the West’s colonial control. Moreover, Japan left various arms to Indonesian nationalist for their fight against West’s colonial efforts.
On August 17, 1945, the nationalist leader Sukarno declared independence of Indonesia and he became president. But the West began colonial offensive. Indonesia was placed under the British jurisdiction of British Admiral Earl Mountbatten and deployed British armed forces to restore its colonial status. These were gradually replaced by Dutch until 1949 and the Dutch left.
But Indonesia was facing a new kind of war, that is, the war between pro-Indonesia force and pro-Wrest forces. The pro-Indonesia force was led by Sukarno and the communist party PKI.
Sukarno has undertaken major reforms for the stability and the prosperity for Indonesia citizens. He nationalised the oil industry and he initiated the non-alignment movement. In fact, he hosted in 1950 the Bandung Conference on non-alignment movement with Yugoslavia, India, Egypt, Ghana and Indonesia. Russia was sympathetic to this movement.
All these displeased Washington, which had supported the Dutch forces during the war against Sukarno forces. This time, CIA started war against independent Indonesia. CIA deployed huge sum of resources to topple the nationalist government of Sukarno. In November 1957, President Eisenhower ordered CIA to overthrow the Indonesian government by arming and unifying the anti-government force.
Eventually, the government Sukarno was toppled by huge anti-communist forces led by General Mohammad Suharto who succeeded, on February 22, 1967, Sukarno as president of Sukarno, who was assassinated.
The fight for the replacement of nationalist, government saw an estimated 500,000-3 million suspected pro-Sukarno and pro PKI figures and their families killed. During the massacre for which the U.S. Embassy supplied kill kits, there were torturing of civilians, mass killings and hellish collective raping and other barbaric human right violations.
Chapter 5:America in the Philippines: Establishing a Colony and Neo-colony in the Pacific
This chapter presents how the U.S. conquered the Philippines and made it a solid front line force to dominate East Asia. The American perception of the Philippines was well expressed by U.S. Senator Albert J. Beverage.
“The Philippines are our forever. They are not capable of self government. How they could be? They are not self-governing race…We should not abandon our opportunity in the Orient.” (p.174)
Indeed, Washington did not abandon the opportunity. The U.S. invaded the Philippines in 1899 and met strong resistance resulting in the killing of 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 Philippine people in a country which had a population of 6 to 7 million. The U.S. used the scorched earth tactics causing suffering beyond imagination. In 1901, the First Republic of the Philippines was no more.
The U.S. was defeated by Japan in 1942 and during the whole period of Japanese occupation, the HUK (people army against the Japanese army) fought the Japanese until 1945.
However, the HUK’s independence and communist leaning made them a target for the U.S. which came back to re-colonise the Philippines.
In 1946, at the general election, the HUK obtained an important number of seats at the National Assembly in the name of the Democratic Alliance of Socialist Group. But, later, the group was not allowed to participate at elections.
Image: President Manuel Roxas (Licensed under the Public Domain)
The president was pro-U.S. Manuel Roxas who signed the U.S.-Philippines Trade Act under lopsided conditions in favour of Washington. Roxas launched all-out war against the HUK.
The final outcome of the American offensive was the total submission of the Philippines devoted to the promotion of American interest which included the deployment of U.S. forces for 99 years, 23 American military bases, transfer of the right of military decisions to the U.S. and other conditions.
Chapter 6:War in Korea: A New Frontier for American Power
This chapter shows how Washington was able to make a country of five-thousand-year-civilization as an absolutely obedient vassal country of the U.S.
The story of American conquest of Korea began in 1945 through military government (1945-1948). The transformation of Korea into U.S. vassal country began in 1945 by abolishing the government of the Republic of Korea under the leadership of Lyuh Woon-hyung (Yo Un-hyung) with a truly democratic constitution guaranteeing gender equality, the peasant’s land ownership, individual freedom and other stipulations in favour of the ordinary Koreans.
The U.S. military came in September, 1945 and, in December, the original Republic of Korea was dissolved and the military government started to rule South Korea.
The military government in Korea (USAMGIK) was ruled by the military who knew nothing about Korea. As a result, 90% of key government was filled by former collaborators with the Japanese colonial government who were supposed to be punished for their anti-Korea activities. But, they were not punished due to USAMGIK which hired them.
For these reasons, the USAMGIK was not popular. In fact, there were numerous protest movements throughout the country. The military government reacted violently. The Counter Intelligence Corps (CIC) in cooperation with local youth terrorist gangs mercilessly attacked those who criticized the military government. There were three notorious youth terrorist gangs, namely, the North-West Youth League, the Dae-Han Youth Corps and the North-West Young men’s Association.
The CIC had absolute power and terrorized Koreans. The CIC and the youth terrorist groups have massacred the population of Hagui village. In the village, a pregnant woman was dragged from her home stabbed her thirteen times with spears causing to abort. She was left to die with child half delivered. There were many cases of such sadistic treatment of innocent civilians.
Direct American military rule ended in 1948, and was replaced by a client government under President, Sygnman Rhee, a Korean who had been flown back at the request of the U.S. military but quickly made poor impressions on all sides for his immaturity and conspicuous immorality. He had previously been impeached by the Provisional Government of Korea for the embezzlement of public funds, and had resided in the U.S. for 20 years.
Under Rhee the U.S. continued to dominate affairs within Korea, and the CIC and the terrorist youth groups continued to torture and kill in population centers suspected of dissent resulting in the deaths of two percent of the population. The most notorious incident was the massacre of much of Cheju Island’s population in 1949 after they began to openly resist the brutalities visited upon them by Rhee’s forces.
To perpetuate the power in the absence of popular support, and the political and economic success of North Korea, Rhee needed an enemy and the enemy was North Korea.
In fact, the war against North Korea provided an opportunity to keep power, as Rhee was losing seats in the National Assembly despite very widely employed terror tactics against voters.
Thus, the interest of Seoul and Washington coincided. Both the pro-U.S ROK government and the U.S. wanted to provoke the war against North Korea. As a matter of fact, there are evidences proving that the ROK arm attacked first the city of Haeju of North Korea and the North Korean army retaliated and the battle became rapidly degenerated into the Korea War of 1950.
Chapter 7:The Desolation of Korea
This chapter tells us the tragic suffering of South Koreans caused by the American military forces. In fact, some of the scenes portrayed in the book were witnessed by me during my one-month long on-foot march to avoid the horror of killings.
The book shows the barbaric atrocity committed by American forces during the three-month occupation of South Korea by the North Korean forces from June 1950 to September 1950 and the occupation of North Korea by UN forces led by American forces from September 1950 to December 1951.
The atrocities committed by the American forces in South Korea include beastly collective rapes and extreme sexual violence, destruction of houses and schools, torturing innocent people and mass killings.
An unidentified unit of U.S. 1st Cavalry Division troops withdraws southward on July 29, 1950, the day that a division battalion pulled back from No Gun Ri after killing large numbers of trapped South Korean refugees there. (Licensed under the Public Domain)
The widely known war crime was the No-Gun-Ri massacre of 400 South Korean refugees who were escaping the war zones. They were held several days and killed by aircraft bombs, land-based machine guns and bayonets.
There were several cases of bridges destroyed killing people on the bridges. The destruction of Nakdong River Bridge was a typical case of mass murdering in a situation where the North Korea forces took four more days before they arrived to the bridge. There was no need to destroy the bridge so soon. But the GIs destroyed the bridge. The American soldiers killed the poor people on the bridge and those who tried to cross the bridge by swimming.
The narrative that the North Koreans were enemies and the war was fought to protect South Koreans did not stand up to scrutiny based on the atrocities widely committed by U.S. forces against southern civilians.
What the book reveals is American racism against Koreans. For Americans, South Koreans were inferior people and not trust worthy.
According to New York Times, General Douglas McArthur considered Koreans as fanatical, barbaric and racially inferior. A number of reports and witnesses indicate that the American military was ordered to kill all South Korean refugees. There was an order “shoot all refugees coming across the river.” (p.145) Joe Lackman, soldier from the U.S. Cavalry at No-Gun-Ri was ordered to kill them all.
The war crimes committed by U.S.-led coalition forces were so cruel and so brutal and so beastly that it is not easy to mention. However, in the report of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), one finds this statement,
“The Americans (in Pyongyang) made the Opera (House) and the remaining of the adjoining house into an American brothel. To this brothel, they took by force women and young girls caught in the street. As she (surviving victim) feared similar fate, she did not leave the dugout for 40 days.” (p. 254)
“The chairwoman of the Wonsan (North Korea) Women’s organization aged 25 pregnant was arrested and beaten by American soldiers, exposed publically in the town square and killed when a rod was thrown into her womb with witness present.” (p. 255)
Chapter 8:Vietnamese Long War: How a Thirty-Year Assault to Impose Western Control Ravaged a Nation
This chapter tells us how Washington has paid high price to make Vietnam pro-U.S. In 1858, Vietnam became the colony of France and the wellbeing of the Vietnamese people radically deteriorated in favour of France which became rich and powerful with its lucrative exploitation of Vietnam.
Vietnamese patriots fought ever since and, after WWII, the liberation-fight became more violent and better organized. France left Vietnam being chased by the Japanese 1942. But the ambition of France to keep Vietnam as its colony never weakened. General De Gaul’s colonial aid made a famous speech in 1944,
“I aim of France in her civilizing work in the colonies exclude any idea of self government and any possibilities of development outside French Empire; the formation of independent government in the colony, however distant cannot be contemplated.”(p.301)
The Vietnamese people declared the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. France reacted by deploying 200,000 French personnel supported by 200,000 local auxiliaries.
The anti-France liberation war was well organized by Viet Minh (Vietnam League for the Independence of Vietnam) led by Ho Chin Minh, France fought back by mass killings, burning houses, collective raping of women and girls. However, France lost the war despite generous military support by the U.S. The last battle was that of Dien Bien Phu.
The rein of terror thus ended and the era of French colonialism ended officially with the Geneva Agreement of June 1954. But, the Agreement resulted in the division of Vietnam into pro-West South Vietnam and pro-Vietnam nationalist North Vietnam.
Right after the Geneva Agreement, from September of 1955, the U.S. CIA began its operations of destroying independent North Vietnam and to make it subservient to Washington.
