O presidente Biden recebeu calorosamente Giorgia Meloni na Casa Branca e, depois de agradecê-la pelo “apoio inabalável da Itália à Ucrânia”, conversou com ela sobre a situação em Gaza, onde “a perda de vidas é de partir o coração”. Ele então declarou que, para ajudar o povo de Gaza, “faremos lançamentos aéreos de alimentos e suprimentos para a Ucrânia e tentaremos abrir outras rotas de acesso à Ucrânia”, um deslize freudiano que permaneceu no vídeo oficial no site do governo italiano, visto por milhares de membros do governo e do parlamento, administradores locais e jornalistas da grande mídia. Evidentemente, o que quer que o presidente dos Estados Unidos diga não pode ser questionado.

A mídia política dominante também não permite que os dados oficiais sobre os suprimentos militares dos EUA para Israel sejam publicados. Assim que Israel iniciou a guerra em Gaza, os EUA forneceram 10.000 toneladas de armas transportadas em 244 aviões de carga e 20 navios em pouco mais de um mês. Isso incluiu mais de 15.000 bombas, inclusive bombas de uma tonelada, e 50.000 projéteis de artilharia. O governo Biden então deu a Israel mais de US$ 14 bilhões para comprar mais armas dos EUA. Isso significa que a maior parte das 70.000 toneladas de bombas que arrasaram bairros residenciais em Gaza, massacrando civis palestinos, foi fornecida a Israel pelos EUA. Eles também forneceram bulldozers Caterpillar, que, equipados com blindagem, avançam junto com os tanques, demolindo tudo o que encontram com seu peso de 64 toneladas.

Os números do genocídio em curso em Gaza falam por si: até o momento, 37.534 pessoas foram assassinadas e estão desaparecidas; 13.430 crianças foram assassinadas; 8.900 mulheres foram mortas; 364 profissionais da área médica foram mortos; 269 foram sequestrados; 132 jornalistas foram assassinados; 71.920 ficaram feridos; 17. 000 crianças ficaram sem pais; 32 hospitais fora de serviço; 53 centros de saúde fora de serviço; 700.000 pacientes com doenças infecciosas; 350.000 pacientes com doenças crônicas ficaram sem tratamento; 270.000 casas destruídas; 400 escolas e universidades destruídas; 500 mesquitas destruídas; 290 sítios arqueológicos destruídos.

 

Il presidente Biden, mentre continua a sostenere militarmente e politicamente il genocidio che Israele sta commettendo in Palestina, annuncia nel discorso sullo stato dell’Unione di aver dato ordine alle Forze Armate statunitensi di guidare una missione di emergenza per stabilire un molo temporaneo nel Mediterraneo, sulla costa di Gaza, in grado di accogliere grandi navi che trasportano cibo, acqua, medicine e rifugi temporanei. “Gli Stati Uniti – assicura – “guidano gli sforzi internazionali per portare più assistenza umanitaria a Gaza”.

Manlio Dinucci 

8 de Março de 2024

Artigo em italiano :

Bombe e Aiuti Umanitari Dagli Usa su Gaza

Tradução : Mondialisation.ca

VIDEO (em italiano) :

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

During a recent discussion that I had with two friends who had lived for several years in the USA, I expressed concern in particular regarding three aspects of US society which I had been studying recently:

• an alarming rise in child depression prompting professional organizations to speak of a national emergency related to this,
• an alarming rise in the maternal mortality rate and
• a very high number of poverty-related deaths.

My friends simply refused to believe all of this and instead gave me friendly advice on re-checking. However after seeing the relevant references they expressed great surprise how they had missed these important aspects earlier.

This was not an unexpected response, given the fact that several deeply troubling aspects of US society do not receive the attention these deserve.

It is even more difficult to find an honest analysis of several such important aspects.  The response of my friends prompted me to bring together and analyse more such aspects at one place, in the hope that this may contribute in a small and humble to re-emphasizing the urgency of social and policy reform in the USA.

Life Expectancy and Excess Deaths

Concern has been expressed by health experts in the USA that life-expectancy in this country has been reducing steadily in comparison to levels attained in several other rich countries. This has led some researchers to explore the number of excess deaths in the USA (or number of ‘missing Americans’) which they define as the deaths which are in excess of the number that would have taken place if the life-expectancy rates in the USA had remained at par with those of comparable rich countries.

One such important recent study by Jacob Bor, Andrew C. Stokes and others has been published in the journal PNAS Nexus on May 29, 2023. This study has estimated the number of such excess deaths in the USA in 2019 at 622,534.

During the next two years the number of such excess deaths went up to over a million, but as these were COVID years and a number of other issues become involved, we will go here only by the lower number of excess deaths recorded for a normal year at over 600,000. So what this study is saying that on the basis of comparisons with other rich countries, the USA should have been able to achieve the sort of life expectancy that results in avoiding over 600,000 deaths in a year. 

Poverty Related Mortality

Earlier another study by David Brady on only poverty related mortality published in the USA in JAMA Internal Medicine in April 2023 (for over 15 years age group) had estimated that there are 183,000 poverty related deaths in a year in the USA. 

UN data tells us that at a time when maternal death rate was declining in most countries, in the USA maternal death rate increased to a shocking extent from 12 to 21 during 2000-2020.

More such data can be provided to show that the number of excess, easily avoidable deaths in the USA is shockingly high at well over half a million every year. A very big contribution to human welfare can be made by taking steps to ensure that these avoidable deaths are actually avoided.

The steps that are needed for improvements are well-known in a country so blessed with eminent scholars.

Discrimination, Social Inequality and Health Services

In a nutshell, health services have to be improved in a big way for all weaker sections without any discrimination, inequalities must be reduced in a big way so that the poorer people have much better access to nutrition, environment and safety must be much better protected, shelter and health and overall social conditions need to be improved to make way for better physical and mental health while avoiding all harmful addictions.

The bigger question is—when these solutions are well-known, why have not these been adopted and why the situation in some importance respects continues to deteriorate? This is the really crucial question which needs to go beyond the analysis generally available in academic papers as this concerns important political issues of injustice. We need to ask why billions are easily available in the USA for weapons but even millions are not available for some important aspects of social justice, why billions worth of tax gifts can be given to the rich but millions worth of essential expenditure for the poorest is more difficult to find.

The fact is that a system of injustice has become so deeply established in the USA that solutions outside this system are difficult to implement. What should be emphasized is that this system of injustice is causing even more harm to people of other countries than what it is causing to people within USA.

Due to this system if 600,000 excess deaths a year are caused in the USA, then a similar or higher number deaths are likely being caused in other countries as well.

The USA’s Forever Wars

The number of deaths caused by the USA’s forever wars is in many millions as can be seen by adding up the immediate and longer-term mortality figures of wars in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere (in addition of course there was the use of atomic bombs against Japan after Japan had already been defeated for all practical purposes).

Then there are a large number of deaths caused by arbitrary imposition of wide-ranging sanctions, highly unjust interventions and coups in other countries which resulted in a large number of deaths (in countries like Congo, Chile, Iran, Nicaragua, Haiti, Greece etc.). Then there are also the large number of deaths associated with exports of weapons as well as several highly hazardous products and technologies. Hence in brief we can say that unjust systems in the USA cause avoidable 600,000 excess deaths in the USA and a somewhat higher number in other countries annually. Excess deaths in other countries are defined here as deaths caused by various injustices of the US (or allies acting under US leadership), whether in the form of wars or coups or subversions or exploitation.

These excess deaths inside and outside USA are two parts of the same unjust system, an important aspect missed by most academic studies. Once you establish an unjust system that inflicts unjust wars on other countries, then the same unjust system adopts internal unjust and discriminative policies within the country too, although this may get partially softened by electoral considerations at times.

Another reflection of how internal and external injustices are closely related is the fact that the leaders with the biggest promise of justice have been assassinated within the USA as also in other countries with fingers pointed towards the same US agency.

This is how the assassinations of President John Kennedy and President Allende are related, this is how the assassinations of Presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Sr. and President Lumumba are related, this is how the killings of Martin Luther King Jr. and Che Guevara are related.

Leaders most capable of bringing justice and peace are removed before they can achieve their potential.

So as several eminent scholars have suggested the solution for the USA to avoid excess deaths is to improve health care and socio-economic conditions for the lower half of the population, but in addition if we go a step further and ask why this has not happened in recent years, then we also need to say more clearly and loudly that the established unjust system must be challenged and replaced by a system that is based on justice internally and externally.

Such struggles against well-established systems of injustice are needed in so many countries but most of all these are needed in the USA as this is the most powerful and influential country in the world whose policies have a worldwide impact. From a world perspective the struggle is against the unjust establishment of the USA, just the top 5% or so, and never against the people of the USA and in fact the struggling American people need all the worldwide solidarity to help in their struggles.

The creation of a justice-based USA is a very important part of the worldwide struggle against injustice. The aim should never be to replace a world dominated by the USA by a world dominated by China but instead our aim should be to create a USA, a China and the entire world based on justice, peace and environment protection.

The dominant thinking at world-level is of equating ever-increasing income and wealth as well as the accompanying access to more and more material goods and services with increasing levels of happiness. But this is quite often not reflected in the reality of rich or even richest societies. An increasingly important aspect of socio-economic reality of world is that significant levels of distress can exist in the middle of high GNP levels and other signs of prosperity. This can be the result of economic inequalities, social contradictions and other less understood factors.

Food Insecurity

In the context of the USA, a study by the Urban Institute in 2018 found that nearly 40 per cent of adults and their families in USA struggled to afford at least one basic need for health care, housing, utilities or food in 2017, even in normal conditions of high employment levels.

In this study based on a well-being and basic needs survey in the age-group 18-64, 23% said that they were food insecure in the last 12 months. 18% struggled to pay medical bills while almost the same percentage decided to go without some required medical treatment due to costs. 

In a population of more than 330 million people and 128 million households in the USA, around 45% persons suffer from chronic diseases, many from multiple chronic diseases. Regularity of medicines is very important for all of them, but price of medicines in the USA is often much higher than in comparable countries. Nearly 40 million medically consulted injuries and poisoning cases are reported in a year. 12 million vehicles are involved in crashes in one year.

With the advent of COVID and much higher unemployment levels, the situation in terms of struggle to meet basic needs worsened. What is more, in 2020 it was reported that child poverty levels have been found to be 1.5 times higher than adult poverty levels. As for senior citizens, the Elderly Economic Security Standard Index found that in 2016 a majority of them lacked the “financial resources required to meet basic needs.”

Poverty and Social Distress

The Eviction Lab, Princeton University, has estimated that there are 3.7 million eviction cases in the USA in a typical year. The authorities intervened in COVID times to prevent the likely escalation in evictions by imposing moratoriums but now these are being phased down. The rent relief grants are also getting reduced considerably as funds committed for this have been exhausted in several states.

Nearly 28 per cent of US households are single person households. A survey by Cigna before the onset of COVID revealed that almost half of the adults feel lonely sometimes or all the time. Increasing loneliness has been associated with significant increase of dementia, coronary disease and stroke. 

Nearly 50% of all US marriages end in divorce or separation. In households with children, 50% of divorces lead to push towards poverty. Children suffer very adverse short-term and long-term impacts of divorce and separation.

10 to 12 million persons, mostly women, are physically abused in a year by an intimate partner, nearly 20 per minute.

On a typical day, about 20,000 phone calls are placed on domestic violence helplines, mostly by women.  A report on child abuse is made every 10 seconds. Authorities trace 656,000 victims of child maltreatment in a year, but the problem is bigger. More than 4 million referrals are made to child protection agencies in a year.  

About 10 million people face incarceration in a year. Over 1.2 million violent crimes are reported in a year, while the actual number is higher.

1 in 4 adults –26%–suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year, several from more, according to the National Institute of Mental Health Disorders. A 2019 study published in JAMA Paediatrics analysing official data reported that 1 in 6 children are affected by a mental health disorder.  During the last decade, a big rise in depression, even self-harm has been reported among adolescents, even before the onset of COVID.

1.4 million suicide attempts take place in a year. Suicide among 10 to 14 year old girls doubled , while emergency room admissions for suicidal ideation and attempts by children and adolescents also roughly doubled during the last decade.

A significant part of distress is due to high levels of inequalities– the bottom 50% of population has only 1.5% of the country’s wealth—but different kinds of distress and tensions exist at high levels in all sections of society.

We have many reports and studies on various aspects of increasing distress from time to time, only to discover some time later that remedial actions based on these have at best provided some temporary relief only while the deeper causes remain. Clearly this must change. Distress reduction based on a comprehensive understanding and deeper linkages must become the main focus of domestic policy.

At a wider level this draws attention to the highly mistaken notion of equating higher income and wealth necessarily with genuine happiness, let alone any sincerely felt feeling of a life well lived. More debate and dialogue on this, leading to better understanding of the limits of understanding life’s worth in terms of merely income and wealth, can help to pave the way for meaningful social change at several levels.

All this is particularly important in the context of understanding distress and uncertainly levels among children, adolescents and young adults. The latest official statistics of ‘Youth Risk Behaviour Survey’ (YRBS), USA, 2011-2021 released recently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (CDC), USA, have revealed truly alarming levels of distress among US youth. 

From a distance youth of other countries perceive life of youth in USA to be a life of joy and fun in a prosperous land free of various social inhibitions, and crave for a similar life. The results of this survey may be an eye opener for them too and highlight the need for a different path.

As the USA is one of the highest GDP countries, the prevalence, persistence and increase of such high levels of distress among US youth calls for serious analysis to find real causes as well as solutions so that US youth can have a happier and more meaningful life.

The YRBS statistics tell us that in year 2021 42% of US high school students “experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness”. When this figure was reported at 28% in 2011 this was considered to be quite high and hence brought forth calls for several remedial actions. Despite these, the number has increased persistently and steadily during the decade—30% in 2013 and 2015, 31% in 2017, 37% in 2019 and 42% in 2021. In the case of female students, this percentage is even higher—in 2021 as many as 57% of female high school students experienced persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness.

Further, in 2021, the YRBS tells us, 29% of high school students experienced poor mental health. In the case of female students, 41% experienced poor mental health.

What is even more alarming in the YRBS data is that in 2021, as many as 22% high school students in the USA “seriously considered attempting suicide”. Here also we see an overall increasing trend from 16% in 2011 to 22% in 2021. In the case of female students this number was as high as 30% in year 2021. In other words, almost one-third of female high students in the USA were so distressed as to “seriously consider attempting suicide” during this year. 

In fact the YRBS statistics tell us that as many as 18% of high school students in the USA had actually “made a suicide plan” in 2021. This also had an overall increasing trend from 13% in 2011 to 18% in 2021. In the case of female students this percentage was again higher at 24 in year 2021.

Most sadly, the YRBS survey tells us that as many as 10% of high school students in the USA actually attempted suicide in 2021. This means that one out of 10 USA high school students attempted suicide in 2021. This percentage increased from 8 in 2011 to 10 in 2021. The number of female students who attempted suicide in 2021 was again higher at 13%. 

Another aspect of distress suffered more by female students related to sexual violence. 18% of female students experienced sexual violence by anyone during the past one year.

These high levels of distress are extremely troubling and have increased despite remedial actions proposed by eminent experts in the past. Instead of merely repeating such advice, there is clearly need for deeper introspection and more sincere efforts to find real causes and solutions. More than individual consultations, efforts to find the illness of entire society are needed.  While eminent experts are deeply concerned about this issue, they may be missing some wider important issues due to examining issues more closely in a narrower framework.

In particular it is important to examine the links of the increasing internal distress of USA society with the increasing aggression of the USA at international level. As this writer has emphasized several times, such links need to be recognized and will help the peace movement within the USA to mobilize people to create a society which is at peace with itself and with the entire world, devoted more to reducing its own distress as a higher priority.

Another question that arises relates to the higher distress suffered by female students (compared to male students) according to almost all criteria. If the USA is supposed to be a society based on gender justice, then why is this happening? This should be seen in the context of high levels of violence and distress suffered by women and female children in other contexts also in the USA, for which a lot of additional data is available. However confining ourselves only to YRBS data for the time being, isn’t it alarming that as many as 57% of female high school students experience persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, 41% experience poor mental health, 18% experience sexual violence in a year, 30% seriously consider attempting suicide in a year, 24% make a suicide plan in a year and 13% actually attempt suicide in a year, all this at levels much higher than male students. 

The USA has frequently criticized gender injustice in other countries but should it not also look inwards to ask why girls in the USA are so distressed despite the outer appearance of a very free and liberated society. In this context also there is a clear need to explore linkages between internal distress and aggression on the one hand and massive distress caused by aggression in other countries on the other hand. 

Once these wider links are recognized, then these can pave the way for creating a US society which is at peace with itself as well as with the rest of the world. This should be one of the highest priorities for our deeply troubled world.

Other than YRBS data, there have been several other indications of the deep distress within US society. This is evident from the call given twice in recent times by the top child health organizations in the country for declaring a mental health national emergency for children and adolescents, given the scale of these problems. If this won’t wake up a society to the need for wider introspection, what else will?

One of the clearer aspects of the existing sad situation is that much more resources are needed for meeting the needs of the bottom 50% of the people of the USA who currently have only 1.5 per cent of the country’s wealth. It will not be difficult to find resources for them as wealth and income are currently so highly concentrated at the top levels in the USA. What is more military spending by the USA is extremely high. Most US official figures mention military expenditure in a year of around 880 billion dollars, but other defence analysts also mention higher figures mention going up to 1.4 trillion or 1400 billion. Without sacrificing defence considerations in any realistic sense and with some overdue reforms to curb corruption, wastage and overpricing by contractors, it should be possible to cut the military spending by about one-half or so, making available between 400 to 700 billion dollars annually for meeting essential welfare needs of American and other people. A figure of just 20 billion dollars has been frequently mentioned in terms of significantly meeting the needs of homeless people in the USA, and a somewhat similar figure would go a long way in reducing hunger to a significant extent in the USA. In the context of reducing extreme poverty and hunger to a significant extent at the world level, figures of 100 to 50 billion dollars per year each have been frequently mentioned. 

Multibillion “Humanitarian Wars” versus Peace, Justice and Welfare

Clearly very big gains are waiting to be achieved at the level of the USA and at world level if only the USA can become a country which is much more oriented towards peace, justice and welfare.

On the other hand, an idea of the highly destructive consequences of USA’s existing policy distortions is conveyed by the fact that in terms of direct as well as indirect deaths the War on Terror alone has caused 4.5 million deaths (this estimate of Brown University also needs updating and include some other counties as well) and has cost the USA 8000 billion dollars (about a billion dollars a day or 12000 dollars per second over a 22 year period).

This is why we stated earlier too that while reforms are needed in all countries but it is reforms in the USA for creating a society based on peace and welfare which are most urgently needed and can benefit the entire humanity. Hence the people of the USA who are dedicated to peace, justice and environment protection have a very big responsibility for bringing these reforms. It is people’s movements on which highest hopes rest, keeping in view the increasing alienation of top leadership from these important reforms.  

*

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

When we look at the general political and economic course in the world and in Türkiye, the picture that stands out is; political instability, economic turmoil and a trend towards global migration and war. Türkiye is right in the middle of all this turbulence.

The Western-oriented neoliberal economy is in an extremely bad point. For example, while the economy of warring Russia is standing, the economy of non-warring Turkey is in a very bad situation.

Economic programs based on imports and hedge funds are heading towards complete bankruptcy due to both domestic political-economic collapses and external deteriorations. Reducing the legal system and state order to a single party also negates policies based on imports and foreign investment.

Politics, on the other hand, is turning towards complete religious totalitarianism.

After the local elections, the governing party AKP’s plan is to consolidate its power with a new constitution. A pivot to the USA and new concessions are on the horizon in order to get permission from the Western system to do this.

When these developments are combined with the latest situation in global great power competition, we are faced with an extremely dangerous situation for Turkiye.

There is an increasing pressure for war in the world. The United States and its allies do not want to accept defeat in Ukraine. Europe is suicidally preparing for a war against Russia under the umbrella of NATO. The war, whose seeds were sown and harvested by the USA in Ukraine, affected European economies extremely badly.

The Israeli genocide in Palestine is waiting for an opportunity to evolve into a regional war.

This crisis, which the USA did not actually plan, contains the potential for a series of chain reactions that will drive it out of the Middle East and West Asia.

While the far-right government in Israel wanted to impose its own agenda on the United States, it actually undermined the White House’s forward-looking plans.

The USA’s next target after Russia would normally be the People’s Republic of China via Taiwan.

The USA advanced its infrastructure work and took action to establish new alliances in order to continue the NATO structure in the Pacific.

The collective West’s concern was global hegemony slipping from its grasp. The reason for this is the great economic performance of developing countries, especially China, over the last 40 years. Asian powers, led by China and Russia, do not have difficulty finding allies in Africa, South America and even Europe. Because Asian powers represent a multipolar alternative to the decaying unipolar world order of the United States.

While China and Russia are creating a global communication scheme with new sea and trade routes, the West, led by the USA, is establishing strategies to prevent them.

To put it very simply, the East (or global south) represents peace and cooperation, while the collective West brings war and instability to the table.

The role assigned to Turkiye in the new global architecture formed after the Second World War was as an outpost in the Western camp.

This positioning, which was designed as NATO membership and then being connected to the EU door, turned Turkey into a self-sufficient, externally dependent and satellite country, deviating from Atatürk’s goal of modern civilization.

Periodic breakthroughs were suppressed by military and militia elements in the NATO order that took over the state. The military coups of 12 March 1971 and 12 September 1980 are clear examples of this.

The hot-money loving comprador bourgeoisie and the business world, which could not go further than being a Western agency, became the strongest supporters of the system.

After the anti-Communism; policing implemented since the 1950s, the second role that the USA assigned to Turkey after 1980 was the “Green Belt” (moderate Islam). The entire nation state, along with labor and national capital, was targeted, and the political, social and cultural system was aimed to be religious and to ensure that Turkey remained underdeveloped and could be governed by a single authority.

Today, both the world and Türkiye are at a very critical crossroads.

Let alone regional and civil wars, we are at a moment when World War III is likely to break out.

Türkiye, on the other hand, resembles a ship that is being tried to be sailed with a so-called ‘balance’ foreign policy in this environment of turmoil.

However, the ship takes on water in the Western camp and is gradually sinking.

Luckily there are new alternatives in the East/South camp; Like BRICS+ and the like. Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia were added to China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa as of 2024.

It is stated that 25 countries, especially Nigeria and Mexico, are candidates for the secret to become a member of BRICS. BRICS+, which is the harbinger of a new world order that is not based on hegemony and the dollar, but is egalitarian, win-win type of infrastructure, commercial and industrial cooperation, is a lifesaver for Turkey in this stormy ocean.

The only way for Turkey to take its rightful place in this new world order is to quit being the satellite of the West and leave NATO and the EU Customs Union.

*

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This article was originally published on ATASAM.

Hasan Erel is a Turkish journalist-writer. He worked as a diplomacy and foreign news reporter and editor in TRT and other media for 30 years. He is a frequent commentator of Sputnik News radio and CRI Turk in Turkiye.    

Featured image is from ATASAM

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Articles reviewed:

• Mar. 11, 2024 – Pfizer bets on cancer drugs to recover from rapid decline of COVID business

• Mar. 11, 2024 – Merck Completes Acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics
• Mar. 7, 2024 – Johnson & Johnson Completes Acquisition of Ambrx ($2.0 billion)
• Feb. 12, 2024 – AbbVie Completes $10.1 billion Acquisition of ImmunoGen
• Feb. 5, 2024 – Novartis in the lead to acquire cancer drug developer MorphoSys-sources
• Dec. 26, 2023 – Bristol Myers Squibb announces intent to buy RayzeBio for $4.1 billion (104% premium)
• Nov. 22, 2023 – Boehringer Ingelheim expands immuno-oncology portfolio with the acquisition of bacterial cancer therapy specialist T3 Pharma
• Oct. 8, 2023 – Bristol Myers Squibb announces purchase of Mirati Therapeutics for $5.8 billion

• Oct. 3, 2023 – Eli Lilly to Acquire POINT Biopharma to Expand Oncology Capabilities into Next-Generation Radioligand Therapies

* 

Mar. 11, 2024 – Pfizer bets on cancer drugs to recover from rapid decline of COVID business

• Pfizer’s $43 billion acquisition of Seagen doubled Pfizer’s cancer drug pipeline to 60 different experimental programs
• Pfizer had a 4 hour investor event last week
• Chris Boshoff, a longtime Pfizer executive who leads Pfizer’s oncology research and development, said during the investor event that Pfizer has 10 manufacturing sites producing cancer drugs on three continents, while Seagen had just one.
• Pfizer expects 2/3 of its oncology revenue to come from new drugs and new indications for existing products by end of decade.
• The “outdo cancer” catchphrase caught on during Pfizer’s 60–second Super Bowl ad that it reportedly spent more than $14 million on — which boasted the big pharma company’s 175-history as as famous scientists like Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein rocked out to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”
• Pfizer said it can produce 8 blockbuster cancer drugs by 2030

Mar. 11, 2024 – Merck Completes $650 million Acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics 

• “We continue to augment and diversify our oncology pipeline with innovative approaches to help people with cancer worldwide,” said Dr. Dean Y. Li, president, Merck Research Laboratories.
• Harpoon has a number of cancer drugs in the pipeline called “T-cell engagers” for small cell lung cancer, neuroendocrine tumors, multiple myeloma, etc.
• The acquisition is part of Merck’s focus on cancer and exploration of immuno-oncology. In fact, Merck said it has one of the industry’s largest development programs, spanning 30-plus tumor types. The biopharmaceutical giant added it continues to strengthen its portfolio through purchases, as with Harpoon.
• Merck announced several deals in 2023, including the up to $610 million acquisition of biopharmaceutical company Caraway Therapeutics and its $10.8 billion purchase of Prometheus Bioscienes Inc.
• “Using its proprietary Tri-specific T cell Activating Construct (TriTAC) platform, the engineered proteins tell a patient’s own T-cells to attack target cells that express specific proteins, or antigens, carried by the target cells. To that end, Harpoon’s ProTriTAC platform keeps the T-cell engager inactive until it reaches the tumor.”

Mar. 7, 2024 – Johnson & Johnson Completes Acquisition of Ambrx ($2.0 billion)

• “Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) announced today it has successfully completed the acquisition of Ambrx Biopharma, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with a proprietary synthetic biology technology platform to design and develop next-generation antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), in an all-cash merger transaction for a total equity value of approximately $2.0 billion”
• “the acquisition presents a distinct opportunity for Johnson & Johnson to design, develop and commercialize targeted oncology therapeutics”
• “The Ambrx team has developed a promising pipeline and ADC platform that will be a strong complement and strategic fit to our oncology innovation strategy“
• “Ambrx’s proprietary ADC technology incorporates the advantages of highly specific targeting monoclonal antibodies securely linked to a potent chemotherapeutic payload to achieve targeted and efficient elimination of cancer cells without the prevalent side effects typically associated with chemotherapy”

• AbbVie has completed a $10.1 billion acquisition of cancer drug maker ImmunoGen.
• “Together with ImmunoGen, we have the potential to continue redefining the standard of care for those living with cancer,” said Robert A. Michael, president and chief operating officer, AbbVie. “The addition of ImmunoGen’s treatment for ovarian cancer will accelerate our ability to help patients today, expand our oncology pipeline and drive long-term revenue growth well into the next decade.”
• “ImmunoGen’s follow-on pipeline of ADCs further builds on AbbVie’s existing solid tumor pipeline of novel targeted therapies and next-generation immuno-oncology assets, which have the potential to create new treatment possibilities across multiple solid tumors and hematologic malignancies”

Feb. 5, 2024 – Novartis in the lead to acquire cancer drug developer MorphoSys ($1.6 billion Euros) 

• Novartis is in advanced talks to acquire MorphoSys AG (MORG.DE), a German developer of cancer treatments that has a market value of 1.6 billion euros ($1.7 billion)
• MorphoSys main revenue generator is a lymphoma drug called Monjuvi
• Monjuvi’s U.S. net product sales were $92 million in 2023, and that it expected these sales to come in between $80 million and $95 million in 2024. The company has said it expects revenue to go up as Monjuvi is approved for more indications.
• Headquartered in Planegg, Germany, MorphoSys develops drugs to fight deadly forms of cancers such as myelofibrosis, which is a rare type of bone marrow cancer, and certain types of lymphomas.
• Ultimately, the acquisition is not entirely driven by the portfolio, and Novartis is seeking to use its previous collaborative experience with MorphoSys to expand its developments internally

Dec. 26, 2023 – Bristol Myers Squibb announces intent to buy RayzeBio for $4.1 billion (104% premium)

• The company’s RayzeBio acquisition bolsters the company’s longer-term effort to establish a presence in the buzzing radiopharma scene. By spending $62.50 per share to buy RayzeBio, BMS adds a pipeline of actinium-based radiopharmaceutical therapeutics (RPTs) to its fold.
• “include potential treatments for gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs), small cell lung cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma, among other cancers.”
• actinium-based radiopharmaceutical therapeutics (RPTs) work by binding to tumor cells and killing the cancer cells through targeted radiation (my specialty)
• “Acquiring RayzeBio’s differentiated actinium-based radiopharmaceutical platform will establish Bristol Myers Squibb’s presence in one of the most promising and fastest-growing new modalities for the treatment of patients with solid tumors—delivering radioactive payloads to cancer cells in a targeted manner,” BMS’ chief medical officer, Samit Hirawat, M.D., said in a statement.”
• From RayzeBio’s perspective, the biotech believes Bristol’s “well-established presence in oncology and deep expertise in developing, commercializing and manufacturing treatments on a global scale makes it the ideal partner for RayzeBio at this important moment in our evolution,”
• Major competitors in the radiopharma arena include Novartis and its established lutetium-based medicines Lutathera and Pluvicto, plus new entrant Eli Lilly after it forked over $1.4 billion for Point Biopharma Global.

Nov. 22, 2023 – Boehringer Ingelheim expands immuno-oncology portfolio with the (450 million CHF) acquisition of bacterial cancer therapy specialist T3 Pharma 

• “Despite the significant transformation of the cancer treatment landscape by immunotherapies, long-term remissions only occur in 15-20% of cancer patients. Boehringer Ingelheim aims to considerably increase this rate by utilizing complementary immuno-oncology platforms such as T-Cell Engagers (TcEs), oncolytic viruses, and cancer vaccines, which have the potential to turn cold tumors into hot ones, extending the benefits of immunotherapy to more patients”
• “The acquisition of T3 Pharma will significantly expand our immuno-oncology pipeline portfolio and is synergistic with many of our existing R&D programs. This will bring us closer to achieving our vision of driving a paradigm shift in cancer care treatments”
• “T3 Pharma has developed a unique platform using engineered Yersinia enterocolitica bacteria to deliver bioactive proteins directly and selectively into the tumor micro-environment, while sparing healthy tissues. The bacteria can be loaded with multiple immune-modulatory proteins of choice, enabling the design of immuno-oncology combination therapies in one single agent.”
• “This strategy aims to enable smart combinations that deliver life-changing and best-in-class treatments that may offer the greatest benefit for people affected by cancer.”

• U.S. health regulator had in December approved Mirati’s lung cancer drug, Krazati, to treat adults with advanced lung cancer.
• The oral drug — the company’s only approved product — is designed to target a mutated form of a gene known as KRAS, which occurs in about 13% of non-small cell lung cancer
• In early October, Bristol Myers Squibb moved on Mirati after a yearslong courtship, inking a buyout worth up to $5.8 billion for the cancer specialist and its FDA-approved lung cancer drug Krazati.

• Eli Lilly announced a definitive agreement to acquire POINT Biopharma, radiopharmaceutical company with a pipeline of radioligand therapies in development for the treatment of cancer.
• “POINT operates a 180,000-square-foot radiopharmaceutical manufacturing campus in Indianapolis, as well as a radiopharmaceutical research and development center in Toronto”
• “POINT aims to transform precision oncology by combining a portfolio of targeted radioligand assets, a seasoned management team, an industry-leading pipeline, in-house manufacturing capabilities, and secured supply for medical isotopes including actinium-225 and lutetium-177”
• “We are excited by the potential of this emerging modality and see the acquisition of POINT as the beginning of our investment in developing multiple meaningful radioligand medicines for hard-to-treat cancers”
• “Over the past few years, we have seen how well-designed radiopharmaceuticals can demonstrate meaningful results for patients with cancer and rapidly integrate into standards of care, yet the field remains in the early days of the impact it may ultimately deliver,” said Jacob Van Naarden, President of Loxo@Lilly, the oncology unit of Eli Lilly and Company
• “POINT’s lead programs are in late-phase development. PNT2002¹ is a prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) targeted radioligand therapy in development for patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) after progression on hormonal treatment”

My Take…

Pfizer spent $43 billion to acquire Seagen (42% premium).

Johnson & Johnson spent $2 billion to buy Ambrx.

AbbVie spent $10.1 billion to buy Immunogen at 95% premium.

Bristol Myers Squibb to buy Mirati Therapeutics for $5.8 billion at 52% premium.

Bristol Myers Squibb to buy RayzeBio for $4.1 billion at 104% premium

Novartis in the lead to acquire cancer drug developer MorphoSys ($1.6 billion Euros)

Eli Lilly is spending $1.4 billion to acquire Point Biopharma Global and according to Forbes, is paying a 90% premium.

Boehringer spent 450 million CHF to buy T3 Pharma and its targeted bacteria platform.

Conclusion 

While the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Injured who develop Turbo Cancers are being gaslit by low level doctors and MD propagandists on Twitter and other social media, Big Pharma is in a literal feeding frenzy, buying up every “novel” cancer treatment imaginable at massive premiums.

When my Cancer Treatment Program was illegally sabotaged by Alberta Health Services starting in 2016, and AHS seriously harmed or outright murdered over 2450 of my cancer patients at Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton, which led to a $13.5 million lawsuit against AHS which is still ongoing, there was no money in the cancer treatments I was providing (targeted radiopharmaceuticals).

In 2023, two of these acquisitions involve my Cancer Treatments & Expertise: Bristol Myers Squibb $4.1 billion deal for RayzeBio and Eli Lilly’s $1.4 billion deal for Point Biopharma Global. How times change.

Trudeau re-built my Cancer Program in Vancouver, British Columbia as “ARTMS” which was just acquired by Telix for $82 million on Mar.4, 2024 – how much investment Trudeau and his Liberal friends have in that (would make great investigative journalism for anyone interested).

Bottom line is, whether establishment doctors believe in mRNA Induced Turbo Cancer or not is irrelevant, hundreds of billions will be made treating it. 

In 2023, the top 10 Big Pharma buyout deals came to $115.8 billion, increasing from 2022 ($65 billion) and 2021 ($53 billion).

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

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

When Napoleon engaged Russia in a European land war, the Russians mounted a determined defense, and the French lost.

When Hitler tried the same, the Soviet Union responded similarly, and the Germans lost.

In World War 1 and its post-revolutionary civil war (1914-1922), first Russia and then the USSR defended with far greater effect against two invasions than the invaders had calculated. That history ought to have cautioned U.S. and European leaders to minimize the risks of confronting Russia, especially when Russia felt threatened and determined to defend itself.

Instead of caution, delusions prompted ill-advised judgments by the collective West (roughly the G7 nations: the U.S. and its major allies).

Those delusions emerged partly from the collective West’s widespread denial of its relative economic decline in the 21st century. That denial also enabled a remarkable blindness to the limits that decline imposed on the collective West’s global actions. Delusions also flowed from a basic undervaluation of Russia’s defensiveness and its resulting commitments. The Ukraine war starkly illustrates both the decline and the costly delusions it fosters.

The United States and Europe seriously underestimated what Russia could and would do to prevail militarily in Ukraine. Russia’s victory—at least so far after two years of war—has proven decisive.

Their underestimation stemmed from a shared inability to grasp or absorb the changing world economy and its implications.

By mostly minimizing, marginalizing, or simply denying the decline of the U.S. empire relative to the rise of China and its BRICS allies, the United States and Europe missed that decline’s unfolding implications.

Russia’s allies’ support combined with its national determination to defend itself have so far defeated a Ukraine heavily funded and armed by the collective West. Historically, declining empires often provoke denials and delusions that teach their people “hard lessons” and impose on them “hard choices”. That is where we are now.

The economics of the U.S. empire decline constitutes the continuing global context.

The BRICS countries’ collective GDP, wealth, income, share of world trade, and presence at the highest levels of new technology increasingly exceed those of the G7.

That relentless economic development frames the decline of the G7’s political and cultural influences as well. The massive U.S. and European sanctions program against Russia after February 2022 has failed. Russia turned especially to its BRICS allies to quickly as well as comprehensively escape most of those sanctions’ intended effects.

UN votes on the ceasefire issue in Gaza reflect and reinforce the mounting difficulties facing the U.S. position in the Middle East and globally. So does the Houthis’ intervention in Red Sea shipping and so too will other future Arab and Islamic initiatives supporting Palestine against Israel. Among the consequences flowing from the changing world economy, many work to undermine and weaken the U.S. empire.

Trump’s disrespect for NATO is partly an expression of disappointment with an institution he can blame for failing to stop empire’s decline.

Trump and his supporters broadly downgrade many institutions once thought crucially central to running the U.S., empire globally.

Both the Trump and Biden regimes attacked China’s Huawei corporation, shared commitments to trade and tariff wars, and heavily subsidized competitively challenged U.S. corporations.

Nothing less than a historic shift away from neoliberal globalization toward economic nationalism is underway. An American empire that once targeted the whole world is shrinking into a merely regional bloc confronting one or more emerging regional blocs. Much of the rest of the world’s nations—a possible “world majority” of the planet’s people—are pulling away from the U.S. empire.

U.S. leaders’ aggressive economic nationalist policies distract attention from the empire’s decline and thereby facilitate its denial. Yet they also cause new problems.

Allies fear that economic nationalism in the United States already has or will soon adversely affect their economic relations with the United States; “America first” targets not only the Chinese. Many countries are rethinking and reconstructing their economic relations with the United States and their expectations about those relations’ futures. Likewise, major groups of U.S. employers are reconsidering their investment strategies.

Those who invested heavily overseas as part of the neoliberal globalization frenzies of the last half century are especially fearful. They anticipate costs and losses from policy shifts toward economic nationalism. Their pushback slows those shifts. As capitalists everywhere adjust practically to the changing world economy, they also quarrel and dispute the direction and pace of change. That injects more uncertainty and volatility into a thereby further destabilized world economy. As the U.S. empire unravels, the world economic order it once dominated and enforced likewise changes.

“Make America Great Again” (MAGA) slogans have politically weaponized U.S. empire’s decline, always in carefully vague and general terms.

They simplify and misunderstand it within another set of delusions. Trump will, he promises repeatedly, undo that decline and reverse it. He will punish those he blames for it: China, but also Democrats, liberals, globalists, socialists, and Marxists whom he lumps together in a bloc-building strategy. There is rarely any serious attention to the economics of the G7’s decline since to do so would critically implicate capitalists’ profit-driven decisions as key causes of the decline. Neither Republicans nor Democrats dare do that. Biden speaks and acts as if the U.S. wealth and power positions within the world economy were undiminished from what they were across the second half of the 20th century (most of Biden’s political lifetime).

Continuing to fund and arm Ukraine in the war with Russia, like endorsing and supporting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, are policies premised on denials of a changed world. So too are successive waves of economic sanctions despite each wave failing to achieve its goals. Using tariffs to keep better, cheaper Chinese electric vehicles off the U.S. market will only disadvantage U.S. individuals (via such Chinese electric vehicles’ higher prices) and businesses (via global competition from businesses buying the cheaper Chinese cars and trucks).

Perhaps the greatest, costliest delusions that follow from a denial of years of decline dog the upcoming presidential election. The two major parties and their candidates offer no serious plan for how to deal with the declining empire they seek to lead. Both parties took turns presiding over the decline, yet denial and blaming the other is all either party offers in 2024. Biden offers voters a partnership in denial that the empire is declining. Trump promises vaguely to undo the decline caused by bad Democratic leadership that his election will remove. Nothing either major party does entails sober admissions and assessments of a changed world economy and how each plans to cope with that.

The last 40 to 50 years of the economic history of the G7 witnessed extreme redistributions of wealth and income upward. Those redistributions functioned as both causes and effects of neoliberal globalization. However, domestic reactions (economic and social divisions increasingly hostile and volatile) and foreign reactions (emergence of today’s China and BRICS) are undermining neoliberal globalization and beginning to challenge its accompanying inequalities. U.S. capitalism and its empire cannot yet face its decline amid a changing world. Delusions about retaining or regaining power at the top of society proliferate alongside delusional conspiracy theories and political scapegoating (immigrants, China, Russia) below.

Meanwhile, the economic, political, and cultural costs mount. And on some level, as per Leonard Cohen’s famous song, “Everybody Knows.”

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Richard D. Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, in New York. Wolff’s weekly show, “Economic Update,” is syndicated by more than 100 radio stations and goes to 55 million TV receivers via Free Speech TV. His three recent books with Democracy at Work are The Sickness Is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us From Pandemics or Itself, Understanding Socialism, and Understanding Marxism, the latter of which is now available in a newly released 2021 hardcover edition with a new introduction by the author.

Featured image is from Brave New Europe

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

One of the critical historical conjunctures within the mass Civil Rights Movement took place in Selma, Alabama during the early months of 1965.

Although local activists and members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) had been active in the area for several years prior, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the rising tide of expectations among African Americans created the conditions for 1965 to be an explosive year.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., co-founder and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), entered the fray in Selma prompting the city, county and state authorities to step-up their repressive mechanisms which had kept the overwhelming majority of African Americans off the voter registration lists throughout Alabama. The March 7, 1965 attack by a combined police force from the state, county and city of Selma, would draw the outrage of people around the U.S. and internationally.

Consequently, it was a moment of irony when United States Vice-President Kamala Harris stood on a platform in Selma on March 3 evoking the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement while calling for what appeared to be a ceasefire in Gaza.

Yet, if one listened carefully, it revealed the consistent policy of the U.S. towards the Palestinian question.

Although Harris received her loudest applause when she uttered the word “ceasefire”, she then went on to uphold the right of the Israeli settler-colonial state to defend itself and to continue its existence as a racist entity. The Vice-President then declared that Israel was justified in its attempts to eliminate Hamas as a resistance movement.

Since October 7, more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Hospitals, neighborhoods, schools, mosques, churches, medical facilities and marketplaces have been targeted for destruction by Tel Aviv. Hundreds of thousands have been wounded, injured, traumatized and dislocated.

Famine is spreading throughout the Gaza Strip as IDF personnel fire weapons into crowds of people standing in line to receive food rations.

Obviously, Harris was telling African Americans and their allies what they wanted to hear. Most people within Black communities across the country are in favor of a permanent ceasefire, not the six-week pause advanced by Harris on behalf of the administration of President Joe Biden.

Thousands of leading African American clergymen acting independently or within the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion (AMEZ) along with other denominations, have put distance between themselves and the administration. In several Democratic Party primary elections, such as Michigan, where over 101,000 people voted “uncommitted”, has sent a definite message to the White House regarding its prospects for re-election in November.

State of the Union: More Imperialist Rhetoric from the White House

A few days before the State of the Union Address by Biden, he was seen on national television eating ice cream saying he had been told by his national security advisor that a ceasefire was imminent by the end of the week. Such optics infuriated many people in the U.S. and around the world. This ceasefire has not yet materialized while the IDF continues its bombardments and the blocking of much-needed humanitarian assistance.

During the speech by the president, he pleaded for the Congress to provide additional aid to the Ukrainian government to continue the war which Kiev is losing.

He said that if the House would pass a “border bill” he would be able to end the crisis of migration which is a major concern of the electorate from both dominant parties.

In regard to Palestine, the president said that more aid needed to be delivered to Gaza to address the humanitarian crisis. He never accepted the fact that the crisis was engineered by the Israeli regime with the backing of Washington. Despite this reality, there was no direct call for a permanent ceasefire or negotiations for the creation of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state.

Overall, there was no mention of any fundamental shift in policy towards Tel Aviv. The weapons and other material assistance flowing into the settler-colonial state will not be interrupted. He reiterated the tone set by Harris earlier in the week when the president said categorically that the White House would not abandon the Israeli state.

Airdrops of meals ready to eat have already caused the deaths of several people. Biden announced at the State of the Union before the full Congress that the Pentagon had plans to build a temporary port in the Eastern Mediterranean to deliver food and supplies to residents of Gaza. He emphasized that no U.S. troops would enter the besieged territory in these aid deliveries.

These statements by Biden and his administration functionaries are clearly for the consumption of the public in this election year. The entire tone of the State of the Union speech was that of a campaign rally.

However, the widening regional war in West Asia was never assessed. To reveal the actual magnitude of the crisis would further expose the failures of the White House foreign and military policies in West Asia as well as Eastern Europe and the African continent.

Regional Resistance Determined to Continue Attacks Against Israel, the U.S. and its Allies

US occupation forces in Iraq targeted by resistance

In addition to the underwriting and logistical support for the genocide in Gaza, the West Bank and throughout the Israeli Occupied Territories (IOT), the Biden administration has engaged in bombing operations in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Biden during the State of the Union alluded to his objective of keeping the shipping lanes open in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. What he did not say was that despite the mobilization of the British Royal Air Force along with its U.S. counterparts, they have not been able to halt the attacks on shipping interests in the region carried out in solidarity with Palestine.

The actions of the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF) are not taking place within a vacuum. Southern Lebanon, which shares a border with the north of the IOT, has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting against Tel Aviv in many years.

In a report on March 11 published by Al Mayadeen Television, it notes:

“The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon – Hezbollah carried out several operations on Monday, in support of the resilient people of Gaza and its Resistance against Israeli sites, soldier gatherings, and equipment along the Palestinian-Lebanese border. On March 11, 2024, the Islamic Resistance conducted eight operations against the Israeli occupation, confirming direct hits….
Earlier on Monday, the Deputy Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sheikh Naim Qassem, affirmed that the Resistance was prepared to counter any expansion in aggression, emphasizing that it is most ready to support Gaza until the Israeli aggression on the Strip ceases. In his speech during the memorial ceremony of three martyrs from the southern Lebanese village of Blida, Sheikh Qassem said Hezbollah is not concerned with any Israeli statement regarding a ground invasion of Lebanon, be it an exaggeration or a declaration. He stressed that the Resistance remains defensive, supportive, and determined to defy Israel, affirming that it will not be intimidated.” 

The pledge to shutdown shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which supports the economic interests of Israel, by the Yemeni Ansar Allah, has won a tremendous propaganda victory in favor of the anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist forces in the region. These solidarity efforts are drawing the Pentagon towards military strikes which only increase the resentment and hatred towards the U.S. government.

Al Mayadeen pointed to a U.S. media outlet, the Atlantic, which wrote an evaluation of the situation involving the status of Yemen throughout the region, saying that:

“Previously, a piece published on The Atlantic magazine’s news website suggested that Yemeni Ansar Allah leader Sayyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi ‘may now be the most popular public figure in the Middle East.’ The piece pointed out that since the Yemeni Armed Forces began their operations in the Red Sea in November in support of the Palestinian people, Sayyed al-Houthi ‘has been treated like a latter-day Che Guevara, his portrait and speeches shared on social media across five continents.’ It emphasized that although it remains challenging to assess the consequences of the attacks, the Yemeni operations created a gap in the global economy. The operations, according to the piece, turned the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement into ‘heroes for Arab and Muslim youths who embrace the Palestinian cause,’ and even influenced Western progressives. Elsewhere, the piece indicated that the U.S.-British aggression did not deter the Yemeni Armed Forces, adding that ‘since staking claim to the Palestinian cause,’ the Yemeni forces ‘have come to seem unstoppable.’” 

Even though the U.S. corporate and government-controlled media regurgitates the political line of the Biden administration which attributes the military capacity of the resistance forces from Hamas and the other nine brigades fighting the IDF in Gaza, to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) in Iraq and the anti-occupation groupings in Syria, to assistance provided by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran has denied providing military support to these groupings although it is in political agreement with the war against the IDF and its imperialist allies.

Biden has failed to effectively deflect the attention of millions of people in the U.S. from the siege on Gaza and the expanding regional resistance to Zionism and imperialism. If these militarist adventures by the White House are not brought to a halt, it could very well result in the ascendancy of another administration led by former President Donald J. Trump.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, who has developed an academic understanding of peacebuilding and is known as “the father of peace studies,” passed away on February 17, 2024, at the age of 93. A recipient of the Right Livelihood Award in 1987, Galtung was a dedicated peace advocate whose influence extended far beyond national borders.

“His legacy serves as a reminder of the power of compassion, empathy, and dialogue in resolving conflicts and building a more harmonious world,” said Ole von Uexkull, Right Livelihood’s Executive Director. “His tireless efforts to promote non-violent alternatives and address the root causes of conflict have left an indelible mark on the world.”

Born on October 24, 1930, in Oslo, Norway, Galtung dedicated his life to fostering understanding, dialogue, and reconciliation in areas of conflict globally. His holistic approach to peacebuilding, encompassing both structural and cultural dimensions, revolutionised the field of peace studies and inspired generations of peace activists. He has also created a new approach to economics that can more comfortably accommodate the overarching goals of peace, development, human growth and ecological balance.

Galtung’s contributions to peace and reconciliation extended beyond academia. He helped mediate more than 150 conflicts globally, working to bridge divides and build sustainable peace processes. He was also a strong advocate of “peace journalism” as a way to counteract war and violence-based reporting.

In 1993, Johan Galtung founded TRANSCEND, a network for Peace and Development, which is now running Transcend Peace University with a number of courses online, Transcend University Press, Transcend Media Service with material on current events, and Transcend Research Institute.

Galtung received the Right Livelihood Award in 1987 for “his systematic and multidisciplinary study of the conditions which can lead to peace.”

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Global Research Fundraising: Stoppt die “Iden des März” des Pentagons

***

Mit diesem Aufruf wird die Schweizer Bevölkerung aufgefordert, von der Schweizer Regierung den Austritt aus der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO) zu verlangen – und zwar mit sofortiger Wirkung.

Wir, die Schweizerinnen und Schweizer, haben das verfassungsmässige Recht auf Initiativen oder Referenden. Es ist höchste Zeit, dass wir, das Volk, von dieser Möglichkeit Gebrauch machen und den Schweizer Bundesrat und das Parlament auffordern, auf die Mitgliedschaft in der WHO zu verzichten, der Organisation, die kurz davor steht, zum weltweiten Diktator in Gesundheitsfragen zu werden, brutaler und radikaler, als es die Menschheit je zuvor erlebt hat. 

Die von der WHO auferlegten Covid-Mandate waren nur ein Vorläufer dessen, was kommen könnte.

In den letzten Jahren bereitete die WHO hinter verschlossenen Türen einen sogenannten “Pandemie-Vertrag” oder ein “Pandemie-Abkommen” vor, das Teil der 2005 eingeführten und jetzt drastisch überarbeiteten “Internationalen Gesundheitsvorschriften” (IGV) werden sollte.

Wenn diese beiden neuen “regelbasierten Ordnungen” (‚rules-based orders‘) von der Weltgesundheitsversammlung (WHA – 27. Mai bis 1. Juni 2024 in Genf) angenommen werden, stünde das Gesundheitsdiktat der WHO über der Souveränität jeder Nation und würde die gesundheitliche Selbstbestimmung der Vergangenheit angehören lassen.

Wenn die WHO eine Krankheit, ob künstlich erzeugt oder nicht, zu einer Pandemie erklärt, müssten ihre Befehle befolgt werden. Wenn die WHO eine allgemeine Impfung beschliesst, müssen ihre Anordnungen befolgt werden.

In der Schweiz würden solch drastische Änderungen der nationalen Gesundheitsgesetzgebung eine Änderung der Bundesverfassung erfordern. Nach der Schweizer Verfassung selbst müssten solche Änderungen vom Schweizer Volk per Referendum genehmigt werden. Ein solches Referendum hätte gute Chancen vom Volk abgelehnt zu werden.

Um auf eine Volksabstimmung zu verzichten, sieht es so aus als arbeite die Schweizer Regierung – Bundesrat und Parlament – derzeit an einer Vorabänderung der nationalen Schweizer Gesundheitsgesetzgebung, damit diese den Anforderungen eines möglicherweise bevorstehenden WHO-Pandemieabkommens und der neuen IGV entspricht. Eine Verfassungsänderung wäre dann möglicherweise nicht mehr nötig, da sich die neuen Schweizer Gesundheitsstandards mit dem potenziellen neuen WHO-Diktat decken würden.

Dies soll halb im Verborgenen geschehen. Die meisten Bürger wissen es nicht. Die Schweiz soll – laut Verfassung – eine Demokratie und ein Land der politischen Neutralität sein; ein Land mit Selbstbestimmung und Souveränität in der Entscheidungsfindung, in dem die Stimme des Volkes und seine aktive Beteiligung zählen.

Das war einmal.

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Dieser Aufruf geht auch an den Schweizer Bundesrat und das Parlament.

Schämen Sie sich nicht, nach dem Covid- und Vaxx-Betrug, den Sie den Menschen auferlegt haben, der Bevölkerung die Ihre Gehälter und Pensionen bezahlt, uns, das Volk, erneut zu verraten – mit einer allenfalls vorauseilenden Zustimmung zu den neuen repressiven WHO-Regeln?

Wie wird Gesundheit definiert? Nach der WHO-Definition schließt Gesundheit auch den “Klimawandel”-Betrug ein, der bereits für das Übermaß an Dengue-Fieber in Brasilien und Malaria in Afrika verantwortlich gemacht wird – was die WHO und Bill Gates dazu veranlasst hat, Milliarden von gentechnisch veränderten (GMO) “impfenden” Moskitos freizusetzen. Sie haben bisher zu einem 400-prozentigen Anstieg des Dengue-Fiebers in Brasilien geführt, und in Afrika grassiert die Malaria trotz oder wegen der GMO-Moskitos.

Alle “klimabedingten Gesundheitsprobleme”, die von der WHO so definiert werden, würden ebenfalls unter die WHO-Gesundheitstyrannei fallen.

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Wie viele Menschen haben in den letzten drei Jahren ihre Angehörigen durch die giftigen Covid-Injektionen verloren? Tausende, vielleicht Zehntausende sind allein in der Schweiz an den Vaxxen gestorben, ein Vielfaches von denen, die an Covid starben, wenn man ehrlich rechnet. Wir wissen, dass Ehrlichkeit kein Teil des offiziellen Covid-Narrativs war und ist.

Eine konservative Zahl besagt, dass weltweit 17 Millionen Todesfälle auf die Impfung zurückzuführen sind. Eine realistischere Zahl geht eher in die Hundert Millionen, und das Schlimmste steht uns noch bevor, so Dr. Michael Yeadon, ehemaliger Vizepräsident und Leiter der Pfizer-Forschungsabteilung.

Damit Sie es wissen:

Gleichzeitig erlaubt der Bundesrat durch den kantonalen Föderalismus die Förderung der pathologischen, von Soros finanzierten Transgender-Woke-Agenda in der ganzen Schweiz, auch in den Schulen, und gibt Kindern bereits im Alter von 11 Jahren die Möglichkeit, ohne elterliche Einmischung über ihr Geschlecht zu entscheiden.

Diese Agenda wird auch vom Weltwirtschaftsforum (WEF), der WHO und ja, den Vereinten Nationen – den Eugenikern – gefördert. Homosexuelle und Transgender-Menschen können sich nicht fortpflanzen.

Seien Sie sich auch bewusst, dass jede neue “Impfung”, selbst die für Neugeborene empfohlenen, in Zukunft der mRNA-Typ sein wird, wie von Pfizer, Bill Gates und der WHO bereits angekündigt wurde. Der mRNA-Gen-verändernde Typ ist dafür bekannt, dass er im besten Fall das Autoimmunsystem reduziert und ein Spike-Protein produziert, dessen eine Eigenschaft ein schneller oder langsamer Killer ist – Herzmuskelentzündung, Hirnschlag, Thrombose, aggressive Turbokrebse und mehr.

Es ist auch bekannt, dass die mRNA-Impfungen die Fruchtbarkeit sowohl bei Frauen als auch bei Männern massiv verringern.

Zur Erinnerung: Das oberste Ziel des WEF, der WHO und der UNO-Agenda 2030, die wir heute erleben, ist eine drastische weltweite Entvölkerung, beginnend mit den westlichen Industriestaaten.

Lassen Sie uns, die Schweizer, Vorreiter für den Rest der Welt sein, indem wir unsere verfassungsmässigen Rechte einfordern und unsere Regierung auffordern, JETZT aus der WHO auszutreten.

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Peter Koenig ist geopolitischer Analyst und ehemaliger Ökonom bei der Weltbank und der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO), wo er insgesamt über 30 Jahre lang in der ganzen Welt tätig war. Er schreibt regelmäßig für Online-Zeitschriften und ist Autor von Implosion – Ein Wirtschaftsthriller über Krieg, Umweltzerstörung und Konzerngier; sowie Mitautor von Cynthia McKinneys Buch “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter ist Mitarbeiter des Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Er ist auch Senior Fellow des Chongyang Instituts der Renmin Universität in Peking.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

British journalist and author Owen Jones recently made a video describing in excruciating detail Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Many others have also reported on this. Medical Aid CEO Melanie Ward says that “children are being starved at the fastest rate the world has ever seen.”

Jones concludes that Israel’s ruthless actions – publicly supported by Western governments at a time when the world is seeing  them in real time – could prove the downfall of the West.

He points out that “Western governments have openly facilitated some of the worst crimes of our age” and concludes: “I don’t think the West is ever going to recover from this.”

It’s important to examine why the West is taking such irrational, immoral, and self-destructive actions.

The causation is clear, although relatively few are willing to mention it, and there’s always a cost in stating it. The major factor in this potentially catastrophic situation is the pervasive and extremely powerful influence of the pro-Israel lobby.

There are highly influential lobbies for Israel in many countries, including the UK, France (also see this), and Europe in general.

In this piece I will focus on the United States. Since in today’s world the US is considered the world’s most powerful country, the lobby is especially active here.

However, as I document in my book, the importance of the United States to the establishment of Israel was recognized even before that – over a century ago, in the early years of the movement to create a Jewish state on land that was 95% non-Jewish. As I report:

One of the founders of political Zionism, Max Nordau, wrote a few years after the [1897] Basel conference, “Zionism’s only hope is the Jews of America.”

At that time, and for decades after, the large majority of Jewish Americans were not Zionists. In fact, many actively opposed Zionism. In the coming years, however, Zionists were to woo them assiduously with every means at hand. The extent to which Nordau’s hope was eventually realized is indicated by the statement by a prominent author on Jewish history, Naomi Cohen, who in 2003 wrote, “but for the financial support and political pressure of American Jews… Israel might not have been born in 1948.”

To this might be added Zionists’ success in influencing American politicians, the media, and much of the general public.

While there are many Jewish Israelis and Jewish Americans who fervently oppose Israeli actions, their efforts are eclipsed by virtually all the national Jewish establishment organizations in the US.  These have multi-million dollar budgets, enormous reach, and falsely imply that they represent all Jewish Americans, even though a growing number impose Israeli violence.

These organizations continue to support Israel even in the midst of today’s carnage in Gaza.

For years, ambitious politicians from both parties have competed to be more pro-Israel than anyone else, repeatedly vowing their loyalty to Israel and its alleged right to exist.

Numerous pro-Israel billionaires (some of them are listed here) donate to political parties with the condition that they support Israel. (It is difficult to find any American billionaires who donate on behalf of full rights for Palestinians.)

In addition, Israel partisans are embedded in the government and successfully promoted the devastating Iraq War. Pro-Israel organizations and individuals have similarly long pushed for war against Iran.

 

New York Times advertisement demonizing Iran with the list of groups that paid for it.

Individuals close to Israel have repeatedly been investigated for leaking classified information to Israel, but these investigations are almost always quashed.

Pro-Israel individuals play a major role in news media, sometimes at the top.

While on occasion there are excellent, accurate media reports on Israel-Palestine, in general US news coverage is Israel-centric and often extremely flawed.

The situation is similar for popular media, where Hollywood plays a significant role in influencing attitudes about Israel, Arabs, and Muslims. Top movie producers have worked with Israel to defend its actions.

Similarly, social media and internet companies include numerous Israel partisans and periodically shadow ban or outright ban organizations and individuals that provide factual information on the situation.

Lobby organizations also target campuses.

A study found that advocacy organizations supporting Israel spent roughly 100 times more than their opposition.

A number of books have documented the influence of the Israel lobby in the US, including: They Dare to Speak Out, by Paul Findley; The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt; and The Lobby: Jewish political power and American foreign policy, by Edward Tivnan.

While pro-Israel organizations and individuals attacked these books and tried to claim they are “antisemitic,” these well-documented books make clear that there have long been Jewish groups and individuals opposing the lobby and supporting Palestinian rights.

Experts Raise the Alarm

Meanwhile, intelligence, military, and diplomatic experts have periodically pointed out the damage Israel is doing to the United States, but the media rarely report their statements.

Below are a few:

(More videos on the topic are here and here.)

It is time for more Americans to learn these facts and to speak out. It is time to stop allowing Influential groups of all sorts to cancel those whose information they dislike.

If Americans are to avoid their country’s decline and protect their families from its impact, it is essential to diagnose the cause and address it.

Until enough people are more concerned about supporting genocide and ethnic cleansing than they are of spurious accusations of antisemitism and are willing to speak about these uncomfortable facts, this lobby on behalf of a ruthless, supremacist foreign country will continue to dominate US policies, causing intolerable tragedy abroad and potentially fatal destruction at home.

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Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel. She first spent time in Gaza and the West Bank in early 2001 as a freelance journalist.

Featured image is from IPN

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

It’s hard for me even to begin. I shall have to beware, as a man must beware of a rabid fox that he wants to chase out of his garden: how will he approach it so that it does not bite and infect him?

I could not even begin to write about this monstrosity until after the judgment had been pronounced.

One of the two women, a single mother, 33, was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for attempted murder and ill-treatment, and the other, her lover and friend, 40, to 14 years’ imprisonment for incitement and counselling.

The first-named did not deny the facts, but kept making excuses, saying she was just listening to her friend’s advice. 

The psychiatric expert stated that the woman suffers from a serious and irreversible psychological disorder which may lead her to repeat the acts resulting in bodily harm in the future.

She herself claimed that she had only wanted to raise her son, 12, who had allegedly rebelled against her and had been aggressive towards her, to make him “a successful and responsible person, both academically and privately”. 

Similarly, the expert characterised her friend as mentally irreparably defective.

The latter admitted that she had advised her mother on educational measures, but claimed that she was unaware of the extremes to which they had gone. (During the time of the Covid-19 isolation, the two women lived together with their mother, but later the mentor moved away as she found a new partner.) During last week’s trial, the prosecution presented evidence that the two women were aware of the extent and intent of their actions.

At a critical moment, the mother searched the internet for information on how such acts are punished. The remorse she showed at the hearing, where she was once in tears (and another time after the verdict was handed down), and her statement that she doesn’t understand how such a thing could have happened, do not match up with the video of her son in the cage, twitching in a comatose state, upon whom she comments, “Look at the idiot what he’s at!” 

The jury also found that there was no doubt that her older friend was the source of ideas what to do with the child — the one that had instigated the educational methods used by the mother. 

The Austrian court also ordered punitive damages of €80,000 for both perpetrators. This small amount perhaps says something about the poor social situation of the convicted women. 

The verdict was decided by an eight-member jury, which took 7 hours to reach its decision.

The abuse had been going on for years, but had intensified to the final degree, allegedly already in June, and absolutely certainly from the beginning of September 2022. The social services became aware of the problems in the family, they visited once in October and once in November, they noticed “abnormalities”, but they considered that there was no need to separate the child from the mother or to take any other action.

The mother’s educational measures were as follows: 

She starved the child

She locked him in a dog cage measuring 57 x 83 x 63 cm for punishment and for the time when she was away from home, including overnight.

She taped his mouth, beat him (and also stabbed him with a stick through the cage cracks), poured ice water over his clothes, and then left the window in the basement in which he was kept wide open so that the temperature in the room was only a few degrees above zero.

“He was in the cage because he said he was going to throw himself out of the window,” she stated in her defence.

We know that she also mentally abused him, for example by humiliating, cursing and scolding him. 

After seeing the boy’s twitches in the ultimate coma, the friend contacted a social worker who was not connected to the previous visits by the social services, and this social worker then persuaded the mother to call an ambulance after all.

The description suggests that the social worker and the counsellor had been well acquainted from before.

When the paramedics arrived, the child’s body temperature measured less than 27 degrees Celsius and he weighed only 75 pounds. 

He survived by a miracle of emergency medicine. But the aforementioned expert also stated that he is “psychologically, without a doubt, irreparably destroyed”.

The verdict is not yet final.

The above did not happen, as you might think, here in backward Montenegro, about which I have dug up the following statistics on the opinion of Montenegrins as to what are the permanently permissible, occasionally permissible and impermissible behaviours by parents towards their child:

As you see from the bottom three lines, there is a majority consensus that puts shouting on a child, a swish with a cane and the barehand slap on the bottom among permissible educational measures.

Yes, people here are old-fashioned and they like to stick to their traditions.

But every day, on my walks about Podgorica, I witness the bustle of children being left by their parents to play happily unsupervised among themselves. 

There is a transformer station not far from our house, in the middle of the convergence of three roads, and there is also a fenced-in basketball and football court added to this triangle plot. I  keep seeing children there with the ball both in the rain and during the northern winds. They play, bigger and smaller mixed together. 

No, the trial described above, which concluded this Friday with a conviction that is not yet final, took place in Krems, Austria, and the horrible acts I am describing took place in 2022 (and probably even before that) in the idyllic Tyrolean valley of Weidenthal.

I stumbled upon the newspaper report by chance: what I was really looking for was the streaming coverage of the elimination knockout between the Pustertal and Olimpija hockey teams. I found a link, and when I got to the page in question, I was also offered a link to their ‘Panorama’ report on the Krems trial. The match had not yet started, so I indulged myself with a quick read – and that was that. 

I didn’t even watch the game. Couldn’t.

The fate of the poor boy haunted me through the night and into the next day.

In fact, even now, I am seized by that feeling of utter helplessness and despair that, adhering to the principle of empathy, naturally comes over when one reads something like this.

Central Europe, and especially the German part of it, is considered to be the ‘pot’ in which this kind of behaviour is readily cooked: the pot is made of iron, polished by tarnished decency, and the contents, hidden under the lid, simmer unseen until they sometimes happen to overboil. 

“Of Monsters and of Conquerors”. The Children of Palestine

I’m writing this part after another sleepless night. Yesterday, I realised that I was being unfair in my appalment over the case. Here I was, shedding tears over only one life lost, while every day during the last five months I’ve been witnessing on the TV screen exactly the same sufferings. The only difference was that the suffering of the Palestinian children was worsening almost imperceptibly through time – giving me a chance to gradually develop a resistance. I got used to the bad news and learnt to ignore them.

Only this morning, after having been unexpectedly acquainted with yet another case of sadism in the middle of Europe (this time in Lower Saxonia), the shield of ennui has crumbled and I stand here in awe and horror and despair.

So at last, my heart cries for every one of the at least 600,000 children in Gaza, condemned to unimaginable suffering — until death from famine, if not from shooting, by those who demand that Palestinians do not “express their ingratitude”.

Those who are saying in scorn: “Kill a man and you’re a murderer. Kill a million of them, and there’s a conqueror.”

But they are wrong: the crime is the same, only the dimensions are enormously enlarged.

There are even additional similarities, like the perverse connection between the mother and her counsellor, the doer and the supporter. 

What could be a just punishment for both?

But wait – the punishment for 30,000 murdered and 600,000 tortured children is even not defined by the Law.

Nobody could expect it to happen, not after Nuremberg.

And so, there seems to be no judge, no prosecutor, no jury, just the terrible silence of Yahweh who should step in as He used to do in other times when His chosen people had been drowning in sin.

Maybe He just cannot fathom – maybe the dimensions of the crime are too far beyond comprehension even for a god.

 

Emaciated 10-year-old Palestinian child, Yazan al-Kafarneh, now dead from severe malnourishment and insufficient healthcare. Source: Al-Jazeera

 

If you think it can be of some use, please, spread the word.

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Written on March the 5^th 2024 by Branko, citizen of a former Austrian province.

Featured image: Displaced Palestinians wait to receive free food from a volunteer-run hospice near Nasser Medical Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Tuesday, January 9, 2024. Bloomberg

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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On Monday, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that many large and small economies around the world have expressed willingness to start trading in rupee terms with India, which could be a “game-changing” development for India’s trade. This is another important step taken towards de-dollarisation and would better protect India’s economy in case of any future US-led sanctions.

India’s Union Minister said some of the countries that have expressed willingness to start trading in rupees include neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, as well as Gulf countries.

“At some point, more and more developed countries and countries in the Far East will also join the bandwagon,” he said, adding that “more and more countries are realising the advantages of trading in their own domestic currencies and a shift towards direct transactions between local currencies is gaining traction.”

He said that more and more countries are realising the benefits of trading in their domestic currencies, and there is a growing shift towards direct transactions between local currencies.

“Gradually, the conscience is setting in that rather than converting all the transactions into a third currency, both ways add significantly to transaction costs,” the minister said.

It is recalled that the United Arab Emirates was the first to accept payment in rupees for crude oil.

“We started with the UAE. The UAE was one of the first countries to accept this. It’s now picking up traction. We get a lot of countries who come and talk to us that they would like to also initiate direct transactions between the local currency and the rupee,” Goyal said.

India has already started trading in rupees with neighbouring countries like Nepal and Bhutan. Additionally, the rupee has been included in Sri Lanka’s list of designated foreign currencies to facilitate trade. Changes have been made in the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) to support the use of the rupee in international trade with the aim of establishing the rupee as a global currency.

Using rupees and other local currencies is especially important in maintaining longstanding New Delhi-Moscow ties in the face of US sanctions against the Eurasian country.

Trade turnover between India and Russia increased in 2023 to a record $64 billion, with India’s imports of Russian products increasing by 1.8 times to $60.1 billion and exports of Indian goods increasing by 1.4 times to $4 billion. Russia is now the second-largest supplier of goods to India, trailing only China, and Russia has also overtaken Saudi Arabia to become India’s fourth-largest trading partner.

Although the United States remained India’s main trading partner last year, by the end of the year, the trade volume between the two countries declined by 9% to $119 billion. This is followed by trade volume with China at $116 billion, which declined by 2%, and trade volume with the United Arab Emirates at $78 billion, which declined by 7%.

Meanwhile, according to Arun Garodia, Chairman of the Engineering Export Promotion Council of India (EEPC), a body of over 12,000 small engineering goods exporters, during the current fiscal year ending in March, Indian exporters are expected to receive over a billion dollars’ worth of payments in rupees from Russia.

“Exporters are happy that they are receiving payments in rupees for exports to Russia,” he said.

Indian commerce ministry data showed that the South Asian country’s total exports to Russia rose 46.2% to $2.7 billion in the first eight months of fiscal year 2023/24, ending in March, while imports rose 54.8% to $40.5 billion during the same period. This growth in trade would not have been possible if India had not taken active steps in de-dollarisation by advancing trade in rupees and other currencies.

Following the launch of the special military operation against Ukraine, Russia was banned from using the SWIFT financial messaging system and, therefore, the US dollar to settle payments. Although this was supposed to create difficulties in India-Russia trade, India overtook Europe as the main buyer of offshore oil from Russia in 2022 and began buying Russian oil for UAE dirhams and rubles.

By imposing such measures against Russia, Washington accelerated de-dollarisation as it forced large economies like India to pursue what Indian foreign minister EAM Jaishankar terms “strategic autonomy.” India and other countries like Brazil did not end their relations with Russia just for the sake of the US, and Western sanctions only forced such countries to find ulterior methods and thus accelerate the de-dollarisation process.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

AI Is Starting to Scare People – And So It Should!

By Julian Rose, March 11, 2024

There’s no doubt that man has always had an instinct for material inventiveness and a fascination in advancing technological developments – coupled with a desire to make things go ever faster. But this has now taken us to a place where, if what it means to be human is to be respected, one should dare go no further. 

Missiles Near Russia, F-35s with Thermonuclear Bombs… Is NATO Ready for War?

By Drago Bosnic, March 11, 2024

NATO’s never-ending encroachment on Russia’s borders is breaking world records in mere days. Just last week, a new major airbase was opened in Albania, despite the fact that Tirana effectively has no air force. NATO was also given full exterritoriality rights, meaning that Albania officially gave up on its already highly dubious “sovereignty”.

Complicity in Genocide — The Legal Case Against the Biden Administration

By Azadeh Shahshahani and Sofia Veronica Montez, March 11, 2024

Early this month, a federal judge dismissed a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charging U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken with complicity in the Israeli-led genocide in Gaza. But while many media outlets were quick to report on the case not moving forward, they largely missed a key aspect of the ruling.

Canadian Government Plans ‘Totalitarian Show Trial’ of Heroic Doctor. Legal Trickery Would Silence Dr. Charles Hoffe

By Walter Gelles, March 11, 2024

Prominent Canadian physician  Dr. Charles Hoffe has spoken out courageously to warn people of the very serious dangers of the Covid mRNA genetic “vaccines”. He now faces trial from the Canadian health authorities aiming to silence him and effectively destroy his medical practice.

How the ‘Fight Against Antisemitism’ Became a Shield for Israel’s Genocide. Jonathan Cook

By Jonathan Cook, March 11, 2024

If you read the establishment media, you might conclude that a serious battle is being waged by Israel and its most ardent supporters to tackle an apparent new wave of antisemitism in the West.

20-Year-Old Student Died Suddenly, COVID-19 Vaccine-mandated Brain Aneurysms

By Dr. William Makis, March 11, 2024

21-year-old Brittany McCarthy and 20-year-old Sofia Padoan were both mandated COVID-19 vaccines to be able to attend University. Both wanted to be healthcare workers. Both died from aneurysms.

Desperation Looms Over NATO’s War in Ukraine

By Joachim Hagopian, March 11, 2024

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky placed all his eggs in two heavily fortified entrenchments in the Donbass cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, where the longest, most intense and costly fighting of this two plus year war was lost.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Haiti is in the headlines again and, as usual, the headlines on Haiti are mostly negative. They are also largely false. Haiti, they tell us, is overrun by “gang violence.” Haiti is “a failed state,” standing on the verge of “anarchy” and teetering on the edge of “collapse.” Haiti, they tell us, can only be stabilized and saved through foreign military invasion and occupation. We have seen these stories before. We know their purpose. They serve to cover up the true origins of the “crisis” in Haiti while justifying foreign military intervention and setting up an attack on Haiti’s sovereignty.

What is the reality behind the headlines? The reality is that the crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism. Those countries calling for military intervention – the US, France, Canada – have created the conditions making military intervention appear necessary and inevitable. The same countries calling for intervention are the same countries that will benefit from intervention, not the Haitian people. And for twenty years, those countries that cast Haiti as a failed state actively worked to destroy Haiti’s government while imposing foreign colonial rule.

On Haiti, the position of the Black Alliance for Peace has been consistent and clear. We reject the sensationalist headlines in the Western media with their racist assumptions that Haiti is ungovernable, and the Haitian people cannot govern themselves. We support the efforts of the Haitian people to assert their sovereignty and reclaim their country. We denounce the ongoing imperialist onslaught on Haiti and demand the removal of Haiti’s foreign, colonial rulers.