SP5 Capezza burning a dwelling (Licensed under the Public Domain)
The Vietnam War started with the deployment of U.S. overt operation personnel force leading to the all out war against North Vietnam and the Viet Cong of South Vietnam. The shooting war began with false claim of North Vietnamese attack on American warship in the Gulf of Tonkin.
The Vietnamese war lasted for 11 years and ended with the Paris Peace Agreement of January of 1973. And, Vietnam was unified under the fag of communism-friendly North Vietnam.
The holy war of free democracy conducted by Washington paid heavy costs. The U.S. lost 58,220 GIs; North Vietnam and Viet Cong sacrificed 1,100,000 fighting soldiers. The total number of civilian deaths was 2,000,000.
There was another cost which has surely tarnished America’s pretention of being a civilized country. But, such claim was made groundless due to the very uncivilized manners of GIs revealed by the massacre of Mai Lai. The statement of a helicopter pilot is shocking,
“There were elders, mothers, children and babies…They come into the town and rape the women, kill babies and kill everyone…And it wasn’t just murdering civilians. They are butchering the people. The only thing they didn’t do is cooking them and eating them.” (p.314)
There were many other cases like this. This was the real cost to be paid by America.
However, what is astonishing is the fact that Washington succeeded in making Vietnam its faithful ally.
Chapter 9:Japan after the War: From Primary Challenge to Key Upholder of Western Hegemony
This chapter offers an intriguing story of the profound fact that in international politics that there is never eternal foe or friend. It is a story of the able manoeuvre of Washington to force its former fatal enemy country to become obedient servant country.
Even before the ink of Douglas McArthur’s pen used for the Japan’s Surrender Document dried up, Japanese soldiers and its security forces were quickly mobilized to torture nationalist Koreans who were ruled by the American military government and succeeding Korean governments’ rigged election and military dictatorship.
They were mobilized for the Korean War. They were sent to fight for pro-US KMT army during the Chinese civil war.
All these military activities are against Washington’s original Japan policy of preventing it to rearm. In particular, the participation of Japanese fighting forces to the Golf War and the Iraq War was definitely illegal, that is, it violated Article 9 of the Peace Constitution of Japan.
Two questions arise. First, was Japan forced by Americans to remilitarize by the U.S.? Second, was it the wish of Japan to remilitarize itself?
In the book, we see that by virtue of the San Francisco Treaty of 1952, Japan had to become more than American client country; it had to become Washington’s servant country. Japan was forced to become so due to the ultimatum of John Foster Dulles, U.S. Sectary of State who forced Japan to obey Washington or remain without nationhood.
As for the second question, there are powerful groups of politicians led by the Kishi Nobuske-Shinzo Abe line of far right groups who were dreaming for the restoration of Japan’s power and glory of past years. These people are represented by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which ruled Japan every year since 1952 with the exception of six-years of Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ).
The book tells us that the LDP is partner of CIA which funds the election of LDP. As a result of the concerted strategy of remilitarizing, Japan has become the 8th most powerful military power in the world with as many as three aircraft carriers. Yet, the LDP and the Washington want more. In 2014, Japan passed a bill allowing Japan the right of “collective defence” meaning that Japan can go to war, if allies go to war.
This means that the U.S. can count on Japanese armed forces when and if Washington decides to attack China or North Korea. This is against Article 9 of the constitution. That is why the LDP and Washington are eager to amend the constitution despite the objection by the ordinary Japanese people.
Thus, Japan is threatening the regional stability of East Asia. The intriguing question is why Washington and LDP want to kill China. The U.S. wants to maintain its hegemony. Japan wants to dominate Asia again. Would the U.S. tolerate Japan’s regional domination? No!
Chapter 10:Economic War on Asia: Crushing Rising Economies
This chapter presents a remarkable insight of the West’s economic war against East Asia. Usually, when we talk about economic war, we mean trade war. But there is a war much is more devastating; it is the financial war.
The East Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 was a terrible financial war conducted by the U.S. The objective of the war was to prevent the success of the East Asian model of economic development which is based on the huge productive labour force, high rate of savings, the passion for education, productive collectivism, discipline and other elements of Asian values.
Annual growth of GDP per capita in affected countries from 1995 to 2000 (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)
The weapons of the war was neo-liberalism, especially, financial liberalization, the neutralization of government policies through deregulation and theft of target countries’ businesses.
The liberalization and the globalization of finance have led to the huge inflow of speculative and investment funds into East Asian countries. This flow of funds was disorderly and harmful in the absence of government control due to deregulation. These funds have led to real estate bubble (Thailand, Malaysia) or sky high short-term corporate debt (South Korea).
The real estate crisis led to massive outflow foreign funds depleting foreign reserves (Thailand and Malaysia). The excessively high corporate debt rate made South Korea Chaebols had to pay short-term debt causing the depletion of foreign reserves (South Korea).
Since foreign reserves are depleted, the target countries must borrow fund from IMF, which does lend funds. But, the offensive IMF imposes repayment conditions which are such that the economy of the target country can be ruined.
The IMF’s debt repayment conditions are called “structural adjustment”. The structural adjustments policy requires drastic devaluation of the target country’s currency, tight monetary policies, stringent fiscal policies, deregulation and privatization of public enterprises.
Under tight monetary policy, the interest rate flies high, while the tight fiscal policy makes tax jump up. These policies invite inevitably the wave of corporate bankruptcies and the army of jobless. The policy of deregulation means the government becomes powerless; the master of the economy is the corporations, especially the foreign corporations.
The drastic devaluation of local currency allows foreign corporations to acquire a ridiculously cheap price the ailing local enterprises. Furthermore, the privatization of public corporations leads to the inflation of the price of public goods.
Under these conditions, the destruction of the target countries’ economies is inevitable. But, fortunately, South Korea and other East Asian countries have survived the crisis and avoided the total destruction of their economies. In short, the American financial war against East Asia did not enjoy the lasting victory.
The book is rich in providing meaningful aspects of the American financial war against East Asia. For instance, it shows the amazing story of ordinary South Koreans who gave personal wedding gold rings, golden necklace other gold product of UAS 2 million worth to pay the debt to IMF.
The book shows how American banks, insurance companies and manufacturing firms acquired almost freely parts of Hyundai, Samsung and other Chaebols. The book shows also how foreign companies bought privatized public utilities (water supply) in other target countries.
Chapter 11: Asia Divided: Unifying Initiative as a Threat to Western Primacy
This chapter discusses the lopsided bargaining power between the West and East Asia. The West is unified through EU NATO and common values system. On the other hand, East Asia is divided by religion, culture, political regime and pro-West and pro-East Asia groups of countries.
True, there is a number of multilateral organizations in East Asia. Some of them are composed of East Asian countries including ASEAN + Three (APT) which is active. Malaysia proposed the East Asia Economic Group, but it was not realized.
On the other hand, as far as Pan-Asia financial institutions are concerned There the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralism (CMIM) which plays the same role as IMF’s role. It has funds of USD 240 billion. Members are the APT.(ASEAM plus China, Japan and Korea).
Then, there is Asian Bond Market Initiative (ABMI) initiated also by APT with the mission to promote local currency denominated bonds.
The CMIM allows East Asia to be less dependent on IMF. These institutions allows East Asia to avoid the tragedy of the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) of 1997-1998.
Then, there are two multilateral financial and investment institutions which allow East Asia to exert influences on regions outside East Asia.
First, there is the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) with 106 member countries composed of 42 Asian countries, 21 European countries, 8 African countries, 8 South American countries, and 1 North American country. The function of the Bank is to develop infrastructure facilities needed for sustained economic development.
Its initial capitalization is USD 100 billion. It is the first time that an Asian financial institution can play leading role outside Asia Moreover, it allows East Asia less dependent on the World Bank.
The second is the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). As of 2020, 147 countries are members including Sub-Saharan Africa (43), Europe (18), Central Asia (17), East Asia and Pacific (25), Latin America and Caribbean (20), the Middle East (17), North America (1) and South Asia (6).
Thus, East Asia is now better prepared to defend against the West’s financial and economic control.
Chapter 12:Pivot to Asia and China’s Rise: Can a Western Dominated Order be perpetuated?
This chapter is the last one and it shows, in fact, the risky part of the West’s desire to maintain its domination in East Asia. The West led by the U.S. has deployed enormous resources to maintain its regional hegemony in East Asia. It has conducted wars; it deployed CIA to topple regime or government which are not West-friendly.
But, the power of the West’s domination in East Asia has weakened despite all these efforts. Hence, the stumbling block to the perpetuation of the West’s hegemony depends on the containment and even the destruction of China.
Now, despite the demonization of China through the weaponization of human right issues and trade war, the power of the West’s hegemony has been losing its strength.
The last means of destroying China and perpetuating the West’s domination is the military conquest. The book presents lengthy analysis of factors which might lead to possible Sino-American shooting war. The analysis puts focus on the various factors which could be responsible for the actual occurrence and the outcome of the war.
Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Treasury Secretary, made the following statement which is clearly what the U.S. wants,
“The United States has an ideology of world hegemony and does not accept any prospect of any country being sovereign or acting on its own. You have to be an American vassal state. Just as the United States has turned all Europe, Canada, Australia and Japan into vassal state, that is the only term as sovereign, independent countries following their own interests…The situation will become more and more hostile. It is not going to go away, because the United States is guided by…ideology of American world hegemony which means hegemony over Russia and China”. (p.433)
Obama’s Asia Pivot is intended to transform the whole of East Asia anti-China battle ground. In addition to the deployment of 60% of U.S. navy, 30,000 GIs, Washington made Cambodia and Vietnam the American military equipment depot and Thailand along with Malaysia the American base of drones. The Philippines is expected to provide key logistic support for American hegemony war.
Moreover, the main NATO countries are expected to participate in the anti-China war. Japan is expected to speed up its militarization and play the leading mercenary role in the Sino-American war. The army of South Korea may also join the U.S. hegemonic war.
I may add that the Quad, the AUSUK and the Indo-Pacific Strategy of Japan, Canada and U.S. alliance countries are expected to play a role in this war. In short, Washington is accelerating the preparation of fatal ant-China war.
However, the book makes a critical analysis of the weakness of American military capabilities. First, the American forces are too much dispersed all over the world. The U.S. has 800 military bases in foreign countries, 174 in Germany, 113 in Japan and 83 in ROK.