What’s Going On in Haiti?

• The crisis in Haiti is a crisis of imperialism – but what does this mean? It means that the failure of governance in Haiti is not something internal to Haiti, but it is a result of the concerted effort on the part of the west to gut the Haitian state and destroy popular democracy in Haiti.
• Haiti is currently under occupation by the US/UN and Core Group, a self-appointed cabal of foreign entities who effectively rule this country.
• The occupation of Haiti began in 2004 with the US/France/Canada-sponsored coup d’état against Haiti’s democratically elected president. The coup d’etat was approved by the UN Security Council. It established an occupying military force (euphemistically called a “peacekeeping” mission), with the acronym MINUSTAH. Though the MINUSTAH mission officially ended in 2017, the UN office in Haiti was reconstituted as BIHUH. BINUH, along with the Core Group, continues to have a powerful role in Haitian affairs.
• Over the past four years, the Haitian masses have mobilized and protested against an illegal government, imperial meddling, the removal of fuel subsidies leading to rising costs of living, and insecurity by elite-funded armed groups. However, these protests have been snuffed out by the US-installed puppet government.
• Since 2021, attempts to control Haiti by the US have intensified. In that year, Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moïse was assassinated and Ariel Henry was installed by the US and UN Core Group as the de facto prime minister. In the wake of the assassination of Moïse and the installation of Henry, the U.S. has sought to build a coalition of foreign states willing to send military forces to occupy Haiti, and to deal with Haiti’s ostensible “gang” problem.
• The armed groups (the so-called “gangs”) mainly in the capital city of Haiti should be understood as “paramilitary” forces, as they are made up of former (and current) Haitian police and military elements.  These paramilitary forces are known to work for some of Haiti’s elite, including, some say, Ariel Henry (Haiti’s former de facto prime minister). It should also be noted that Haiti does not manufacture guns; the guns and ammunition come primarily from the US and the Dominican Republic; and the US has consistently rejected calls for an arms embargo.
• Moreover, as Haitian organizations have demonstrated, it is the UN and Core Group occupation that has enabled the “gangsterization” of the country. When we speak of “gangs,” we must recognize that the real and most powerful gangs in the country are the US, the Core Group, and the illegal UN office in Haiti – all of whom helped to create the current crisis.
• Most recently, Ariel Henry traveled to Kenya to sign an agreement with Kenya prime minister William Ruto authorizing the deployment of 1,000 Kenyan police officers as the head of a multinational military force whose ostensible purpose was to combat Haiti’s gang violence. But the US strategy for Haiti appears to have collapsed as Henry has been unable to return to Haiti and there is renewed challenge to the constitutionality of that deployment.
• The US is now scrambling for control, seeking to force Henry’s resignation while looking for a new puppet to serve as a figurehead for foreign rule of Haiti. While Haiti currently does not have a government, it has not descended into chaos or anarchy. The paramilitaries, it seems, are waiting for their orders to act, while the US strategy for Haiti is in crisis.

Why Haiti?

BAP’S Position on the Current Situation in Haiti

• BAP, as with many Haitian and other organizations, have consistently argued against a renewed foreign military intervention.
• We have persistently demanded the end of the foreign occupation of Haiti. This includes the dissolution of the Core Group, the UN office in Haiti (BINHU), and the end of the constant meddling of the US, along with its junior partners, CARICOM, and Brazil’s Lula.
• We have denounced the governments of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) (with the exception of Venezuela and Cuba), for supporting US plans for armed intervention in Haiti and the denial of Haitian sovereignty.
• We have denounced CARICOM leaders, and especially Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, for not only supporting US planned armed intervention in Haiti and offering their police and soldiers for the mission, but for also following US and Core Group dictates on the way forward in Haiti. Haiti’s solutions should come from Haitian people through broad consensus. CARICOM leaders cannot claim to be helping Haiti when they are acting as neo-colonial stooges of the US and the Core Group.
• We have denounced the role of Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, for not only continuing Brazil’s role in the Core Group, but for also leading the charge, along with the criminal US government, for foreign armed military invasion of Haiti. We remind everyone that it was Lula’s government that led the military wing of the 2004 violent UN occupation of Haiti. Brazil’s soldiers led the mission for 13 years (until 2017).
• In solidarity with Haitian groups, we have denounced the UN approved, US-funded, Kenyan-led foreign armed invasion and occupation of Haiti. We are adamant that a U.S./UN-led armed foreign intervention in Haiti is not only illegitimate, but illegal. We support Haitian people and civil society organizations who have been consistent in their opposition to foreign armed military intervention – and who have argued that the problems of Haiti are a direct result of the persistent and long-term meddling of the United States, the United Nations, and the Core Group.
• We demand US accountability for flooding Haiti with military grade weapons. We demand that the US enforce the UN-stated arms embargo against the Haitian and U.S. elite who import guns into the country.
• We will continue to support our comrades as they fight for a free and sovereign Haiti.

Long live Haiti! 

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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Gone 24 hours later.. 😔

“Railee was born on August 18, 2016, to my oldest son and his wife. They live in a tiny town in Virginia. My husband and I live in Northern California.

I told him we had to visit her, so we packed up our car and headed east, planned to make it a… pic.twitter.com/M6iYqtSWRI

— Jessica Rojas 🇺🇸💪 (@catsscareme2021) February 23, 2024

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Our thanks to Dr. William Makis for bringing this to our attention.

Aparentemente, Kiev não aprendeu com os seus recentes erros no campo de batalha e está a planejar novas manobras cruéis que certamente trarão derrotas humilhantes. De acordo com informações fornecidas por um importante responsável local, a Ucrânia planeia lançar uma nova contra-ofensiva contra a Rússia em 2024, tentando assim impedir novos avanços territoriais de Moscou. Obviamente, tal medida terá graves consequências para o regime, prejudicando ainda mais as forças neonazistas.

A afirmação foi feita pelo chefe das forças terrestres ucranianas, tenente-general Aleksandr Pavlyuk, durante entrevista à TV local. Afirmou que o exército do país quer impedir o progresso territorial russo, o que permitirá o reagrupamento das tropas ucranianas, retirando do campo de batalha os soldados mais exaustos e destacando novas unidades capazes de operar contra-ataques e manobras ofensivas.

“(Precisamos) criar um grupo de ataque e realizar ações de contra-ataque (…) Acho que em breve estabilizaremos a situação. (Nós) fazemos todo o possível para preparar as tropas para ações mais ativas e para tomar a iniciativa”, disse durante a entrevista.

Como é sabido, recentemente, o exército ucraniano sofreu pesadas perdas no campo de batalha, com os territórios controlados pelos russos aumentando cada vez mais. A principal derrota recente ocorreu na importante cidade de Avdeevka, onde o recém-nomeado comandante-em-chefe das forças armadas ucranianas, Aleksandr Syrsky, foi forçado a retirar as suas tropas para evitar sofrer ainda mais baixas, dada a elevada letalidade das operações. na região.

Syrsky, que anteriormente tinha sido o principal comandante ucraniano durante o “moedor de carne” de Artymovsk (chamado de “Bakhmut” pelos ucranianos) certamente não queria retirar as suas tropas tão facilmente. Mas as circunstâncias materiais e humanas do exército ucraniano obrigaram o comandante a tomar tal decisão: simplesmente, já não há gente suficiente para lutar na Ucrânia, sendo o poder de mobilização militar do país afetado pelas consequências demográficas da guerra. Com a escassez de tropas, não é possível travar batalhas prolongadas de desgaste, razão pela qual a retirada é a única opção.

Perante uma situação militar como esta, obviamente não é apropriado planejar qualquer grande ofensiva. A Ucrânia simplesmente não está em posição de escolher o que fazer no campo de batalha, uma vez que Moscou é o lado que controla as ações do conflito. O máximo que Kiev pode fazer na sua situação atual é tentar minimizar os danos, retirando as tropas e tentando implementar técnicas de combate assimétricas – se não houver possibilidade de rendição ou negociações de paz.

O principal problema, porém, é que o regime precisa continuar a chamar a atenção dos meios de comunicação internacionais se quiser receber mais armas e equipamento. Sem a assistência militar da OTAN, a Ucrânia não é capaz de lutar – e sem operações psicológicas com elevado impacto na opinião pública ocidental, os países da OTAN não têm argumentos para enviar armas para Kiev. Assim, como “solução”, o regime continua a tentar promover “grandes ofensivas” sem qualquer valor estratégico relevante, com a única intenção de gerar um impacto psicológico na opinião pública global e legitimar a ajuda militar.

Na verdade, qualquer outra “contra-ofensiva” terá inevitavelmente o mesmo resultado que a anterior: a Ucrânia será neutralizada durante os primeiros movimentos do contra-ataque, perderá um grande número de tropas e terá de recuar de regiões estrategicamente relevantes em face do avanço russo. No entanto, ao contrário das tentativas de ataque anteriores, desta vez a Ucrânia enfrentará uma situação ainda mais grave para repor as suas perdas, uma vez que as suas reservas humanas são cada vez mais escassas. Na prática, a medida será verdadeiramente suicida. Kiev estará simplesmente a dar um passo profundo em direção à sua derrota definitiva.

Os detalhes desta suposta nova “contraofensiva” ainda não são claros. Syrsky ainda não comentou o caso, com Pavlyuk apenas fazendo uma declaração pessoal durante uma entrevista. Mais informações sobre o tema serão certamente reveladas num futuro próximo. É importante lembrar que a tentativa de contra-ofensiva anterior foi repetidamente adiada, dadas as condições adversas no campo de batalha – razão pela qual é provável que o movimento atual também demore muito para ocorrer.

A única certeza por agora em todo este cenário é que, se realmente lançar uma nova “contraofensiva”, Kiev estará a tomar uma medida suicida, com consequências devastadoras para as suas tropas e para as suas posições no campo de batalha. É pouco provável que a Ucrânia consiga se recuperar novamente de um novo “moedor de carne”, razão pela qual as autoridades do país devem ser cautelosas antes de lançar medidas militares perigosas.

Lucas Leiroz De Almeida

 

Artigo em inglês :

https://infobrics.org/post/40677/

Imagem : InfoBrics

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Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Early this month, a federal judge dismissed a case brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) charging U.S. President Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken with complicity in the Israeli-led genocide in Gaza.

But while many media outlets were quick to report on the case not moving forward, they largely missed a key aspect of the ruling:

the judge did not dismiss the case on its merits but rather because it fell ​“outside the court’s limited jurisdiction,” therefore rejecting it on technical grounds.

In fact, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White’s statement appeared to uphold some of plaintiff’s key charges in the case:

​“Both the uncontroverted testimony of the plaintiffs and the expert opinion proffered at the hearing on these motions as well as statements made by various officers of the Israeli government indicate that the ongoing military siege in Gaza is intended to eradicate a whole people and therefore plausibly falls within the international prohibition against genocide.”

The judge went further, urging Biden and his administration officials to scrutinize ​“the results of their unflagging support” for the Israeli government’s assault on Gaza.

Judge White was not alone in his appraisal. The case, first heard on January 26 in front of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, saw roughly 100 human rights and humanitarian aid groups write briefs supporting CCR’s charges against the Biden administration. 

These briefs make it abundantly clear that the Biden administration, in its steadfast support of the Israeli government, is complicit in the ongoing genocide, the displacement of approximately 80% of Palestinians from their homes and the deaths of more than 29,000 so far in this latest chapter of a 76‑year-long Nakba (catastrophe) that never ended.

CCR’s lawsuit underscored the plight of a Palestinian people asserting their humanity and refusing to be sacrificed at the altar of U.S. geopolitical interests. By looking at the charges and evidence presented against the Biden administration, a clear picture emerges: The United States is actively aiding a campaign of mass slaughter in Gaza being carried out by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Active U.S. Support

The suit by CCR referenced the 1948 Genocide Convention—which tasks governments with preventing genocides and forbids their complicity in genocides perpetrated by another party — and the U.S. Genocide Convention Implementation Act, passed in 1988, which incorporates this mandate into U.S. law.

As multiple human rights advocates and experts such as Israeli historian and Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies Raz Segal have laid out, Israel is carrying out a ​“textbook case of genocide” in Gaza, backed by clear genocidal intent, laid bare in Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant’s Oct. 9 declaration:

​“We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly.”

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Biden’s more than one-hour speech in Congress without obvious mental crack-downs was completely out of line with Biden’s regular and quickly worsening health condition. Biden’s ability to perform for more than one hour in Congress can only have been due to a special and extremely hard cocktail of drugs and stimulants.

The effects from the special hard drug-mix Biden must have gotten for his 7 March 2024 State of the Union speech in Congress have worn off.

Probably even worse: Biden in the aftermath of his extra big drug-dose 7 March 2024 may well suffer from the hang-over effects of hard drugs – symptoms like fatigue, mental depression, and increased disorientation or even fits of hallucinations.

Two days later after his State of the Union speech, Biden has already returned to his usual lack of situational awareness. Biden’s unmissable Alzheimer and dementia symptoms are back in full public display – worse every day – all the time.

Biden again cannot even hold a few minutes talk without the most humiliating signs of dementia and Alzheimer.

• “the same building where our freedom came under assault on July 6^th” – (oops, should have been January 6^th)
• we cut the deficit, and we added more to the national deficit than any president – (clearly deranged)
• forgets the name of the Federal Reserve and its chief – refers disparagingly to him as “that outfit”
• “Send me to Congress” – (oops, should have been White House)
• “I know all these leaders of Europe … they pull me aside and say: ‘I can’t win again’ ”.

After the one-hour parenthesis of Biden’s probably drug-driven circus performance of rants, raised voicing, and anger in Congress, Biden is again getting more and more disoriented all the time. And remember, that Biden in any crisis situation will have to decide between nuclear war or not.

The US will in November 2024 choose between a possible US “leader” who doesn’t know what he says, where he is, who is who in France, Egypt and elsewhere, and what countries Mexico, Gaza, Ukraine etc. are affected by what conflict. Or another US leader who does know, but whom a lot of “liberals” will hate to see back in office.

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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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AIR CANADA – Ottawa, Ontario – Mar. 3, 2024 – 55 year old Pilot Anand Acharya died after an almost 2 year battle with brain cancer. He was a PhD and an Air Canada Pilot on Boeing 777.

 

 

DELTA – NYC – Feb. 16, 2024 – 58 year old Capt Geoffrey John Brock died unexpectedly on Feb. 16, 2024 during a layover in Honolulu, HI.

 

 

 

DELTA – NYC – Feb. 15, 2024 – 41 year old Michael David O’Leary died suddenly after a 1.5 month battle with cancer. In 2022, Mike began working for Delta Airlines at JFK Airport in New York City, flying domestic and international routes throughout the United States and the world.

 

 

Pilot Deaths in 2024

Pilot Deaths On Duty in 2023

Sep. 23, 2023 – Alaska Airlines Pilot Death – 37 year old Captain Eric McRae died suddenly in his hotel room during layover, was to fly that morning

Aug. 17, 2023 – IndiGo Flight (NAG-PNQ) Nagpur to Pune, India, 40 year old Pilot Manoj Subramanium died after collapsing at the boarding gate, about to board.

Aug. 16, 2023 – Qatar Airways Flight QR579 (DEL-DOH) Delhi to Doha, Qatar, 51 year old pilot collapsed as a passenger inflight and died, plane diverted to Dubai.

Aug. 14, 2023 – LATAM Flight LA505 (MIA-SCL) Miami to Santiago, Chile – 2 hours into 8hr flight, 56 year old Captain Ivan Andaur collapsed and died in the lavatory – plane diverted to Panama City!

July 16, 2023 – Small plane – 2006 Piper Meridian, flying from Westchester NY, crashed at Martha’s Vineyard Airport after pilot had medical emergency upon final approach and passenger took control of the plane and attempted a landing. Pilot, 79 year old Randolph Bonnist, died later in hospital.

June 4, 2023 – Small plane – Cessna Citation N611VG flying Tennessee to Long Island, fighter jets spotted pilot slumped over in cockpit unconscious, plane crashed and all onboard died

May 3, 2023 – Air Transat and Air Canada Pilot Eddy Vorperian, age 48, died suddenly during layover in Croatia

March 11, 2023 – British Airways (CAI-LHR) pilot died of heart attack in crew hotel in Cairo before a Cairo to London flight (name & age not released)

Military Pilot Incapacitations and Deaths

July 19, 2023 – 37 year old US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Andrew James Lingenfelter, of Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, died on July 19, 2023 after battle with Pancreatic Turbo Cancer

May 9, 2023 – United Airlines and US Air Force Pilot Lt. Col. Michael Fugett, age 46, died unexpectedly at his home

Pilot Deaths (Not On Duty)

Dec. 24, 2023 – Singapore Airlines – Captain Lee Meng Chye Martin died suddenly

Dec. 5, 2023 – Volaris (El Salvador) Pilot – 30s year old Jose Espinal – El Salvador Pilot for Volaris (El Salvador), Air Jazeera Airways (Kuwait) and former VECA & TACA Airlines, died suddenly on Dec.5, 2023.

Nov. 16, 2023 – Air India Pilot – 37 year old Air India Pilot Captain Himanil Kumar had cardiac arrest at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport during training

Oct. 18, 2023 – Austrian Airlines Pilot – 43 year old Christian Zimmerebner, AUA Austrian Airlines Pilot and member of Dorfgastein mountain rescue, died suddenly on Oct.18, 2023 due to “serious illness”

May 2023 – 4 Singapore Airlines pilots died suddenly in May 2023

May 26, 2023 – Singapore Airlines Pilot – Capt Sebestian Tan Aik Chuang: died May 26, 2023 (cancer)

May 25, 2023 – Singapore Airlines Pilot – Capt Tan Joo Huat Colin: died May 25, 2023 (sudden)

May 24, 2023 – Singapore Airlines Pilot – Capt Fernando Cid: died May 24, 2023 (cancer)

May 11, 2023 – Singapore Airlines Pilot – Capt Wee Loong: died May 11, 2023 (sudden death)

April 13, 2023 – Phil Thomas, graduate of Flight Training Pilot academy in Cadiz, Spain (FTEJerez) died suddenly.

March 17, 2023 – Westjet Pilot – 39 year old Benjamin Paul Vige died suddenly in Calgary

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

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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NATO’s never-ending encroachment on Russia’s borders is breaking world records in mere days. Just last week, a new major airbase was opened in Albania, despite the fact that Tirana effectively has no air force. NATO was also given full exterritoriality rights, meaning that Albania officially gave up on its already highly dubious “sovereignty”. Deployment of major ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) and strike platforms in the area can certainly bolster the belligerent alliance’s highly destabilizing presence in both Southeastern and Eastern Europe. And yet, this is not enough. Namely, on March 7, Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas confirmed that NATO would also station “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems in his country. While Lithuania doesn’t border mainland Russia, it has an extensive border with Belarus and Moscow’s Kaliningrad oblast (region).

“This year, the rotational air defense system will finally become operational, at least partially,” Anusauskas stated at a press conference in Vilnius, adding: “Our goal is to have a rotation similar to the air policing mission… This principle would not be a one-off thing for several months but would cover all of our calendar months and significantly increase our air defense capabilities.”

While the “Patriot” has been intentionally overhyped by the mainstream propaganda machine, particularly with laughable claims of shooting down “half of the Russian Aerospace Forces in a week”, the move can certainly be considered highly destabilizing.

It’s not yet clear how many of these systems could be deployed, but given the much smaller distances that it needs to cover than in Ukraine, deploying the “Patriot” in any of the Baltic states can certainly be more consequential.

Namely, the detection range of its AN/MPQ-65 radar (officially 150 km) could provide coverage into the airspace of both Belarus and the Kaliningrad oblast. In addition, Finland is acquiring similar, albeit more advanced air defense assets, including the Israeli “David’s Sling”, which has a significantly longer maximum engagement range. Amassing such SAM systems so close to Russia’s northwest is deeply destabilizing and antagonistic.

While other NATO member states in the relative vicinity of Russia’s borders also operate “Patriot” SAM systems, most notably Romania and (soon) Poland, both of these are far enough not to make the air defense system a strategic issue. On the other hand, other much longer-range weapons, such as the “Aegis Ashore” ABM (anti-ballistic missile) systems, are set to become fully operational in Poland in 2024, while another is already active in Romania (since at least 2016). It’s part of the wider ship-borne “Aegis” system that provides a level of strategic depth that neither the “Patriot” nor “David’s Sling” could. And while the system’s capabilities and effectiveness are certainly up for debate (particularly against Russian hypersonic missiles), the massive increase in their presence is of quantitative importance, which could at least partially ameliorate their qualitative shortcomings and other deficiencies.

And yet, this certainly isn’t the end of NATO’s highly destabilizing activities in Europe. Namely, its vassals and satellite states such as Finland are acquiring the F-35s, while also making it possible to accommodate other jets of the same type from the United States and other NATO member states. The forward presence of USAF F-35s in Eastern and Central Europe keeps expanding and getting ever closer to Russia.

Apart from Finland, it now includes Germany, Czechia and Poland, while the Dutch, Belgian and Italian F-35s will also be forward deployed to the area around the Baltic Sea. Worse yet, the jet has been certified to carry thermonuclear weapons, specifically the B61-12 bomb, with several NATO members having the ability to use them through nuclear sharing agreements with the US. This includes the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy, all of whom either operate F-35s or have them on order.

Namely, on March 9, the F-35 was confirmed to be certified to carry B61-12 thermonuclear gravity bombs. Although this refers only to the conventional F-35A, with F-35B and F-35C variants still lacking such capabilities, the latter two are deployed in much smaller numbers. The conventional F-35A is the most common version used by the USAF and other NATO air forces. The possibility of their large-scale deployment in Finland and the Baltic states gives the US premier strike capabilities, far greater than Russia ever had in Cuba 60 years ago.

What’s more, both high-ranking officials in Moscow and independent experts regularly warn about the development of new thermonuclear weapons in America, including the so-called “nuclear super-fuse” technology that the US has been testing for decades, particularly under the Obama administration. Investigative historian Eric Zuesse wrote extensively on the topic.

He has repeatedly been warning that the sole purpose of this controversial technology is to exponentially amplify the effectiveness of America’s first-strike capabilities. And while some might discard Zuesse’s warnings and even decry them as “doom and gloom fantasy” or the mythical “Russian disinformation”, recent developments only reinforce his already sound hypothesis. What’s more, NATO is directly involved in these plans. Back in October last year, the belligerent alliance concluded the “Steadfast Noon” nuclear exercise involving approximately 60 aircraft, including nuclear-capable F-16s and B-52 strategic bombers simulating strikes with B61-12 bombs. It should be noted that these bombs will also be augmented by the upcoming B61-13 variant. And although the nature of this upgrade is classified, it’s safe to assume that they will also include the aforementioned “nuclear super-fuse” technology.

The Pentagon already announced that these new thermonuclear bombs will be comparable to the B61-7 version that can have a yield of up to 340 kt (roughly equivalent to 22-23 Hiroshima bombs). Faced with such escalation, Russia doesn’t exactly have a lot of choice but to be prepared. This is precisely why Russia has been conducting nationwide drills simulating an all-out nuclear attack, as well as its own retaliatory strikes on the aggressors. Earlier, the US FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) conducted similar warning exercises.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

US airman Aaron Bushnell said the words “This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal” before self-immolating in protest of the genocide in Gaza. That simple line has been reverberating throughout our collective consciousness ever since.

It seems like every day now we’re learning some horrible new fact about the US-centralized power alliance and the empire managers who carry out its malignant will for our world, because that’s just what our rulers have decided will be the norm for our species going forward.

Reports that Israel tortured UN workers to extract false testimony against Gaza’s primary humanitarian aid agency.

Images surfacing of airstrikes on Gaza occurring at the same time and location as airdrops of aid.

Gazan children beginning to drop dead from hunger in a deliberately-engineered famine that is causing sweeping starvation at breakneck speed.

The IDF kettling the population of Gaza further and further south with a horrifically destructive onslaught and then setting up an attack on the enclave’s densely-packed southernmost point.

"This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal."
~ Aaron Bushnell https://t.co/CWTQGRaSm6

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) March 8, 2024

Israeli “demonstrators” bringing cotton candy machines and bouncy castles to create a fun, family-friendly atmosphere for their blockades to stop aid trucks from getting into Gaza.

The US president waxing poetically about how “heartbreaking” all the death and destruction in Gaza is when he himself is directly responsible for that death and destruction.

People in the world’s most powerful nation being told they have to choose between two candidates who both support this genocide.

A journalist locked away in a maximum-security prison for factual reporting on the same empire which claims to support free speech and a free press.

The biosphere we depend on for survival being fed into a soulless profit-generating death machine because everything on our planet has been turned into a commodity.

The leaders of nuclear-armed states brandishing armageddon weapons at each other because a few manipulators in Washington DC and Virginia have decided that the US must maintain global hegemony at all cost.

A mind-controlled dystopia in which ordinary people are propagandized into accepting all this as perfectly fine.

This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.

This madness will continue until we come together and resolutely decide the opposite.

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Featured image: Let Them Eat Dirt – by Mr. Fish

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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On the 2-year anniversary of Russia launching its Special Military Operation in Ukraine to de-Nazify and demilitarize Ukraine, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg boldly stated:

Ukraine is now nearer to NATO than ever before. We are assisting in improving your armed forces’ compatibility with our allies. We are opening a new Joint Center for Analysis, Training and Education in Poland together. We’re also strengthening our political relationship through the NATO-Ukraine Council, where we consult and make decisions together. Ukraine’s enlistment in NATO isn’t a question of if, but rather when.

Just two days later on Monday February 26^th, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arguing why he is opposed to sending his longer range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine (with 500 km/310 mile range that can reach Moscow), he inadvertently outed Britain and France already having troops on the ground in Ukraine as of last year for target control launches of UK’s Storm Shadow and France’s Scalp cruise missiles inside Ukraine. Politician Scholz is very aware of the latest German poll shows that 61% of his nation’s population oppose sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine and 80% are against sending NATO troops.

Probably no accident that on that same day on February 26^th, French President Emmanuel Macron dropped the bombshell suggesting NATO troops may need to be sent to Ukraine. Putin responded on Thursday February 29^th saying that NATO entering Ukraine would risk igniting nuclear World War III.

On Friday March 1^st US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned that if Ukraine falls, NATO will need to fight Russia. On the very same day RT reports that Russian spies release a transcript of a previously recorded 38-minute audio clip of top German generals discussing using Taurus missiles inside Ukraine to blow up Kerch Bridge that serves as a critical supply line from mainland Russia to Crimean Peninsula. The German generals discussed using British soldiers already in Ukraine to facilitate Taurus missiles launched.

On Wednesday March 6^th Macron then goads other NATO members to not be “cowards,” actively recruiting NATO countries like Poland and the Baltic States to join France and Britain sending troops to Ukraine to fight Russians, especially if Moscow breaks through Ukraine’s eastern front, which is more than imminent. On Friday March 8^th Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski emphasized the need to respond to Russia with “asymmetrical warfare,” adding:

The presence of NATO forces in Ukraine is not unthinkable.

On Thursday March 7^th, UK Foreign Minister David Cameron met in Germany with his counterpart Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, urging Berlin to send Taurus missiles to show strength as the “only pathway to peace.”

Just three days earlier, Baerbock defying her boss called on her German government to “intensively consider” sending Taurus missiles, and in fact “all materials” to help Kiev.

Another prominent German politician, Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who heads Berlin’s parliamentary defense committee, is leading the coalition government’s opposition against Scholtz’s refusal, claiming it “only pleases Putin” as she plans to bring the issue to another parliamentary vote this week. UK’s ex-Defense Minister Ben Wallace, who sent the Storm Shadows missiles last year to Kiev, blasted Scholz stating:

As far as the security of Europe goes, he is the wrong man, in the wrong job at the wrong time.

The warring political majority are all counting on the weakling Scholz to once again cave in, like after he initially refused to give Ukraine Leopard tanks, and then reneged only to have most destroyed by Russia.

In recent days based on statements made by a growing number of warmongering European leaders, no doubt following their masters’ City of London orders, the threat of world war breaking out in Europe appears to be increasing on a near daily basis.

A pattern has emerged where the two current warfronts in Europe and the Middle East appear to be taking turns ramping up wider war hostilities, with as soon one flaring up, the other one lulls, and then vice versa.

This pattern may well be strategically timed because virtually 100% of today’s global population is totally against world war, and thus, the criminal Deep State cabal may actually be alternating tensions from week to week between these two warfronts.

All the while, each region is creepily moving toward worst-case scenario World War III.

If rising conflict came all at once, it would incur extreme oppositional pushback from the global masses, especially in the West because it’s been deliberately set up by the elites to lose on every front. Western political puppets are merely the globalists’ useful idiots counting on full protection from their masters for suicidally committing treason against their own blood sacrificed citizens.

Meanwhile, the most powerful NATO member, the US, has a stalled Congress in a quagmire after the House last month refused to pass the Senate’s $60 billion Ukraine package bill, due to not including support to bolster US border security. America’s impasse over delivering more aid to Kiev is forcing NATO in Europe to step up both its assistance and hawkish rhetoric.

On Thursday March 8^th, Czech President Petr Pavel declared that 18 NATO countries are sending 800,000 artillery shells to Ukraine, keeping the war going at all cost, since Kiev’s acute ammunition shortage has reached critical emergency. Additionally, Pavel presented a proposal on Saturday March 9^th for Western allies to send non-combat units directly to Ukraine for training purposes. This provocative intervention follows the more aggressive path led by UK and France, already deploying boots on the ground in Ukraine, assisting Kiev fire long-range cruise missiles not only at targets in annexed Russian regions, but directly at targets inside Russia as well. In tandem, a growing number of European puppet leaders are incrementally carrying out pressured demands of the central banking moneychangers that control both globalist entities in Brussels, the EU as well as NATO.

In response to NATO’s apparent rush to fast-track Ukraine into NATO as the next 33^rd nation to join, on Saturday March 9^th, Republican Utah Senator Mike Lee countered with:

If Ukraine is in NATO, the United States should be out, plain and simple. We must draw a redline with NATO: You can have Ukraine or the United States.

All of this bickering back and forth between pro-war NATO members pushing more aggressively than ever to escalate the hot war with Russia, while minority factions within US/NATO oppose the prospect of all-out war, resisting sending more Kiev arms.

As the impending Ukraine defeat becomes more glaringly obvious, war fatigue has been growing amongst both the West’s citizens and a few of their politicians. High profile dissenters against Brussel’s Ukraine war policy as a thorn in the side of the globalists are Slovakia’s Prime Minster Robert Fico and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Plus, after over two years and a Ukraine victory now impossible, cracks in the NATO armor are fast spreading. Some leaders are worrying more these days over their own fragile economies, growing internal conflicts or their own political future during a year when a record 65 nations are holding national elections.

As a result, today’s NATO is anything but united, contrary to false claims by Stoltenberg and his fellow globalist pro-war cronies. The one government player most responsible for today’s gloomy outcome in Ukraine is Putin hater Victoria Nuland, who last week submitted her resignation to bow out, perhaps being picked over for her disastrous, failed policy.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky placed all his eggs in two heavily fortified entrenchments in the Donbass cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, where the longest, most intense and costly fighting of this two plus year war was lost.

Ukraine’s tyrannical puppet’s all or nothing strategy failing to listen to his fired top commander General Zaluzhny, now conveniently removed to London as Kiev’s UK ambassador, will prove his downfall.

Though Zelensky lost opportunity to build up his defensive lines outside of Avdiivka, now his remaining forces are heavily outmanned, outgunned and lacking critical supplies as the larger Russian army is now rapidly advancing, perhaps all the way to Kiev. The bluster of launching another Ukraine counteroffensive is merely false bravado propaganda geared to entice more Western ammo and weapons.

But all the latest talk of NATO boots on the ground has to be music to Zelensky’s ears, and with NATO’s largest joint military exercises ongoing not far away until June 1^st, his prayer may yet be answered. Again, the central bank money launderers have also placed all their eggs in their Ukrainian devil’s playground war basket, and as the West’s puppet masters’ demands never go unheeded, rising desperation calls for desperate measures that dictate all this latest war posturing.

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Joachim Hagopian is a West Point graduate, former Army officer and author of “Don’t Let the Bastards Getcha Down,” exposing a faulty US military leadership system based on ticket punching up the seniority ladder, invariably weeding out the best and brightest, leaving mediocrity and order followers rising to the top as politician-bureaucrat generals designated to lose every modern US war by elite design. After the military, Joachim earned a master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and worked as a licensed therapist in the mental health field with abused youth and adolescents for more than a quarter century. In Los Angeles he found himself battling the largest county child protective services in the nation within America’s thoroughly broken and corrupt child welfare system.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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On March 6, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held talks with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, who was in Moscow on an official two-day working visit. The visit, at the invitation of the Russian Foreign Ministry, which has a lot of distinctive implications and strategic interpretations, was a conscious follow up to review and discuss Russian-Nigerian partnership issues that were raised long ago and during the second Russia-Africa summit held last July 2023.

Vice President Kashim Shettima headed the Nigerian delegation to attend that second Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg. Foreign Minister Yusuf Maitama Tuggar was among the group. Often reiterated that Nigeria is one of Africa’s biggest countries and Russia’s priority partner in the West African region.

In the opening remarks and with historical precision, Lavrov mentioned the frequency Nigeria delegations visiting Moscow and added:

“This meeting reflects the long-term friendship between our nations and good prospects for the development of our relations at this stage. We consider Nigeria a priority partner on the African continent.”

In practical terms, Russia has maintained ‘cordial relationship’ with Nigeria these several years after the collapse of the Soviet era. The greatest achievement, of course, is sustaining the political consultations and frequent dialoguing several economic issues which have not been effectively implemented in the country.

At the media conference after their ‘behind-the-scene’ discussions on March 6, Sergey Lavrov and Yusuf Maitama Tuggar [re]affirmed their commitment to the Russian-Nigerian cooperation in political, trade, economic, humanitarian and other areas. It also included the prospects for expanding business contacts and implementing joint projects in energy, mining and mineral processing, construction and modernising infrastructure and agriculture.

“With this aim in view we have agreed to stimulate the activities of the Intergovernmental Commission for Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation and to make use of the capabilities of the Russia-Nigeria Business Council. We need to improve out legal framework for implementing projects of mutual interest. We have an interest in implementing the agreement on military-technical cooperation, which has recently been extended. Our Nigerian friends are interested in this too,” Lavrov emphasized.

Both Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, during the joint media conference, inevitably never pointed to a single project implemented, undertaken and successfully completed during these several years. The ministry’s website says Lavrov has held his position as foreign minister for two decades, since 2004, and has been dealing with Nigeria and African countries.

More than 15 years ago, Foreign Minister Lavrov held a review meeting with his Nigerian counterpart Minister Chief Ojo Mbila Maduekwe who paid a three-day working visit to Moscow. After that closed-door bilateral talks held in March 2009, both ministers, as always, held a brief media conference and emphatically noted that Moscow was prepared to offer trade preferences to the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

They also agreed on a broad range of bilateral economic issues, many of which have still not been implemented. Until today, Russia has never honoured its promise of extending trade preferences, in practical terms, to Nigeria. Extending trade preferences was interpreted as an integral part of strengthening bilateral economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.

For trade relations between Russia and Nigeria and other African states to improve appreciably, Professor Dmitri Bondarenko, deputy director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute for African Studies, suggested “Russia gives some trade preferences to African countries – for example, tax exceptions or reduction among other measures. This can become an effective political step to strengthen economic cooperation with African countries.”

Today, Nigeria is Russia’s second largest trade partner, only in theory, among sub-Saharan African countries. Russian business circles show an ever greater interest, with sweet rhetorics, in entering the promising market of that large country. The volume of trade should be in the billions of dollars, even without military hardware. One of the major hindrances to free trade and a significant increase in trade transactions between Nigeria and Russia is the lack of direct air flights. This makes it more inconvenient and expensive for potential investors to travel easily to both countries. Besides, there are no adequate economic and social information available to potential Russian and Nigerian investors.

Russian and Nigerian ambassadors have come forth and back over the years. In May 2022, the Nigerian Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Professor Abdullahi Shehu, gave an inspiring lecture at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Most of the points he raised in that lecture included decades of Moscow’s economic failures in Nigeria and in many African countries despite the boast of several years of cordial relationship with Africa.

Professor Shehu’s lecture script points to the fact that President Vladimir Putin considers Africa a so-called second frontier, after Eastern Europe for encircling Western Europe…these reasons may sound strategic yet they remain largely speculative and conjectural. Understandably, the perceived geopolitical irrelevance of Africa by Russia has changed only a little and new dynamics have beckoned on both sides of subsisting opportunities for increased collaboration between Africa and Russia.

Despite the tidal surge in the new Africa-Russia relations and given the strategic role played by the defunct Soviet Union, now succeeded by Russia, in the attainment of the independence of many African countries, both parties must accept the constraints posed on the former [Russia] by the new economic cum geopolitical realities. The acceptance of these new realities is important in order to properly assist in the management of Africa’s expectations from Russia particularly in the short term.

Today, for instance, Nigeria offers Russia the advantage of cheap and robust labour. Given Russia’s recent experience of sanctions by America and its western allies, a new model of doing business with Africa through investment has become, not only sustainable but also imperative. Perhaps, one of the sectors where this model of doing business can be symbiotically harnessed is in the field of agriculture and its value chain as a result of the steep rise in the large African market and the projected certainty of huge returns on investment in this sector, according to Ambassador Shehu.