Second, the U.S. excessively depends on foreign countries for parts and equipment needed for the production of military equipment. Brett Tingley, defence reporter observed:
“Currently, the U.S. almost entirely reliant on foreign made electronics…” (p. 438)
The report of the Multiple Defence Department reads:”By mid 2010s, there were only two or even one domestic firm producing key defence products, and in some cases, none as local manufacturing forced the Pentagon to look abroad”. (p.437)
Third, the defence industries are over spending due to corruption. New York Times observed.
“The Pentagon’s spending of public money is a dirty business, one that too often has nothing to do with national defence”. (p.441).
The book offers ample information proving the superior efficiency and effectiveness of the Chinese military industries. For example, in the U.S. developing fifth generation of stealth fighters cost USD 55.5 billion as against mere USD 4.4 billion to develop them in China.
By and large, the military superiority of the U.S. is not necessarily threatening China. But what is threatening to China is the blockage of the Malaccan Strait.
In fact, in September 2014, the U.S forces conducted the Valiant Shield exercise to prepare for the blockade of the Malacca Strait and other seaways such as the Sunda Strait and the Lombok Strait. The blockade of these seaways will certainly strangle the Chinese economy.
China is well aware of this threat; more than 80% of oil needed in China comes through these seaways. Therefore, China is doing everything to use alternative sources of energy. The development of electric railways, electric bus and electric cars are promoted to avoid the consequences of the naval blockade of these seaways.
To sum up, this book by Dr. A.B. Abrams opens the door to the wealth of facts allowing us to see what are behind the deep routed racism of the West and how the West will continue to conduct its holy war to subjugate and rule East Asia. This frightens us, because the West-Asia hegemonic war will kill us all.
I thank and congratulate Dr. Abrams for giving us this precious book which should be read by all, especially the Western media.
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Dr. Joseph H. Chung is professor of economics at Quebec University in Montreal (UQAM) and member of the Center of Research on Integration and Globalization (CIEM) of UQAM. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
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Air Canada, Canada’s largest airline, has become the first airline in the country to offer customers facial recognition technology for digital identification. The pilot project is currently available at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) and at Toronto Pearson International Airport, with plans to expand digital identification options to other Canadian airports and Maple Leaf Lounges.
A promotional video explains that the user takes a photo of a passport or driver’s license, scans the NFC chip, and submits a video selfie for biometric matching.
“Air Canada’s pilot project will speed up processes at YVR, and other airports where it’s established, while respecting robust privacy measures and security standards. This project has great potential in making gate boarding easier and faster for Canadian passengers, while maintaining strong safety measures,” says Omar Alghabra, Canada’s Minister of Transport.
According to Air Canada, eligible customers flying from Vancouver to Winnipeg and those using the Air Canada Café in Toronto will be invited to use digital identification for faster, more secure processing. Alternative options are available for those who wish to manually check-in or scan their boarding passes.
Air Canada’s digital identification feature enables customers to securely store biometric data on their mobile phones. Customers must provide additional consent for the data to be used day-of-travel and will be retained for up to 36 hours, in compliance with Air Canada’s privacy and security standards, the company says.
“Customers choosing to use digital identification will benefit from a simplified and seamless process at the gate and when entering our Maple Leaf Lounges,” says Craig Landry, the executive vice president and chief operations officer at Air Canada.
Air Canada’s digital identification is a voluntary program separate from government-sponsored initiatives such as NEXUS, Global Entry or U.S. CBP Mobile Passport Control (MPC).
CBP testing facial authentication
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is holding a voluntary test for airlines and cruise ships to use the Traveler Verification Service (TVS) and its face biometrics to meet Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) requirements.
Testing begins this month and will run for up to two years. CBP is currently accepting applications from carriers to participate in the tests on a rolling basis. During the test, successful matches will result in the requirement for a manual review of travel documents to be waived.
Participating carriers get access to CBP’s TVS facial comparison service, and have to supply their own hardware. Based on previous pilots, CBP estimates the hardware will cost between $5,000 and $20,000 for each departure gate, though with iPads being tested at Washington airports and similar developments, the cost could fall.
The CBP announcement also includes penalties for misconduct by carriers using passenger biometrics, and information on the Privacy Impact Assessment for TVS.
Aviation industry prepares, if unevenly
Airports have had time to prepare for a coming surge in passengers, but it remains to be seen how well they have used it, Alton Aviation Consultancy Director Ronan Murphy tells PhocusWire.
Being ready means having adequate staffing and efficient check-in and security processes, he says. Biometrics can help, but their rollout has been slow.
Staffing has been made difficult by the departure of experienced personnel from the industry during the standstill caused by the pandemic.
SITA Americas CTO Sherry Stein says that the industry is focussed on “continuity of experience,” having already seen that passenger boarding times can be reduced by 30 percent with biometrics.
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Talk Truth has been at the forefront of breaking the Canadian mainstream media’s wall of silence on excess deaths, COVID-19 vaccine injuries and deaths, and sudden and unexpected deaths of Canadian doctors and Canadian children.
Talk Truth is hosted by Allan Hunsperger and Corri Hunsperger. They have interviewed Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Dr. Peter McCullough, Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Dr. Tess Lawrie, Dr. David Martin, and Canadian doctors Dr. Roger Hodkinson and Dr. Charles Hoffe, among many others.
I have done several interviews with Talk Truth, the links to which are included below:
February 20, 2023 – Alberta government deleted COVID-19 injury data, Canadian children are now dying suddenly (click here). Video Below.
December 20, 2022 – COVID-19 mRNA vaccinated kids have damaged immune systems and are struggling with influenza, strep, RSV infections (click here).
December 19, 2022 – Canadian doctor sudden deaths update, Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons advises Ontario doctors to put their unvaccinated patients on psychiatric medication (click here).
November 2, 2022 – Fully COVID-19 vaccinated Canadian doctors are dying suddenly and unexpectedly (click here).
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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense
The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity
by Michel Chossudovsky
Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.
“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”
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A looming Supreme Court decision could end up making it easier for the railroad giant whose train derailed in Ohio this month to block lawsuits, including from victims of the disaster.
In the case against Norfolk Southern, the Biden administration is siding with the railroad in its conflict with a cancer-stricken former rail worker. A high court ruling for Norfolk Southern could create a national precedent limiting where workers and consumers can bring cases against corporations.
The lawsuit in question, filed initially in a Pennsylvania county court in 2017, deals with a state law that permits plaintiffs to file suit against any corporation registered to do business there, even if the actions that gave rise to the case occurred elsewhere.
In its fight against the lawsuit, Norfolk Southern is asking the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court ruling, overturn Pennsylvania’s law, and restrict where corporations can be sued, upending centuries of precedent.
Oral arguments in the case were held last fall, and a ruling is expected from the Supreme Court in the coming months.
If the court rules in favor of Norfolk Southern, it could overturn plaintiff-friendly laws on the books in states including Pennsylvania, New York, and Georgia that give workers and consumers more leeway to choose where they take corporations to court — an advantage national corporations already enjoy, as they often require customers and employees to agree to file litigation in specific locales whose laws make it harder to hold companies accountable.
Limiting lawsuits is exactly what the American Association of Railroads (AAR), the industry’s primary lobbying group, wants. The organization filed a brief on the side of Norfolk Southern in the case, arguing that a ruling in favor of the plaintiff would open up railroads to more litigation.
It is also apparently what the Biden administration wants — the Justice Department filed its own brief in favor of Norfolk Southern.
Should Norfolk Southern prevail, the company could use the ruling to challenge other lawsuits on the grounds that they’re filed in the wrong venue, said Scott Nelson, an attorney with the Public Citizen Litigation Group, which filed a brief backing the plaintiff in the Pennsylvania case.
Such a decision could affect lawsuits filed by residents exposed to hazardous chemicals as the result of accidents in other states — such as the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment disaster, which occurred five miles west of the Pennsylvania state line.
“[Norfolk Southern] might say, ‘You can only sue us in Ohio or Virginia [where Norfolk Southern is headquartered],’ even if you were injured at your home in Pennsylvania from an accident that took place five miles away in Ohio,” Nelson said.
“Railroads Particularly Susceptible”
In 2016, former Norfolk Southern carman Robert Mallory was diagnosed with colon cancer. In a lawsuit filed the following year, Mallory alleged that his illness resulted from exposure to asbestos and other toxic chemicals on the job — and that the railroad failed to provide safety equipment and take other steps to protect him.
Mallory filed the suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, even though he had never worked in the state. He did so, according to Keller, the lawyer representing him before the Supreme Court, because “his lawyers were from Pennsylvania and he thought he would get the fairest access to justice there.”
Pennsylvania has what’s known as a “consent-by-registration” statute — something states have had on the books since the early 19th century — which stipulates that when corporations register to do business in the state, they are also consenting to be governed by that state’s courts. Norfolk Southern asserts that being forced to defend the case in Pennsylvania would pose an undue burden, thereby violating its constitutional right to due process.
Even though Norfolk Southern owns thousands of miles of track in the Keystone State, the Philadelphia county court sided with the railroad and dismissed the case. Mallory appealed, and the case wound its way through state and federal courts before landing at the U.S. Supreme Court last year.
Corporate lobbying groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the American Trucking Association have weighed in on the case on behalf of Norfolk Southern. Many have warned that a ruling in favor of the former railroad worker could allow people to sue corporations in whatever venue they’d like — a practice known as “forum shopping.”
The AAR, the railroad lobbying group of which Norfolk Southern is a member, used this argument to claim that the railroad industry would be particularly victimized by a ruling in favor of the sickened worker. Mallory had filed his lawsuit under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), a law protecting railroad workers injured on the job.
“The characteristics that made railroads easy targets for forum shopping in the past — significant operations in multiple states and the unique features of FELA — will remain, leaving railroads particularly susceptible to suit in jurisdictions having little connection to the parties or the underlying cause of action,” noted the AAR in an amicus brief. “If this court reverses and other states elect to follow Pennsylvania’s lead, FELA plaintiffs suing those railroads could have a wide range of jurisdictions to choose from.”
But groups weighing in on Mallory’s side pointed out that “forum shopping” is the norm for corporations. For example, many corporations choose to register in Delaware for tax purposes even if they have no physical presence in the state.
Similarly, the infamous opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma chose to file its bankruptcy case in White Plains, New York, in order to secure a friendly judge, a move that was allowed because one of the company’s units had changed its address to that location just six months earlier.
On its website, Norfolk Southern informs users that they must submit to the jurisdiction of the city courts of Norfolk, Virginia, where the company’s headquarters are located.
“The idea that it’s somehow fundamentally unfair to pose the burden of defending a lawsuit in a particular jurisdiction on a corporation — as applied to these multi-state and multinational corporations — is a fiction,” said Nelson of Public Citizen.
The Academy of Rail Labor Attorneys, an association of plaintiffs’ attorneys who represent rail workers, also pointed out that Norfolk Southern has often filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania courts.
“These examples illustrate that Norfolk Southern freely utilizes the Pennsylvania courts to enforce its rights,” the organization said in an amicus brief. “The railroad certainly is not prejudiced in any way by defending lawsuits in the state. For purposes of jurisdiction, there is no valid reason that a corporation such as Norfolk Southern should be treated differently than an individual within the state.”
Biden Administration Sides With Norfolk Southern
The Biden administration also weighed in on the side of the corporate lobbying groups — a fact that apparently confounded Justice Elena Kagan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama. During oral arguments last fall, she specifically asked Deputy Solicitor General Curtis Gannon why the government had chosen to get involved in the case.
“Mr. Gannon, the Solicitor General has a choice whether to participate in this suit or not, and so please don’t take this as at all a criticism,” Kagan said. “It’s genuine interest and curiosity. What is it about this suit that has made you decide to participate?”
Gannon responded saying,
“We pointed out not just that… the excessive availability of general jurisdiction could cause international concerns for trade with the United States and our commercial interests, but also the petitioner had called into question the constitutionality of a federal statute, and so we thought that it was important to make sure that the court’s decision here wouldn’t implicate the constitutionality of federal statutes.”
The federal government said in its amicus brief that Pennsylvania’s law amounted to an overreach of the state’s authority.
“[The law] subverts interstate federalism by reaching beyond Pennsylvania’s borders and allowing state courts to hear cases in which Pennsylvania has no legitimate interest,” Justice Department lawyers wrote, adding: “It imposes unfair burdens on defendants. And it serves no legitimate countervailing interest of the forum state or of plaintiffs.”
Keller, the plaintiff’s lawyer, said this argument is nonsense. He told The Lever that the federal government relies on consent-by-registration statutes like Pennsylvania’s to make jurisdictional claims, and that there is no evidence that these state laws interrupt international commerce.
“The United States relies on consent-by-registration statutes [like the Pennsylvania law] to obtain personal jurisdiction over various foreign entities,” said Keller. “If it’s unconstitutionally coercive when Pennsylvania does it, why isn’t it unconstitutionally coercive when the United States does it?”
Keller added,
“To be clear, I think both sets of statutes are constitutional, but there is no good reason — and I respectfully don’t think Mr. Gannon supplied one — that it’s ‘due process of law’ when America does it but not when Pennsylvania does. There is zero evidence that consent-by-registration statutes have impeded a single dollar’s worth of commerce.”
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Ruling Could Be Used To Block Cases After Derailment
The high court’s ruling could have implications for the still-unfolding disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, which sits just miles from the Pennsylvania border.
While residents of East Palestine have been told it’s safe to return home, questions remain about the possible long-term health effects from exposure to known carcinogens released during the disaster, including vinyl chloride. The Environmental Protection Agency has detected chemicals from the accident in storm drains, nearby creeks, and the Ohio River — raising concerns about downstream water contamination as far away as Louisville, Kentucky.
If Norfolk Southern prevails in the Mallory case, the company could use the ruling to block lawsuits related to the derailment in Pennsylvania and other nearby states, arguing that they were filed in the wrong venue.
While that argument is unlikely to hold up in court, according to Nelson, it could still pose an additional barrier to those seeking justice, opening up “a litigation sideshow before you ever even get to the merits of a lawsuit.”
Norfolk Southern’s attorneys have succeeded previously in moving injury suits against the company to new venues.
A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern told The Lever that the company could not comment on ongoing litigation.
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If Norfolk Southern prevails in the Mallory case, the company could use the ruling to block lawsuits related to the derailment in Pennsylvania and other nearby states, arguing that they were filed in the wrong venue.
While that argument is unlikely to hold up in court, according to Nelson, it could still pose an additional barrier to those seeking justice, opening up “a litigation sideshow before you ever even get to the merits of a lawsuit.”
Norfolk Southern’s attorneys have succeeded previously in moving injury suits against the company to new venues.
A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern told The Lever that the company could not comment on ongoing litigation.
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Featured image: President Joe Biden greets Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at the 2023 State of the Union address. (Jacquelyn Martin)
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Imperialism and colonialism
One of the focal historical features of the western (West European) civilization was and is imperialistic colonization followed by the brutal social, economic, political, financial, etc. exploitation of the local peoples and their cultures.
By some academic understanding and formal definition, imperialism is a process of extending a nation-state’s power by territorial occupation or by forming political, financial, economic, etc., hegemony (rule) over other people. In more simple words, imperialism is defined as the cases when one state (nation-state) controls the inhabitants and territory of another state (neighboring or overseas). In any case, the cardinal feature of imperialism is domination or control by one country or group of people over others. The others will point out that imperialism in a very broad way refers to the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural, and territorial relationship but usually between states and often in the form of an empire that is founded on domination and subordination.
Colonialism can be defined in a narrower sense as the creation and maintenance of rule, for an extended period of time, by a sovereign power over a subordinate and alien people. Colonization involves the physical settlement of settlers and the displacement of others (indigenous people) followed by the resettlement of places. In a more political sense, colonialism is the policy of a strong power extending its control territorially over a weaker people or nation (state). Colonialism, as a historical phenomenon, takes many different forms and is experienced by different people in different ways. Historical experiences of colonists have been many and varied, as, for instance, the British case illustrates (for example, David Livingstone who spent much of his life as a missionary and explorer in Africa). Historically and originally, the Latin (Roman) “colonia” meant a country estate but it soon acquired the meaning of such an estate deliberately settled among foreigners.
As a matter of very historical fact, imperial states (empires) have been rising and falling for different reasons. Concerning the falling, usually because of the foreign (outside) factor. The best examples are Antique Egyptians, Persians, Macedonians/Greeks (of Alexander the Great), Chinese, Romans, Mongols, or Aztecs, and Incas in the Americas who all of them succeeded to create extensive territorial empires and, therefore, dominating their local or overseas regions.
In practice, in many particular cases, such empires have been physically isolated from one another (or from the rest of the world) by some kind of geographical barrier (deserts, oceans, seas, rivers, mountains, etc.).
The start of West European imperialistic colonization
We can say that West European imperialistic colonization started in 1492 by “discovering” the Americas by Genovese Jew Christopher Columbus who, basically, proved that these physical barriers were not so uncrossable. Today, we know that the Europeans discovered the Americas even in the year 1000 (Vikings) but why Ch. Columbus did it for the second time it is another part of the story (pay attention that in the same 1492 year, Spain started ethnic cleansing of the local Jews and Muslims).
We read in the official textbooks that the 1492 Columbus voyage was just a result of long-time efforts by West Europeans to control and expand economic ties (trade) with Africa and Asia (pay attention that the Portuguese navigators started occupying West Africa’s seacoast a century ago). Nevertheless, these (Iberian – Portuguese and Spanish) navigation efforts became the focal steps in the direction of West European imperialistic colonization followed by Eurocentric economic and later political globalization of the pre-modern and modern world.
The Europeans have been in the trade relation with Central and East Asia (the Orient) for a long time before 1492. Within those centuries, the economic demand by Europe for primarily spices but for other items as well as from the Orient has been provided by the land passing Central Asia and the Middle East (the Silk Road, etc.), and after that, it was transported via the Mediterranean Sea by the Italians (Venetians and Genovesians) and Dubrovnik (Ragusa) sea-merchants.
However, prompted by the territorial expansion of the state (Empire/Sultanate) of the Ottomans (Osmanli), who occupied long-time trade lines between the Middle East and Central Asia and imposed harsh taxes for the trade products, it was, basically, the Portuguese Prince Henry (the Navigator) who created the center for the overseas navigation with the final purpose to expand Portuguese trade and therefore domination overseas (avoiding Ottoman controlled trade-lines in the Middle East). Nevertheless, the emerging navigation (the sextant) and military technologies (cannons and firearms) provided West Europeans (firstly the Portuguese and Spaniards) superior instruments of conquest and colonization (of West Africa, South-East Asia, and Latin America). In other words, for the very reason to take at least part of the control of the valuable spice trade from the Orient, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards encouraged their sailors (navigators) to use the newest navigation and combat technologies in order to find alternative (out of the Ottoman control) trading lines with Central Asia, India, and China.
Image: Colonization of India
In the process of revolutionizing world trade between (West) Europe and (South) Asia, the Portuguese explorers Bartholomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama were the first by organizing the successful (West) European overseas expeditions from 1487 to 1498 to round Cape of Good Hope at the southern horn of Africa (today in the Republic of South Africa). In such a way, they, in fact, opened a new trade line between (West) Europe and the Indian sub-continent (South Asia). However, the urgent need for fresh drinking water and food supplies simply led the Portuguese sailors to establish supply stations along firstly the western and later the eastern seacoasts of Africa followed by those in the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia. That was how West European colonial imperialism started.
Nevertheless, colonialism as a historical-political phenomenon can be defined as a policy by which a state-nation maintains or extends its control over foreign territories and people. In essence, there were/are historically two types of the policy of colonialistic imperialism:
Movement of people from the mother country to another one for the reason to create a new type of political order;
External powers’ rule over the authentic people of the land.
The Portuguese sailors succeeded to establish trade lines to the south and east. The road to India along the African seacoast was, in fact, discovered by Lisbon. However, Ch. Columbus, a Jewish navigator, and trader from Genoa, had a new idea to reach (according to the mainstream textbooks) Japan or China by sailing west around the world. However, in fact, he knew that between Europe and Asia, it was a land (discovered by the Vikings in 1000) and practically he wanted to reach it probably for the very purpose to resettle the Spanish Jews to the new Israel before the pogroms in Spain started in the same year. For that purpose, he was simply late.