Part of the major essence of this lecture was to look at the past with a view to charting a course for the future, inhaling the fresh aroma of the beauty of the ‘rose’ in Africa-Russia relationship, weeding out the thorns of inconvenience on which Africa and Russia have marched and straighten any crooked path along which both have passed so as to arrive faster to the desired destination. While Africa cherishes the important MOUs and agreements Russia has with Africa, there is need to translate such agreements and MOUs into concrete realities. Additionally, balancing of Russia’s commercial interests of arms sales to Africa will ensure that the latter enjoys relative stability and peace so vital for its own development.

Without doubts, Russia has had a long chequered history of post-Soviet diplomacy. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo visited Russia in 2001. That year, Russia and Nigeria signed the fundamental document for interstate cooperation, the Declaration on Principles of Friendly Relations and Partnership. According to President Vladimir Putin, the Russian Federation, like the former Soviet Union, has always attached great significance to promoting its relations with the African continent. Nigeria occupies a special place among African countries. It is one of the largest and most powerful countries in Africa. Its head of state is a recognised leader not only on the continent, but in the whole world.

Discussions ended with the administrative long list of projects, and on top was joint activities in the sphere of high technology and the launching of several satellites to be used by Nigeria for environmental monitoring and remote sensing of the Earth are being contemplated. That was on March 6, 2001.

Since then, there had been a number of deals and business proposals that have never seen the bright sunlight. As far back in June 2009, Dmitry Medvedev as president visited Nigeria for the first time, held topmost state level talks on possible nuclear energy, oil exploration and military cooperation. There were talks also focusing on the establishment of petrochemical plant in Nigeria. Alongside there was also a declaration on principles of friendly relations and partnership between Nigeria and the Russian Federation.

Russian investors had wanted to revamp the Ajeokuta Iron and Steel Complex that was abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago, and further take up energy, oil and gas projects in Nigeria, as well as facilitate trade between Nigeria and Russia. In addition, Russia has been prospecting for its nuclear-power ambitions down the years. The promise was to build two nuclear plants estimated cost at US$20 billion – the bulk of it by Russia, is to boost Nigeria’s electricity supply.

Russia’s second-largest oil company, and privately controlled Lukoil, has gone back and forth these several years with plans to expand its operations in Nigeria, and in a number of West African countries. There has been a long-dead silence after Gazprom, the Russian energy giant, signed an agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation [NNPC] on the exploration and exploitation of gas reserves with a new joint venture company known as NiGaz Energy Company.

Some experts argue that there are many other aspects of the bilateral relations. With high interest, Russian officials are pushing for military-technical cooperation. The supply of Russian military equipment could play a high value addition to the fight against notorious Boko Haram. In most of the economic deals, the Nigerian political elites are under strong influence of Paris, London and Washington.

South African Institute of International Affairs [SAIIA], a Johannesburg based foreign policy think tank, put out a report titled “Russia’s Military Diplomacy in Africa: High Risk, Low Reward and Limited Impact” in part says that “Russia’s growing assertiveness in Africa is a driver of instability, its approach to governance encourages pernicious practices, such as kleptocracy and autocracy in Africa.” Worse is that Russia’s strengths expressed through military partnerships fall short of what is needed to address the complexities and scale of the problems facing those African countries. Russia encourages the military regimes [Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger] to hold onto political power, instead of returning to constitutional democracy.

Nigeria is an economic powerhouse in West African region. As well known, Nigeria is one of the Africa’s fastest growing economies and it boosts the largest population. Russia and Nigeria have some sort of economic relations, but these are not consistent with the long-standing cordial relations between both countries.

In addition, Nigeria is a vast market with huge potentials for prospective foreign investors and so is Russia. Regrettably, investors from both sides appear to know little about these opportunities. This is, usually attributed to the apparent inadequate knowledge of the many investment opportunities in both countries. Despite criticisms, reports show that majority prefer traditional markets – the United States and Europe, and now Asian region. The African political elite and business people choose the United States and Europe for their holidays and as tourism destinations.

Least we forget that Vladimir Putin held discussions with President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari, who went to Sochi to take part in the first Russia-Africa summit in October 2019. Putin reminded during talks that priority to joint search for opportunities to broaden trade, economic and investment cooperation were assigned to the Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation and the Russia – Nigeria and Nigeria – Russia Business councils set up in 2006–2007.

In response, Muhammadu Buhari said in part:

“Mr President, there are many similarities between Russia under your leadership and Nigeria’s aspirations for the future. We can learn a lot from the experience of Russia’s ongoing reforms, of transitioning from oil-dependent economy to a modern, diversified and inclusive economy. Russia has through these reforms successfully privatised a number of state-owned entities, which have now become global household names. This is especially so in the energy, manufacturing, defence and the metallurgical sectors.”

So it continues, without the least interruption, that Russia and Nigeria share experiences, exchange views on national and international platforms, maintain political dialogues, discuss economic cooperation and humanitarian issues. Russia and Nigeria shares similar position at the United Nations. Russia and Nigeria continue to keep cordial and mutually beneficial relationship in these past years since 1991 after Soviet’s collapse.

The term – bilateral relations – seen as a two-way street, Nigeria’s presence in the Russian Federation is only the diplomatic representative office. Public outreach diplomacy is generally ineffective, both ways between Russia and Africa. Compared, for example, to American Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and a number of trade preferences granted by Europe, Russians hardly encourage African presence in the Russian Federation. On the other hand, Russia hardly in speeches make reference to the African continental single market (AfCFTA). With an estimated 1.4 billion people, the market is potentially the largest, Africa – is the continent of the future.

As a matter of fact, in order to be part of this geopolitical arena, Russia has to take practical steps to move beyond AK-47 in raising its economic influence in Africa. It has to crack the local socio-cultural barriers and, in particular, the deep-seated bureaucracy too. In a continent beleaguered by the ravages of ethnic and political conflicts, Russian officials have to thoroughly study the local conditions before imposing the strategic economic initiatives and engaging local African partners and stakeholders.

In summary, the Russian strategic policy interest generally in Africa and specifically in Nigeria, given the strong limitation of its current capability and it’s re-emergence in Africa, is an earnest attempt to regain part of Soviet-era influence. But this current relations, within the context of geopolitical changes, must necessarily be conducted with consistency and in a concrete manner, but not with mere rhetorics. It is about time to act, aim at noticeable results. According to various narratives inside the continent, Russia appears only as an advocate of emerging multipolar order and as a reliable virtual investor in Africa.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

I recently returned from a twelve-day cruise to celebrate my wife’s seventieth birthday. I usually spend much of my cruise time in the ship’s bar instructing the bartender how to make a proper James Bond gin martini “shaken not stirred,” a successful endeavor which has transformed the alcohol culture on a number of vessels.

Less fruitful, however, have been my efforts to teach the waitstaff to sing “The Whiffenpoof Song.” But be that as it may, this particular cruise came at a time when Super Tuesday primaries were taking place in the US as well as the State of the Union Address.

In Europe the war in Ukraine appeared to be entering a new phase with France threatening to send its poilus to fight Russians and Germans contemplating the use of long-range missiles against Moscow.

Meanwhile in the Middle East the Gazans continue to be slaughtered by the Izzies, who are America’s perpetual best friend.

Joe Biden, who is arming Benjamin Netanyahu, is perversely planning to build an artificial “humanitarian” food and supplies delivering “floating harbor” attached to a pier offshore of Gaza that will be finished and ready for use in two months after the last Palestinian has died from starvation or disease. And, by the way, it will be constructed by US military personnel who will no doubt be targeted and killed by the Israelis using American supplied bombs as a case of “mistaken identity,” just as they murdered those 34 sailors and crew on board the USS Liberty back in 1967.

All of this seemingly uncoordinated activity generates a bit of confusion, while voters far and wide are wondering if their government leaders are all on Chinese produced fentanyl. That said, a cruise ship is a wonderful place to experience unedited what people are thinking. Present are Americans and foreigners from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds who are easy to meet with casually if one takes advantage of the multiple largely unstructured dining, drinking and entertainment experiences available on shipboard as well as the mingling during excursions on land.

A retired Italian engineer from Udine with whom I was drinking an ombra prosecco explained how he was feeling intense disagio, translated as uncertainty or unease, over the state of the world and not just his own country, pointing to the terrible electoral choice coming up in the US in November as well as the tottering regimes and struggling economies in Britain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and throughout Scandinavia.

Meanwhile all the politicians can talk about is more wars and the necessity of supporting clowns like Volodymyr Zelenksy and murderous thugs like the Israelis. There is increasingly no place to escape to.

Among the Americans, whom I assessed as predominantly well-off blue collar retired, many of whom haling from the Midwest or South, I did not spot a single MAGA hat or Biden-Harris t-shirt but did find that most people intended to vote even though they were completely fed up with the entire political process. Neither Trump nor Biden excited them in any way – nor did any of the non-major party hopefuls like RFK Jr. On the contrary, it seemed to most that the political class was out to punish the American people, a view that I heartily agreed with. Several Americans observed that if the current process whereby the US continues to go to war continues, the draft would inevitably be activated to fill the understrength ranks of the military, putting our children and grandchildren at risk. One woman commented that if there were a button that one could push in the voting booth that would get rid of all existing politicians she would push it. It reminded me of the William Buckley comment that “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.” A wit subsequently quipped that the country might as a consequence well be run by several iterations of “Anthony A. Aardvark.”

The cruise also had a downside consisting of a glimpse of where corporate cruise-dom lines up on some international issues, which I only discovered subsequent to boarding. The ship we sailed on, part of the Holland-America fleet, would hold events on board in its shops sponsored by sellers of various goods and services.

Nevertheless, given a genocide that is clearly taking place in a place called Gaza together with a right-wing government in place in Israel that has openly advocates for an Israel “cleansed” of Arabs that will be both de facto and de jure Jews only, I was surprised to see such a tone deaf event sponsored by the ship entitled “The Colors of Israel Exhibition and Sale.”

My wife and I, who strongly support BDS (“boycott, divestment and sanctions”) when it comes to the Jewish state decided that a little intervention was definitely in order so we made up two posters that read “Boycott the Genociders” and we wandered down to the place where the event was to take place and took up position flanking the entrance.

Two Israeli young males were nearby giving us furtive looks as they were starting to unpack whatever it was they were intending to sell. We threatened no one but almost immediately two ship’s crewmen dressed in uniforms I had not seen before on board appeared to tell us that they were security and that any political advertising or harassment of vendors was strictly prohibited. They then took our posters away “for destruction.” I observed to them that I was wearing a USS Liberty remembrance shirt, which most definitely had to be considered a political statement, and I politely asked if I should remove it. The two conferred for a while and agreed that I could keep my shirt on as long as I didn’t use it to threaten or intimidate anyone.

Later that afternoon we heard several times the ship public address system promote the presence of the Israelis and their wares, something that it normally did not do for individual vendors and which I found very strange. And there was more, two days later, when the ship sponsored a walk around the deck to raise money to send to support Ukrainian refugees, which was, of course, itself a political statement over the nature of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Those who contributed $25 and would do the walk would get a free t-shirt indicating in large white on black letters that they had done the charity deed.

When I saw the announcement of the walk on the day before it was to take place, I contacted ship management requesting an interview regarding what was being done, observing that relatively few Ukrainian civilians had been killed and most refugees from that country were displaced voluntarily, with many being helped by foreign refugee assistance agencies and even governments. By way of contrast tens of thousands of Gazans, mostly women and children, have been killed already in what was clearly a genocide and others were unable to escape their death trap ringed in as they are by the Israeli military. I sought inclusion of some mention of the suffering of the Palestinian children in the walk, making it more truly a tribute to innocent victims in both theaters of conflict.

I received no reply from the ship management and the walk proceeded as planned only including Ukraine with several hundred walkers participating. I later learned that Jewish organizations have been particularly active in assisting Ukrainian Jews who are seeking refugee status or other repatriation, and began to wonder what was up. Mentioning my concerns to a friend who was knowledgeable of the cruise ship industry I subsequently was informed that Holland-America operates ships named after Dutch cities and built in Venice that operate under the Netherlands flag for tax avoidance reasons even though its operational hubs are in Los Angeles and Seattle and most of its customers are Americans. It is actually physically owned by the larger Carnival Corporation, founded in 1972, which, between 1989 and 1999, acquired Holland-America, Windstar Cruises, Westours, Seabourn Cruise Line, Costa Cruises and Cunard Line. Carnival is now by far the largest cruise conglomerate in the world. It was founded by Israeli Ted Arison, now deceased, who was replaced by Mickey Arison, his Israeli born son, who now runs the company as its Chairman and CEO. Arison is also the owner of the NBA’s Miami Heat professional basketball team. He lives most of the year in Florida and owns two 200 foot yachts which he also uses as homes!

So, our cruise became something of an interesting experience with a disappointing ending as one must wonder where the money raised for a charity actually wound up! One thing for sure, we will be boycotting Mickey Arison’s Carnival fleet in the future. At a certain point, even as a relatively knowledgeable consumer, one gets tired of being bought and manipulated.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

The Human Race is awakening to the possibility that it is invoking its own demise. 

The word ‘race’ according to my dictionary means ‘the major divisions of human kind based on particular characteristics.’

But there is another meaning to the word ‘race’ of course, and that is defined as ‘competition to determine the fastest over a set course.’

This latter meaning seems to have replaced the former. Especially where a blinkered, tunnel vision view of the future has become hard wired to an artificial intelligence world in which everything is designed to the bespoke demands of left brain dominated computer nerds.

For these psychotic individuals, there is a race on to develop an artificial human entity essentially indistinguishable from a robot. A Transhuman.

Image: Yuval Noah Harari

Amongst those at the forefront of pursuing this techno-human vision are Professor Yuval Noah Harari, chief advisor to Klaus Schwab and Sam Altman, founder of Open AI/Chat GPT. 

Harari’s vision is largely philosophical, tracing the evolution of the artificial intelligence boom and extrapolating from this an outcome of a cyborgian take-over of just about all work oriented planetary activity. 

He generally sees this in the positive, believing a new species will emerge with the ability to access superhuman volumes of information and in this way acquire ‘knowledge’. 

In a recent interview he stated

“AI will make it possible to enhance and upgrade humans.”

Meaning – as we shall see later – upgrade them into being inhuman/non human.

Image: Sam Altman

Altman comes at it from the post silicon valley (called ‘cerebral valley’) perspective. Wikipedia states, as part of a longer revue 

“Altman co-founded Tools For Humanity in 2019, a company which builds and distributes systems designed to scan people’s eyes to provide authentication and verify proof of personhood to counter fraud. People who agree to have their eyes scanned are compensated with a cryptocurrency called Worldcoin. Tools for Humanity describes its cryptocurrency as similar to universal basic income.”

I’m sure I read that in Huxley’s Brave New World Revisited…

His company is already rushing ahead with the development of various high tech aids to government surveillance programs, age extension projects and instant text to image formulations. 

Altman has come up with the proposition that just one man will shortly be able to manage a business with a turnover of $1 billion – no other staff required.

He is on the same page as Harari in stating “Such companies require an elite new species to run them.” 

Stock market valuations of Open AI/Chat GPT reveal an astronomical growth rate, close to surpassing the net worth of Google and Microsoft combined.

That alone is enough to raise the hairs on the back of one’s neck.

It’s not my purpose to go into Altman’s or Harari’s personal ambitions, I simply want to show where their minds are and explore the psychology behind the surge in fascination with AI as well as look out for signs of a counter reaction to its accelerating dominance.

There’s no doubt that man has always had an instinct for material inventiveness and a fascination in advancing technological developments – coupled with a desire to make things go ever faster.

But this has now taken us to a place where, if what it means to be human is to be respected, one should dare go no further.

Rather, one should be alert to recognising the need to select a reverse gear.

Flirting with designing a new species whose chief characteristics are the antithesis of those deemed to be the most beneficial for our higher evolution, used to be called ‘playing God’.

But this expression no longer seems appropriate, because what is actually happening is that the likes of Harari and Altman are ‘playing Devil’.

They are articulating and promoting the replacement of the spontaneous human qualities of love, compassion, pain and pleasure – with high-tech robotic states of mind that see no place for these deeply human instincts – and then they name this ‘progress’.

These cyborgian characteristics are modelled on the precept that human emotions are somehow primitive, blocking our ability to design an existence of completely controllable, frictionless, linear certainty.

No ups, no downs, no passion, no feelings – except what Huxley describes in ‘Brave New World’ as a state acquired after being prescribed the chemical docility pill ‘Soma’.

Thus the proponents of A New World Order/Great Reset can point to the fact that by manipulating human DNA, installing internal nanotech computer chips and using targetted EMF radiation frequencies to control mankind’s cognitive faculties – one removes the danger of any form of destabilising or rebellious influence ever becoming a threat to the smooth functioning of a sterilised and sanitised status quo (The Matrix).

This makes the idea of a completely predictable chipped and digitalised AI cyborg man the perfect fit for number crunching technocrats administrating the central planning department of the dark cabal’s Great Reset/World Government.

It also explains why Klaus Schwab can, with such certainty, announce that by following the diktats of the Fourth Industrial Revolution “you will own nothing and you will be happy”. Yes, because the ‘Soma affect’ of DNA and brain manipulation mean no individual powers of resistance will remain!

It’s all connected when one joins the dots. And it is when such joining is finally undertaken that the scary factor suddenly cuts in – and providing it is functioning as it should – a biological impulse to reject such a scenario, takes over.

Consider this: The great global warming scam has been maintained at full volume for over two decades in order the make sure people can see no other solution for life on earth – than ‘Net Zero’. Thus daily life must conform to a series of dictatorial impositions designed to ensure a zero carbon future ‘as the only way to save the world’.

Soothing titles like ‘Agenda 2030 Sustainability’ and ‘Green New Deal’ have been invented to give the impression that this is a benign ‘greening’ operation for the assured benefit of present and future generations.

But ‘playing devil’ means reversing realities, a fiendish trick that those in charge of the Great Reset are well schooled in. Like the Nazi ploy of turning an Indian peace symbol, the swastika, into a symbol of repression and war.

‘Reversal’ is the chief destabilising characteristic of demonic entities.

So, can Green New Deal really be a benign ecological initiative to increase the biodiversity of the planet and improve food quality?

Only if you believe the following to be a description of such:  covering the rural landscape with giant wind turbines and acres of photovoltaic panels; the  eradication of farmers and their replacement with robots; farm grown foods replaced with synthetic GMO laboratory lookalikes; cows replaced with machines that produce GMO synthetic milk and petri dish raised medicinal meats.

So you see why the deep state cabal has to keep up a full spectrum dominance barrage of ulterior motive lies about why meeting ‘Net Zero’ is the all important issue of the millenium.

The transition to a Transhuman obviously requires a super-vast false flag indoctrination process to give it any chance of succeeding. One backed by the threat of fines; permanent AI surveillance tied into a digital currency; imprisonment in 5G powered ‘smart cities’ and long range attacks on the ability of the human brain to remain capable of clear thinking.

All this and much more, to squelch the threat of any possible rebellion or dissension from the rules put in place to force mankind to surrender to its carefully planned Net Zero eradication. Again, an agenda that replaces the human with an AI computer programmed replica species having no capability to express resistance. 

All this forms the deep state agenda of The Great Reset. And its reasoning for the necessity of such actions is that there is no other way of terminating the existence of the benign ‘gas of life’ called  CO2. No way, other than turning the human race into a well drilled army of the walking dead.

Should such an insane agenda send a shiver down one’s spine?

Well, if is doesn’t, then one’s assumed status as a human being must surely be in doubt.

If the inclination is simply to dismiss these warnings as some sort of exotic fantasy, consider the following prescient news item:  a company called Aria Advanced Research Invention Agency has recently been established in the UK under the strap line ‘Shaping the Global Future’ and with the stated number one goal of ‘cutting the global warming threat caused by methane emissions from cows’. To be followed by ‘the development of genetically modified programmable plants’. Also as a means of cutting global warming, of course.

Need I provide any more evidence that the fake green fascistic agenda designed to ‘stop climate change’ was chosen to be the straw man essential for gaining public acceptance of the need to alter the DNA of nature, redesign the human species and depopulate the planet?

We were gifted the nerve guided emotional condition of fear as an early warning system for addressing a situation that is potentially perilous.  Stopping in our tracks and taking a second look before proceeding.

Elon Musk and few others of similar standing, did momentarily get this message a few months ago.

Musk, himself a leading exponent of AI – wanted a task force to examine where artificial intelligence is going and whether it is already out of control.

The alarm bells have been ringing for two to three decades, but the rise of the crucial scary feelings are quite recent for most. They represent a last chance saloon – an emotional life line – and must be individually and collectively analysed and acted upon. 

I would prioritise children as being the most urgently in need of protection from AI. The distortion and poisoning of their beautiful innocent minds with digital EMF powered virtual reality war game violence, toxic advertising and twisted sexuality, firmly belongs in the category of crimes against humanity.

And then the thoughtless – one might even say ‘careless’ – adoption of mass produced digitalised weapons of convenience (i.e the mobile phone) by what are supposed to be intelligent human beings capable of discernment and rational thought, requires the establishment of a new category of social and mental sickness.

But more important than this, is the need for those addicts to be sufficiently scared of what they are doing to themselves, others and the natural environment, so as to finally kick their habit.

It is not my wish to devote the majority of my writing in trying to scare people. It’s not as though there isn’t a bucket full of the preplanned distorted version going on under the auspices of the shadow government cabal. 

I much prefer to encourage the extraordinary creative qualities that lie just below the surface of many millions of warm, humanitarian, pro-life men, women and children spread far and wide across this world.

However, I must articulate the nature of the dis-ease picked-up by my personal early warning system. The one that calls out for one to take action for the preservation of life.

It is because I recognise the existence of a collective unconscious vibrational energy which connects us all, that I believe readers will share my trepidations, foresights and deepest beliefs. After all, they are common to us all. 

It is for this reason that we can and will overcome even the worst threats to our common futures. Rediscovering and rejuvenating our humanity, our love of life and our love for each other. And in so doing, pull the plug on the builders of monstrous, soulless, virtual realities devoid of all qualities that make life so profoundly meaningful – so incalculably precious.

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Julian Rose is an organic farmer, writer, broadcaster and international activist. He is author of four books of which the latest ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind’ is a clarion call to resist the despotic New World Order takeover of our lives. Do visit his website for further information www.julianrose.info  

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

The French government intends to build an alliance with the Baltic countries that agree with the proposal to send troops to fight against Russia, according to Politico. However, the fact France is working with the minnow states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia to send troops to Ukraine is a demonstration of the failure to materialise support in major EU countries, such as Germany and Italy.

According to an article in the American magazine The Atlantic published on March 9, the French Foreign Minister, Stéphane Séjourné, made the proposal during his meeting in Lithuania on March 8 with his Baltic and Ukrainian counterparts.

“It is not for Russia to tell us how we should help Ukraine in the coming months or years. It is not for Russia to organise how we deploy our actions or to set red lines. So we decide it among us,” the French minister declared, as reported by Politico.

French President Emmanuel Macron surprised many in Europe by recently saying that he does not rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine. Despite opposition to Macron’s statement from most EU countries, the report states that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are much more open to the idea.

On February 27, Macron reported that the leaders of Western countries discussed the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine during a conference held in Paris but did not reach a consensus. Two days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned in his annual speech before the Federal Assembly about the consequences if Macron’s idea were implemented.

Even before Putin’s warning, though, Moscow has repeatedly warned that NATO is “playing with fire” by supplying weapons to Ukraine and that foreign weapons shipments would be a “legitimate target” for Russia once they cross the border. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that Moscow sees direct clashes between Russia and NATO as inevitable if the West decides to send its troops to Ukraine.

Many major EU countries, including powerhouse Germany, have humiliated Macron by distancing themselves from his idea. With France only working with the Baltic countries and Poland seemingly changing its mind on Macron’s idea, this is an omission of failure since they are minnows of the European Union and NATO.

In another blow to Macron’s reckless idea, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto told La Stampa newspaper in an interview published on March 10 that Paris and Warsaw do not have the right to speak on behalf of all NATO members when it comes to troop deployment to Ukraine and warned that sending alliance soldiers to Ukraine would block any diplomatic efforts to end the conflict between Kiev and Moscow. 

The Italian official stressed when commenting on recent statements by Macron and Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, each of whom considered the possibility of sending troops to help Kiev, that such a move would only lead to escalation and undermine any potential diplomatic efforts to end hostilities.

On March 8, the top Polish diplomat stated that Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine requires an “asymmetric escalation” by the West and that “the presence of NATO forces in Ukraine is not unthinkable.”

“France and Poland can speak for themselves, [but] not on behalf of NATO,” Crosetto said of the developments. He also stated that making such arguments now “makes no sense” since any potential deployment of NATO troops to Ukraine “means taking a step towards a unilateral escalation that would block the path to diplomacy.”

According to Crosetto, Kiev’s Western backers should focus on diplomacy since they are struggling to keep up with Russia’s military production capacity. The defence minister said Moscow is “more equipped and agile than NATO” when it comes to military production, adding that “the West has discovered that it has a much lower production capacity than Russia.”

The Italian minister particularly noted that although NATO has managed to increase its ammunition production capacity somewhat in a year since promising to supply Kiev with one million artillery rounds, “it still remains inferior to the Russian one.” Under such circumstances, the West “should give all possible support to Kiev” but should also “think about helping” Ukraine in “another way,” Crosetto said, stressing that Western nations should “activate diplomatic channels.”

At the same time, Pope Francis called on Kiev to “have the courage” to begin talks with Moscow as, in his view, “the strongest one is the one who looks at the situation, thinks about the people, has the courage of the white flag, and negotiates.” The pontiff also said that there was no shortage of nations and international actors, including himself, willing to act as mediators in this regard.

Although the Pope’s intentions are positive, it is recalled that Kiev withdrew from the Istanbul talks with Russia in the spring of 2022 and has since put forward a “peace plan” that unrealistically calls for the withdrawal of Russian troops from all former Ukrainian territories and for Russian leaders to be prosecuted as war criminals. The whole world can see that Ukraine has lost the war, which is why not only is the Pope calling for peace but why Macron is desperate to send NATO troops to save the Kiev regime but is frustrated as he is only receiving the backing of the most Russophobic but minnow states of the Baltics.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto in Paris, France, June 19, 2023. /CFP

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Influenza

 

 

By Occupation

 

 

Source: Rustler on X posted these graphics and the source of data.

My Take

In the UK, 30.6% of healthcare workers have taken 5 COVID-19 vaccines (or more).

Doctors are the most compliant, support staff the least compliant.

39.5% of doctors have taken 5 COVID-19 vaccines (or more) versus only 26.6% of support staff.

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

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

If you read the establishment media, you might conclude that a serious battle is being waged by Israel and its most ardent supporters to tackle an apparent new wave of antisemitism in the West.

In article after article, we are told how Israel and western Jewish leadership bodies are demanding our concern, and outrage, at a rise in anti-Jewish hate incidents. Organisations such as the Community Security Trust in the UK and the Anti-Defamation League in the US produce lengthy reports on the relentless increase in antisemitism, especially since 7 October, and warn that action is urgently required.

Undoubtedly, there is a real threat of antisemitism, and as ever it comes largely from the far right. Israel’s actions – and its false claim to be representing all Jews – only help to stoke it.

This moral panic is transparently self-serving. It directs our attention away from the pressing, all-too-concrete evidence that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza – one that has slaughtered and maimed many tens of thousands of innocents.

It redirects our attention instead towards tenuous claims of a deepening antisemitism crisis, one whose tangible effects appear limited and for which the evidence is all too clearly exaggerated.

After all, a rise in “Jew hatred” is all but inevitable if you redefine antisemitism, as western officials have recently done via the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s new definition, to include antipathy towards Israel – and at the moment when Israel appears, even to the World Court, to be carrying out a genocide.

The logic of Israel and its supporters runs something like this: many more people than usual are expressing hatred of Israel, the self-declared state of the Jewish people. There is no reason to hate Israel unless you hate what it represents, which is Jews. Therefore, antisemitism is on the rise.

This argument makes sense to most Israelis, to its partisans, and to the overwhelming majority of western politicians and career-minded establishment journalists. That is: the very same people who interpret calls for equality in historic Palestine – “from the river to the sea” – as demands for a genocide against Jews.

The singer Charlotte Church, for example, found herself accused of antisemitism by the entire establishment media after a “pro-Palestinian chant” to raise money for Gaza’s children being starved by an Israeli aid blockade. The offending song had included the lyric “From the river to the sea”, calling for the liberation of Palestinians from decades of Israeli oppression.

At the weekend, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt once again suggested marches calling for a ceasefire were antisemitic because they supposedly “intimidated” Jews. In fact, Jews are prominent at those marches. He was referring to Zionists who excuse the slaughter in Gaza.

#trevorphillips: "Are you seriously making the case that what we see each Saturday.. is mob rule?"

Jeremy Hunt says he's been contacted by Jewish people who are afraid to leave their house when pro Palestinian marches are happening. pic.twitter.com/I8n2ErqLZ9

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 3, 2024

Similarly, in the wake of George Galloway’s overwhelming by-election win “for Gaza” in Rochdale last week, a BBC reporter berated former Labour MP Chris Williamson for using the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions.

The reporter was worried that the term “might offend some people”, despite the World Court finding the accusation of genocide plausible.

A BBC News correspondent tried to stop me from calling Israel's onslaught on Gaza a genocide because it might "offend" people.

Since when did we worry about "offending" génocidaires? I will never accept such attempts at censorship. pic.twitter.com/RLkIRU4Zmz

— Chris Williamson (@DerbyChrisW) March 1, 2024

A Ghoulish Phenomenon

But the ambition of these Israel zealots runs much deeper than mere deflection. Israel’s leaders and most of its citizens are not ashamed of their genocide, it seems, and neither are their overseas backers.

If my social media feeds are any guide, the slaughter in Gaza is not discomfiting these apologists, or even giving them pause for thought. They appear to revel in their support for Israel as the world looks on in horror.

Every Palestinian child’s bloodied body, and the outrage it provokes from onlookers, fuels their self-righteousness. They entrench, they do not retreat.

They appear to be finding a strange reassurance – comfort even – in the wider public’s anger and indignation at the extinguishing of so many young lives.

It mirrors very precisely Israeli officials’ own reaction to the International Court of Justice’s verdict that there is a plausible case Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Many observers assumed that Israel would seek to placate the judges and world opinion by toning down its atrocities. They could not have been more wrong. In defying the court, Israel became even more brazen, as attested to by its horrifying assault on the Nasser hospital last month and its lethal attack on Palestinians scrambling to reach an aid convoy last week.

Israel’s war crimes – broadcast on every social media platform, including by its own soldiers – are even more in our faces than before the World Court ruling.

This phenomenon needs explaining. It looks ghoulish. But it has an internal logic that shines a light on why Israel has become an emotional crutch for many Jewish people, both inside the country and abroad, as well as for others.

It is not just that Jews and non-Jews who strongly subscribe to the ideology of Zionism identify with Israel. It runs deeper still. They are utterly dependent on a worldview – long cultivated in them by Israel and by their own community leaders, as well as by oil-grabbing western establishments – that places Israel at the centre of the moral universe.

They have been drawn into what looks more like a cult – and a very dangerous one at that, as the horrors of Gaza are revealing.

Albatross, not sanctuary

The claim they have internalised – that Israel is a necessary sanctuary in a future time of trouble from the supposedly innate, genocidal impulses of non-Jews – should have come crashing down on their heads over the past five months.

If the price of reassurance – of having a “just-in-case” bolthole – is the slaughter and maiming of many tens of thousands of Palestinian children, and the slow starvation of hundreds of thousands more, then that bolthole is not worth preserving.

It is not a sanctuary; it is an albatross. It is a stain. It must go, to be replaced by something better for Jews and Palestinians in the region – “from the river to the sea”.

So why have these Israel partisans not been able to reach a conclusion so morally self-evident to everyone else – or at least those not suborned to the interests of western establishments?

Because like all cults, hardcore Zionists are immune to self-reflection. Not only that, but their reasoning is inherently circular.

Israel, Zionism’s creation, is not in the least concerned with providing a solution to antisemitism, as it professes. Quite the reverse. It feeds on antisemitism and needs it.

Antisemitism is its lifeblood, the very reason for Israel’s existence. Without antisemitism, Israel would be redundant, there would be no need for it as a sanctuary.

The cult would be over, and so would the endless military aid, the special trading status with the West, the jobs, the land grabs, the privileges and the sense of importance and ultimate victimhood that allows for the dehumanisation of others, not least the Palestinians.

Like all true believers, Israel’s partisans overseas – who proudly call themselves “Zionists” but are now pressuring social media platforms to ban the term as antisemitic, as the movement’s goals become more transparent – have too much to lose from self- and communal doubt.

The fight against antisemitism means nothing else can take priority – not even genocide. Which, in turn, means no greater evil can be acknowledged, not even the mass murder of children. No bigger threat, however pressing, however urgent, can be allowed to come to the fore.

And to keep the doubt at bay, more antisemitism – more supposed existential threats – must be generated.

Racism in New Garb

In recent years, the biggest difficulty facing Zionism has been that the true racists – on the right, often in power in western capitals – have also served as Israel’s strongest allies. They have dressed up their traditional racist ideologies – that once fed antisemitism, and could again – in new garb: as Islamophobia.

In Europe and the United States, Muslims are the new Jews.

Which is ideal for Israel and its partisans. A supposed “global, civilisational war” – ideological cover to justify continuing western domination of the oil-rich Middle East – always places Israel, the regional attack dog, on the side of the angels, firmly alongside the white nationalists.

Because Israel and its apologists cannot expose the true racists and antisemites in power, they must create new ones. And that has required changing antisemitism’s definition beyond recognition, to refer to those who oppose the colonial domination project into which Israel is profoundly integrated.

In this upside-down worldview, one that prevails not only among Israel partisans but in western capitals, we have arrived at a nonsense: to reject Israel’s oppression of Palestinians – and now even its genocide of them – is supposedly to reveal oneself as antisemitic.

Palestinians Dehumanised

This was precisely the position in which Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, found herself last month after she criticised French President Emmanuel Macron.

Israel has, as a consequence, declared it is banning her from entry to the occupied territories to record its human rights abuses.

But notably, as Albanese pointed out, nothing has changed in practice. Israel has excluded all UN rapporteurs from the occupied territories for the past 16 years, during its siege of Gaza, so they cannot witness the crimes that foregrounded the attack on 7 October.

Last month, Macron made a patently preposterous statement, though one promoted by Israel and treated seriously by the western media. He described Hamas’ attack on Israel as the “biggest antisemitic massacre of our century” – that is, he claimed it was driven by hatred of Jews.

One can criticise Hamas for how it carried out its attack, as Albanese has done: undoubtedly, its fighters committed many violations of international law that day in killing civilians and taking them hostage.

Exactly the same kind of violations, we should note in the interests of balance, that Israel has committed day in, day out for decades against the Palestinians forced to live under its military occupation.

Palestinian prisoners, seized by an occupying Israeli army in the middle of the night, held in military jails and denied proper trials, are no less hostages. 

But to ascribe antisemitism as Hamas’ motivation is intended to scrub out those many decades of oppression. It airbrushes out the very abuses faced by the Palestinians that Hamas and the other Palestinian militant factions were established to resist. 

That right of resistance to belligerent military occupation is enshrined in international law, even if the West rarely acknowledges the fact. 

Or as Albanese put it:

“The victims in the October 7 massacre were not killed because of their Judaism, but in response to Israeli oppression.”

Macron’s ridiculous remark also wiped out the past 17 years of the siege of Gaza – a slow-motion genocide that Israel has now put on steroids. 

And he did so precisely because western colonial interests – just like Israel’s interests – must rationalise the dehumanisation of Palestinians and their supporters as racists and barbarians, in the West’s pursuit of domination and old-fashioned resource control in the Middle East. 

But it is Albanese, not Macron, now fighting to save her reputation. She is the one being smeared as a racist and antisemite. By whom? By Israel and the genocide-supporting leaders of Europe.

Sacred Cause

Israel needs antisemitism. And armed with a ludicrous redefinition adopted by western allies that classifies as Jew hatred any opposition to its crimes – any rejection of its bogus claims of “self-defence” as it crushes resistance to its occupation and its oppression of Palestinians – Israel has every incentive to commit more crimes. 

Every atrocity produces more outrage, more resentment, more “antisemitism”. And the more resentment, the more outrage, the more “antisemitism”, the more Israel and its supporters can present the self-declared Jewish state as a sanctuary from that “antisemitism”. 

Israel is no longer treated as a state, as a political actor capable of committing crimes and slaughtering children, but as an article of faith. It is transformed into a belief system, one immune to criticism or scrutiny. It transcends politics to become a sacred cause. And any opposition must be damned as wicked, as blasphemy.

Which is precisely the state to which western politics has devolved. 

This battle against “antisemitism” – or rather, the battle being waged by Israel and its partisans – is to turn the meaning of words, and the values they represent, on their head. It is a fight to crush solidarity with the Palestinian people, and leave them friendless and naked before Israel’s campaign of genocide. 

It is a moral duty to defeat these “antisemitism” warriors and assert our shared humanity – and the right of all to live in peace and dignity – before Israel and its apologists pave the way to an even greater slaughter. 

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Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at www.jonathan-cook.net

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

The steady and ruthless campaign by Israel to internationally defund the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), is unravelling. The lynchpin in the effort was a thin, poison pen dossier making claims that 12 individuals were Hamas operatives who had been involved in the October 7 attacks. Within a matter of days, two internal investigations were commenced, various individuals sacked, and US$450 million worth of funding from donor states suspended.

As the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, explained at a press conference on March 4, he has “never been informed” or received evidence of Israel’s claims substantiating their assertions, though he did receive the prompt about the profane twelve directly from Israeli officials. Every year, both Israel and the Palestinian authorities were furnished with staff lists, “and I never received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.”