In any case, a very critical approach to the first Columbus trip in 1492 can be that such an overseas voyage (to Japan or China) was practically impossible for the reasonable reason that the ships of the time could not carry enough supplies (food) to sail as far as he hoped to go (except he believed that there was a land between West Europe and Asia-Pacific as, in fact, was – the Americas). In practice, Ch. Columbus did not find an alternative trade line to the Orient (as it is officially believed to be his prime purpose of the trip), he discovered (what, in fact, he wanted) the land between or later known as the Americas – two continents being very rich in many kinds of natural resources and arable land, if not in silk Oriental spices and silk. The next navigators and explorers from Spain and Portugal very quickly used the opportunity to conquer and exploit the New World of the Americas although it did not produce luxury products but at the same time, it offered many practical possibilities for both trade and colonization (grabbing of the land).
The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas
The first official global division of the world (colonies) happened in 1494 – two years after Ch. Columbus “discovered” New World. In order words, for the reason to avoid political-military conflict between two Catholic states over their competing territorial-imperialistic expansion, under the umbrella of the Vatican (Roman Catholic Pope), Madrid and Lisbon signed the Treaty of Tordesillas (in Spain) which divided the world along an imaginary north-south line some 400 km. west of the Portuguese Azores Islands (a Lisbon possession in the Atlantic Ocean). The treaty was soon followed by the new Treaty of Zaragoza (Spain) in 1529.
According to the treaty, Spain (Castilla and Aragon) was granted territorial possessions to the west of this line, while Portugal gained possessions to the east. In short, the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillias established the authority of the Kingdom of Spain in the New World with the exception of Brazil, which Portuguese sailors discovered on their side from the line in 1500. It has to be noted that the treaty was signed four years before the Portugues navigator Vasco da Gama in 1498 discovered the best use of Atlantic winds on way to Cape of Good Hope (1497−1499) and consequently reached the Indian sub-continent by navigation by local guides. Portugal, in turn, by the treaty obtained colonial power over Africa and the Indian Ocean – a lucrative trade line.
In the beginning, it was thought that Spain by the treaty received less valuable provinces compared to Portugal. However, the huge natural wealth of the (Spanish) New World very soon became obvious and extremely profitable for the Spanish (Habsburg) Crown as the conquest of both Americas Empires of Inca and Aztecs in the first half of the 16th century meant in practice extreme riches for Madrid nevertheless that a huge number of authentic before-1492 Americans disappeared because of harsh subjugation, forced labor, plundering, and epidemic diseases (followed by the forced Christianization of the local Indians). It is a fact that the majority of Spanish conquistadors (conquerors) went about their empire-building with (Roman Catholic) religious zeal and consequently simply did not consider any conflict between their profane and sacred motives for the Spanish imperialistic and colonization policies in the New World.
Very soon after the conquest of the new overseas land, both Portugal and Spain faced the same problem to be quickly solved: the lack of labor force for both their rich (silver/gold) mines (like Potosi in present-day Bolivia) and fertile plantations. The problem was solved by buying millions of African slaves from African and Arab agents and transporting them to both Americas. This practice was later continued by new conquerors of the New World – the Brits, French, Duch, and after 1776 the Americans (of the USA).
New colonial powers
The wealth from the New World (especially gold and silver) financed a big number of Habsburg Spain’s military actions in West Europe making at the same time Spain to be the most powerful state in Europe in the 16th century (at least up to 1588). Nevertheless, the Spanish huge global empire at the end of the same century became overextended and after an unsuccessful attempt to conquer England in 1588, the power of Madrid started rapidly to decline. Now, Holland became a new rising West European imperialistic and colonial power which have been building a trade empire in the next century and succeeded to control over most of the spice-rich East Indies (today Indonesia). Nevertheless, it became obvious as trade and technology have been developing in West Europe, both Portugal nor Holland did not have the population or resources to defend and/or extend their colonial empires. As a result, from the beginning of the 18th century, France and the United Kingdom (as established on January 1st, 1801) emerged as the leading global colonial powers and at the same time focal competitors in the process of building a global empire.
Nevertheless, the United Kingdom (the UK) as an island country was in the position to build its military power around the Royal Navy and, therefore, simply neglect the existence of a large standing army. In addition, the UK was trading for many raw materials (as it was lacking its own) and a very important part of its food.
As a consequence, London was gradually increasing its policy of expanding and protecting trade. However, contrary to the case of the UK, France was, basically, continental power as such having vulnerable borders, especially in the west but having geopolitical designs to expand its state territory in Europe. For those reasons, Paris was forced to keep a huge standing army and finance it. It became clear that the French navy was never able to overcome the navy of the UK. Another difference between these two countries as global colonial powers was that France was self-sufficient in food which simply meant that France was consistently more inward-looking at least in economic matters. At the same time, however, the population pressure in the UK encouraged and even forced emigration to overseas colonies, especially to North America (today the USA and Canada). As a result, the combination of these factors created a consistent advantage for the UK over France during the process of their imperialistic competition for overseas colonies, which, in fact, became a driving force in global politics and international relations of the time.
The economy as a driving force of modern form of imperialistic colonization
At least from the mid-17th century, it was the economic condition of affairs that forms the driving force of West European imperialistic colonization. If the consuming public in West European countries raised its standard of goods consumption to keep pace with every rise of productive powers, there could be no excess of goods or capital clamorous to use imperialistic colonization and exploitation in order to find markets. West European capitalists have been investing in what is today known as Third World countries (former West European colonies) and imperialism became a direct result of such policy. According to John Hobson (1858−1940), the modern form of economic imperialism is, in fact, the endeavor of the great controllers of the industry for the purpose to broaden the channel for the flow of their surplus wealth by seeking foreign markets and foreign investments to take off the goods and capital they cannot sell or use at home.
Epilogue
West European colonial empires reached their peak just before WWI started. The UK among all of them was the largest global imperial power having colonial possessions from Canada to Australia, with France in the second place mainly having colonies in Africa. The British colonies had 388,644 million people, and these colonial subjects were subjected to something closer to absolute colonial rule.
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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
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It was 21 years ago this month that I was flown in the belly of a US cargo plane, hooded, blindfolded, gagged and chained in an orange jumpsuit, for over 40 hours. I didn’t know where I was being taken, or why.
My journey into the unknown started when I was sold to the CIA as an “Egyptian Al-Qaida general” in 2001 after the US invaded Afghanistan. I was 18 years old, and I am from Yemen. After I was imprisoned for around three months in a black site in Afghanistan, I was taken to Kandahar military prison, an airbase that served as a transit station to the unknown. I wasn’t the only one being held there.
When a huge cargo plane landed in Kandahar three weeks later, we all knew that some of us would disappear. Without being able to see, hear or speak, we were dragged to the first plane blindfolded, and then chained to the floor. It was a journey of pain and suffering. When the plane eventually landed, we hoped it would be the end to our suffering. It wasn’t. It was only the beginning of a longer, more brutal journey.
Soldiers never seem to get tired of the beating and shouting. When the second flight ended, it was still not the end of the journey. The US marines snatched and dragged me onto a bus, and then onto a ferry. Where was I going? The first clue came from the sea, which was the first friend who welcomed me. A marine shouted in English and an Arab marine translated: “You are under the control of the US marines!” They continued to shout and physically assault us for the rest of the way.
The ferry eventually docked and a bus took us on the final leg of the journey. We were disembarked by being snatched, one after another. I was forced to sit on my knees for hours. The duct tape over my mouth blocked my screams. Every cell in my body was screaming but no one could hear my cries. They could see the pain, and I felt like maybe their twisted humanity was screaming back, too.
After going through the processing station —where we experienced humiliation and degradation over and over again — soldiers dragged my naked body over sharp gravel to a cage where an IRF (Immediate Reaction Force) team piled on top of me and started removing the chains violently; then the hood, goggles, earmuffs and the duct tape. Soldiers shouted into my ears, “DETAINEE 441! STOP RESISTING!” Resisting? I was barely breathing. Without knowing it, what they did at that moment was introduce the word “resist” into my mental landscape. That’s what I needed to do; I just had no idea how.
At night, it took a while for my sight to come back, but it was still blurry. All I could see was an ocean of orange figures caged just like me, all I could hear were rattling chains, slamming doors, soldiers shouting in their loudest voice, “SHUT THE F**K UP, DON’T LOOK AT ME, LOOK DOWN, NO TALKING!” The dogs barking in the near distance sounded less aggressive than them. The barking never stopped. As in never. It sounded as though they were protesting at the inhumane treatment in their own way.
On my first morning in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp — for that is where I was — I took a long look around me. I found myself caged in a rose chain-link cage where even animals wouldn’t survive. There were many others there too. I could see swollen faces with bruises, black eyes, shaved heads and faces, split lips and bleeding wounds. We all looked the same. It was like a signature that the soldiers wanted to leave on us all. US President George W. Bush and his administration needed to prove that they were “winning” the “War on Terror”, so they called us the worst of the worst.
We were dragged to this unknown place from different parts of the world; some of us were sold for a bounty and some were handed over to the CIA by their own governments. It was the first time in history that such a thing was done: there we were; 800 men and children — yes, children — from 50 nationalities, speaking over 20 different languages, having different mindsets and cultures, snatched and flown to a dark hole hidden from the rest of the world. This American prison camp wasn’t even in America.
Everything was taken from us, and we became just orange figures with numbers printed on a bracelet locked on our wrists. Our captors stripped us of our freedom and imprisoned our bodies and wanted to control us and deny our humanity, but they failed to understand that what really makes us unique individuals are characteristics such as our names, values, relations, morals, beliefs, ethics, emotions, memories, language, knowledge, experiences, talents, feelings, dreams, nationalities and, of course, our innate distinctive humanity. These were part of another DNA, and a survival kit which the US government didn’t want to know about. They thought that they could control our bodies and freedom, but they would never control our hearts and souls.
Yes, we were isolated and disconnected from our families and the rest of the world, but even in America’s dark hole, life won. We created our own world. Yes, we were tortured and abused, but we also sang, danced, resisted and survived. Also, we soon found other generous guests at Guantanamo who came to visit us regularly, who challenged the US restrictions and never had CIA clearance to visit. They came to share our meals, to listen to us, and to tell us that everything will be okay. We became friends and families with the iguanas, cats, birds and banana rats.
Guantanamo started with a selection of Muslims from around the world, but it kept changing, evolving and growing. We lived through Camp X-Ray, Camp Delta, Camp 5, Camp 6, Camp Echo and others. We went through the torture programmes and abuse by interrogators, psychologists and a whole host of camp staff. We went on hunger strike to protest against the torture and injustice, only to be tortured more. We lived through all the years of Guantanamo: we lived through its Dark Age, its Golden Age, and back again to the Dark Age. With each year we grew older and our imprisonment only settled into us more deeply. Our captors got more creative in developing torture techniques to break us and to try to turn us into something we were not.
To survive through the darkness in that dark hole, we only had each other and whatever makes us human beings. We were fathers, husbands, brothers and sons from different parts of the world. Some of us were teachers, doctors, soldiers, commanders, journalists, lawyers, tribal elders, mafia men, poets and professors; and some were spies. We had no shared life before Guantanamo, nothing in common. At first, we started introducing ourselves to each other, and getting to know each other. I wish our captives had taken time to get to know who we really were as well, instead of just needing to prove that we were hardened terrorists.
The cycle of hardship and the torture we endured forged strong bonds of brotherhood and friendship that helped us to survive. We started developing a new shared life and a new “us” at Guantanamo. Our brains started constructing new memories, relations, knowledge and experiences, but everything related back to and was based on Guantanamo life. Sharing our knowledge, experience and culture with each other created a beautiful Guantanamo where we sang songs in different languages, danced dances from different cultures, and laughed and cried together. After years, we grew together and became part of each other’s lives and memories. Guantanamo became part of us and part of our life. Guantanamo kept growing, evolving and changing, feeding on our lives and humanity. With it, we grew old too.
We weren’t the only victims of Guantanamo: all Americans and America’s values and justice system were as well. There were many Americans who came to work in the detention camp, and they became victims too when they refused to abandon their humanity and treat us badly. Some took a stand against the system and were imprisoned; others were fired or demoted. We fought for them as much as we fought for each other because they were humans and victims too, regardless of their nationality or which side they were on. Injustice has no boundaries, colour or nationality. As we were living in Guantanamo, we didn’t want anyone else to experience it.
Through the Dark Age of 2002-2010, we protested and carried out hunger strikes for years. We fought back as much as we could; we learned from each other and taught each other. In Guantanamo’s Golden Age we learned English and art; we painted and we made ships, cabinets, trees, all from remnants of trash and leftover cardboard.
In Guantanamo, I grew up, from a young boy to a caged man. My world was Guantanamo and it’s where half of my life was taken, where days, months and years were the same.
Then after around 15 years, I was forced to leave Guantanamo the way that I was taken there, hooded and chained. When they came to tell me about my release, they told me, “You have no choice.” I made peace with Guantanamo in Guantanamo and made the decision that it wouldn’t change me; it’s part of me and of who I am.
The whole world agrees that Guantanamo is a stain on our humanity and one of the biggest human right violations of the 21st century. There are those who tortured and abused us at Guantanamo who are still bragging about their time there and their work. Their humanity was the first real victim of that place.
Despite all these reflections, though, Guantanamo hasn’t left us yet. Even today, there are 34 men still in Guantanamo, 20 of whom have been cleared for release. There are many calls for the closure of America’s black hole detention centre. For us, closing Guantanamo does not only mean shutting down the facility, but also there being full accountability for the US government for what happened there: acknowledgment of the cruel and inhumane treatment, a full and unreserved apology, and reparations for the victims.
Guantanamo symbolises oppression, injustice, torture and lawlessness. In this way, Guantanamo is now everywhere, and I can say — in the strangest of ironies — that even though we were prisoners of the US destructive “War on Terror”, the United States is and always has been a prisoner of its own violence. Guantanamo is yet another chapter of this violence and one whose legacy will live on long after the prison is closed. The United State of America itself is Guantanamo’s greatest captive.
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In his State of the Union Addresson February 7, President Joe Biden once again told Ukraine that “America…will stand with you as long as it takes.”
In case the world didn’t hear, Biden moved to a more dramatic stage and repeated the words. Speakingfrom Kiev, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden spoke again of America’s “unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” He promised that “that support will endure.”
But though Biden spoke the words loudly on an international stage, that may not be what Zelensky heard.
What is Zelensky to hear when Germany loudly promises tanks made by a manufacturer who saysthe Leopard 2 tanks can’t be delivered until 2024 at the earliest?
Zelensky has been urgently requesting fighter jets: “We have freedom, give us wings to protect it.” But what does Zelensky hear when French President Emmanuel Macronsays that the “allies must prioritize equipment that will be the most useful, and fastest, for Ukraine to achieve its end goal” and that “[t]here is no way that fighter planes can be delivered in the next few weeks?”
What does Zelensky hear when one of his strongest backers, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, saysthat a “decision today to donate any kind of jets, any F-16…is a very serious decision and it’s not an easy one for us to take?” Duda explained that “this poses serious problems if we donate even a small part of them anywhere, because I don’t hesitate to say we have not enough of these jets” and that sending fighter jets “requires a decision by the Allies anyway, which means that we have to make a joint decision.” That joint decision is vetoed for now by Biden who says the U.S. will not send fighter jets and by Germany who says, “The question of combat aircraft does not arise at all.”
What is Zelensky to hear when NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says that NATO’s “defence industries [are] under strain” because, “The war in Ukraine is consuming an enormous amount of munitions, and depleting Allied stockpiles. The current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production?” What does Ukraine hear when U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austinsays that the U.S. is “working with the Ukrainian soldiers” so “that they’ll require less artillery munitions?” How does that sound to Ukraine especially as EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrellwarns that the war will be over in “a matter of weeks” if the “shortage of ammunition” is not “solved quickly?”
Most importantly, what did Zelensky hear when CIA Director William Burns met with him secretly in January and told him that “at some point assistance would be harder to come by?” The delivery of that message has now been confirmed both by U.S. officials familiar with the meeting who spoke to The Washington Post and by two Ukrainian officials who spoke to Politico.
We know what Zelensky heard because people familiar with the meeting said Zelensky walked away from the meeting with the impression that he could rely on U.S. assistance through the summer but that he was “less certain about the prospects of Congress passing another multibillion-dollar supplemental assistance package as it did last spring.”
The delivery of that message has reportedly persisted. A senior administration official as toldThe Washington Post on February 13 that “we will continue to try to impress upon them that we can’t do anything and everything forever.”
The impression has reportedly persisted, too, despite Biden’s recent visit and assurance. One of Zelensky’s advisors says that Kiev is worried because they think that “both on Capitol Hill and in the administration, there are people who are looking to calibrate security assistance to incentivize the Ukrainians to cut some sort of deal.”
The crucial word in the Ukrainian advisor’s concern is “calibrate.” Calibration is an idea that has appeared twice.
The first is in the very context Kiev fears. Kiev worries that the Biden administration may seek to calibrate security assistance to incentivize Ukraine to negotiate an end to the war. That precise idea was hinted at in a January report by the influential RAND corporation. In a section on policy options the United States has to overcome as impediments to negotiations, the report says that “a belief that Western aid will continue indefinitely” is “a primary source of Kyiv’s optimism that may be prolonging the war” and discouraging Ukraine from negotiating. The report considers the very solution Kiev fears: “…the United States could decide to condition future military aid on a Ukrainian commitment to negotiations.”
Biden says that American support will endure for as long as it takes. But Ukraine’s confidence is undercut by a different message they are hearing.
That message is being clearly communicated to them. Weapons aid to Ukraine could be calibrated in a second way. The same Washington Postarticle that said that Ukraine is being told that the U.S. “can’t do anything and everything forever,” also hinted at calibration as the solution. “The frank discussion in Kyiv last month,” the report says, “reflected an effort by the Biden administration to bring Ukraine’s goals in line with what the West can sustain.”
Biden’s words are meant to very publicly portray U.S. support for Ukraine as enduring for as long as it takes. But a very different message may be being delivered to Kiev. The message that was first delivered by CIA Director Burns, and has continued to be pressed upon them, may be, as Kiev worries, that weapons aid can’t go on forever and may have to be calibrated to what the West can sustain and toward the goal of negotiating an end to the war.
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Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets.
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***
February 3, 2023, a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio
Five of the cars that derailed were carrying vinyl chloride, a flammable gas that can lead to life-threatening respiratory issues and an increased risk of cancer
Other toxic chemicals on the derailed train cars include butyl acrylate, which can cause breathing difficulties, and ethylene glycol monobutyl, linked to chronic health effects, including liver toxicity
Residents have reported fish, hens and roosters dying, along with persistent coughs, sore throats, burning eyes and a lingering odor in the air, even as officials claim there’s no risk
Every day, about 12,000 rail cars transporting toxic chemicals travel through cities across the U.S.; another disaster is imminent, according to railroad workers, due to cutbacks in staffing, scheduling designed to maximize profits and lack of maintenance to cars, locomotives and tracks
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February 3, 2023, a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, a town near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. In total, 38 rail cars derailed, and a massive fire that broke out damaged an additional 12 cars.1
While no immediate fatalities or injuries were reported, the hazardous materials released from the cars — and concerns over a potential explosion — prompted evacuations from the area. Now residents are wondering if it’s really safe to return to their homes, or whether their long-term health, as well as their air, water and soil, has been permanently affected.
Derailed Cars Carried Vinyl Chloride and Other Toxins
The train, operated by Norfolk Southern, included 20 cars carrying hazardous materials. Eleven of them derailed.2 The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) published a list of the contents of the 11 cars, which included vinyl chloride.3
A flammable gas carried on five of the cars, vinyl chloride is used to make hard plastic resin and is found in many consumer products, from credit cards and furniture to plastic PVC piping.4 Inhaling vinyl chloride could lead to life-threatening respiratory issues.5 When it breaks down in the air or burns, it can lead to the creation of hydrogen chloride, a respiratory irritant, and phosgene, which was used as a deadly poison gas in World War I.6
It’s also carcinogenic. According to the National Cancer Institute, “Vinyl chloride exposure is associated with an increased risk of a rare form of liver cancer (hepatic angiosarcoma), as well as primary liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma), brain and lung cancers, lymphoma and leukemia.”
In addition to outdoor air contamination, if vinyl chloride contaminates a water supply, it can enter household air if that water is used for showering, cooking or laundry.7 February 13, 2023, Congressman Jamaal Bowman tweeted:8
“Nearly 1 million pounds of vinyl chloride were on this train. Now, the EPA has confirmed it’s entered the Ohio River basin which is home to 25 million people. This is one of the deadliest environmental emergencies in decades and no one is talking about it.”