Had Israeli authorities signed off on these alleged participants in bungling or conspiratorial understanding?  Certainly, there was more than a pongy whiff of distraction about it all, given that Israel had come off poorly in The Hague proceedings launched by South Africa, during which the judges issued an interim order demanding an observance of the UN Genocide Convention, an increase of humanitarian aid, and the retention of evidence that might be used for future criminal prosecutions for genocide.

An abrupt wave of initial success in starving the agency followed, with a number of countries announcing plans to freeze funding.  In the United States, irate members of Congress accused the agency of having “longstanding connections to terrorism and promotion of antisemitism”.  A hearing was duly held titled “UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures” with Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies frothing at an agency that supposedly incited “violence against Israel, subsidizes US-designated terrorist organizations, denies Palestinians their basic human rights, and blocks the pathways to a sustainable peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”

The attempt to cast UNRWA into gleefully welcomed oblivion has not worked. Questions were asked about the initial figure of twelve alleged militants. News outlets began questioning the numbers.

The funding channels are resuming. Canada, for instance, approving “the robust investigative process underway”, also acknowledged that “more can be done to respond to the urgent needs of Palestinian civilians”.  The initial cancellation of funding to the agency, charged Thomas Woodley, president of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, had been “a reckless political decision that never should have been made.”

The Swedish government was also encouraged by undertakings made by UNRWA “to allow independent auditing, strengthen internal supervision and enable additional staff controls”, promising an initial outlay of 200 million kroner (US$19 million)

The Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, Johan Forssell, promised that it would “monitor closely to ensure UNRWA follows through on what it has promised.” Aid policy spokesperson for the Christian Democrats, Gudrun Brunegård, also conceded that, given the “huge” needs on the part of the civilian population, that UNRWA was “the organisation that is best positioned to help vulnerable Palestinians.”

Much the same sentiment was expressed by the European Union, with the Commission agreeing to pay 50 million euros to UNRWA from a promised total of 82 million euros on the proviso that EU-appointed experts audit the screening of staff. “This audit,” a European Commission statement explains, “will review the control systems to prevent the possible involvement of its staff and assets in terrorist activities.” Having been found wanting in her screeching about-turn, the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen insisted that the EU stood “by the Palestinian people in Gaza and elsewhere in the region. Innocent Palestinians should not have to pay the price for the crimes of [the] terrorist group Hamas.”

Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi was stiffly bureaucratic in expressing satisfaction at “the commitment of UNRWA to introduce robust measures to prevent possible misconduct and minimise the risk of allegations”. At no point was Israel’s own contribution to the calamity, and its insatiable vendetta against the agency, mentioned.

The bombast and blunder of the whole effort by Israel was further discoloured by claims that UNRWA staff had been victims of torture at the hands of the IDF in drafting the dossier. In a statement released by the agency, a grave accusation was levelled: “These forced confessions as a result of torture are being used by the Israeli Authorities to further spread misinformation about the agency as part of attempts to dismantle UNRWA.” In doing so, Israel was “putting our staff at risk and has serious implications on our operations in Gaza and around the region.”

For its part, the IDF, through a statement, claimed that this was all exaggerated piffle:

“The mistreatment of detainees during their time in detention or whilst under interrogation violates IDF values and contravenes IDF [sic] and is therefore absolutely prohibited.”

Increasingly on the losing side of that battle, Israeli authorities decided to cook the figures further, declaring with crass confidence that 450 URWA employees in Gaza were members of militant groups including Hamas.  Sticking to routine, those making that allegation decided that evidence of such claims was not needed. Those employees, claimed Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, “are military operatives in terror groups in Gaza”.  “This was no coincidence. This is systematic. There is no claiming, ‘we did not know’.”

In the fog of war, mendacity thrives with virile vigour; but the current suggestion on the part of various donor states is that the humanitarian incentive to ameliorate the suffering of the Gaza populace has taken precedence over Israel’s persistently lethal efforts. That, at least, is the case with certain countries, leaving the doubters starkly exposed.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Transcript

emphasis added by GR

(The President presents his prepared remarks to Speaker Johnson.) Your bedtime reading.

Tony! Thank you. Looking for Jill.

Good evening. Good evening. If I were smart, I’d go home now.

Mr. Speaker, Madam Vice President, members of Congress, my fellow Americans.

In January 1941, Franklin Roosevelt came to this chamber to speak to the nation. And he said, “I address you at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union”. Hitler was on the march. War was raging in Europe.

President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary time. Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.

Tonight, I come to the same chamber to address the nation. Now it’s we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.

And, yes, my purpose tonight is to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either. Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today.

What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack at — both at home and overseas at the very same time.

Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond.

If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you: He will not.

But Ukraine — Ukraine can stop Putin. Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons that it needs to defend itself.

That is all — that is all Ukraine is asking. They’re not asking for American soldiers. In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine, and I’m determined to keep it that way. [let our NATO allies do the dirty work?]

But now assistance to Ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership.

It wasn’t long ago when a Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Now — now my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, quote, “Do whatever the hell you want.”

That’s a quote.

A former president actually said that — bowing down to a Russian leader. I think it’s outrageous, it’s dangerous, and it’s unacceptable.

America is a founding member of NATO, the military alliance of democratic nations created after World War Two prevent — to prevent war and keep the peace.

And today, we’ve made NATO stronger than ever. We welcomed Finland to the Alliance last year. And just this morning, Sweden officially joined, and their minister is here tonight. Stand up. Welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome. And they know how to fight.

Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to NATO, the strongest military alliance the world has ever seen.

I say this to Congress: We have to stand up to Putin. Send me a bipartisan national security bill. History is literally watching. History is watching.

Click here to read the full transcript.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

20 year old Sofia Padoan, 3rd year student at California State Polytechnic University died suddenly on Feb. 23, 2024

• Sofia was a third-year student at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo.
• She majored in nutrition and minored in Italian studies
• She planned to pursue a career in nursing.
• On Feb.23, 2024, an event brought the family together for dinner.
• Shortly after returning from a family dinner, Sofia collapsed from a brain aneurysm. The family was with her in her final hours.

Cal Poly COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates 

• Sofia Padoan graduated from Northgate High School in 2021
• She was an athlete (National level lacrosse player)

 

• Sofia was required to get two COVID-19 Vaccines to start her first year at Cal Poly in the Fall of 2021.
• Cal Poly announced the COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate on July 27, 2021.

 

Similar Story 

Oct. 6, 2021 – College of Staten Island student 21 year old Brittany McCarthy, an athlete and national champion cheerleader, died Oct. 6, 2021 from a ruptured brain aneurysm. She took COVID-19 Vaccines Mandated by College of Staten Island.

• Brittany’s dream was to become a Physician’s Assistant

 

COVID-19 Vaccine-mandated Brain Aneurysms

Feb. 9, 2024 – Iowa teacher Matthew Harper suffered a ruptured aneurysm on Feb. 8 and died suddenly on Feb. 9, 2024, leaving behind a pregnant wife. He was COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated and mandated as a teacher.

Feb. 5, 2024 – NSW, Australia – Family physician Dr. Mike Davis died unexpectedly from a brain aneurysm on Feb. 5, 2024. He leaves behind 3 children.

Dec. 12, 2023 – Italy – 21 year old Alice Tiberi was found dead in her bed by her mother on Dec. 12, 2023. “There is talk of aneurysm.”

Dec. 3, 2023 – Port Alberni, BC, Canada – 35 year old Richard William Booth died suddenly due to an aortic aneurysm on Dec. 3, 2023. He ran ultra marathons.

Dec. 2, 2023 – Seattle, WA – Nurse Sonya Denise Holden has suffered a brain aneurysm. “I had COVID 4 times and three COVID shots.”

Nov. 28, 2023 – Petaling Jaya, Malaysia – 37 year old Malaysian actress and star Queenzy Cheng died suddenly on Nov. 28, 2023. Ruptured brain aneurysm.

Nov. 2023 – Sean Foster runs Ironman Marathons. He had a brain aneurysm in Nov. 2023. “Freshly Triple boostered COVID survivor” “Vacc did its job.”

Oct. 31, 2023 – IN – Healthcare worker Marie Love had a ruptured brain aneurysm causing a large subdural hematoma. She’s in the ICU.

Oct. 19, 2023 – UK – 41 year old Kevin Brewster, semi-professional soccer player, sports coach and PE teacher collapsed with a brain aneurysm on Oct. 19, 2023 and was given an hour to live. He survived.

OH – Kristin Velovitch became ill on Sep. 30, 2023 and was found to have a brain aneurysm. She volunteered at a local school.

Aug. 20, 2023 – Sierra Madre, CA – Dr. Mona Delahooke is a best selling author and child psychologist. She had a ruptured brain aneurysm on Aug. 20, 2023 and almost died.

My Take… 

Post COVID-19 Vaccine brain aneurysms are extremely common.

It’s one of the Vaccine injuries I encounter so frequently, that I could write an article full of cases every month.

In this article, I included only the COVID-19 Vaccine mandated: teachers, healthcare workers, University students

21 year old Brittany McCarthy and 20 year old Sofia Padoan were both mandated COVID-19 Vaccines to be able to attend University. Both wanted to be healthcare workers. Both died from aneurysms.

Brittany died within months in her 1st year, Sofia died in her 3rd year.

Short term or long term, COVID-19 jab aneurysms will kill you eventually.

As far as I can see, none of the families are holding the leaders of Universities accountable for deaths of students.

In this regard, University COVID-19 Vaccine mandates were the PERFECT CRIME.

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

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The War on Iraq: Five US Presidents, Five British Prime Ministers, More than 30 Years of Duplicity, and Counting…

By Felicity Arbuthnot and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 10, 2024

With the exception of the War on Afghanistan (October 2001) and the 1990-91 Gulf War, all major US-NATO and allied led military operations over a period of more than half a century –since the invasion of Vietnam by U.S. ground forces on March 8, 1965– have been initiated in the month of March.

Coverup of Extensive War Crimes: 56th Anniversary of the My Lai Massacre

By Dr. Gary G. Kohls and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 10, 2024

Fifty-six years ago this week, on March 16, 1968, a company of US Army combat soldiers from the America Division swept into the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai, rounded up the 500+ unarmed, non-combatant residents, all women, children, babies and a few old men, and executed them in cold blood, Nazi-style. No weapons were found in the village, and the whole operation took only 4 hours.

Adverse Effects: A Critical Review of COVID Vaxgenes: Do You Choose to Understand?

By Dr. Peter McCullough, March 11, 2024

Many have said the new mRNA vaccines are not really vaccines which traditionally have fallen into three categories: 1) antigen, 2) killed virus 3) live attenuated. Over the course of the pandemic the definition of vaccine has been softened to simply state a mechanism without a hard clinical benefit or outcome. 

Biden’s State of the Union: War and Genocide Are Still “The American Way”

By Melissa Garriga, March 10, 2024

From Gaza to Ukraine, from the Middle East to the borders of our own nation, the toll of violence from militarism is immeasurable. Will we ever see an end to the cycle of destruction fueled by capitalism and U.S. imperialism? Firstly, let’s address the white elephant in the war.

The Public Bank That Wasn’t: New Jersey’s Excursion Into Public Banking

By Ellen Brown, March 10, 2024

In 2017, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, made the establishment of a public, state-owned bank a centerpiece issue during his run for New Jersey governor. He regularly championed public banking in speeches, town halls and campaign commercials. He won the race, and the nation’s second state-owned bank following the stellar model of the Bank of North Dakota (BND) appeared to be in view. 

Biden’s Offer for a 6-Week Pause in the Genocide in Gaza. Netanyahu Says IDF Will Remain in Gaza for 10 Years

By Steven Sahiounie, March 10, 2024

The Hamas delegation left Cairo on Thursday and will resume negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza next week. Time is running out before the Holy month of Ramadan begins. Hamas wants an end to the war, but the U.S. is looking only for a 6-week pause, and Israel is willing to allow a pause but resume the genocide afterward.

The Growing Gulf Between What the World Needs and What Is Happening Must be Bridged Before It Is Too Late

By Bharat Dogra, March 10, 2024

This is a time when senior scientists have been warning increasingly that threats to the life-nurturing conditions of the planet due to climate change, other environmental problems and very dangerous and destructive weapons have been escalating, and yet, despite these warnings, several of the world’s top leaders have gone ahead and created the conditions for several new and high-risk wars to start and escalate, so much so that the talk of the third world war and a nuclear war breaking out has been heard more during the last two years than during the last two decades. 

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

 

 

Many have said the new mRNA vaccines are not really vaccines which traditionally have fallen into three categories: 1) antigen, 2) killed virus 3) live attenuated. Over the course of the pandemic the definition of vaccine has been softened to simply state a mechanism without a hard clinical benefit or outcome. 

 

 

What does it mean to have mRNA injected into the human body? We sought to answer these questions by inviting on the show this week Dr. Karina A. Acevedo-Whitehouse who told us why she was motivated to write a powerful and revealing book on mRNA titled: Adverse effects. A critical review of COVID vaxgenes: Do you choose to understand? For so many who now have this new form of synthetic mRNA in their bodies, this book is a must. Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse currently works at the Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Autonomous University of Queretaro. Acevedo-Whitehouse does research on Immune Plasticity, Molecular Epidemiology of disease in wildlife, and Cancer in free-ranging species.

Click here to view the video

Here is some more on the new book:

“This book is a compendium of various topics that seek to help understand the mechanisms through which genetic anti-COVID vaccines (vaxgenes) can cause various impacts on the health of those who receive them. It contains eight chapters that explore the components of vaxgenes, their mechanism of action, the pathophysiology associated with each component, the clinical conditions that can arise from that pathophysiology, and the scientific and medical evidence of their occurrence. Central concepts about causality and chance in epidemiology are also explored.

It is not an academic textbook, although it explains scientific topics in a serious and referenced way. It is not a medical reference book, but it will be useful for doctors and patients. It is not a popular book, although it is written in an accessible way. It is not a book that seeks to generate fear, but rather to offer knowledge to understand the facts and allow you to seek help if needed. It does not constitute ‘the truth’, but it contains it.” This book is particularly timely as some of our most frail in society could be coming up on their ninth or even twelfth shot.

 

 

If you, family members, or friends took one of the Pfizer or Moderna shots, you will want to know what is inside of you now and what may happen in the months and years to come. So, let’s understand together what “vaxgenes” are and review the implications of mass, repeated administration. This book is highly referenced and illustrated—a great “nudge” gift for those still in the government false narrative.

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Adverse effects. A critical review of COVID vaxgenes: Do you choose to understand?

by Dr. Karina A. Acevedo-Whitehouse

This book is a compendium of various topics that seek to help understand the mechanisms through which genetic anti-COVID vaccines (vaxgenes) can cause various impacts on the health of those who receive them. It contains eight chapters that explore the components of vaxgenes, their mechanism of action, the pathophysiology associated with each component, the clinical conditions that can arise from that pathophysiology, and the scientific and medical evidence of their occurrence. Central concepts about causality and chance in Epidemiology are also explored.

It is not an academic textbook, although it explains scientific topics in a serious and referenced way. It is not a medical reference book, but it will be useful for doctors and patients. It is not a popular book, although it is written in an accessible way. It is not a book that seeks to generate fear, but rather to offer knowledge to understand the facts and allow you to seek help if needed. It does not constitute ‘the truth’, but it contains it…

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Karina A. Acevedo Whitehouse (February 20, 2024)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 426 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9694392675
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-9694392677

Click here to purchase.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Members of the Democratic party are beginning to panic because former President Donald Trump is ahead in the electoral polls in the lead-up to the November election in the United States, in which he will most likely face a weakened Joe Biden. This panic is likely to deepen now that Trump is directly calling for a debate with Biden, especially in the context of the president’s clear cognitive decline.

According to an article in The Hill, the polls showing Trump ahead of Biden in electoral preferences and the lawsuits that the Republican has managed to win to avoid being banned from the presidential election have led the Democrats to “hit the panic button.”

“Democrats are beginning to hit the panic button as an implosion in former President Trump’s campaign fails to materialize and a series of polls suggests President Biden is weaker than he was four years ago,” The Hill published.

On March 4, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Trump in a unanimous decision involving the 14th Amendment. Other high-profile trials have been delayed, raising questions about whether they will reach verdicts before Election Day. All this occurs when most polls have already placed the former president above Biden in electoral preferences.

A recently published Bloomberg News/Morning Consult opinion poll showed Biden trailing Trump in several critical states, including Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Democrats received another wake-up call on March 2 when a New York Times /Siena College poll showed Trump leading Biden 48% to 43% among registered voters nationwide for November’s presidential election.

Sen. Peter Welch told The Hill that the latest poll numbers are concerning and denounced as “outrageous” the Supreme Court’s separate decision to postpone a ruling on Trump’s legal immunity claims until the summer.

“We’re concerned. This is going to be a tough race, but it hasn’t really begun yet, so a lot of the coverage is just about Biden’s age, not about his policies,” the Democrat told the outlet. “The president is going to get out on the stump and he’s going to have an opportunity to show he’s got the energy as well as the intellect and the acuity to do the job.”

Another concern for Democrats is that criminal cases brought against Trump by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington and Miami and by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia are stuck in limbo and may not be resolved by election day, highlights The Hill.

Senate Democratic assistant majority leader and assistant minority leader Dick Durbin complained about the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the arguments on Trump’s immunity claims as “a disappointment.”

“Their delay in considering this critical issue, this timely issue, is going to delay the resolution of these cases by months at least,” he predicted on CNN’s State of the Union.

Another concern for the Democrats is that Nikki Haley announced the end of her presidential campaign after being humiliatingly defeated in coast-to-coast Super Tuesday contests. This means it is all but confirmed officially that Trump and Biden are set for a rematch in the November election. Whilst Biden praised the “courage” he said Haley displayed to challenge Trump, the former president, in a social media post, accused her of drawing support from “Radical Left Democrats.”

Following Haley’s withdrawal from the nomination bidding process, Trump called on Biden to debate with him on issues that are “vital to America and the American people.”

In a post on his TruthSocial platform, Trump said:

“It is important, for the Good of our Country, that Joe Biden and I Debate Issues that are so vital to America, and the American People. Therefore, I am calling for Debates, ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE!”

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to confirm whether Biden would participate in any debates this year, citing federal law barring federal employees from speaking about election-related matters, but the current president’s campaign’s communications director, Michael Tyler, told The Independent that Trump was “thirsty for attention” and said the likely Republican nominee is “struggling to expand his appeal beyond the MAGA base” while promising that the debate question would be addressed “at the appropriate time in this cycle.”

Effectively, the “panic button” has been hit so hard that the Democrats cannot even give a clear response on when Biden will debate Trump. Given that the current president is evidently experiencing a cognitive decline, the Democrats want to avoid a debate if possible. For all intents and purposes, although elections are still eight months away, Donald Trump will likely be the next US president on current projections.

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Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from countercurrents.org

Today, March 11, 2024, we commemorate the onslaught of the US led war on the people of Korea, almost 74 years ago, starting on June 26, 1950.

The following text by Michel Chossudovsky was presented in Seoul, South Korea in the context of the Korea Armistice Day Commemoration, 27 July 2013

A Message for Peace. Towards a Peace Agreement and the Withdrawal of US Troops from Korea.

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.

Introduction

Armistice Day, 27 July 1953 is day of Remembrance for the People of Korea.

It is a landmark date in the historical struggle for national reunification and sovereignty.

I am privileged to have this opportunity of participating in the 60th anniversary commemoration of Armistice Day on July 27, 2013.

I am much indebted to the “Anti-War, Peace Actualized, People Action” movement for this opportunity to contribute to the debate on peace and reunification.

An armistice is an agreement by the warring parties to stop fighting. It does signify the end of war.

What underlies the 1953 Armistice Agreement is that one of the warring parties, namely the US has consistently threatened to wage war on the DPRK for the last 60 years.

The US has on countless occasions violated the Armistice Agreement. It has remained on a war footing. Casually ignored by the Western media and the international community, the US has actively deployed nuclear weapons targeted at North Korea for more than half a century in violation of article 13b) of the Armistice agreement. 

The armistice remains in force. The US is still at war with Korea. It is not a peace treaty, a peace agreement was never signed.

The US has used the Armistice agreement to justify the presence of 37,000 American troops on Korean soil under a bogus United Nations mandate, as well as establish an environment of continuous and ongoing military threats. This situation of “latent warfare” has lasted for the last 60 years. It is important to emphasize that this US garrison in South Korea is the only U.S. military presence based permanently on the Asian continent.

Our objective in this venue is to call for a far-reaching peace treaty, which will not only render the armistice agreement signed on July 27, 1953 null and void, but will also lay the foundations for the speedy withdrawal of US troops from Korea as well as lay the foundations for the reunification of the Korean nation.

Michel Chossudovsky Presentation: 60th anniversary commemoration of Armistice Day on July 27, 2013, Seoul, ROK. 

Armistice Day in a Broader Historical Perspective.

This commemoration is particularly significant in view of mounting US threats directed not only against Korea, but also against China and Russia as part of Washington’s “Asia Pivot”, not to mention the illegal occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the US-NATO wars against Libya and Syria, the military threats directed against Iran, the longstanding struggle of the Palestinian people against Israel, the US sponsored wars and insurrections in sub-Saharan Africa.

Armistice Day July 27, 1953, is a significant landmark in the history of US led wars.  Under the Truman Doctrine formulated in the late 1940s, the Korean War (1950-1953) had set the stage for a global process of militarization and US led wars. “Peace-making” in terms of a peace agreement is in direct contradiction with Washington “war-making” agenda.

Washington has formulated a global military agenda. In the words of four star General Wesley Clark (Ret) [image right], quoting a senior Pentagon official:

“We’re going to take out seven countries in 5 years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran” (Democracy Now March 2, 2007)

The Korean War (1950-1953) was the first major military operation  undertaken by the US in the wake of  World War II,  launched at the very outset of  what was euphemistically called “The Cold War”. In many respects it was a continuation of World War II, whereby Korean lands under Japanese colonial occupation were, from one day to the next, handed over to a new colonial power, the United States of America.

There was no “Liberation” of Korea following the entry of US forces. Quite the opposite.

As we recall, a US military government was established in South Korea on September 8, 1945, three weeks after the surrender of Japan on August 15th 1945. Moreover,  Japanese officials in South Korea assisted the US Army Military Government (USAMG) (1945-48) led by General Hodge in ensuring this transition. Japanese colonial administrators in Seoul as well as their Korean police officials worked hand in glove with the new colonial masters.

From the outset, the US military government refused to recognize the provisional government of the People’s Republic of Korea (PRK), which was committed to major social reforms including land distribution, laws protecting the rights of workers, minimum wage legislation and  the reunification of North and South Korea.

The PRK was non-aligned with an anti-colonial mandate, calling for the “establishment of close relations with the United States, USSR, England, and China, and positive opposition to any foreign influences interfering with the domestic affairs of the state.”2

The PRK was abolished by military decree in September 1945 by the USAMG. There was no democracy, no liberation no independence.

While Japan was treated as a defeated Empire, South Korea was identified as a colonial territory to be administered under US military rule and US occupation forces.

America’s handpicked appointee Sygman Rhee [left] was flown into Seoul in October 1945, in General Douglas MacArthur’s personal airplane.

The Korean War (1950-1953)

The crimes committed by the US against the people of Korea in the course of the Korean War but also in its aftermath are unprecedented in modern history.

Moreover, it is important to understand that these US sponsored crimes against humanity committed in the 1950s have, over the years, contributed to setting “a pattern of killings” and US human rights violations in different parts of the World.

The Korean War was also characterised by a practice of targeted assassinations of political dissidents, which was subsequently implemented by the CIA in numerous countries including Indonesia, Vietnam, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Afghanistan, Iraq.

Invariably these targeted killings were committed on the instructions of the CIA and carried out by a US sponsored proxy government or military dictatorship. More recently, targeted assassinations of civilians, “legalised” by the US Congress have become, so to speak, the “New Normal”.

According to  I.F. Stone’s “Hidden History of the Korean War” first published in 1952 (at the height of the Korean War), the US deliberately sought a pretext, an act of deception, which incited the North to cross the 38th parallel ultimately leading to all out war.

“[I. F. Stone’s book] raised questions about the origin of the Korean War, made a case that the United States government manipulated the United Nations, and gave evidence that the U.S. military and South Korean oligarchy dragged out the war by sabotaging the peace talks, 3

In Stone’s account, General Douglas MacArthur “did everything possible to avoid peace”.

US wars of aggression are waged under the cloak of “self defence” and pre-emptive attacks. Echoing I. F. Stone’s historical statement concerning General MacArthur, sixty years later US president Barack Obama and his defence Secretary Chuck Hagel are also “doing. everything possible to avoid peace”. 

This pattern of inciting the enemy “to fire the first shot” is well established in US military doctrine. It pertains to creating a “War Pretext Incident” which provides the aggressor to pretext to intervene on the grounds of “Self- Defence”. It characterised the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941, triggered by deception and provocation of which US officials had advanced knowledge. Pearl Harbor was the justification for America’s entry into World War II.

The Tonkin Gulf Incident in August 1964 was the pretext for the US to wage war on North Vietnam, following the adoption of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution by the US Congress, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to wage war on Communist North Vietnam.

I. F. Stone’s analysis refutes “the standard telling”  … that the Korean War was an unprovoked aggression by the North Koreans beginning on June 25, 1950, undertaken at the behest of the Soviet Union to extend the Soviet sphere of influence to the whole of Korea, completely surprising the South Koreans, the U.S., and the U.N.”:

But was it a surprise? Could an attack by 70,000 men using at least 70 tanks launched simultaneously at four different points have been a surprise?

Stone gathers contemporary reports from South Korean, U.S. and U.N. sources documenting what was known before June 25. The head of the U.S. CIA, Rear Admiral Roscoe H. Hillenloetter, is reported to have said on the record, “that American intelligence was aware that ‘conditions existed in Korea that could have meant an invasion this week or next.'” (p. 2)  Stone writes that “America’s leading military commentator, Hanson Baldwin of the New York Times, a trusted confidant of the Pentagon, reported that they [U.S. military documents] showed ‘a marked buildup by the North Korean People’s Army along the 38th Parallel beginning in the early days of June.'” (p. 4)

How and why did U.S. President Truman so quickly decide by June 27 to commit the U.S. military to battle in South Korea? Stone makes a strong case that there were those in the U.S. government and military who saw a war in Korea and the resulting instability in East Asia as in the U.S. national interest. 4

According to the editor of France’s Nouvel Observateur Claude Bourdet:

“If Stone’s thesis corresponds to reality, we are in the presence of the greatest swindle in the whole of military history… not a question of a harmless fraud but of a terrible maneuver in which deception is being consciously utilized to block peace at a time when it is possible.”5

In the words of renowned American writers Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy:

“….we have come to the conclusion that (South Korean president) Syngman Rhee deliberately provoked the North Koreans in the hope that they would retaliate by crossing the parallel in force. The northerners fell neatly into the trap.” 6

On 25 June 1950, following the adoption of UN  Security Council Resolution 82, General Douglas MacArthur, who headed the US military government in occupied Japan was appointed Commander in Chief of the so-called United Nations Command (UNCOM). According to Bruce Cumings, the Korean War “bore a strong resemblance to the air war against Imperial Japan in the second world war and was often directed by the same US military leaders” including generals Douglas MacArthur and Curtis Lemay.

US War Crimes against the People of Korea

Extensive crimes were committed by US forces in the course of the Korean War (1950-1953).  While nuclear weapons were not used during the Korean War, what prevailed was the strategy of  “mass killings of civilians” which had been formulated during World War II. A policy of killing innocent civilians was implemented through extensive air raids and bombings of German cities by American and British forces in the last weeks of World War II. In a bitter irony, military targets were safeguarded.

This unofficial doctrine of killing of civilians under the pretext of targeting military objectives largely characterised US military actions both in the course of the Korean war as well as in its aftermath. According to Bruce Cummings:

On 12 August 1950, the USAF dropped 625 tons of bombs on North Korea; two weeks later, the daily tonnage increased to some 800 tons.U.S. warplanes dropped more napalm and bombs on North Korea than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II. 7

The territories North of the 38th parallel were subjected to extensive carpet bombing, which resulted in the destruction of 78 cities and thousands of villages:

“What was indelible about it [the Korean War of 1950-53] was the extraordinary destructiveness of the United States’ air campaigns against North Korea, from the widespread and continuous use of firebombing (mainly with napalm), to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons, and the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final stages of the war.  ….

As a result, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed. …. 8

General Curtis LeMay [left] who coordinated the bombing raids against North Korea brazenly acknowledged that:

“Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population. … We burned down every town in North Korea and South Korea, too”. 9

According to Brian Willson:

It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerence of another.” 10

 

Translation: the city of Pyongyang was totally destroyed in 1951 during the Korean war

Extensive war crimes were also committed by US forces in South Korea as documented by the Korea Truth and Reconciliation Commission. According to ROK sources, almost one million civilians were killed in South Korea in the course of the Korean War:

“In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950.” 11

During The Second World War, the United Kingdom lost 0.94% of its population, France lost 1.35%, China lost 1.89% and the US lost 0.32%. During the Korean War, the DPRK lost more than 25% of its population. The population of North Korea was of the order of 8-9 million in 1950 prior the Korean War. US sources acknowledge 1.55 million civilian deaths in North Korea, 215,000 combat deaths. MIA/POW 120,000, 300,000 combat troops wounded. 12

South Korean military sources estimate the number of civilian deaths/wounded/missing at 2.5 million, of which some 990,900 are in South Korea. Another estimate places Korea War total deaths, civilian plus combat at 3.5 million.)

North Korea: A Threat to Global Security?

For the last 60 years, Washington has contributed to the political isolation of North Korea. It has sought to destabilize its national economy, including its industrial base and agriculture. It has relentlessly undermined the process of reunification of the Korean nation.

In South Korea, the US has maintained its stranglehold over the entire political system. It has ensured from the initial appointment of Sygman Rhee the instatement of non-democratic and repressive forms of government which have in large part served the interests of the U.S.

US military presence in South Korea has also exerted a controlling influence on economic and monetary policy.

An important question for the American people.

How can a country which has lost a quarter of its population resulting from US aggression, constitute a threat to the American Homeland?

How can a country which has 37,000 US troops on its immediate border constitute a threat to America?

Given the history war crimes, how do the people of North Korea perceive the US threat to their Homeland. There is not a single family in North Korea which has not lost a loved one in the course of the Korean War.

The Korean War was the first major US led war carried out in the immediate wake of World War II.

While the US and its NATO allies have waged numerous wars and military interventions in all major regions of the World in the course of what is euphemistically called the “post War era”, resulting in millions of civilians deaths, America is upheld as the guardian of democracy and World Peace.

War Propaganda

The Lie becomes the Truth.

Realities are turned upside down.

History is rewritten. North Korea is heralded as a threat.

America is not the aggressor nation but “the victim” of aggression.

These concepts are part of war propaganda which is fed into the news chain.

Since the end of the Korean War, US led propaganda –funnelled into the ROK news chain– has relentlessly contributed to fomenting conflict and divisiveness between North and South Korea, presenting the DPRK as a threat to ROK national security.

An atmosphere of fear and intimidation prevails which impels people in South Korea to accept the “peace-making role” of the United States. In the eyes of public opinion, the presence of  37,000 US occupation forces is viewed as “necessary” to the security of the ROK.

US military presence is heralded as a means to “protecting the ROK” against North Korean aggression. Similarly, the propaganda campaign will seek to create divisions within Korean society with a view to sustaining the legitimacy of  US interventionism. The purpose of this process is create divisiveness. Repeated ad nauseam, the alleged “North Korean threat” undermines –within people’s inner consciousness– the notion that Korea is one country, one nation, one history.

The “Truman Doctrine”

Historically, in the wake of World War II, the Truman doctrine first formulated by Foreign Policy adviser George F. Kennan in a 1948 State Department brief established the Cold War framework of US expansionism:

What this 1948 document conveys is continuity in US foreign policy, from “Containment” during the Cold War era to “Pre-emptive” War. It states in polite terms that the US should seek economic and strategic dominance through military means:

Furthermore, we have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction. (…)

In the face of this situation we would be better off to dispense now with a number of the concepts which have underlined our thinking with regard to the Far East. We should dispense with the aspiration to “be liked” or to be regarded as the repository of a high-minded international altruism. We should stop putting ourselves in the position of being our brothers’ keeper and refrain from offering moral and ideological advice. We should cease to talk about vague and—for the Far East—unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. 13

The planned disintegration of the United Nations system as an independent and influential international body has been on the drawing board of US foreign policy since the inception of the United Nations in 1946. Its planned demise was an integral part of the Truman doctrine as defined in 1948. From the very inception of the UN, Washington has sought on the one hand to control it to its advantage, while also seeking to weakening and ultimately destroy the UN system. In the words of George Kennan:

“Occasionally, it [the United Nations] has served a useful purpose. But by and large it has created more problems than it has solved, and has led to a considerable dispersal of our diplomatic effort. And in our efforts to use the UN majority for major political purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn against us. This is a situation which warrants most careful study and foresight on our part.

In our efforts to use the UN majority for major political purposes we are playing with a dangerous weapon which may some day turn against us. This is a situation which warrants most careful study and foresight on our part. 14

Although officially committed to the “international community”, Washington has largely played lip service to the United Nations. In recent years it has sought to undermine it as an institution. Since Gulf War I, the UN has largely acted as a rubber stamp. It has closed its eyes to US war crimes, it has implemented so-called peacekeeping operations on behalf of the Anglo-American invaders, in violation of the UN Charter.

The Truman Doctrine Applied to Korea and East Asia

The Truman doctrine was the culmination of a post World War II US military strategy initiated with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 and the surrender of Japan. [Harry Truman left]

In East Asia it consisted in the post-war occupation of Japan  as well the US takeover of Japan’s colonial Empire including South Korea (Korea was annexed to Japan under the 1910 Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty).

Following Imperial Japan’s defeat in World War II, a US sphere of influence throughout East and South East Asia was established in the territories of Japan’s “Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.

The US sphere of influence included Philippines (a US possession occupied by Japan during World War II), Thailand (a Japanese protectorate during World War II), Indonesia (Occupied by Japan during World War II, becomes a US proxy State following the establishment of the Suharto military dictatorship in 1965). This US sphere of influence in Asia also extended its grip into France’s former colonial possessions in Indochina, including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which were under Japanese military occupation during World War II.

America’s hegemony in Asia was largely based on establishing a sphere of influence in countries which were under the colonial jurisdiction of Japan, France and the Netherlands.

Continuity: From the Truman Doctrine to the Neo-Conservatives

The Neo-conservative agenda under the Bush administration should be viewed as the culmination of a (bipartisan) “Post War” foreign policy framework, which provides the basis for the planning of the contemporary wars and atrocities including the setting up of torture chambers, concentration camps and the extensive use of prohibited weapons directed against civilians.

From Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan, to the CIA sponsored military coups in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the objective has been to ensure US military hegemony and global economic domination, as initially formulated under the “Truman Doctrine”. Despite significant policy differences, successive Democratic and Republican administrations, over a span of more than sixty years, from Harry Truman to Barack Obama have carried out this global military agenda.

US War Crimes and Atrocities

What we are dealing with is a criminal US foreign policy agenda. Criminalization does not pertain to one or more heads of State. It pertains to the entire State system, it’s various civilian and military institutions as well as the powerful corporate interests behind the formulation of US foreign policy, the Washington think tanks, the creditor institutions which finance the military machine.

Starting with the Korean War in 1950 and extending to the wars in the Middle East and Central Asia, this period is marked by extensive war crimes resulting in the death of more than ten million people. This figure does not include those who perished as a result of poverty, starvation and disease.

War crimes are the result of the criminalization of the US State and foreign policy apparatus. We are not solely dealing specifically with individual war criminals, but with a process involving decision makers acting at different level, with a mandate to carry out war crimes, following established guidelines and procedures.

What distinguishes the Bush and Obama administrations in relation to the historical record of US sponsored crimes and atrocities, is that the concentration camps, targeted assassinations and torture chambers are now openly considered as legitimate forms of intervention, which sustain “the global war on terrorism” and support the spread of Western democracy.

Historical Significance of the Korean War: America’s Project of Global Warfare

The Korean War had set the stage for subsequent US military interventions. It was an initial phase of a post-World War II “military roadmap” of US led wars, special operations, coups d’etat, covert operations, US sponsored insurgencies and regime change spanning over of more than half a century. The project of global warfare has been carried out in all major regions of the World, through the US military’s geographic command structure, not to mention the CIA’s covert operations geared toward toppling sovereign governments.

This project of Worldwide conquest was initially established under the so-called “Truman Doctrine”. The latter initiated what the Pentagon later (in the wake of the Cold war under the NeoConservatives) entitled America`s “Long War”.

What we are dealing with is global warfare, a Worldwide process of conquest, militarization and corporate expansionism. The latter is the driving force. “Economic conquest” is implemented through the support of concurrent intelligence and military operations. Financial and monetary destabilization is another mechanism of economic warfare directed against sovereign countries.

In 2000, preceding the eleciton of George W. Bush to the White House, The Project for a New American Century (PNAC), A Washington Neoconservative think tank had stipulated  four core missions for the US military:

• “defend the American homeland;
• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions;
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs;”

George W. Bush’s Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, his Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney had commissioned the PNAC blueprint prior to the 2000 presidential elections.

The PNAC outlines a roadmap of conquest.

It calls for “the direct imposition of U.S. “forward bases” throughout Central Asia and the Middle East: “with a view to ensuring economic domination of the world, while strangling any potential “rival” or any viable alternative to America’s vision of a ‘free market’ economy”

Distinct from theater wars, the so-called “constabulary functions” imply a form of global military policing using various instruments of military intervention including punitive bombings and the sending in of US Special Forces, etc. Constabulary functions were contemplated in the first phase of US war plans against Iran. They were identified as ad hoc military interventions which could be applied as an “alternative” to so-called theater wars.