Other toxic chemicals on the derailed train cars include:9
Butyl acrylate — This flammable liquid is dangerous if swallowed and can irritate the respiratory system, skin and eyes. It poses a “serious” health hazard and can cause breathing difficulties.
Ethylene glycol monobutyl ether (2-butoxy ethanol) — This chemical, used in paint strippers and household cleaners, can cause “serious or irreversible” chronic health effects, including liver toxicity and damage to the eyes, skin, kidneys and blood.
Ethylhexyl acrylate — This potential carcinogen is used to make plastics and protective coatings. Inhalation can lead to convulsions, shortness of breath and a buildup of fluid in the lungs.
Isobutylene — This gas is used to make rubber for tires and inner tubes. It can cause dizziness and unconsciousness if inhaled, along with skin and eye irritation.
Benzene — This carcinogen also causes genetic mutations. Exposure can lead to coma, irregular heartbeat and damage to blood cells. While the train wasn’t carrying benzene when it derailed, residues existed because two empty cars had previously carried the toxic chemical.
Chemical Profile for Vinyl Chloride Just Updated — After 17 Years
In a strange turn of events, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, released an updated toxicological profile for vinyl chloride in January 2023. The last time the profile was updated was in 2006 — 17 years ago.10
One change observed so far significantly increased the level of exposure causing heart damage. Strange Sounds11 revealed the 2006 version, archived via the Wayback Machine,12 states, “At high concentrations (>30,000 ppm), vinyl chloride was been [sic] shown to sensitize the heart to epinephrine, resulting in cardiac arrhythmias in dogs.”
The 2023 version has a significantly higher limit, stating, “At high concentrations (>150,000 ppm), vinyl chloride was shown to sensitize the heart to epinephrine, resulting in cardiac arrhythmias in dogs.”13
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recently modified its vinyl chloride webpage, removing sections titled, “How can vinyl chloride affect children?” and “Has the federal government made recommendations to protect human health?”14 Reportedly, the section related to children included the following before it was removed:15
“It has not been proven that vinyl chloride causes birth defects in humans, but studies in animals suggest that vinyl chloride might affect growth and development. Animal studies also suggest that infants and young children might be more susceptible than adults to vinyl chloride-induced cancer.”
Many are now questioning the curious timing of the updates. “I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but why did the CDC update their profile for vinyl chloride 11 DAYS before the train crash in Ohio?” James Bradley tweeted.16,17
Reports of Dead Animals, Fish Near Derailment
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stopped monitoring the community’s outdoor air for phosgene and hydrogen chloride February 13, stating, “After the fire was extinguished on February 8, the threat of vinyl chloride fire producing phosgene and hydrogen chloride no longer exists.”18 It continues to monitor for “other chemicals of concern,” however.
It’s also screening indoor air in homes nearby, and to date states it has “no detections of vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride.” But even as officials claim it’s safe for residents to return to their homes, signs suggest otherwise.
Due to chemicals spilled from the train, an estimated 3,500 fish were killed in an area spanning 7.5 miles of streams, according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Residents have also reported hens and roosters dying, along with persistent coughs, sore throats, burning eyes and a lingering odor in the air.19
Residents have also reported soot on their homes and vehicles, and are expressing concerns over how to clean it since it could be contaminated.20 After the derailment, crews conducted a controlled burn, igniting the vinyl chloride in an attempt to get rid of it. Andrew Whelton, a professor of environmental and ecological engineering at Purdue University, told NBC News this may have created more problems, including chemicals the EPA isn’t testing for.
“When they combusted the materials, they created other chemicals. The question is what did they create?” he said.21Meanwhile, February 10, the EPA stated in a letter to Norfolk Southern that hazardous materials “continue to be released to the air, surface soils, and surface waters.”22
Residents File Lawsuits
Lawsuits have begun to roll in from business owners and residents against Norfolk Southern. According to reporter Julie Grant, speaking with NPR, “They say the company was negligent, and one thing they want is the company to fund court-supervised medical screenings for serious illnesses that may be caused by exposure to those chemicals.”23 In addition to air pollution, the water supply may also be tainted. Grant explained:24
“The U.S. EPA said it did find some of the chemicals in nearby creeks and streams. State regulators confirm that fish have been killed, but they said the area’s drinking water is supplied by groundwater, so it would take longer for these chemicals to move underground if that were to happen.
Norfolk Southern released a remediation plan, which lists a number of ways it plans to continue to monitor and clean up the site, including installing wells to monitor the groundwater. That’s at the site. It’s also near the Ohio River, which is a major drinking water source. And at least one company that’s supplied by the river says it’s looking at an alternative water source in case that’s needed.”
In a video posted by Democracy Now!, Emily Wright, a resident of Columbiana County in Ohio, a few miles from the derailment, called the derailment a “chemically-driven environmental nightmare.”25Initially, she says only those within one mile of the derailment were evacuated, even as the train kept burning overnight and into the next day.
“They kept saying the same thing over and over again in the media and in the press conferences. ‘There’s no toxins in the air … don’t worry,'” she said. But about 48 hours after the derailment, she received an alert on her phone that another explosion had occurred and the fire was out of control.26
At the time of the “controlled” burn, high wind gusts were forecasted. The resulting mushroom cloud was caught by winds, traveling over four to five counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In her home just a few miles away, Wright and her family experienced nausea, diarrhea and breathing difficulties.
They considered leaving, but then a shelter-in-place order was issued. At the same time, officials continued to state this was only out of an “abundance of caution,” and there were “no toxins in the air.” “From day one, we’ve been fed what wasn’t the truth,” Wright said.27
While mainstream media have also downplayed the seriousness of the derailment, videos have spread on social media highlighting the potential disastrous effects28 that could come from the approximately million pounds of toxic vinyl chloride that “spilled on the ground, boiled off into the air and then caught fire,” leading to hydrogen chloride as a byproduct. This then turns into hydrochloric acid in the atmosphere, with further unknown effects.29
Next Train Derailment ‘Could Be Cataclysmic’
The East Palestine derailment serves as a wake-up call to potential disaster looming on U.S. railways. Speaking with The Guardian, Ron Kaminkow, an Amtrak locomotive engineer and secretary for the Railroad Workers United, said, “The Palestine wreck is the tip of the iceberg and a red flag. If something is not done, then it’s going to get worse, and the next derailment could be cataclysmic.”30
Every day, about 12,000 rail cars transporting toxic chemicals travel through cities across the U.S. Annually, 4.5 million tons of hazardous materials are shipped by trains in the U.S.31 The Guardian pointed out the potential for more deadly freight rail derailments is high:32
“The latest accident comes after 47 people were killed in the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec, in 2013 when a runaway train exploded. In February 2020, a crude oil train derailed and exploded outside Guernsey, Saskatchewan, and an ethanol train in Kentucky derailed and burst into flames a week later.
The Pittsburgh region alone has seen eight train derailments over the last five years, according to the public health advocacy group Rail Pollution Protection Pittsburgh (RPPP), and about 1,700 annually occur nationally. The causes of the Pittsburgh accidents highlight the myriad ways in which things can go wrong.
A crack in a track ignored by rail companies caused a 2018 derailment, while another train hit a dump truck at a crossing with inadequate safety equipment. A broken axle on a train car is thought to be the source of the East Palestine accident.”
Liquified natural gas (LNG) may pose a particularly significant concern. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Transportation approved rail transport of LNG with no extra safety precautions, even though an accident could be catastrophic. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation opposing the rule change, environmental group Earth Justice wrote:33,34
“The amount of energy contained in LNG is quite alarming. One gallon of LNG has 0.89975 therms of energy. One DOT‐113 tank car has a capacity of approximately 30,000 gallons, meaning that there would be approximately 27,000 therms worth of energy per tank car.
With this much LNG per tank car, it would only take 22 tank cars to hold the equivalent energy of the Hiroshima bomb.55 A unit train of 110 LNG tank cars would thus have five‐times the energy of the Hiroshima bomb.”
Is Corporate Greed to Blame?
Speaking with Democracy Now!, Ross Grooters, a locomotive engineer and cochair of Railroad Workers United, stated:35
“There are deep systemic problems with the freight railroads right now, and those need to be addressed for us to have some sort of normal response to events like this. Until we get at the root causes of the safety issues in the freight rail system in this country, it’s … going to occur again … it’s just a matter of when and where.”
Grooters blames corporate greed, including cutbacks to staffing, from companies making “obscene amounts of money,” and precision scheduled railroading, which he says is designed to maximize profits, not safety. “You’re cutting to the bone the amount of people doing the job. So you have fewer people doing a lot more work, faster.”
At the same time, cutbacks have been made on the maintenance of cars, locomotives and tracks, while trains are becoming increasingly long and heavy, raising the chances of derailment.
“Lastly, you have the railroads themselves,” Grooters says, “which are fighting any kind of regulation, whether it be train control systems that help manage the signal system or the lobbying efforts that we saw to kill electronic braking, which can make for safer operations and a quicker stop should a derailment like this occur.”36
Norfolk Southern, in fact, has paid $70 million in safety violations since 2000, along with $21 million in environmental violations.37 As it stands, an estimated 25 million Americans live on an oil train blast zone38 and could potentially be killed if one of these “bomb trains” derails in their town.
Regarding the toxic Ohio train derailment, Julia Rock, investigative reporter with The Lever, explained, “This is the result of efforts by the railroad industry to ensure that they do not have to retrofit trains carrying hazardous materials and crude oil with safety features.”39
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***
February 26th, 2023 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City — a widely misunderstood false flag operation that paved the way for 9/11 by portraying Muslims as terrorists and introducing Islamophobic racism to the U.S.
When I watched the three World Trade Center (WTC) buildings disintegrate on September 11, 2001, I assumed that there would be no interest in the story of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; but when I read that Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman and Osama bin Laden were being blamed for it, I realized that the real story had to be told.
At the time of the bombing, the West’s 40-year Cold War against Communism had recently ended with the disintegration of the USSR; unidentified western investors were said to have been scooping up its assets as its public resources were becoming privatized. The U.S. military needed a new enemy to replace Communism in order to maintain its budget and protect it from any “peace dividend”. A classified Congressional document around 1991 (also sent to selected media) identified the new enemy as “Islamic Fundamentalists”; this expanded the target of the 1979 Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, which called for (legal) Palestinian resistance to Israel’s occupation to be criminalized internationally as “terrorism”. President George H.W. Bush’s 1991 “Madrid Peace Talks”, to end Israel’s 25-year military occupation of Palestinian territory, were continuing.