This document had no pretence: its objectives were strictly military. No discussion of America’s role in peace-keeping or the spread of democracy. 15 The main PNAC document is entitled Rebuilding America`s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century.(The PNAC website is:  http://www.newamericancentury.org)

US Military Occupation of South Korea, The Militarization of East Asia

Washington is intent upon creating political divisions in East Asia not only between the ROK and the DPRK but between North Korea and China, with a view to ultimately isolating the DPRK. In a bitter irony, US military facilities in the ROK are being used to threaten China as part of a process of military encirclement. In turn, Washington has sought to create political divisions between countries as well fomenting wars between neighboring countries (e.g. the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the confrontation between India and Pakistan).

The UN Command Mandate (UNC)

Sixty years later under a bogus UN mandate, the military occupation by US forces of South Korea prevails. It is worth noting that the UN never formally created a United Nations Command. The designation was adopted by the US without a formal decision by the UN Security Council. In 1994, the UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali clarified in a letter to the North Korean Foreign Minister that “the Security Council did not establish the unified command as a subsidiary organ under its control, but merely recommended [in 1950] the creation of such a command, specifying that it be under the authority of the United States”

Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces Command (CFC)

South Korea is still under military occupation by US forces. In the wake of the Korean War and the signing of the Armistice agreement, the national forces of the ROK were placed under the jurisdiction of the so-called UN Command. This arrangement implied that all units of the Korean military were de facto under the control of US commanders. In 1978 a binational Republic of Korea – United States Combined Forces Command (CFC), was created, headed by a US General. In substance, this was a change in labels in relation to the so-called UN Command. To this date, Korean forces remain under the command of a US general.

The CFC was originally to be dismantled when the U.S. hands back wartime operational control of South Korean troops to Seoul in 2015, but there were fears here that this could weaken South Korea’s defenses. The change of heart comes amid increasingly belligerent rhetoric from North Korea.

Park told her military brass at the briefing to launch “immediate and strong counterattacks” against any North Korean provocation. She said she considers the North’s threats “very serious,” and added, “If any provocations against our people and country ake place, the military has to respond quickly and strongly without any political consideration.” 16

United States Forces Korea (USFK)

United States Forces Korea (USFK) was established in 1957. It is described as “as a subordinate-unified command of U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM)”, which could be deployed to attack third countries in the region including Russia and China. There are officially 28,500 US troops under the jurisdiction of USFK. Recent figures of the US Department of Defense confirm that 37,000 US troops under USFK are currently (April 2013) stationed in South Korea.

USFK integrated by US forces is distinct from the Combined Forces Command (CFC) created in 1978. The CFC is commanded by a four-star U.S. general, with a four-star ROK Army general as deputy commander.17 (See United States Forces Korea | Mission of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command).

The current USFK commander is General James D. Thurman (See CFC photo op below) who also also assumes the position of CFC Commander and UNC Commander. 18 (See United States Forces Korea | USFK Leadership).

General Thurman who takes his orders from the Pentagon overrides ROK president and Commander in Chief Park Geun Hye.

Regular active troops of the ROK Armed Forces (Army, Navy and Air Force) theoretically under national ROK command consist of more 600,000 active personnel and more than 2 million reservists. According to the terms of the CFC, however, these troops are de facto under the CFC command which is headed by a US General.

What this means is that in addition to the 37,000 US troops of the USFK, the US command structure has de facto control over all operational units of the Korean Armed Forces. In essence, what this means is that the ROK does not control its armed forces. ROK armed forces essentially serve the interests of a foreign power.

President Park Geun-hye (center), Combined Forces Command commander Gen. James D. Thurman (second from left, back row), deputy CFC commander Gen. Kwon Oh-sung (second from right, back row) and allied troops. Source Korean Herald, 28 August 2013

Annually the US-ROK conducts war games directed against North Korea. These war games –which simulate a conventional and/or nuclear attack against North Korea– are often conducted in late July coinciding with Armistice Day.

In turn, US military bases along South Korea’s Western coastline and on Jeju island are used to threaten China as part of a process of military encirclement. In view of the ROK-US agreement under the CFC, South Korean troops under US command are deployed in the context of US military operations in the region, which are actively coordinated with USFK and USPACOM.

South Korea is multibillion bonanza for America’s weapons industry. In the course of the last 4 years the ROK ranked the fourth largest arms importer in the World “with the U.S. accounting for 77 percent of its arms purchases.” It should be noted that these weapons are purchased with Korean tax payers’ wons, they are de facto under the supervision of the US military, namely the CFC Joint Command which is headed by a US General.

In recent developments, the ROK president has hinted towards the possibility of pre-emptive strikes against North Korea.

The Korea Nuclear Issue. Who Threatens Whom?

Historical Background: Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 6 and 9, 1945

America’s early nuclear weapons doctrine under the Manhattan Project was not based on the Cold War notions of “Deterrence” and “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD).

US nuclear doctrine pertaining to Korea was established following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, which were largely directed against civilians.

The strategic objective was to trigger a “massive casualty producing event” resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. The objective was to terrorize an entire nation, as a mean of military conquest. Military targets were not the main objective: the notion of “collateral damage” was used as a justification for the mass killing of civilians, under the official pretence that Hiroshima was “a military base” and that civilians were not the target.

In the words of president Harry Truman:

“We have discovered the most terrible bomb in the history of the world. … This weapon is to be used against Japan … [We] will use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop that terrible bomb on the old capital or the new. …  The target will be a purely military one… It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful.” 20 (President Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945)

“The World will note that the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a military base. That was because we wished in this first attack to avoid, insofar as possible, the killing of civilians..” (President Harry S. Truman in a radio speech to the Nation, August 9, 1945).

[Note: the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945; the Second on Nagasaki, on August 9, on the same day as Truman’s radio speech to the Nation]

Nobody within the upper echelons of the US government and military believed that Hiroshima was a military base, Truman was lying to himself and to the American public. To this day the use of nuclear weapons against Japan are justified as a necessary cost for bringing the war to an end and ultimately “saving lives”.

 

The Hiroshima Doctrine applied to Korea: US nuclear weapons stockpiled and deployed in South Korea

During the Korean War, the US had envisaged the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea shortly after the Soviet Union had tested its first atom bomb in August  29, 1949, about ten months prior to the onset of the Korean War in June 1950. Inevitably, the possession of the atom bomb by the Soviet Union acted as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons by the US in the course of the Korean War.

In the immediate wake of the Korean War, there was a turnaround in US nuclear weapons policy regarding North Korea. The use of nukes weapons had been envisaged on a pre-emptive basis against the DPRK, on the presumption that the Cold War nuclear powers, including China and the Soviet Union would not intervene.

Barely a few years after the end of the Korean War, the US initiated its deployment of nuclear warheads in South Korea. This deployment in Uijongbu and Anyang-Ni had been envisaged as early as 1956.

It is worth noting that the US decision to bring nuclear warheads to South Korea was in blatant violation of  Paragraph 13(d) of the Armistice Agreement which prohibited the warring factions from introducing new weapons into Korea.

The actual deployment of nuclear warheads started in January 1958, four and a half years after the end of the Korean War, “with the introduction of five nuclear weapon systems: the Honest John surface-to-surface missile, the Matador cruise missile, the Atomic-Demolition Munition (ADM) nuclear landmine, and the 280-mm gun and 8-inch (203mm) howitzer.” 21 (See The nuclear information project: US Nuclear Weapons in Korea)

The Davy Crockett projectile was deployed in South Korea between July 1962 and June 1968. The warhead had selective yields up to 0.25 kilotons. The projectile weighed only 34.5 kg (76 lbs). Nuclear bombs for fighter bombers arrived in March 1958, followed by three surface-to-surface missile systems (Lacrosse, Davy Crockett, and Sergeant) between July 1960 and September 1963. The dual-mission Nike Hercules anti-air and surface-to-surface missile arrived in January 1961, and finally the 155-mm Howitzer arrived in October 1964. At the peak of this build-up, nearly 950 warheads were deployed in South Korea.

Four of the weapon types only remained deployed for a few years, while the others stayed for decades. The 8-inch Howitzer stayed until late 1991, the only of the weapon to be deployed throughout the entire 33-year period of U.S. nuclear weapons deployment to South Korea. The other weapons that stayed till the end were the air delivered bombs (several different bomb types were deployed over the years, ending with the B61) and the 155-mm Howitzer nuclear artillery.22

Officially the US deployment of nuclear weapons in South Korea lasted for 33 years. The deployment was targeted against North Korea as well China and the Soviet Union.

South Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program

Concurrent and in coordination with the US deployment of nuclear warheads in South Korea, the ROK had initiated its own nuclear weapons program in the early 1970s. The official story is that the US exerted pressure on Seoul to abandon their nuclear weapons program and “sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in April 1975 before it had produced any fissile material.” 23

The fact of the matter is that the ROK’s nuclear initiative was from the outset in the early 1970s  under the supervision of the US and was developed as a component part of the US deployment of nuclear weapons, with a view to threatening North Korea.

Moreover, while this program was officially ended in 1978, the US promoted scientific expertise as well as training of the ROK military in the use of nuclear weapons. And bear in mind: under the ROK-US CFC agreement, all operational units of the ROK are under joint command headed by a US General. This means that all the military facilities and bases established by the Korean military are de facto joint facilities. There are a total of 27 US military facilities in the ROK 24

The Official Removal of Nuclear Weapons from South Korea

According to military sources, the removal of nuclear weapons from South Korea was initiated in the mid 1970s:

 The nuclear weapons storage site at Osan Air base was deactivated in late 1977. This reduction continued over the following years and resulted in the number of nuclear weapons in South Korea dropping from some 540 in 1976 to approximately 150 artillery shells and bombs in 1985. By the time of the Presidential Nuclear Initiative in 1991, roughly 100 warheads remained, all of which had been withdrawn by December 1991. 25

According to official statements, the US withdrew its nuclear weapons from South Korea in December 1991.

The Planning of Nuclear Attacks against North Korea from the Continental US and from Strategic US Submarines

This withdrawal from Korea did not in any way modify the threat of nuclear war directed against the DPRK. On the contrary: it was tied to changes in US military strategy with regard to the deployment of nuclear warheads. Major North Korean cities were to be targeted with nuclear warheads from US continental locations and from US strategic submarines (SSBN)  rather than military facilities in South Korea:

After the withdrawal of [US] nuclear weapons from South Korea in December 1991, the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base has been tasked with nuclear strike planning against North Korea. Since then, strike planning against North Korea with non-strategic nuclear weapons has been the responsibility of fighter wings based in the continental United States. One of these is the 4th Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina. …

“We simulated fighting a war in Korea, using a Korean scenario. … The scenario…simulated a decision by the National Command Authority about considering using nuclear weapons….We identified aircraft, crews, and [weapon] loaders to load up tactical nuclear weapons onto our aircraft….

With a capability to strike targets in less than 15 minutes, the Trident D5 sea-launched ballistic missile is a “mission critical system” for U.S. Forces Korea. Ballistic Missile Submarines and Long-Range Bombers

In addition to non-strategic air delivered bombs, sea-launched ballistic missiles onboard strategic Ohio-class submarines (SSBNs) patrolling in the Pacific appear also to have a mission against North Korea. A DOD General Inspector report from 1998 listed the Trident system as a “mission critical system” identified by U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. Forces Korea as “being of particular importance to them.”

Although the primary mission of the Trident system is directed against targets in Russia and China, a D5 missile launched in a low-trajectory flight provides a unique very short notice (12-13 minutes) strike capability against time-critical targets in North Korea. No other U.S. nuclear weapon system can get a warhead on target that fast. Two-three SSBNs are on “hard alert” in the Pacific at any given time, holding Russian, Chinese and North Korean targets at risk from designated patrol areas.

Long-range strategic bombers may also be assigned a nuclear strike role against North Korea although little specific is known. An Air Force map (see below) suggests a B-2 strike role against North Korea. As the designated carrier of the B61-11 earth penetrating nuclear bomb, the B-2 is a strong candidate for potential nuclear strike missions against North Korean deeply buried underground facilities.

As the designated carrier of the B61-11 earth penetrating nuclear bomb [with an explosive capacity between one third and six times a Hiroshima bomb,see image right above] and a possible future Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, the B-2 stealth bomber (below)could have an important role against targets in North Korea. Recent upgrades enable planning of a new B-2 nuclear strike mission in less than 8 hours. 26

Whereas officially the US deployment of nuclear weapons in South Korea lasted for 33 years, there is evidence that a large number of nuclear warheads are still stockpiled in South Korea.

“Although the South Korean government at the time confirmed the withdrawal, U.S. affirmations were not as clear. As a result, rumors persisted for a long time — particularly in North and South Korea — that nuclear weapons remained in South Korea. Yet the withdrawal was confirmed by Pacific Command in 1998 in a declassified portion of the CINCPAC Command History for 1991. 27 (The nuclear information project: withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from South Korea,)

Recent reports have hinted to a remaining stockpile of nuclear weapons in South Korea to be used on a pre-emptive basis against North Korea.  It is well understood that such an action would engulf the entire Korean peninsula in an area of intense nuclear radiation.

The Bush Administration’s 2001 Nuclear Posture Review: Pre-emptive Nuclear War.

The Bush administration in its 2001 Nuclear Posture Review established the contours of a new post 9/11 “pre-emptive” nuclear war doctrine, namely that nuclear weapons could be used as an instrument of “self-defense” against non-nuclear states

“Requirements for U.S. nuclear strike capabilities” directed against North Korea were established as part of  a Global Strike mission under the helm of  US Strategic Command Headquarters in Omaha Nebraska, the so-called CONPLAN 8022, which was directed against a number of “rogue states” including North Korea as well as China and Russia:

On November 18, 2005, the new Space and Global Strike command became operational at STRATCOM after passing testing in a nuclear war exercise involving North Korea.

Current U.S. Nuclear strike planning against North Korea appears to serve three roles: The first is a vaguely defined traditional deterrence role intended to influence North Korean behavior prior to hostilities.

This role was broadened somewhat by the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review to not only deter but also dissuade North Korea from pursuing weapons of mass destruction.

Why, after five decades of confronting North Korea with nuclear weapons, the Bush administration believes that additional nuclear capabilities will somehow dissuade North Korea from pursuing weapons of mass destruction [nuclear weapons program] is a mystery. 28

The Threat of Nuclear War. North Korea vs. the United States.

While the Western media in chorus focus on the North Korean nuclear threat, what prevails when reviewing Korean history is the asymmetry of nuclear capabilities.

The fact that the US has been threatening North Korea with nuclear war for over half a century is barely acknowledged by the Western media.

Where is the threat?

The asymmetry of nuclear weapons capabilities between the US and the DPRK must be emphasised,

According to ArmsControl.org (April 2013) the United States

“possesses 5,113 nuclear warheads, including tactical, strategic, and non-deployed weapons.”

According to the latest official New START declaration, out of more than 5113 nuclear weapons,

“the US deploys 1,654 strategic nuclear warheads on 792 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers… 29

Moreover, according to The Federation of American Scientists the U.S. possesses 500 tactical nuclear warheads.

On April 3, 2013 the U.S. State Department issued the latest fact sheet on its data exchange with Russia under New START, sharing the numbers of deployed nuclear warheads and New START-accountable delivery systems held by each country, 2. On May 3, 2010, the United States Department of Defense released for the first time the total number of nuclear warheads (5,113) in the U.S. stockpile. The Defense Department includes in this stockpile active warheads which are operational and deployed or ready to be deployed, and inactive warheads which are maintained “in a non-operational status, and have their tritium bottle removed.” Sources: Arms Control Association, Federation of American Scientists, International Panel on Fissile Materials, U.S. Department of Defense, and U.S. Department of State).30

In contrast  the DPRK, according to the same source:

“has separated enough plutonium for roughly 4-8 nuclear warheads. North Korea unveiled a centrifuge facility in 2010, buts ability to produce highly-enriched uranium for weapons remains unclear.” 31 (ArmsControl.org)

Morever, according to expert opinion:

“there is no evidence that North Korea has the means to lob a nuclear-armed missile at the United States or anyone else. So far, it has produced several atomic bombs and tested them, but it lacks the fuel and the technology to miniaturize a nuke and place it on a missile” 32

According to Siegfried Hecker, one of America’s preeminent nuclear scientists:

“Despite its recent threats, North Korea does not yet have much of a nuclear arsenal because it lacks fissile materials and has limited nuclear testing experience,” 33

The threat of nuclear war does not emanate from the the DPRK but from the US and its allies.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the unspoken victim of US military aggression, has been incessantly portrayed as a war mongering nation, a menace to the American Homeland and a  “threat to World peace”. These stylized accusations have become part of a media consensus.

Meanwhile, Washington is now implementing a $32 billion refurbishing of strategic nuclear weapons as well as a revamping of its tactical nuclear weapons, which according to a 2002 Senate decision “are harmless to the surrounding civilian population.”

These continuous threats and actions of latent aggression directed against the DPRK should also be understood as part of the broader US military agenda in East Asia, directed against China and Russia.

It is important that people across the land, in the US, Western countries, come to realize that the United States rather than North Korea or Iran is a threat to global security. [Obama at the DMZ using the UN Flag in violation of the UN Security Council]

Obama  together with President Park Geun Hye at the DMZ

Korea’s Economic Development

The US military occupation of South Korea has largely supported and protected US economic and financial interests in Korea. From the very outset in 1945, there was no democratization of the South Korean economy. The exploitative Japanese factory system was adopted by the Korean business conglomerates, which were in part the outgrowth of the Japanese imperial system.

At the outset this system was based on extremely low wages, Korea’s manufacturing base was used to produce cheap labor exports for Western markets, In many respects, the earlier Korean manufacturing base was a form of “industrial colonialism” in derogation of the rights of Korean workers.

The rise of the South Korean business conglomerates (Chaebols) was the source of impressive economic growth performance starting in the 1970s. The Chaebols are conglomerates of many companies “clustered around one holding company”. The parent company is often controlled by single family or business clan. The latter in turn had close ties to officials in the ROK’s military governments.

South Korea’s industrial and technological revolution constituted a challenge to Western capitalism. Despite US military presence, the ROK was no longer a “developing country” with a “dependent” economy.  Inserted into a competitive World market, South Korean capitalism was competing with both Japanese and Western multinationals.

The 1997 Asian Crisis: Financial Warfare Directed against South Korea

The ROK had developed into a World capitalist power. It had acquired its own technological base, a highly developed banking system; it was categorised by the World Bank as a so-called “Asian tiger”.

Yet at the same time, the entire political fabric –which included the conduct of macroeconomic policy– was controlled by Washington and Wall Street, not to mention the military presence of US occupation forces.

The Asian crisis of 1997 was an important watershed. In late 1997, the imposition of an IMF bailout contributed to plunging South Korea, virtually overnight, into a deep recession. The social impact was devastating.

Through financial manipulation of  stock markets and foreign exchange markets by major financial actors, the Asian crisis contributed to weakening and undermining the Korean business establishment. The objective was to “tame the tiger”, dismantle the Korean business conglomerates, and restore US control and ownership over the Korean economy, its industrial base, its banking system.

The collapse of the won in late 1997 was triggered by “naked short selling” on the foreign exchange markets. It was tantamount to an act of economic warfare.

Several Korean business conglomerates were fractured, broken up or precipitated into bankruptcy on the orders of the IMF, which was acting on behalf of Wall Street.

Of the 30 largest chaebols, 11 collapsed between July 1997 and June 1999.

Following the IMF’s  December 1997 financial bailout, a large part of the Korean national economy, its high tech sectors, its industrial base, was “stolen” by US and Western capital under various fraudulent clauses negotiated by the ROK’s creditors.

Western corporations had gone on a shopping spree, buying up financial institutions and industrial assets at rock-bottom prices. The devaluation of the won, combined with the slide of the Seoul stock market, had dramatically depressed the dollar value of Korean assets.

Acting directly on behalf of Wall Street, the IMF had demanded the dismantling of the Daewoo Group including the sell-off of the 12 so-called troubled Daewoo affiliate companies. Daewoo Motors was up for grabs. This was not a spontaneous bankruptcy, it was the result of financial manipulation, with a view to transferring valuable productive assets into the hand of foreign investors. Daewoo obliged under the IMF agreement to sell off Daewoo Motor to General Motors (GM) in 2001. Similarly, the ROK’s largest corporation Hyundai was forced to restructure its holding company following the December 1997 bailout.

In April 1999 Hyundai announced a two-thirds reduction of the number of business units and “a plan to break up the group into five independent business groups”. This initiative was part of the debt reduction plan imposed by Western creditors and carried out by the IMF. It was implemented under what was called “the spin-off program” whereby the large Korean business conglomerates were to slated to be downsized and broken up into smaller business undertakings.

In the process, many of the high tech units belonging to the large Korean holding companies were bought out by Western capital.

South Korea’s banking landscape was also taken over by “US investors”. Korea First Bank (KFB), with a network of branches all over the country, was purchased at a negative price by the California based Newbridge Group in a fraudulent transaction. 34

A similar shady deal enabled the Carlyle Group –whose board of directors included former U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush (Senior), his Secretary of State James A. Baker III, and former Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci — to take control of KorAm Bank in September 2000. KorAm was taken over in a Consortium led by The Carlyle Group in collaboration with JPMorgan Chase. KorAm Bank had been established in the early 1980s as a joint venture between Bank America and a group of Korean conglomerates. .

Three years later, CitiBank purchased  a 36.7 percent stake in KorAm from the Carlyle Group and then bought up all the remaining shares, in what was described as “Citibank’s biggest acquisition outside the Western Hemisphere”. 35

Following the 1997 Asian Crisis which triggered a multibillion dollar debt crisis, a new system of government had been established in South Korea, geared towards the fracture of Korea’s business conglomerates and the weakening of Korean national capitalism. In other words, the signing of the IMF bailout Agreement in December 1997 marks a significant transformation in the structure of the Korean State, whose regulatory financial agencies were used to serve the interests of  Korea’s external creditors.

Concluding Remarks: Towards Peace.

The US is still at war with Korea.

This US sponsored state of war is directed against both North and South Korea. It is characterised by persistent military threats (including the use of nuclear weapons) against the DPRK. It also threatens the ROK which has been under US military occupation since September 1945.

Currently there are 37,000 US troops in South Korea. Given the geography of the Korean peninsula, the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea would inevitably also engulf South Korea. This fact is known and understood by US military planners.

What has to be emphasized prior to forthcoming negotiations pertaining a “Peace Treaty” is that the US and the ROK are not “Allies”.

The “real alliance” is that which unifies and reunites North and South Korea against foreign intrusion and aggression.

What this signifies is that the US is in a state of war against the entire Korean Nation.

The formulation of the Peace Treaty, therefore, requires the holding of bilateral talks between the ROK and the DPRK with a view to formulating a “joint position” regarding the terms to be included in a “Peace Treaty”.

The terms of this Peace Treaty should under no circumstances be dictated by the US Aggressor, which is committed to maintaining its military presence on the Korean peninsula.

It is worth noting in this regard, US foreign policy and military planners have already established their own scenario of “reunification” predicated on maintaining US occupation troops in Korea. Similarly, what is envisaged by Washington is a framework which will enable “foreign investors” to penetrate and pillage the North Korean economy.

Washington’s objective is to impose the terms of Korea’s reunification. The NeoCons “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC) published in 2000 had intimated that in “post unification scenario”, the number of US troops (currently at 37,000) should be increased and that US military presence could be extended to North Korea.  In a reunified Korea,  the military mandate of the US garrison would be to implement so-called “stability operations in North Korea”:

While Korea unification might call for the reduction in American presence on the peninsula and a transformation of U.S force posture in Korea, the changes would really reflect a change in their mission – and changing technological realities – not the termination of their mission. Moreover, in any realistic post-unification scenario, U.S. forces are likely to have some role in stability operations in North Korea. It is premature to speculate on the precise size and composition of a post-unification U.S. presence in Korea, but it is not too early to recognize that the presence of American forces in Korea serves a larger and longer-range strategic purpose. For the present, any reduction in capabilities of the current U.S. garrison on the peninsula would be unwise. If anything, there is a need to bolster them, especially with respect to their ability to defend against missile attacks and to limit the effects of North Korea’s massive artillery capability. In time, or with unification, the structure of these units will change and their manpower levels fluctuate, but U.S. presence in this corner of Asia should continue. 36 (PNAC, Rebuilding America`s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, p. 18, emphasis added)

Washington’s intentions are crystal clear.

It is important, therefore, that these talks be conducted by the ROK and DPRK without the participation or interference of outside parties. These discussions must address the withdrawal of all US occupation forces as well as the removal of economic sanctions directed against North Korea.

The exclusion of US military presence and the withdrawal of the 37,000 occupation forces should be a sine qua non requirement of a Peace Treaty.

Pursuant to a Peace Treaty, the ROK-US CFC agreement which places ROK forces under US command should be rescinded. All ROK troops would thereafter be brought under national ROK command.

This a fundamental shift: the present CFC agreement in essence allows the US Command to order South Korean troops to fight in a US sponsored war against North Korea, superseding and overriding the ROK President and Commander in Chief of the ROK Armed Forces.

Bilateral consultations should also be undertaken with a view to further developing economic, technological, cultural and educational cooperation between the ROK and the DPRK.

Economic sovereignty is a central issue. The shady transactions launched in the wake of the IMF bailout in 1997 must be addressed. These transactions were conducive to the illegal and fraudulent acquisition and ownership of a large part of South Korea’s high tech industry and banking by Western corporate capital.  Similarly the impacts of the insertion of the ROK into the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) must also be examined.

The Peace agreement would also be accompanied by the opening of the border between North and South.

Pursuant to the June 15th North–South Joint Declaration in August 2000, a joint ROK DPRK working commission should be established to set an agenda and a timeline for reunification.

---

Michel Chossudovsky’s Presentation to the Japanese Foreign Correspondent’s Club on US Aggression against the People of Korea, Tokyo, August 1, 2013 

 

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website. He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism”(2005). His most recent book is entitled Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011). He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.

Michel Chossudovsky is a member of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission which initiated the indictment against George W. Bush  et al  “for crimes of torture and war crimes”. (Judgement of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, 11 May 2012). 

Michel Chossudovsky can be reached at [email protected]

Notes

1 Interview with General Wesley Clark, Democracy Now March 2, 2007.

2 Martin Hart-Landsberg, Korea: Division, Reunification, & U.S. Foreign Policy. Monthly Review Press. New York, 1998 pp. 65–6). The PRK was abolished by military decree in September 1945 by the USAMG.

3  Jay Hauben, Book Review of I.F. Stone’s “Hidden History of the Korean War”, OmnyNews, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-hidden-history-of-the-korean-war/5342685

4  Ibid.                                           

5  Quoted in Stephen Lendman, America’s War on North Korea, Global Research, http://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-war-on-north-korea/5329374, April 1, 2013

6  Ibid

7  Bruce Cumings, Korea: Forgotten Nuclear Threats, 2005

8 Ibid

9  Quoted in Brian Willson, Korea and the Axis of Evil, Global Research, October 2006.

10  Ibid.

11  Associated Press Report, http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-coverup-extrajudicial-killings-in-south-korea/9518, July 6, 2008

12  Wikipedia

13  George F. Kennan, State Department Brief, Washington DC, 1948

14 Ibid.

15  The main PNAC document is entitled Rebuilding America`s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, The PNAC website is:  http://www.newamericancentury.org

16  Chosun Ibo, April 13, 2013

17 See United States Forces Korea | Mission of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command.

18  See United States Forces Korea | USFK Leadership

19  U.S.- S. Korea Military Gameplan | Flashpoints | The Diplomat, April 4, 2013

20 President Harry S. Truman, Diary, July 25, 1945

21 See The nuclear information project: US Nuclear Weapons in Korea

22 Ibid.

23 Daniel A. Pinkston, “South Korea’s Nuclear Experiments,” CNS Research Story, 9 November 2004, http://cns.miis.edu

24 See List of United States Army installations in South Korea – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

25  The Nuclear Information Project: Withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from South Korea

26 Ibid

27 The Nuclear Information Project: Withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from South Korea, emphasis added

28 Ibid, emphasis added

29  ArmsControl.org, April, 2013

30 Ibid

31 Ibid

32 See  North Korea: What’s really happening – Salon.com April 5, 2013

33 Ibid

34  See Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, Montreal, 2003.

35 See Citibank expands in South Korea – The New York Times, November 2, 2004.

36. Project for A New American Century (PNAC), Rebuilding America`s Defenses, Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, Washington DC 2000, p. 18, emphasis added

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Imagine a situation in which some residents of a skyscraper notice a fire that can spread to the entire building and ring the alarm bells.

However the manager of the building instead of taking urgent steps to extinguish the fire, throws even more inflammable things into the fire so that the flames start rising and spreading much further, spreading the risk of fire to the entire building.

When the alarmed people raise questions, the manager says—this particular floor is of my rival and I must destroy this. People shout that in the process he may destroy the entire building including his own floor, but the manager continues to escalate the fire instead of extinguishing it. 

Most people will say that such an absurd situation is never likely to occur.

But take a more careful look at the situation of the entire planet during the last two years or so.

This is a time when senior scientists have been warning increasingly that threats to the life-nurturing conditions of the planet due to climate change, other environmental problems and very dangerous and destructive weapons have been escalating, and yet, despite these warnings, several of the world’s top leaders have gone ahead and created the conditions for several new and high-risk wars to start and escalate, so much so that the talk of the third world war and a nuclear war breaking out has been heard more during the last two years than during the last two decades. 

Doesn’t this appear eerily close to the analogy of a building’s manager, when told about a fire, responding by throwing inflammable materials into it? Also any analysis of the present-day world situation would reveal that the most dangerous risk-escalations are being caused recklessly with the aim of maintaining dominance of the world, maintaining the number one position, regardless of the enormous harm caused to the safety of the entire world in the process.   

This in face is where we are at the moment in early 2024, with thousands of people dying in most painful ways on daily basis in dangerous wars and other man-made disasters, and in addition the possibility of all this rising further due to the world leadership being too busy in escalation of risks rather than in remedial actions.

Anyone who doubts this should merely look up the information on how fast the military-industrial complex is growing, how other high-risk and high-hazard industries are growing, how decisions jeopardizing human life are being taken for monetary gains and how a small number of persons are accumulating increasing power which they unhesitatingly exercise in ways which increase their power and wealth further but also increasingly endanger the life of this and future generations.

In the process the gulf between what the world needs and what is actually happening has been becoming wider and wider.

This must be bridged before it is too late. This must be our topmost priority.

The most important issue of our times is that the basic life-nurturing conditions of our planet are badly threatened and this threat should be checked with a sense of the utmost urgency. This threat comes from two sides—firstly, various environmental crises and secondly, weapons of mass destruction.

To check these, the most obvious first step is to minimize the possibility of war, to eliminate (or curb in various significant ways) all weapons of mass destruction and check the overall arms race as well.

Ideally, the most powerful countries including the permanent members of the UN Security Council can get together and put their collective strength into securing a no-wars future for the world.

With no international wars and the weapons race curbed, the creative energies of the world’s people can be devoted to checking the environmental crisis while meeting the basic needs of all people. People display amazing creativity once the goals and tasks are set out clearly, the does and don’ts are clear and a system of encouragements and discouragements is in place too. There should be the political will to check powerful polluters, and in addition people should be motivated and educated enough to avoid luxurious, polluting lifestyles.

This would be the ideal situation, but this does not appear to be on the horizon at all just now, and with new wars breaking out the already dangerously perched world appears to be moving further and further away from the real solutions, with agencies like the United Nations looking on more or less helplessly. 

The extremely unfortunate reality is of worsening wars and weapons race, increasing power of polluting industries, bigger spread of consumerist thinking and lifestyles related to this. Environment protection is being promoted in some ways but there is more rhetoric than reality, more lip service than real change, so that the basic factors which cause environmental ruin remain in place or may even be becoming stronger in some ways. 

Where do we go from here?

Of course there are still some outstanding, brilliant, very well-intentioned political leaders in various countries of the world, but the overall record of world’s political leadership in recent times, particularly in some of the most powerful countries, does not inspire confidence that they will be able to give top priority to the challenge of protecting the life-nurturing conditions of our planet.

Increasingly, therefore, there must be greater role of people’s non-violent mobilization and actions for meeting this greatest challenge of our times, and of the next generations, although of course there will be constant need for engaging with the political leadership and world organizations like the United Nations, creating conditions in which they are sometimes encouraged, sometimes compelled to take bigger decisions for protecting the planet.

This means that people’s movements with understanding and deep concern for this crucial issue of protecting the life-nurturing conditions of our planet must get together in various countries, and then must get close to each other across various countries. They must create conditions for more democratic freedoms to be available to them in all parts of the world. They must work together to create a common, broad agenda of achieving the essential conditions of saving the planet and all its inhabitants in time, within a framework of justice, peace and democracy.

Even highly relevant tasks such as climate chance are sometimes hijacked to powerful interests to serve their narrow interests. This brings serious distortions, so that environmental agenda which will displace and harm poor people (while promoting and benefiting the interests of the super-rich) is promoted, something which must be resisted strongly by people. 

It is therefore important to assert that the best way of tackling the survival crisis (S) is by walking on the path of justice (J), equality (E), protection of environment and bio-diversity (P) and of course peace (P). To be able to identify this path in one word, this writer has been calling this the JEPPS path. It is this combination of principles and policies which is our best hope for protecting the life-nurturing conditions of our planet while at the same time resolving and reducing several other serious problems as well.          

This will not be easy. Apart from the formidable organizational challenges of creating a worldwide movement, there are the problems relating to reaching broad agreement on the basics of a common agenda. Reductionist and narrow thinking is also common in several movements, which are more concerned about rather narrowly defined aims. As against these problems and constraints, there is the strength that any movement dealing with the most relevant issues and mobilizing people sincerely and honestly on these issues acquires with the passage of time, and the fact that with the threats to life-nurturing conditions manifesting in more fierce ways, the younger generation may be more rapidly and more firmly drawn to such a worldwide movement. This movement is also likely to get increasing strength from women.

Despite several uncertainties remaining, there is no doubt that the coming together of the movements of peace, environment and biodiversity protection, justice and equality, women and youth movements, movements for child rights will be good for humanity and will help to create a better world. Even if this does not lead to spectacular success in checking and curbing life-threatening conditions, it will at least help to place the world on a safer path. Another reason for hope is that while the initial progress may be slow and cumbersome, if the efforts are sustained with continuity for a certain time, once the base has been prepared, there can also be perhaps very quick success then, even the kind of success which may appear far-fetched at present, even spectacular success.

These efforts necessarily involve a very big educational and mobilization effort at various levels. This necessarily involves trying to change prevailing human values in ways that are more in tune with the needs of a world based on protection of environment, peace, justice and equality. As a beginning in this direction, this writer has been proposing that the next decade should be observed as the decade for saving (the life-nurturing conditions of) earth, a decade when humanity learns to give this the highest priority within a framework of justice, peace and democracy. So another consideration of high value just now must be to get the UN to declare 2025-35 as the Decade for Saving the Earth, with many highly creative programs being crafted and planned around this basic theme, particularly at community level and at the level of schools, colleges and other educational institutions.

*

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His latest books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth without Borders and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Save Our Planet Save Our Future, Belgium, January 31, 2019. Photo: EuroNews/Twitter.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

President Biden’s State of the Union address made one thing clear: war, genocide, and militarism remains the Amercian way.

From Gaza to Ukraine, from the Middle East to the borders of our own nation, the toll of violence from militarism is immeasurable. Will we ever see an end to the cycle of destruction fueled by capitalism and U.S. imperialism?

Firstly, let’s address the white elephant in the war.

Before the speech started, Democratic women leaders were shown wearing white in honor of women and feminism.

But let’s be very clear, whether it’s women sending bombs or men, the result remains the same: women and children are being murdered, communities shattered, and futures erased.

There’s no feminism in complicity with war and genocide, nor is there honor in turning a blind eye to the cries of the oppressed who are very loudly asking us to quit sending the bombs that are murdering their people.

Biden started the speech with an appeal for more money to fund the War in Ukraine. Yet in the two years since Russia invaded Ukraine with over a hundred billion dollars spent and countless lives lost Ukrainians are no closer to peace. Peace cannot be found in the endless military packages but in the corridors of diplomacy and peace talks, where dialogue and negotiation pave the way for lasting solutions.

He then moved on to taunt the need to protect democracy yet the White House and Congress continuously ignore the majority of the country who want an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, specifically Biden’s own voter base. A true democracy happens not just at the ballot box but beyond it. Yet, Biden chooses to ignore the very people who put him in office.

Along with “protecting democracy,” Biden also vowed to protect the environment. However, the contribution to militarism cannot be ignored. The U.S. military ranks as one of the largest consumers of oil globally, contributing significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. Instead of investing in renewable energy and supporting a just transition, precious resources are squandered to war and conflicts that ravage the planet and accelerate climate change.

President Biden’s support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and occupation of Palestine is a stain on the moral fabric of our nation. And he leaned into that support in his address. Using lies and unsubstantiated claims he attempted to legitimize Israel’s genocidal response to Oct. 7. However no matter how he tries to spin it – the death and destruction that innocent people are enduring on a daily basis, mostly women and children, cannot be justified in the name of political alliances or strategic interests. Nothing, absolutely justifies genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Biden’s latest response to Israel’s countless war crimes is to build a “temporary” port off the shores of Gaza to allow for humanitarian aid to enter the besieged land. But a temporary port does nothing to stop the permanent death and destruction from U.S. made bombs. It’s time to halt the flow of weapons to Israel or quit pretending to care about the lives of Palestinians.

Biden made it clear that war, genocide, and militarism are all still on top of the U.S. agenda. This will cost us all dearly. He must heed the demands of the public: stop the bombs, stop the militarization of our borders, stop the inhumane blockades that are starving people to death. The media will paint Biden’s speech as strong and positive but make no mistake – a  country that relies on the death and destruction of others is a weak one. We desperately need leaders who will prioritize diplomacy over destruction, compassion over conflict, and humanity over hubris. Only then can we truly claim to be a nation committed to justice, equality, and the pursuit of peace for all. Until then, we will continue to be a country committed to war and genocide and never find lasting peace.

*

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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.

Featured image: I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream- by Mr. Fish

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Feb.18, 2024 – Australia – Two sisters in their 30s get Colon Cancer – no family history.

 

• March 2021, 39 year old Lana Stapleton was diagnosed with Stage 3 Colon Cancer

• genetic testing of the whole family showed no genetic links
• her sister Elise Stapleton began experiencing abdominal symptoms a year later in early 2022 and in late 2022 doctors thought she had endometriosis and was booked for surgery

• during surgery she was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer

 

 

COVID-19 mRNA vaccine-induced turbo colon cancer – recent diagnoses under age 40; 20 recent cases:

Feb. 26, 2024 – TURBO CANCER – 33 year old University of Michigan football player Craig Roh was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer in Aug. 2022. He died on Feb. 26, 2024 after 18 month battle.

 

 

Oct. 17, 2023 – Detroit, MI – 30s year old Shannon Elizabeth was diagnosed with Colon Cancer, MS, etc.

 

 

Oct. 10, 2023 – Rand Weeks had a 14-day lower intestinal disorder and was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer on Oct. 10, 2023.

 

 

Sep. 21, 2023 – Ohio – 39 year old Rachael Allen is a beautician, on Jan. 21, 2023 she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer with masses in the liver and lungs. She is currently awaiting the results of her chemotherapy.

 

 

Sep. 16, 2023 – 35 year old Jessie Lee Ward, a corporate marketing executive, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer in March 2023 and died 5 months later on Sep. 16, 2023.

 

 

Sep. 16, 2023 – Burlington, IA – 38 year old Marc Seibrecht fought a one year battle with Stage 4 Colon cancer and died on Sep. 16, 2023.

 

 

Aug. 28, 2023 – Tupelo, MS – 39 year old 2x Iraq combat veteran Dustin Kindler was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer and needed immediate surgery to remove 1/3 of his colon, due to the large tumor size.

 

 

Aug. 20, 2023 – Vancouver, BC – 37 year old Aimee Cox had an 11 month old when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 Colon Cancer with liver metastases. She is also positive for mutation in the BRAF-V600E Protein. She is currently on immunotherapy and struggling with a Shingles breakout.

 

 

Aug. 18, 2023 – Angel Rae Collins McDonough is 31 years old. She was diagnosed on February 28, 2023, with Stage 4 Colon Cancer. In August 2023 she had liver resection to remove liver metastases.

Click here to read the full article.

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

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

NATO is the single most dangerous threat to global security. The belligerent alliance is anything but what it claims to be. Although formed as a supposedly “defensive alliance”, NATO never actually defended anyone or anything in the 75 years of its most unfortunate existence. Quite the contrary, the belligerent alliance attacked dozens of countries, particularly in the aftermath of the (First) Cold War, with its first victim being Yugoslavia/Serbia.

The political West fabricated the narrative that Serbs were allegedly “war criminals” in order to justify its direct invasion of the country it previously carved up by backing various separatist movements, particularly the narco-terrorists in Serbia’s southern province of Kosovo and Metohia, radical Islamists in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Neo-Nazi/Ustashe regime in Croatia.

In the last over two decades, the United States made sure to “legitimize” this conquest by imposing its narrative on everyone in the region and the rest of the world.

An important segment of that was pushing the newly established countries (in reality mere satellite states) into joining NATO, regardless of the will of the people.

Just how “sovereign” these new entities are is perhaps best illustrated by their infinitely servile relationship with the belligerent alliance, with Albania being perhaps the most extreme example. Namely, on March 4, Tirana officially re-opened the Kucova Airbase. The site was built in the early 1950s, but was largely abandoned in the 1990s, when the Albanian Air Force effectively stopped existing after it retired all of its fixed-wing aircraft, leaving only a handful of helicopters.

Source. NATO

Over the last several years, NATO invested in reviving this (First) Cold War relic “into a modern hub for NATO future air operations”, according to its own announcement. Kucova Airbase is located approximately 85 km south of Tirana and its new official purpose will be to serve as a logistics, air operations, training and exercises hub for the Albanian Air Force (FASh) and other NATO air forces. However, in reality, as previously mentioned, the Albanian military doesn’t really have a functioning air arm, as FASh is quite small and doesn’t really need an airbase such as the one at Kucova. On the other hand, NATO does, which is why it invested around €50 million (nearly $55 million) in the renovation and modernization of the airbase. NATO insists that it’s of strategic importance.

“The airbase will serve as an important NATO air hub,” said Acting Spokesperson Dylan White, adding: “The makeover of Kucova Airbase is a strategic investment and shows that NATO continues to strengthen its presence in the Western Balkans, an area of strategic importance to the Alliance.”

The opening ceremony certainly suggests that it’s considered extremely important, as it was attended by the Albanian President Bajram Begaj, Prime Minister Edi Rama, President of the Assembly Lindita Nikolla, Defense Minister Niko Peleshi and the Chief of Defense Major General Arben Kingji. In addition, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, Turkish Lieutenant General Göksel Kahya and several other high-ranking officials and military officers were present and also spoke at the ceremony. NATO also sent the Commander of the Combined Air Operations Center Torrejón, Lieutenant General Juan Pablo Sanchez De Lara and the General Manager of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), Stacy Cummings. This suggests that the airbase will be a major logistics hub for NATO.

According to their own assessment, Kucova is the belligerent alliance’s biggest project in Albania in the last decade.

Renovation work began with a ground-breaking ceremony in 2019 and includes upgrades and modernization of the control tower, runways, hangars and storage facilities. The renovation was officially funded by NATO’s Security Investment Program (NSIP), the purpose of which is to cover major construction projects in various vassals and satellite states. Albania is certainly among the least sovereign ones, as evidenced by what will effectively be full exterritoriality rights for the Kucova Airbase. As previously mentioned, FASh lacks any fixed-wing aircraft, so it doesn’t really need an airbase with modern runways, hangars, control towers and storage facilities.

This probably makes it the first such airbase in the area, suggesting that NATO is moving its major logistics hubs eastward, making it a part of the political West’s general “Drang nach Osten”. The mainstream propaganda machine is already making laughable claims that the airbase is there to “ease growing fears in the Balkans over creeping Russian influence”. Obviously, the only growing fears that the region should have is finding itself in an even firmer grip of NATO’s warmongering claws. Unfortunately, that’s precisely what’s happening now, as evidenced by the presence of USAF F-16s and F-35s. According to Defense News, the project “gained urgency as Moscow foments anti-Western sentiment in the Balkans”. Once again, such ludicrous claims are based on nothing but Neo-McCarthyism.

“This is a base that (will add) another element of security for our Western Balkans region which we all know is endangered from the threat and neo-imperialist ambitions of the Russian Federation,” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said during the opening ceremony.

Truly horrific that “poor Albania” is jeopardized by the “big bad Russian Bear“. However, in all seriousness, Tirana should be the last to speak of someone else’s “neo-imperialist ambitions” given the fact that, with US/NATO help, it established political power and influence in at least three states and entities of former Yugoslavia ever since NATO invaded the region and sent its occupation forces. This includes Albanian elements in Montenegro, North Macedonia and the NATO-occupied Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohia. Albanian radicals usually project power through their narco-terrorist operations that are affecting not just Europe, but much of the world, which has become a major issue for the Albanian people too, as they’re leaving en masse wherever the narco-terrorists take over.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

Sometimes it takes our bodies to return us to our souls.  And our little pains to remind us of the indescribable pain of the savage killing and dismemberment of innocent children and adults in Gaza and many other places by U.S. weapons produced in clean factories by people just doing their jobs and collecting their pay at “defense” contractors Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, etc.  Abstraction is the name of the game as human bodies are torn to pieces “over there” and the obscene profits are transferred at the computer terminals day and night.

Living in a technological world of the internet divorces us from real life as it passes into inert, abstract, and dead screen existence. It should not be surprising that people grow sick and tired of the steady streams of “news” that fills their days and nights.  So much of the news is grotesque; propaganda abounds. Stories twisted right and left to tie minds into knots. After a while, as Macbeth tells us, life seems like “a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets its hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Being sick and out of it for a while allows one a different perspective on the world. 

This is especially true for those of us who often write about politics and propaganda.

A recent illness has forced me to step away from my usual routine of following political events closely.  Fleeting headlines have been all I’ve noted for the past two weeks. While lying around waiting for the illness to leave, I would drift in and out of reveries and memories that would float to semi-consciousness.  Feeling miserable prevented any focus or logical thinking, but not, I emphasize, thinking in a deeper, physical sense. But it also gave me a reprieve from noting the repetitive and atomizing nature of internet postings, as if one needs to be hammered over the head again and again to understand the world whose realities are much simpler than the endless scribblers and politicians are willing to admit.

Jonathan Crary, in a scathing critique of the digital world in Scorched Earth, puts it thus:

For the elites, the priority remains: keep people enclosed within the augmented unrealities of the internet complex, where experience is fragmented into a kaleidoscope of fleeting claims of importance, of never-ending admonitions on how to conduct our lives, manage our bodies, what to buy and who to admire or to fear.

I agree with Crary.  During my sickness, I did manage to read a few brief pieces, an essay, a short story, and a poem.  Serendipitously, each confirmed the trend of my thinking over recent years as well as what my bodily discomfit was teaching me.

Image: Photographer Hans Namuth extensively documented Pollock’s unique painting techniques. (Licensed under Fair Use)

The first was an essay by the art critic John Berger about the abstract expressionist, avant-garde painter Jackson Pollock, titled “A Kind of Sharing.” It struck me as very true. Pollock came to prominence in the late 1940s and early 1950s. 

He was described as an “action” painter who poured paint on large canvases to create abstract designs that were lauded by the New York art world. Some have sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. The description of Pollock as an untalented pourer, Berger says, is false, for Pollock was a very precise master of his art who was aware of how he was putting paint to canvas and of the effects of his abstractions. His work made no references to the outside world since such painting at that time was considered illustrative.  Berger says that Pollock’s paintings were violent in that “The body, the flesh, had been rejected and they were the consequence of this rejection.” 

He argues that Pollock, who died in a drunken car crash in Easthampton, Long Island on August 11, 1956, was committing art suicide with his abstract paintings because he had rejected the ancient assumption of painting that the visible contained hidden secrets, that behind appearances there were presences.  For Pollock, there was nothing beyond the surfaces of his canvases.  This was because he was painting the nothingness he felt and wished to convey.  A nihilism that was both personal and abroad in the society.

Pollock’s story is a sad one, for he was praised and used by forces far more powerful than he.  Nelson Rockefeller, who was president of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) that his mother had cofounded, called Pollock’s work “free enterprise paintings,” and the CIA, through its Congress for Cultural Freedom, secretly promoted it as a Cold War weapon against the Soviet Union’s socialist realism art, even as right-wing congressmen ripped Pollock as a perverse artist.  So in the name of openness, the CIA secretly promoted Pollock’s avant-gardism as real America art in a campaign of propaganda, while the right-wing bashed him as a perverted leftist. This sick double game became a template for future mind-control operations that are widespread today.

As was his habit, Berger brilliantly places Pollock’s work within social and political history, a description of a time very similar to today when the word “freedom” was bandied about.  Then it was the freedom of the Voice of America extolling the Cold War tale of freedom of the “Free World”; freedom for artists to be free of rhetoric, history, the past, and to jettison the tyranny of the object; freedom of the market amidst a strident yet incoherent sense of loss.  He writes:

At this moment, what was happening in the outside world? For a cultural climate is never separate from events. The United States had emerged from the war as the most powerful nation in the world. The first atom bomb had been dropped. The apocalypse of the Cold War had been placed on the agenda. McCarthy was inventing his traitors. The mood in the country that had suffered least from the war was defiant, violent, haunted. The play most apt to the period would have been Macbeth, and the ghosts were from Hiroshima.

Today’s ghosts are still from Hiroshima and Macbeth is still apposite, and the ghosts of all the many millions killed since then haunt us now if we can see them. Although their bodies have disappeared out the back door of the years – and continue to do so daily – true art is to realize their presence, to hear their cries and conjure up their images.  While the word freedom is still bandied about in this new Cold War era where the sense of social lostness is even more intense than in Pollock’s time, it often comes from a nihilistic despondency similar to Pollock’s and those who used atomic weapons, a belief that appearances and surfaces are all and behind them there is nothing.  Nada, nada, nada.  A society that Roberto Calasso calls “an agnostic theocracy based on nihilism.” Berger concludes:

Jackson Pollock was driven by a despair which was partly his and partly that of the times that nourished him, to refuse this act of faith [that painting reveals a presence behind an appearance]: to insist, with all his brilliance as a painter, that there was nothing behind, that there was only that which was done to the canvas on the side facing us. This simple, terrible reversal, born of an individualism that was frenetic, constituted the suicide.

This short essay by Berger about Pollock’s denial of the human body struck me as my own body was temporarily failing me.  It seemed to contain lessons for the augmented realities of the internet and the new Cold War being waged for the control of our minds and hearts today.  Inducements to get lost in abstractions.

Then one day I picked up another book from the shelf to try to distract myself from my physical misery. It was a collection of stories by John Fowles. I read the opening novella – “The Ebony Tower” – haltingly over days. It was brilliant and eerily led me to a place similar to that of Berger’s thoughts about Pollock. Fowles explores art and the body against a dreamy background of a manor house in the French countryside. 

As I read it lying on a couch, I fell in and out of oneiric reveries and sleep, induced by my body’s revolt against my mind. Trying to distract myself from my aches and pains, I again found myself ambushed by writing about corporality. Both Berger and Fowles sensed the same thing: that modernity was conspiring to deny the body’s reality in favor of visual abstractions.  That in doing so our essential humanity was being lost and the slaughters of innocent people were becoming abstractions. Then the Internet came along to at first offer hope only to become an illusion of freedom increasingly controlled by media in the service of deep-state forces.  Soon the only way to write and distribute the truth will be retro – on paper and exchanged hand to hand.  This no doubt sounds outlandish to those who have swallowed the digital mind games, but they will be surprised once they fully wake up.

Fowles’s story is about David, an art historian who goes to visit a famous, cranky old painter named Henry Breasely.  The younger man is writing about the older and thinks it would be interesting to meet him, even though he thinks it isn’t necessary to write the article he has already composed in his mind. The art historian, like many of his ilk, lives in his mind, in academic abstractions.  He is in a sense “pure mind,” in many ways a replica of T.S. Eliot’s neurotic J. Alfred Prufrock.  The old painter lives in the physical world, where sex and the body and nature enclose his world, where paint is used to illuminate the physical reality of life, its sensuousness, not abstractions, where physical life and death infuse his work, including political realities.  Obviously not new to William Butler Yeats’ discovery as expressed in the conclusion to his poem “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”:

Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder’s gone
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

The old man fiercely defends the “foul rag and bone shop of the heart” against all abstractions and academic bullshit, which are the young man’s métier. He accuses the young critic of being afraid of the human body.  When the critic responds, “Perhaps more interested in the mind than the genitals,” the caustic and funny painter says, “God help your bloody wife then.” He accuses the younger man of being in the game of destruction and castration, of supporting abstractions at the expense of flesh and blood life.  “There are worse destroyers around than nonrepresentational art,” the critic says in his defense.  To which the painter roars, “You’d better tell that to Hiroshima. Or to someone who’s been napalmed.”

Back and forth they go, as a nubile art student, who is there to help the elderly artist, acts as a sort of interlocutor. Her presence adds a sexual frisson throughout the story, a temptation to the milk-toast critic’s life of sad complacency.  The wild old man’s rants – he calls Jackson Pollock Jackson Bollock – are continually paraphrased by the girl.  She says, “Art is a form of speech. Speech must be based on human needs, not abstract theories of grammar. Or anything but the spoken word. The real word. . . . Ideas are inherently dangerous because they deny human facts. The only answer to fascism is the human fact.”

The old painter’s uncensored tongue brought tears of laughter to my eyes and a bit of relief to my aches and pains.  I was primarily taken aback by the weirdness of haphazardly reading a second piece that coincided with my deepest thoughts that had been intensified by my body’s revolt.  The narrator’s words struck me as especially true to our current situation:

What the old man still had was an umbilical chord to the past; a step back, he stood by Pisanello’s side. In spirit, anyway. While David was encapsulated in book knowledge, art as social institution, science, subject, matter for grants and committee discussion. That was the real kernel of his wildness. David and his generation, and all those to come, could only look back, through bars, like caged animals, born in captivity, at the old green freedom. That described exactly the experience of those last two days: the laboratory monkey allowed a glimpse of his lost true self.

The Internet life has made caged monkeys of us all.  We seem to think we are seeing the real world through its connectivity bars, but these cells that enclose us are controlled by our zoo keepers and they are not our friends. Their control of our cages keeps increasing; we just fail to see the multiplying bars. They have created a world of illusions and abstractions serving the interests of global capitalism.  Insurgent voices still come through, but less and less as the elites expand their control.  As internet access has expanded, the world’s suffering has increased and economic inequality heightened.  That is an unacknowledged fact, and facts count.

Toward the end of my two-week stay in the land of sickness, I read this poem by the Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who was killed in Gaza by an IDF airstrike on December 6, 2023 along with his brother, nephew, sister, and three of her children. My sickness turned to rage.

If I Must Die

If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze —
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself —
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above,
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love.
If I must die
let it bring hope,
let it be a story.

*

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This article was originally published on the author’s website, Behind the Curtain.

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

The town hall meeting is the last throbbing reminder of the authentic demos. People gather; debates held. Views converge; others diverge. Speakers are invited to stir the invitees, provoke the grey cells. Till artificial intelligence banishes such gatherings, and the digital cosmos swallows us whole, cherish these events.

And there was much to cherish about Night Falls in the Evening Lands: The Assange Epic, part of a global movement to publicise the importance of freeing WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, who remains in the forbidding confines of Belmarsh Prison in London. Held on March 9 in Melbourne’s Storey Hall, it was a salutatory minder that the publisher’s plight has become one of immediate concern. Worn down by judicial process and jailed by a US surrogate power, he faces a vicious political indictment of 17 charges focused on the Espionage Act of 1917 and one on computer intrusion. A UK High Court appeal on the matter of extradition hangs in the balance.

The thematic nature of such events can be challenging. One should never be too gloomy – and in Assange’s case, be it in terms of health, torture, injustice and pondered attempts by US intelligence officials to take his life or kidnap him – there is much to be gloomy about. Bleakness should be allowed, but only in modest, stiff doses. Try, as far as you can, to inject a note of encouraging humour into proceedings. Humour unsettles the tyrannically inclined, punctures the ideologue’s confidence. Then reflect, broadly, on the astonishing legacy on the subject and ask that vital question: Where to now?

The sessions, superbly steered through by Mary Kostakidis (“Try to avoid lengthy preambles to your questions, please”), covered a fanned out universe: the nature of “imperial law” and extra-territorial jurisdiction; the stirring role of WikiLeaks in exposing state atrocities; the regenerative tonic Assange had given to an ungrateful, envious Fourth Estate; the healthy emergence of non-mainstream media; and the tactics necessary to convince politicians that the publisher’s release was urgently warranted.

Two speakers were spear-sharp on both the legacy of Assange and what had to be done to secure his release.  The Greek former finance minister and rabble-rousing economist, Yanis Varoufakis, was encouraging on both scores. A picture of pugilistic health, Varoufakis pondered “what Julian had taught” him.  People forget, Varoufakis reminded his audience, Assange’s genius as one of the original cypherpunks, able to build a website that has managed to weather hacking storms and stay afloat in treacherous digital waters. Whistleblowers and leakers could be assured of anonymous contributions to the WikiLeaks website.

He was also impressed by the man’s towering, almost holy integrity. As much as they disagreed, he recalled, “and as much as I wanted to throttle the man”, he brimmed with intellectual self-worth and value. On the subject of revealing his sources, quite contrary to the spirit and substance of the US indictment, Assange was scrupulous to a fault. To betray any would endanger them.

Most movingly, Varoufakis reflected on his own intellectual awakening when reading Assange’s meditations on the internet; how it might, just might, fracture the imperium of information guarded so closely by powerful interests.  Finally, the common citizenry would have at their disposal the means of returning the serve on spying and surveillance. The digital mirror would enable us to see what they – the state operatives, their goons and their lickspittle adjutants – could see about us.  This was as significant to Varoufakis as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, books he read with some anxiety during the days of Greece’s military junta.

On the nature of power – in this case, the menace posed by the US imperium – Australia had to be break free and embrace non-alignment.  With characteristic flavour, Varoufakis characterised Washington’s exertion of influence over its satellite states as that of a mafia gang: “They manufacture insecurity in order to sell protection.” It was a brilliant formulation and goes to the centre of that infantile desire of Australian policy makers to endorse AUKUS, a dangerous military compact with the US and the UK that will mortgage the country to the sum of A$368 billion.

Even assuming that this arrangement would remain in place, those in the nation’s capital, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, had to ask the fundamental question on Assange. “Make it a condition of AUKUS that Assange returns to Australia,” insisted Varoufakis. “And the powerful will respect you even if you disagree with them.” To date, the PM had been a sore disappointment and hardly likely to be respected, even by the near comatose US President Joe Biden.

Virility, however, may be returning. That theme was evidenced in the sharp address from Greg Barns, a seasoned barrister and campaign strategist who has been involved in the WikiLeaks journey since 2012. While drawing attention to the outrageous assertion of extra-territorial jurisdiction by Washington to target Assange, he saw much promise in the political dawn in Canberra. A few years ago, he would never have envisaged being in a room where the Australian Greens leader, Adam Bandt, would be seated next to a fossil fuel advocate and Nationals senator, Matthew Cannavan. “Beside Mr Green sat Mr Coal.” Their common purpose: Assange’s release and the termination of a state of affairs so unacceptable it is no longer the talk of academic common rooms and specialist fora.

For the audience and budding activists, Barns had sound advice. Pester local political representatives. Arrange meetings, preferably in groups, with the local member.  Remind them of the significance of the issue. “Make it an alliance issue.” There is nothing more worrying to a backbencher than concerned “traffic” through the electoral office that suggests a shift in voter sentiment. “I will bet good odds that the treatment of Assange has made it into party room discussions,” declared Barns with certitude.

In closing, Assange’s tireless father, John Shipton, washed his audience with gentle, meditative thoughts. Much like a calming shaman, he journeyed through some of the day’s themes, prodding with questions. Was AUKUS a bribe? A tribute? A payment for knowledge? But with optimism, Shipton could feel hope about his son: “Specks of gold” had formed to stir consciousness in the executive. Those in power were at long last listening.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

 

 

In 2017, Phil Murphy, a former Goldman Sachs executive, made the establishment of a public, state-owned bank a centerpiece issue during his run for New Jersey governor. He regularly championed public banking in speeches, town halls and campaign commercials. He won the race, and the nation’s second state-owned bank following the stellar model of the Bank of North Dakota (BND) appeared to be in view. 

Due to the priority of other economic-policy goals, the initiative was largely kept on the back burner until November 2019. Then, in an article titled “Murphy Takes First Key Step Toward Establishing a Public Bank,” the New Jersey Spotlight announced:

Gov. Phil Murphy is planning to sign an executive order Wednesday [Nov. 13] that will create a 14-member “implementation board” to advance his goal of establishing a public bank in New Jersey.

The basic premise of such an institution is to hold the millions of dollars in taxpayer deposits that are normally kept in commercial banks and leverage them instead to serve some sort of public purpose. …  [Emphasis added.] 

North Dakota currently is the only state that operates a public bank wholly backed by the deposit of government funds. [Emphasis added.] Founded a century ago to help insulate farmers from predatory out-of-state lenders, the Bank of North Dakota offers residents, businesses and students low-cost services like checking accounts and loans. It has also been used to advance projects that boost infrastructure and economic development, and has even produced revenue for the state budget’s general fund, according to the bank’s promotional materials, thanks to lending operations that regularly turn a profit. 

Gov. Murphy signed Executive Order 91 on Nov. 13, 2019, and the Implementation Board worked diligently for the next 3-1/2 years to advance its goals. In June of 2023, the governor signed bill S3977/A5670 into law, creating the New Jersey Social Impact Investment Fund (SIIF) along with a $20 million appropriation for seed funding. The State engaged Next Street, a mission-driven advisory firm, to create a report with guidance and input from the Public Bank Implementation Board, and on Feb. 2, 2024, Next Street submitted its “Recommendations for Implementing a Public Bank in New Jersey” to the governor.

The report did a commendable job of identifying the extensive needs for increased financing by a wide variety of interests in New Jersey, including support for small business, affordable housing, home ownership, student loans, education, better infrastructure, and many others. Also commendable were its recommendation that the Community Advisory Board be constituted of local stakeholders that could most benefit from public bank funding, and its assurance of accountability to the State and the public through transparency, detailed annual public disclosure, and an independent annual audit. 

When Is a Bank Not a Bank?

Public banking advocates have serious concerns, however, about other aspects of the report. Most concerning is its apparent attempt to redefine a “public bank.” The report recommends creation of a public bank as a successor to the SIIF but asserts that the public bank should not be a depository institution. This recommendation is repeated throughout the report. 

Many authorities confirm that a financial institution is not a “bank” unless it takes deposits. See e.g. Investopedia:

“A bank is a financial institution licensed to receive deposits and make loans.”

See also SoFi’s “Guide to Depository Institutions,” stating

“There is no difference between a bank and a depository. A bank is a type of depository institution.”

And see Wikipedia:

“A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits … and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans.” 

The Wikipedia definition highlights the stellar advantage of a “bank” over a “revolving fund” of the sort the Next Street report recommends: banks actually create money as deposits when they make loans. It is this authority that gives bankers their enormous power in the economy and in government, and it is a power backed by the credit of the people. It should therefore belong to the people; and as Governor Murphy recognized in 2017, it can be reclaimed by the people through their own publicly-owned banks.

The nation’s sole state-owned public bank, the Bank of North Dakota, takes deposits. Taking deposits is what makes it a “bank.” Being owned by the state is what makes it a “public bank.” Because it is a bank, BND can create new money in the amount of the loan when it extends credit; and it is permitted to make a profit through its loans. It can convert its profits or a portion of them quickly to new capital, which can generate new loans up to 10 times the bank’s capital base. 

A New Jersey public bank on this model would be able to grow quickly, eventually reaching the size needed to fully fund the state’s large unmet needs. See for reference “Why a Sovereign State Bank Is Good for Tennessee” by Prof. Richard Werner, who proposes initial capitalization of $500 million for a Tennessee state-owned bank. A $20 million revolving fund would be barely sufficient to cover New Jersey’s startup costs. The Next Street proposal is to leverage this fund with private capital, but that approach has repeatedly been shown to be inadequate to fund infrastructure and other major public projects. In many states it is unlawful for a lending institution that does not take deposits to call itself a “bank.” Public banking advocates contend that such misuse of the term “bank” confuses public officials and the public and hinders the public banking movement. The Public Banking Institute definition of “public banks” is “banks with a depository bank charter (or equivalent direct license) that the public owns through their representative government and that work to benefit local communities.” The PBI website also features an infographic distinguishing various types of financial institutions, titled “U.S. Public Banks, Banks, and NonBanks At-A-Glance: How Public Banks Excel.”

A Bank Is Not a Charitable Revolving Fund

Among other concerns are the Next Street presumption that the New Jersey public bank would be making risky, unprofitable loans (e.g. loans to uncreditworthy businesses otherwise unable to get affordable credit), and the recommendation that the bank could be majority privately owned and operated. The BND is more profitable than some of the largest Wall Street banks; and to be a public bank, the institution must by definition be either majority or 100% publicly owned and operated. 

On the BND model, the New Jersey bank would be run by professional bankers who prioritize safe lending. BND has been safely operated for 105 years, despite a majority of its board occasionally shifting political parties. Experienced bankers make its loans free from board or political influence and from conflicts of interest. BND’s principal depositor, the state of North Dakota, by law must keep its funds in the bank, thus protecting BND from a run on its deposits. The Standard & Poor’s credit rating for the BND is A+/stable. The S&P report states, “BND has one of the highest risk-adjusted capital (RAC) ratios for rated U.S. banks.” 

BND’s profitability has helped strengthen community banks and credit unions in North Dakota by making loans in partnership rather than in competition with them. In the Great Recession, it also bought loans from stressed local banks to prevent bank failures and keep the economy running smoothly. BND operates with very low overhead and stresses productive and local lending rather than lending to buy existing assets. The latter is the sort of speculative, nonproductive, bubble-creating lending engaged in by the giant commercial banks from which Gov. Murphy originally sought to divest. North Dakota’s revenues are safer in its own bank than in the largest Wall Street banks, which “insure” their capital with interconnected derivatives backed by rehypothecated collateral, a practice that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has declared to be “unsafe and unsound.”

A Litany of Contrary Studies

In contrast to the conclusions of the Next Street report, other detailed studies have recommended establishing true public depository banks and have demonstrated that this can be done safely, profitably and sustainably. Here are a few:

Exploring a Public Bank for New Jersey: Economic Impact and Implementation Issues by Prof. Deb Figart (2018). “Figart estimates that every $10 million in new credit or lending by a state bank would yield between $15 million and almost $21 million in gross state output and between $3.5 million and $5.2 million in state earnings. Between 60 and 93 new jobs would be created.”

Public Bank East Bay Viability Study (2022). “This Study and the accompanying financial projections show that the PBEB [Public Bank East Bay, California] can achieve [its] goals while operating in a conservative and secure way, minimizing the financial risk to its sponsor governments.”

White Paper: Public Banking in the Northeast and Midwest States. This 2019 report by The Northeast-Midwest Institute “recommends that all NEMW states adopt a public bank and do so with close attention to their circumstances and needs, tailoring the bank’s specifics to the nuances of the state.”

Why a Sovereign State Bank is Good for Tennessee (2023). Prof. Werner states, “Banking is one of the most profitable industries. The State Bank of Tennessee will be profitable and constitutes a sound investment for the State of Tennessee. However, the benefits abound and go beyond merely commercial attractiveness. The establishment of the State Bank of Tennessee is a crucial step that can be built upon in a variety of ways in order to be able to counter future possible threats to financial and economic stability and economic and political autonomy and freedoms.”

Whether the final stage of New Jersey’s efforts will be a true public bank, as advocated by Gov. Murphy in 2017, remains to be seen. Meanwhile other states and cities are making impressive progress toward that goal. For updates, see the Public Banking Institute newsletter.

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The Public Banking Institute team contributed to this article, which was first posted on ScheerPost.

Ellen Brown is an attorney, co-chair of the Public Banking Institute, and author of thirteen books including Web of Debt, The Public Bank Solution, and Banking on the People: Democratizing Money in the Digital Age. She also co-hosts a radio program on PRN.FM called “It’s Our Money.” Her 400+ blog articles are posted at EllenBrown.com. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Governor Phil Murphy (Licensed under CC BY 2.0)

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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The Hamas delegation left Cairo on Thursday and will resume negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza next week. Time is running out before the Holy month of Ramadan begins. Hamas wants an end to the war, but the U.S. is looking only for a 6-week pause, and Israel is willing to allow a pause but resume the genocide afterward.

UN experts, many world leaders, humanitarian organizations, and millions of civilians across the U.S., UK, Europe, Africa, and Asia agree on one point: the only way to prevent or end famine in Gaza is an immediate and permanent ceasefire. Israel’s unrelenting attack on 2.3 million people in Gaza, day and night for almost five months, has killed over 30,700. If the bombs and bullets don’t kill them all, then starvation will.

U.S. President Joe Biden, the one man in the world who holds the keys to a ceasefire in Gaza, refuses to demand the Israelis end the war. Biden has finally come up with a weak deal to offer Hamas to stop the slaughtering, but just for six weeks, not permanently.

Hamas Proposal in Cairo

Hamas representatives have been meeting in Cairo with Egyptian and Qatari negotiators. On Wednesday, March 6, Hamas said they were continuing their efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza even though Israel refused to participate in the negotiations.

Osama Hamdan, in Beirut, voiced the demands of the resistance group. They want a permanent end to Israeli attacks and the withdrawal of Israeli forces to allow the people to return to their homes. He stressed that a prisoner swap could only occur after a ceasefire.

Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said Hamas had presented its draft deal and was awaiting a response from Israel, and that “the ball now is in the Americans’ court”.

The U.S. Proposal at the UN

On March 5, Biden said a ceasefire deal was in the hands of Hamas. He was referring to the U.S. deal offered to Hamas, and he never mentioned or referred to the deal Hamas offered to Israel.

Biden’s deal offered a six-week ceasefire in exchange for the release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Israel is willing to pause the slaughter and genocide in Gaza for a few weeks, but Netanyahu and his radical right-wing partners insist they will never stop the bombardment until Hamas is exterminated.

“It’s in the hands of Hamas right now. Israelis have been cooperating. There’s been a rational offer,” Biden told reporters.

Getting the Israeli hostages out has never been a priority for Netanyahu, but it has been for the families and friends of the hostages. They have been holding protests and marches ever since the conflict began. The families of the hostages expected their government to negotiate for their release, but Netanyahu’s war room ignored their pleas, in favor of revenge killings in Gaza.

From the very beginning of the conflict which broke out October 7, 2023,  He is willing to use the phrase ‘humanitarian pause’, and his current deal offered to Hamas is only a pause, with an exact timetable attached to resume the butchery which has killed mainly women and children.

The U.S. is promoting its ‘pause’ deal at the UN, even though the U.S. has vetoed every UN resolution aimed at peace in Gaza, with the most recent U.S. veto on February 20.

Netanyahu Says IDF Will Remain in Gaza for 10 Years

The Times of Israel reported recently that Netanyahu has planned for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to remain in a military occupation of Gaza for at least 10 years. This is opposed by the U.S., EU, UN, and most world leaders. Israel may agree to a pause, but a ceasefire and withdrawal is out of the question. This means the Palestinian people and their supporters will remain resisting occupation, which is guaranteed by the Geneva Convention.

The Flour Massacre

On February 29, at least 112 people were killed and 760 were injured when Israeli tanks opened heavy fire on Palestinian civilians attempting to collect flour to make bread near Gaza City.

The attack was investigated by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. The attack was captured on video in which gunshots and weapon fire were heard. The victims were examined and had gunshot injuries, the scene was strewn with blood on flour sacks and aid boxes, and survivors’ eyewitness testimony attested to the Israeli attack on starving Palestinians in search of food for their families. Many of the survivors stated they were shot in the back while running away from the scene.

Israel tried to blame the deaths and injuries on a stampede in the chaos of scrambling to get the flour. However, the aerial footage the IDF released of the scene proved there were IDF tanks present. The people running in the aerial footage were running from Israeli gunfire directed at them.

After the ‘Flour Massacre’ happened, the first response from the Biden White House, as parroted by CNN on the front lawn, was the Israeli version of events: people stampeded because of chaos while trying to get some food.

However, in the video accompanying the CNN report, sounds of weapons fire are heard over and over again.

Later, Christiane Amanpour of CNN reported on information relayed to her from trusted contacts on the ground in Gaza, humanitarian groups, that those killed at the ‘Flour Massacre’ had gunshot wounds. Amanpour has a career motto: don’t be neutral, be truthful.

“The attack came after Israel has denied humanitarian aid into Gaza City and northern Gaza for more than a month,” said the UN experts, who described “a pattern of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians seeking aid”.

In a statement, a group of UN special rapporteurs accused Israel of “intentionally starving the Palestinian people in Gaza since 8 October,” adding:

“Now it is targeting civilians seeking humanitarian aid and humanitarian convoys.”

There is mounting evidence of famine in the Gaza Strip, and at least 14 similar incidents have been reported.

On Friday, March 1, the U.S. blocked a statement put forward by Algeria and backed by 15 UNSC members except the U.S. to condemn Israel for the killing of more than 100 Palestinians in the ‘Flour Massacre’. The U.S. claimed it was trying to verify how the people died in light of Israel’s denial of shooting the hungry people.

Biden Doesn’t Care About Protests

Mitch Landrieu, national co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign, was asked on CNN about Biden’s reaction to being taunted by protesters demanding a ceasefire immediately in Gaza.

Landrieu replied that Biden respects their right to freedom of speech, and “he has no problem with it.”

Biden and his administration, view the call for a ceasefire in Gaza as just an exercise in the right of freedom of speech as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Biden and his administration will gladly tolerate calls for a ceasefire because that is the right of every American.

However, the Biden administration misses the point. Millions of Americans are demanding an end to the slaughter in Gaza, carried out by the American weapons provided without any oversight or conditions by the U.S. State Department. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has faced resignations among his staff because of the unbridled flow of weapons to Israel, which have killed well over 30,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children as reported by the UN and humanitarian groups.

Blinken has the authority to hold up weapons transfers based on the State Department’s own rule, that no weapons can be sent to a country that may use them in war crimes, crimes against humanity, or in violation of humanitarian law. Blinken famously told Netanyahu, that he came to support Israel as a Jew. Blinken was not representing the rules and protocol of the U.S. State Department, but was instead representing his race, and his bloodline having been born of a Jewish mother. Blinken turned the secular system of the American government into a racist and sectarian system in one fell swoop.

The next big protest movement in the U.S. may well be a popular uprising against paying taxes. Americans may ask, “Why do I pay taxes, if Washington, DC. is throwing away money on wars I oppose?”

Gaza Is Starving

Deliberating starving people amounts to war crimes and genocide under international law. More than 15 children have died from malnutrition in Gaza. The deaths are due not only to hunger but also dehydration. The elderly and small children are very susceptible to dehydration which causes the major organs to shut down.