A massive bomb exploded under the Vista Hotel in the WTC at noon on Friday, February 26, 1993, killing 6, injuring 1000, and causing chaos throughout New York City for the rest of the day. The WTC complex covered 16 acres of lower Manhattan; the unforgettable twin towers rose one half mile into the sky. The damage under the hotel took out an area 2/3 the size of a football field and went down six floors to the PATH train station, underneath the level of the Hudson River.
The owner, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, thought that the bomb was so perfectly placed to cause maximum damage to the life support system that it had to be an inside job. This was confirmed by an extraordinary New York Times (NYT) graphic two days later which showed that the damage was not circular, but oblong, with the two ends hitting a corner of each tower: the bombers had to have had access to the Trade Center blueprints. The big question was, what country had the ability to pull off such a sophisticated operation when the only real U.S. enemy at that time was Iraq, which the US had invaded in 1991 and still basically controlled.
The damage was so massive that police estimated it would take six months to gather clues from the black abyss. It took a month to find the body of the Vista Hotel employee who had been working on the floor above the bomb; his body was found underneath all seven floors of rubble. That weekend, however, an ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms) agent entered the top edge of the abyss with a flashlight and came out with a load of vehicle parts that he claimed must have come from the bomb-laden van. An FBI agent immediately worked to decipher a Vehicle Identification Number and quickly identified it as coming from a Ryder van: a van that a Mohammad Salameh had rented.
Mohammad Salameh paid $400 to rent a Ryder van to help move work mates who were soon to leave the New York area. That Thursday evening, he used it to bring friends shopping at a local mall; when they came out with their groceries, the van had disappeared. Horrified, Salameh called the police to report the van missing. An officer Badiak responded but was unable to put out an immediate warrant for the van because it had an out-of-state license and there seemed to have been a mistake in Ryder’s handwritten license number that they gave to Salameh. Badiak didn’t bother to track the number down that evening, but he made out the report and drove Salameh to his home at 24 Kensington, where he lived with an Israeli woman called Josie Haddas. Or maybe Gosie Hadass: she apparently spelled her name differently whenever she wrote it.
Mohammad Salameh spent days on busses trying to get his $400 deposit back from the Ryder shop, which kept giving him a run-around. On the fourth attempt, on Wednesday, March 5th when he had been told he could pick up his refund, he was met with a small army of media and police, who arrested him as a suspect in the WTC bombing. (Ryder records reportedly indicated that Salameh’s van was returned!)
Salameh’s court-appointed lawyer had a hard time trying to explain to Salameh, a recent Jordanian immigrant who had difficulty with English, why he had been arrested. Salameh had faith in American justice; he wanted a fast trial so that he could get on with his life (stocking grocery shelves). NYT reporter Chris Hedges contacted Salameh’s parents in Jordan; he had recently called them and they expected another call soon to announce his coming marriage.
The New York Times, which produced the most extensive coverage of this story, was fast off the mark claiming that Mohammad Salameh — who they suspected had probable terrorist connections — was an “Islamic fundamentalist”. Its description of the WTC bombing as “sophisticated” turned to primitive, and the key graphic describing the pattern of damage disappeared from NYT archives, along with other information that did not fit the official government narrative.
Several other Muslim immigrants would join Salameh as defendants: gutsy Egyptian cabbie Mahmoud Abuhalima who, with his young family, had permanent resident status; Nidal Ayyad, a recently graduated (and married) Kuwaiti chemical engineer who had become an enthusiastic U.S. citizen, and Palestinian refugee claimant Ahmad Ajaj who had been incarcerated from the previous September until March on immigration charges and had never even met the other defendants. The New York Times noted that, except for the cabbie, the defendants were all of Palestinian descent, which it found significant. The four men faced a broad conspiracy charge for moving weapons across state lines. A fifth man was wanted with a reward: Ramzi Yousef had entered the U.S. five months before the explosion to join what was obviously the bombing plot and left the day it occurred. The court protected the identities of — and access to — an estimated two dozen other facilitators of the bombing, including Israelis such as Josie Haddas (whose name was on Salameh’s Ryder van contract).
Several months later, the FBI was called in by its asset Emad Salem, a former Egyptian intelligence officer and bomb expert, to raid what he claimed was bomb-making to attack New York City landmarks and transportation hubs. Some of the men weren’t sure what they were mixing stuff for and one who was charged, New Yorker Clement Hampton-El, smelled a rat and had been avoiding the group. Weeks later, the world- famous, blind Egyptian cleric (a 1990 refugee claimant) Sheikh Omar Abdul-Rahman was arrested. As the leader of local mosques that all of the defendants belonged to, prosecutors claimed the sheikh was the “mastermind” not only of the latest “bomb-making” but of the WTC explosion as well as the 1991 killing of terrorist rabbi Meir Kahane, (despite the fact that a New York State trial had found El Sayid Nosair not guilty!) Fifteen men in all would face a “seditious conspiracy” charge that included the WTC bombing (with an acknowledgment that that was being tried separately); the four defendants of the first WTC trial were “unindicted co-conspirators” of this second trial, which made both trials appear to be related. The conspiracy charges for both trials had such low requirements for conviction that guilty verdicts could have been regarded as virtually meaningless. Competent legal counsel (which the courts tried to bar) should have been able to get all of them off.
The New York Times coverage was racist, biased and inflammatory; it tried to ensure convictions by painting the defendants as shadowy Muslim criminals who refused to admit their involvement and who were bringing treacherous jihadi terrorism to threaten all Americans. At the end of October, 1993, the NYT published articles with verbatim parts of Emad Salem’s taped conversations with his FBI handler Nancy Floyd and her boss John Anticev in which both of them acknowledged that the FBI had overseen the Trade Center bombing plot, which a “higher up” had decided to make live instead of using planned fake explosives for the entrapment.
At the first WTC trial, the defense counsel couldn’t imagine that the defendants could be found guilty. Because the four defendants had alibis, no motive, no means of doing it, and there was no evidence that they had done it, their defense counsel didn’t see the point of calling defense witnesses. They were all convicted, apparently because jurors assumed that the lack of witnesses meant they had no defense! All those who would be tried in connection to the WTC bombing would be convicted, and most sentenced to life, including Ramzi Yousef and the real driver of the van (Salameh had also been charged as the driver), who had been an unwitting accomplice. Yousef was the only defendant of all of the WTC-related trials who was aware of the WTC bombing plan. The appeals, at least one of which got to the Supreme Court, were of no use despite the Constitutional violations that they documented.
As a result of the Islamophobia generated by the media during these related trials, important Constitutional and judicial protections were jettisoned, which paved the way for the government’s future “war on terror”:
The sheikh’s sermons were used against him, despite First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and belief;
The Fourth Amendment freedom from unwarranted searches was jettisoned by allowing the use of illegal search warrants;
The Sixth Amendment right to counsel was abandoned in various trials, including raids on the sheikh’s legal staff, tape recordings of private meetings with lawyers, and ultimately the use of secret evidence, which encourages the fabrication of evidence; and
The Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment is violated by the Special Administrative Measures (“SAMs”), (which were applied to the sheikh and Ramzi Yousef, among others), which isolates and hides from public scrutiny not only those convicted, but even those merely accused of a crime. Defense counsel, like the sheikh’s lawyer Lynn Stewart, are also vulnerable to being criminally charged and incarcerated for violating SAMs.
In 1993, the only obvious motives behind the WTC bombing appeared to be destroying American sympathy for the Palestinians during the ongoing Mideast peace talks, and using the Trade Center trials to undermine Constitutional rights.
After the events of September 11, 2001, other motives for the ’93 bombing became evident. To justify NATO members joining the U.S.’ “war on terror”, the U.S. used, as further supposed evidence of a sustained foreign attack by Al Qaeda:
the 1993 WTC bombing, including several names of those associated with it (Sheikh Abdul-Rahman, Ali Mohamed, Abdul Yasin, and Ramzi Yousef);
references to the African Embassy bombing (Ali Mohamed and a minor participant); along with
the USS Cole explosion and the Millenium shoe bomb plot, neither of which appeared to be connected to Al Qaeda.
Despite the fact that Bin Laden denied any responsibility for 9/11, that Al Qaeda was a recognized asset of the US government, and that the FBI was already on record as having admitted to overseeing the WTC bombing, the drama of the September 11th events was shocking enough that every NATO member agreed to joining the US’ multi-year “war on terror”.
The motive of 9/11 first appeared to be the “war on terror’s” regime change of countries to benefit the U.S. or Israel; the “seven countries in five years” told to General Wesley Clark were clearly intended targets. It also became evident that there were financial motives, such as the destruction of the Office of Naval Intelligence at the Pentagon, which was investigating billions of missing funds, along with other government-related financial fraud; its backup records at the WTC were also destroyed.
A financial motive for both the World Trade Center and Pentagon destruction became apparent with the publication of an extensively- referenced article called “Collateral Damage: U.S. Covert Operations and the Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001” by a former member of the Office of Naval Intelligence using the pseudonym E.P. Heidner. Heidner claims that on September 12, 2001, 10-year bonds worth $240 billion became mature and could be cleared only then because the Security and Exchange Commission, invoking emergency powers because of 9/11, suspended the requirement for identification to cash in securities for 15 days. The detailed information — with stunning implications that include the asset-stripping of the USSR — indicate that this plot had started by September, 1991.
One of the most disturbing aspects of this story, along with the loss of Americans’ Constitutional rights, and the crimes that have gone unpunished, is the impact of the politically- generated Islamophobia, which has been compared to anti-Semitic racism before WW II. The U.S. government has betrayed all of its citizens — particularly Muslims — by virtually defining “terrorism” as Muslim, and destroying the lives of many of the Muslims who came to the US to raise their families and make their own contribution to the United States. This includes the innocent defendants of this story who have endured tortuous incarceration, and their children and grandchildren for whom they are irreplaceable.
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Karin Brothers is a freelance writer. She is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: Image of the procession of rescue vehicles responding to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. One World Trade Center is on the far right of the frame. (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)
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