The humanitarian aid trucks sit parked and idle at the gate to Gaza. Israel has prevented aid from coming to over 2 million Palestinians. Biden has only to pick up a phone and order the gate to be open and the aid to flow in unimpeded, but instead, he has asked the air force to fly over Gaza and drop pallets of food.

Israel has blocked humanitarian supplies to Gaza. On January 26, the International Court of Justice recognized the plausibility of Israel committing genocide and ordered it to allow the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian services and aid to Palestinians. However, since the court’s ruling, the number of trucks Israel has allowed to enter Gaza has fallen to 57 a day – compared with an average of 147 a day before the ICJ ruling.

The hospitals are barely functioning with hundreds of wounded arriving each day, and now they are filling up with people in the last stages of starvation.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a Two time award-winning journalist and political commentator. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Palestinians line up to fetch some water in a refugee camp in Gaza. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

President Biden affectionately welcomed Giorgia Meloni to the White House and, after thanking her for “Italy’s unwavering support for Ukraine”, spoke with her about the situation in Gaza, where “the loss of human life is heartbreaking”.

He then declared that “we will carry out food airdrops and supplies into Ukraine and we will try to open other access routes into Ukraine“ to help the population of Gaza, a Freudian slip that was left in the official video on the Italian Government website, and displayed by thousands of government and parliament members, local administrators and journalists from the major media.

Evidently whatever the President of the United States says cannot be doubted.

Nor can the political-media mainstream allow official data on US military supplies to Israel to be published. As soon as Israel began the war in Gaza, the United States supplied it with 10,000 tons of weapons transported by 244 cargo planes and 20 ships in just over a month. Among these were over 15,000 bombs, including one-ton bombs, and 50,000 artillery shells.

The Biden administration then gave Israel more than $14 billion to buy more US weapons.

This means that the bulk of the 70,000 tons of bombs that razed residential neighbourhoods in Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians, was supplied to Israel by the United States.

They also provided it with armoured Caterpillar bulldozers which advanced along with the tanks demolishing everything in their path with their 64 tons weight.

The figures of the ongoing genocide in Gaza speak for themselves: up to date 37,534 people were murdered or missing; 13,430 children murdered; 8,900 women killed; 364 medical personnel killed; 269 were kidnapped; 132 journalists murdered; 71,920 injured; 17,000 children left without their parents; 32 hospitals out of service; 53 health centres out of service; 700,000 patients with infectious diseases; 350,000 patients with chronic diseases left without treatment; 270,000 homes destroyed; 400 schools and universities destroyed; 500 mosques destroyed; 290 archaeological sites destroyed.

While continuing to militarily and politically support the genocide that Israel is committing in Palestine, President Biden announced in his State of the Union address that he has ordered the US Armed Forces to lead an emergency mission to establish a temporary dock in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza, capable of accommodating large ships carrying food, water, medicine and temporary shelter.

“The United States – he assures – “leads international efforts to bring more humanitarian assistance to Gaza”.

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This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy.

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

Featured image: An image grab from video footage shows Palestinians running toward parachutes attached to food parcels airdropped from U.S. aircraft on a beach in the Gaza Strip on March 2, 2024. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

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

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

There are indeed plans for a conventional Western intervention in Ukraine despite their leaders’ denials over the past two weeks, but they’ve yet to fully form and their execution can’t be taken for granted, but they also can’t be ruled out either.

The debate that French President Macron provoked over whether NATO should conventionally intervene in Ukraine exposed the existence of two distinct schools of thought on this issue inside of Europe. France, the Baltic States, and Poland appear to be in favor of “non-combat deployments” there for demining and training missions, which could be carried out through a “coalition of the willing”, while the rest of the bloc supports Germany’s stance that this shouldn’t happen under any circumstances.

“Scholz’s Slip Of The Tongue Spilled The Beans On Ukraine’s Worst-Kept Secret”, however, since he inadvertently revealed that there are already British and French troops there helping Ukraine with “target control”. The subsequently leaked Bundeswehr recording about bombing the Crimean Bridge confirmed that the Americans are there too. Nevertheless, what’s being proposed by Paris is a formalization of these deployments along with their gradual expansion in a “non-combat” capacity.

Nobody should be fooled into thinking that France and the other four that appear to be in favor of this scenario are solely interested in demining and training missions. Rather, their intent seems to be to prepare these on-the-ground forces for surging eastward in the event that the worst-case scenario from Kiev’s perspective materializes whereby the frontline collapses and Russia starts steamrolling westward. These NATO members would then try to draw a red line in the sand as far as possible to save Ukraine.

Germany’s approach is altogether different in that it prefers to formally stay out of the fray in order to focus on building “Fortress Europe”.

This refers to Berlin’s policy of resuming its long-lost superpower trajectory through “defensive” military means with US support in order to lead Russia’s containment in Europe at Washington’s behest while America “Pivots (back) to Asia” to contain China. A major component of this plan is the “military Schengen” between Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland.

The Baltic States and Poland are unlikely to participate in a conventional intervention in Ukraine without the official participation of a nuclear power because they fear being hung out to dry in the scenario that they clash with Russia inside of that crumbling former Soviet Republic. Therein lies the strategic importance of France’s involvement since it could assuage their concerns due to the possibility of Paris resorting to nuclear brinksmanship with Moscow if its own troops take part in the aforesaid clashes.

The UK wouldn’t sit on the sidelines in that event since it’s already playing a leading role in NATO’s proxy war on Russia through Ukraine and previously signed a trilateral security pact with Kiev and Warsaw in the week before the latest phase of this decade-long conflict started in mid-February 2022. Like France, the UK also doesn’t want to see Germany resuming its superpower trajectory, and both might wager that they can either get the US’ approval for their intervention or do it unilaterally to make it a fait accompli.

France isn’t yet part of the “military Schengen”, which could impede its ability to move large amounts of troops and equipment into Ukraine, so it can either soon join this pact or negotiate its own version with Poland and/or Greece-Bulgaria-Romania to complement its new deal with Moldova. Romania’s “Moldovan Highway” that’s being built in “emergency” mode is creating a new military corridor in the Balkans from which France can counter Germany’s growing military influence across the continent.

This emerging Greek-Ukrainian corridor is already one of the West’s most important logistical routes for perpetuating the proxy war after the traditional Polish one became unreliable following the farmers’ protests. It therefore makes perfect sense not only to invest in it for that sake alone, but also for countries like France and the UK to entrench their influence along the route in order to create their own “sphere of influence” there for decelerating Germany’s superpower trajectory.

That’s precisely what France is doing via its new security deal with Moldova, which will lead to closer security ties of the “military Schengen” sort with Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece in order to facilitate the dispatch of “trainers” to that landlocked country. The UK can either follow suit in some way or redouble its influence in the Baltic States and especially Poland, possibly culminating in its troops conventionally intervening in Ukraine through the last-mentioned while France’s enter from Romania-Moldova.

The possibility of France and the UK either receiving the US’ approval for this intervention or doing it unilaterally as a “coalition of the willing” in order to make it a fait accompli could pressure Germany to participate in order to not be left out and made to “look weak”. Its Air Force officers already claimed in the earlier cited leaked recording that the missiles that those two sent to Ukraine pressures them to do the same with the Taurus so the precedent is established for why they might think the same in that case.

While it initially seems counterintuitive that France and the UK might want Germany to participate in this intervention when one of the reasons why they’re arguably plotting it is to decelerate its newly resumed superpower trajectory, there’s actually a clear logic to these calculations. Deeper German involvement in this conflict could further reduce the already dismal chances of it entering into a rapprochement with Russia after everything ends like many hawks still fear is possible and desperately want to prevent.

It could also become overextended in some sense and thus lose the military-strategic grip that it’s recently obtained, thus creating openings for France and the UK to chip away at Germany’s influence in the Balkans and Baltics respectively in order to keep their historical rival’s rise somewhat in check. Berlin might not bite the bait though since Scholz has yet to even approve sending Taurus missiles there with the clandestine troop deployment that they require so there’s a chance that he’ll stick to his guns.

If Germany formally stays out of the fray while France and the UK embroil themselves in it with disastrous or at least unimpressive results, including those that see their Baltic and Polish “junior partners” exploited as cannon fodder, then Germany might actually benefit a lot. Those two’s approach would be discredited, the possibility of which might be why the US thus far appears reluctant to approve their “coalition of the willing”, and by contrast lend credence to Germany’s approach.

“Fortress Europe” might then be built at an even faster pace in the aftermath of this conflict as the only two possibly countervailing forces to keep its influence in check would have discredited themselves. On the other hand, a partially “successful” conventional Franco-British intervention in Ukraine could discredit Germany if it literally ends up saving Ukraine from collapse and stopping the Russian steamroller. In that event, “Fortress Europe” might be built a lot differently than Germany planned.

Instead of the EU as a whole functioning as a pro-US German-led proxy bloc in the New Cold War, Berlin would have to accept London’s “sphere of influence” in the Baltics and a condominium with it in Poland while Paris would have its own “sphere” in the Balkans. Rather than relying on one country to rule the EU by proxy, the US would depend on three, with the advantage being that there’d be less of a chance that Germany would ever “go rogue” but at the detriment of this being more complex to manage.

It remains to be seen whether France and the UK will go through with this Ukrainian power play right under Germany’s nose, but there’s little doubt that this is what they’re planning. The US could possibly disapprove, however, and they might then lack the confidence to conventionally intervene through their own “coalition of the willing”. There’s also the chance that the US takes the lead in this respect if Russia achieves a breakthrough before NATO’s largest drills in three decades end in June.

It would be easier for the US to do this on its own with everyone else following it than to depend on others, but this could risk World War III by miscalculation much more than if France and the UK conventionally intervene while the US “Leads From Behind”, hence the latter scenario’s appeal. In any case, the top takeaway from this analysis is that there are indeed plans for a conventional Western intervention in Ukraine, but they’ve yet to fully form and their execution can’t be taken for granted.

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This article was originally published on Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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Introduction

This article by Gary Kohls was first published on March 15, 2008 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of My Lai  

This week at the height of the Israel-U.S. genocide, we are commemorating the 56th Anniversary of the My Lai Massacre, March 15, 1968. 

Since World War II, the targeting of innocent civilians has become the mainstay of U.S. atrocities. Remember General Curtis Lemay: 

“After destroying North Korea’s 78 cities and thousands of her villages, and killing countless numbers of her civilians, [General] LeMay remarked,

“Over a period of three years or so we killed off – what – twenty percent of the population.” 

It is now believed that the population north of the imposed 38th Parallel lost nearly a third its population of 8 – 9 million people during the 37-month long “hot” war, 1950 – 1953, perhaps an unprecedented percentage of mortality suffered by one nation due to the belligerance of another.” (Brian Willson)

Without exception, all US-NATO wars have targeted civilians in derogation of International Law. It’s what you call “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P)

America’s “Humanitarian Wars”

Criminality is embedded in America’s Foreign Policy. 

The conduct of massacres of civilians are invariably rewarded. Colin Powell, who was responsible for the coverup of the My Lai massacre acceded to a “brilliant” career in the Armed Forces.

In 2001 he was appointed Secretary of State in the Bush administration. Although never indicted, Powell was also deeply implicated in the Iran-Contra affair.

It is worth noting that Colin Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time of the Gulf War, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of retreating Iraqi soldiers in what British war correspondent and Global Research Associate Felicity Arbuthnot entitled “Operation Desert Slaughter”.

“The forty two day carpet bombing, enjoined by thirty two other countries, against a country of just twenty five million souls, with a youthful, conscript army, with broadly half the population under sixteen, and no air force, was just the beginning of a United Nations led, global siege of near mediaeval ferocity.”

In the words of General Norman Schwartzkopf who led Operation Desert Slaughter “‘There was no one left to kill’…

 

 

There have been many US sponsored My Lais since the Vietnam war. Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Palestine. Not to mention the “Dirty War” and military coups in Latin America. 

In a bitter irony, in 2018, Vietnam became an “unofficial” military ally of the US against China 

 

Michel Chossudovsky. Global Research, March 10, 2024

 

The My Lai Massacre

Coverup of Extensive War Crimes

by Dr.Gary G. Kohls

 

Fifty-six years ago this week, on March 16, 1968, a company of US Army combat soldiers from the America Division swept into the South Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai, rounded up the 500+ unarmed, non-combatant residents, all women, children, babies and a few old men, and executed them in cold blood, Nazi-style. No weapons were found in the village, and the whole operation took only 4 hours.

Although there was a serious attempt to cover-up this operation (which involved a young up-and-coming US Army Major named Colin Powell), those who orchestrated or participated in this “business-as-usual” war zone atrocity did not deny the details of the slaughter when the case came to trial several years later. But the story had filtered back to the Western news media, thanks to a couple of courageous eye-witnesses whose consciences were still intact. An Army court-marital trial eventually convened against a handful of the soldiers, including Lt. William Calley and Company C commanding officer, Ernest Medina.

According to many of the soldiers in Company C, Medina ordered the killing of “every living thing in My Lai,” including, obviously, innocent noncombatants – men, women, children and even farm animals. Lt. Calley was charged with the murder of 109 civilians. In his defense statement he stated that he had been taught to hate all Vietnamese, even children, who, he had been told, “were very good at planting mines.”

That a massacre had occurred was confirmed by many of Medina’s soldiers and recorded by photographers, but the Army still tried to cover it up. The cases were tried in military courts with juries of Army officers, who eventually either dropped the charges against all of the defendants (except Calley) or acquitted them. Medina and all the others who were among the killing soldiers that day went free, and only Calley was convicted of the murders of “at least 20 civilians.” He was sentenced to life imprisonment for his war crime, but, under pressure from patriotic pro-war Americans, President Nixon pardoned him within weeks of the verdict.

The trial stimulated a lot of interest because it occurred during the rising outcry of millions of Americans against the infamous undeclared war that was acknowledged by many observers as an “overwhelming atrocity.” Ethical Americans were sick of the killing. However, 79% of those that were polled strenuously objected to Calley’s conviction, some veteran’s groups even voicing the opinion that instead of condemnation, he and his comrades should have received medals of honor for killing “Commie Gooks.”

Just like the extermination camp atrocities of World War II, the realities of My Lai deserve to be revisited so that it will happen “never again.” The Vietnam War was an excruciating time for conscientious Americans because of the numerous moral issues surrounding the mass slaughter in a war that uselessly killed 58,000 American soldiers, caused the spiritual deaths of millions more, killed 3 million Vietnamese (mostly civilians) and psychologically traumatized countless others on both sides of the conflict.

Of course the Vietnam War was a thousand times worse for the innocent people of that doomed land than it was for the soldiers. The Vietnamese people were victims of an army of brutal young men from a foreign land who were taught that the “little yellow people” were pitiful sub-humans and deserved to be killed – with some GIs preferring to inflict torture first. “Kill-or-be-killed” is a reality that is standard operating procedure for military combat units of every nation of every era and of every ideology.

Vietnam veterans tell me that there were scores, maybe hundreds, of “My Lai-type massacres “ during that war. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon refuses to acknowledge that truth. Execution-style killings of “potential” Viet Cong sympathizers (i.e., anybody that wasn’t a US military supporter) were common. Many combat units “took no prisoners” (a euphemism for murdering captives, rather than having to follow the nuisance Geneva Conventions which requires humane treatment for prisoners of war). The only unusual thing about the My Lai Massacre was that it was eventually found out. The attempted Pentagon cover-up failed but justice was still not done.

Very few soldiers or their commanding officers have ever been punished for the many war crimes that occurred during that war because those in charge knew that killing (and torturing) of innocent civilians during war-time is simply the norm – excused as “collateral damage.” After all, as US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld later infamously proclaimed, “stuff happens.”

The torture was enjoyable for some – for awhile (witness Auschwitz yesterday and Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay today). And wars are profitable for many – and still are (witness the Krupp family of Nazi-era infamy and Halliburton, the Blackwater mercenaries, et al. today).

The whole issue of the justification of war, with its inherent atrocities, never seems to be thoroughly examined in an atmosphere of openness and historical honesty. Full understanding of the realities of war and its spiritual, psychological and economic consequences for the victims is rarely attempted. If we who are non-soldiers ever truly experienced the horrors of combat, the effort to abolish war would suddenly be a top priority (perhaps even for the current crop of “Chicken Hawk” warmongers in the Bush Administration).

If we actually knew the gruesome realities of war (or even understood the immorality of spending trillions of dollars on war preparation while hundreds of millions of people are homeless and starving) we would refuse to cooperate with the things that make for war. But that wouldn’t be good for the war profiteers. So those “merchants of death” must hide the gruesome truths and try instead to make war seem patriotic and honorable, with flag-waving sloganeering like “Be All That You Can Be.” Or they might try to convince the soon-to-be-childless mothers of doomed, dead or dying soldiers that their child had died fighting for God, Country and Honor instead of domination of the Middle East’s oil reserves.

Let’s face it. The US military standing army system has been bankrupting America at $500+ billion year after year after year – even in times of so-called “peace.” The warmongering legacy of the Pentagon is still with us, particularly among those “patriots” including GOP presidential candidate John McCain, who wanted to “nuke the gooks” in Vietnam. A multitude of un-elected policy-makers of that ilk are still in charge of US foreign policy today, and they have been solidifying their power to continue America’s misbegotten, unaffordable and unsustainable militarism with the huge profits made off the deaths, screams, blood, guts and permanent disabilities of those hood-winked soldiers who were told that they were ”saving the world for democracy” when in fact they were making the world safe for exploitive capitalism and obscene profits for the few. And the politicians entrenched in both major political parties, who are all-too-often paid lapdogs for the war profiteers, don’t want the gravy train to be derailed.

Things haven’t changed much even from the World War II mentality that conveniently overlooked the monstrous evil that was perpetrated on tens of thousands of unarmed, innocent civilians at Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, a war crime so heinous that the psychological consequences, immune deficiency disorders and cancers from that nuclear holocaust are still being experienced in unimaginable suffering 6 decades later.

Things haven’t really changed when one witnesses the political mentality that allows the 500,000 deaths of innocent Iraqi civilians in the aftermath of the first Gulf War or the 1,000,000 civilian deaths in the current fiasco in Iraq.

So it appears that our military and political leaders haven’t learned anything since My Lai. The people sitting next to you at work are, like most unaware Americans, almost totally ignorant of the hellish realities of the war-zone, so they may continue to be blindly patriotic and indifferent to the plight of the “others” who suffer so much in war. They may think that some people are less than human, and, therefore, if necessary, can be justifiably killed “for Volk, Fuhrer und Vaterland.”

As long as most American citizens continue to glorify war and militarism and ignore or denigrate the peacemakers; as long as the American public endorses the current spirit of nationalism and ruthless global capitalism; and as long as the America’s political leadership remains prudently silent (and therefore consenting to the homicidal violence of war) we will not be able to effect a change away from the influence of conscienceless war-mongers and war profiteers. The prophets and peacemakers are never valued in militarized nations, especially in times of war; indeed, they are always marginalized, demeaned and even imprisoned as traitors. And one of the reasons is that there are no profits to be made in peacemaking, whereas there are trillions to be made in the biggest business going: the preparation for war, the execution of war and the highly profitable “re-building” efforts (“blow it up/build it up” economics), all the while ignoring the “inconvenient” but inevitable collateral damage to the creation and its creatures.

As long as we continue to be led by unapologetic and merciless war-makers and their wealthy business cronies and as long as the ethical infants in Washington, DC continue to be corrupted by the big money bribes, there is no chance America will ever obtain true peace.

And unless America stops the carnage, fully repents and offers compensation for the damage it has done, its turn as a recipient of retaliatory violence will surely come, and it will come from those foreign and domestic victims that our nation’s leaders have treated so shamefully over the past half-century.

March 2008 – Gary G. Kohls, MD, Duluth, MN

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Author’s Introduction and Update

In a recent article entitled “A Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran is Contemplated” I focussed on how Israel’s criminal attack on the People of Palestine could evolve towards an extended Middle East War. 

At the time of writing, US-NATO war ships –including two aircraft carriers, combat planes, not to mention a nuclear submarine– are deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, all of which are intended to confront what both Western politicians and the media casually describe as “Palestine’s Aggression against the Jewish State”.

“Israel ranks” as “the 4th strongest military” after Russia, the U.S and China. Ask yourself: Why on earth would Israel need the support of U.S. aircraft carriers to lead a genocide against the Palestinians who are fighting for their lives with limited military capabilities.

Is the U.S. intent upon triggering a broader war? 

“U.S. Warns Hezbollah, Iran. It Will intervene if they Escalate”

Who is “Escalating”? The Pentagon has already intimated that it will attack Iran and Lebanon, “If they Escalate”. Is the Pentagon Seeking to Trigger one or more “False Flags”?

Times of Israel, November 9, 2023

Also of significance (less than 4 months prior to October 7, 2023) is the adoption on June 27, 2023 of the US Congress Resolution (H. RES. 559) which Accuses Iran of Possessing Nuclear Weapons. H.RES 559 allows the use of force against Iran, intimating that Iran has Nuclear Weapons. 

Whereas Iran is tagged (without a shred of evidence) as a Nuclear Power by the U.S. Congress, Washington fails to acknowledge that Israel is an undeclared nuclear power. 

 

The article below was first published in my book entitled “The Globalization of War. America’s Long War against Humanity” (2015). 

I remain indebted  to the former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad who took the initiative of launching my book in Kuala Lumpur. (image right).

Firmly committed to “the criminalization of war”, Tun Mahathir is a powerful voice in support of Palestine.

The article below (Chapter III of “Globalization of War”) provides analysis in a historical perspective of  U.S. war plans directed against Iran.

Numerous “war theater scenarios” for an all-out attack on Iran have been contemplated. 

Dangerous Crossroads in our History

The current and ongoing US-NATO military deployment in The Middle East — casually presented by the media as a means to coming to the rescue of Israel– is the pinnacle of U.S. war preparations extending over a period of more than 20 years.

Contemplated by the Pentagon in 2005 was a scenario whereby an attack by Israel would be conducted on behalf of Washington: 

“An attack by Israel could, however, be used as “the trigger mechanism” which would unleash an all-out war against Iran, as well as retaliation by Iran directed against Israel.” (quoted from text below)

At the outset of Bush’s second term

“Vice President Dick Cheney had hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the “rogue enemies” of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, “be doing the bombing for us” (Ibid)

The article also focusses on the dangers of a US-Israel nuclear attack against Iran which has been contemplated by the Pentagon since 2004.

The US Israel “Partnership”: “Signed” Military Agreement

Amply documented, the U.S. Military and Intelligence apparatus is firmly behind Israel’s genocide. In the words of Lt General Richard Clark:

Americans Troops are “prepared to die for the Jewish State”.

What should be understood by this statement is that the US and Israel have a longstanding Military “Partnership”  as well as (Jerusalem Post) a “Signed” Military Agreement (classified) regarding Israel’s attack on Gaza. 

Lt. General Richard Clark is U.S. Third Air Force Commander, among the highest-ranking military officers in the U.S. Armed Forces. While he refers to Juniper Cobra, “a joint military exercise that has been conducted for almost a decade”, his statement points to a much broader “signed” military-intelligence agreement (classified) with Israel which no doubt includes the extension of the Israeli-US bombing of Gaza to the broader Middle East. 

While this so-called “signed” military agreement remains classified (not in the public domain), it would appear that Biden is obeying the orders of the perpetrators of this diabolical military agenda.

Does President Biden have the authority (under this “Signed” Agreement with Israel) to save the lives of innocent civilians including the children of Palestine:

Q    (Inaudible) Gaza ceasefire, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT:  Pardon me?

Q    What are the chances of a Gaza ceasefire?

THE PRESIDENT:  None.  No possibility.

White House Press Conference, November 9, 2023

Lt. General Clark confirms that:

“U.S. troops could be put under Israeli commanders in the battlefield”, which suggests that the genocide is implemented by Netanyahu on behalf of the United States.

We stand firmly in Solidarity with Palestine and the People of the Middle East.

It is my intent and sincere hope that my writings (including the text below) will contribute to “Revealing the Truth” as well “Reversing the Tide of Global Warfare”. 

 

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, November 17, 2023, March 10, 2024

 

Pre-emptive Nuclear War:

The Role of Israel in Triggering an Attack on Iran

by

Michel Chossudovsky 

 

Introduction 

While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting from present-day wars including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using “new technologies” and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality.

The international community has endorsed nuclear war in the name of world peace. “Making the world safer” is the justification for launching a military operation which could potentially result in a nuclear holocaust.”

The stockpiling and deployment of advanced weapons systems directed against Iran started in the immediate wake of the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq. From the outset, these war plans were led by the U.S. in liaison with NATO and Israel.

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”. U.S. military sources intimated at the time that an aerial attack on Iran could involve a large scale deployment comparable to the U.S. “shock and awe” bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:

American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq.1

“Theater Iran Near Term” (TIRANNT)

Code named by U.S. military planners as TIRANNT, “Theater Iran Near Term”, simulations of an attack on Iran were initiated in May 2003 “when modelers and intelligence specialists pulled together the data needed for theater-level (meaning large-scale) scenario analysis for Iran.”2

The scenarios identified several thousand targets inside Iran as part of a “Shock and Awe” Blitzkrieg:

The analysis, called TIRANNT, for “Theater Iran Near Term,” was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for “major combat operations” against Iran that military sources confirm now [April 2006] exists in draft form.

… Under TIRANNT, Army and U.S. Central Command planners have been examining both near-term and out-year scenarios for war with Iran, including all aspects of a major combat operation, from mobilization and deployment of forces through postwar stability operations after regime change.3

Different “theater scenarios” for an all-out attack on Iran had been contemplated:

The U.S. army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for “Operation Iranian Freedom”. Admiral Fallon, the new head of U.S. Central Command, has inherited computerized plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).4

In 2004, drawing upon the initial war scenarios under TIRANNT, Vice President Dick Cheney instructed U.S. Strategic Command (U.S.STRATCOM) to draw up a “contingency plan” of a large scale military operation directed against Iran “to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States” on the presumption that the government in Tehran would be behind the terrorist plot. The plan included the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state:

The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than four hundred fifty major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program develop- ment sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of ter- rorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing –that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack– but no one is prepared to dam- age his career by posing any objections.5

The Military Road Map: “First Iraq, then Iran”

The decision to target Iran under TIRANNT was part of the broader process of military planning and sequencing of military operations. Already under the Clinton administration (1995), U.S. Central Command (U.S.CENTCOM) had formulated “in war theater plans” to invade first Iraq and then Iran. Access to Middle East oil was the stated strategic objective:

The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman’s National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command’s theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. U.S.CENTCOM’s theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States’ vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.6

The war on Iran was viewed as part of a succession of military operations. According to (former) NATO Commander General Wesley Clark, the Pentagon’s military road-map consisted of a sequence of countries:

[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.6 (For further details, see Chapter I)

The Role of Israel

There has been much debate regarding the role of Israel in initiating an attack against Iran.

Israel is part of a military alliance. Tel Aviv is not a prime mover. It does not have a separate and distinct military agenda.

Israel is integrated into the “war plan for major combat operations” against Iran formulated in 2006 by U.S. Strategic Command (U.S.STRATCOM). In the context of large scale military operations, an uncoordinated unilateral military action by one coalition partner, namely Israel, is from a military and strategic point almost an impossibility. Israel is a de facto member of NATO. Any action by Israel would require a “green light” from Washington.

An attack by Israel could, however, be used as “the trigger mechanism” which would unleash an all-out war against Iran, as well as retaliation by Iran directed against Israel.

In this regard, there are indications going back to the Bush administration that Washington had indeed contemplated the option of an initial (U.S. backed) attack by Israel rather than an outright U.S.-led military operation directed against Iran.

The Israeli attack –although led in close liaison with the Pentagon and NATO– would have been presented to public opinion as a unilateral decision by Tel Aviv. It would then have been used by Washington to justify, in the eyes of World opinion, a military intervention of the U.S. and NATO with a view to “defending Israel”, rather than attacking Iran. Under existing military cooperation agreements, both the U.S. and NATO would be “obligated” to “defend Israel” against Iran and Syria.

It is worth noting, in this regard, that at the outset of Bush’s second term, (former) Vice President Dick Cheney had hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the “rogue enemies” of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, “be doing the bombing for us”, without U.S. military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it.”8

According to Cheney:

One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked. …Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards.9

Commenting the Vice President’s assertion, former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in an interview on PBS, confirmed with some apprehension, yes: Cheney wants Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to act on America’s behalf and “do it” for us:

Iran I think is more ambiguous. And there the issue is certainly not tyranny; it’s nuclear weapons. And the vice president today in a kind of a strange parallel statement to this declaration of freedom hinted that the Israelis may do it and in fact used language which sounds like a justification or even an encouragement for the Israelis to do it.10

What we are dealing with is a process of joint U.S.-NATO-Israel military planning. An operation to bomb Iran has been in the active planning stage since 2004. Officials in the Defense Department, under Bush and Obama, have been working assiduously with their Israeli military and intelligence counterparts, carefully identifying targets inside Iran. In practical military terms, any action by Israel would have to be planned and coordinated at the highest levels of the U.S. led coalition.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Vice President Dick Cheney discuss a vision of peace for Israel and Palestine as they conduct a press briefing in Jerusalem, Israel, March 19, 2002. “It is our hope that the current violence and terrorism will be replaced by reconciliation and the rebuilding of mutual trust,” said the Vice President. (Source)

An attack by Israel against Iran would also require coordinated U.S.-NATO logistical support, particularly with regard to Israel’s air defense system, which since January 2009 is fully integrated into that of the U.S. and NATO.11

Israel’s X band radar system established in early 2009 with U.S. technical support has “integrate[d] Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile [Space-based] detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors.”12

What this means is that Washington ultimately calls the shots. The U.S. rather than Israel controls the air defense system:

This is and will remain a U.S. radar system,’ Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

‘So this is not something we are giving or selling to the Israelis and it is something that will likely require U.S. personnel on-site to operate.13

The U.S. military oversees Israel’s Air Defense system, which is integrated into the Pentagon’s global system. In other words, Israel cannot launch a war against Iran without Washington’s consent. Hence the importance of the so-called “Green Light” legislation in the U.S. Congress sponsored by the Republican party under House Resolution 1553, which explicitly supported an Israeli attack on Iran:

The measure, introduced by Texas Republican Louie Gohmert and 46 of his colleagues, endorses Israel’s use of “all means necessary” against Iran “including the use of military force.” … “We’ve got to get this done. We need to show our support for Israel. We need to quit playing games with this critical ally in such a difficult area”.14

In practice, the proposed legislation serves as a “Green Light” to the White House and the Pentagon rather than to Israel. It constitutes a rubber stamp to a U.S. sponsored war on Iran which uses Israel as a convenient military launch pad. It also serves as a justification to wage war with a view to defending Israel.

In this context, Israel could indeed provide the pretext to wage war, in response to alleged Hamas or Hezbollah attacks and/or the triggering of hostilities on the border of Israel with Lebanon. What is crucial to understand is that a minor “incident” could be used as a pretext to spark off a major military operation against Iran.

Known to U.S. military planners, Israel (rather than the U.S.A) would be the first target of military retaliation by Iran. Broadly speaking, Israelis would be the victims of the machinations of both Washington and their own government. It is, in this regard, absolutely crucial that Israelis forcefully oppose any action by the Netanyahu government to attack Iran.

Global Warfare: The Role of U.S. Strategic Command (U.S.STRATCOM)

In January 2005, at the outset of the military deployment and build-up directed against Iran, U.S.STRATCOM was identified as “the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction.”15 What this means is that the coordination of a large scale attack on Iran, including the various scenarios of escalation in and beyond the broader Middle East Central Asian region would be coordinated by U.S.STRATCOM. (See Chapter I).

Confirmed by military documents as well as official statements, both the U.S. and Israel contemplate the use of nuclear weapons directed against Iran. In 2006, U.S. Strategic Command (U.S.STRATCOM) announced it had achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons. This announcement was made after the conduct of military simulations pertaining to a U.S. led nuclear attack against a fictional country.16

Continuity in Relation to the Bush-Cheney Era

President Obama has largely endorsed the doctrine of pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons formulated by the previous administration. Under the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the Obama administration confirmed “that it is reserving the right to use nuclear weapons against Iran” for its non-compliance with U.S. demands regarding its alleged (nonexistent) nuclear weapons program.17 The Obama administration has also intimated that it would use nukes in the case of an Iranian response to an Israeli attack on Iran. Israel has also drawn up its own “secret plans” to bomb Iran with tactical nuclear weapons:

Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.18

Obama’s statements on the use of nuclear weapons against Iran and North Korea are consistent with post-9/11 U.S. nuclear weapons doctrine, which allows for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the conventional war theater.

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of “authoritative” nuclear scientists, mini-nukes are upheld as an instrument of peace, namely a means to combating “Islamic terrorism” and instating Western style “democracy” in Iran. The low-yield nukes have been cleared for “battlefield use”. They are slated to be used against Iran and Syria in the next stage of America’s “War on Terrorism” alongside conventional weapons:

Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states. [Iran, Syria, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent.19

The preferred nuclear weapon to be used against Iran are tactical nuclear weapons (Made in America), namely bunker buster bombs with nuclear warheads (for example, B61-11), with an explosive capacity between one third to six times a Hiroshima bomb.

The B61-11 is the “nuclear version” of the “conventional” BLU 113. or Guided Bomb Unit GBU-28. It can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb.20 While the U.S. does not contemplate the use of strategic thermonuclear weapons against Iran, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is largely composed of thermonuclear bombs which are deployed and could be used in a war with Iran. Under Israel’s Jericho III missile system with a range between 4,800 km to 6,500 km, all Iran would be within reach.

Radioactive Fallout

The issue of radioactive fallout and contamination, while casually dismissed by U.S.-NATO military analysts, would be devastating, potentially affecting a large area of the broader Middle East (including Israel) and Central Asian region.

In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing “collateral damage”. Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons are a threat to global security, whereas those of the U.S. and Israel are instruments of peace “harmless to the surrounding civilian population.”

“The Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) Slated to be Used against Iran?

Of military significance within the U.S. conventional weapons arsenal is the 21,500-pound “monster weapon” nicknamed the “mother of all bombs” The GBU-43/B or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) was categorized “as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed” with the the largest yield in the U.S. conventional arsenal. The MOAB was tested in early March 2003 before being deployed to the Iraq war theater. According to U.S. military sources, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had advised the government of Saddam Hussein prior to launching the 2003 that the “mother of all bombs” was to be used against Iraq. (There were unconfirmed reports that it had been used in Iraq).

The U.S. Department of Defense already confirmed in 2009 that it intends to use the “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) against Iran. The MOAB is said to be ”ideally suited to hit deeply buried nuclear facilities such as Natanz or Qom in Iran”21. The truth of the matter is that the MOAB, given its explosive capacity, would result in significant civilian casualties. It is a conventional “killing machine” with a nuclear type mushroom cloud.

The procurement of four MOABs was commissioned in October 2009 at the hefty cost of $58.4 million, ($14.6 million for each bomb). This amount includes the costs of development and testing as well as integration of the MOAB bombs onto B-2 stealth bombers. This procurement is directly linked to war preparations in relation to Iran. The notification was contained in a ninety-three-page “reprograming memo” which included the following instructions:

“The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOAB [Mother of All Bombs] is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON [Urgent Operational Need].” It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).23

The Pentagon is planning on a process of extensive destruction of Iran’s infrastructure and mass civilian casualties through the combined use of tactical nukes and monster conventional mushroom cloud bombs, including the MOAB and the larger GBU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which surpasses the MOAB in terms of explosive capacity.

The MOP is described as “a powerful new bomb aimed squarely at the underground nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea. The gargantuan bomb–longer than eleven persons standing shoulder-to-shoulder or more than twenty feet base to nose”.24

These are WMDs in the true sense of the word. The not so hidden objective of the MOAB and MOP, including the American nickname used to casually describe the MOAB (“Mother of all Bombs”), is “mass destruction” and mass civilian casualties with a view to instilling fear and despair.

State of the Art Weaponry: “War Made Possible Through New Technologies”

The process of U.S. military decision making in relation to Iran is supported by Star Wars, the militarization of outer space and the revolution in communications and information systems. Given the advances in military technology and the development of new weapons systems, an attack on Iran could be significantly different in terms of the mix of weapons systems, when compared to the March 2003 Blitzkrieg launched against Iraq. The Iran operation is slated to use the most advanced weapons systems in support of its aerial attacks. In all likelihood, new weapons systems will be tested.

The 2000 Project for the New American Century (PNAC) document entitled Rebuilding American Defenses, outlined the mandate of the U.S. military in terms of large scale theater wars, to be waged simultaneously in different regions of the World: “Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”. (See Chapter I)

This formulation is tantamount to a global war of conquest by a single imperial superpower.

The PNAC document also called for the transformation of U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”, namely the implementation of “war made possible through new technologies”.25 The latter consists in developing and perfecting a state of the art global killing machine based on an arsenal of sophisticated new weaponry, which would eventually replace the existing paradigms.

Thus, it can be foreseen that the process of transformation will in fact be a two-stage process: first of transition, then of more thoroughgoing transformation. The breakpoint will come when a preponderance of new weapons systems begins to enter service, perhaps when, for example, unmanned aerial vehicles begin to be as numerous as manned aircraft. In this regard, the Pentagon should be very wary of making large investments in new programs –tanks, planes, aircraft carriers, for example– that would commit U.S. forces to current paradigms of warfare for many decades to come.26

The war on Iran could indeed mark this crucial break-point, with new space-based weapons systems being applied with a view to disabling an enemy which has significant conventional military capabilities including more than half a million ground forces.

Electromagnetic Weapons

Electromagnetic weapons could be used to destabilize Iran’s communications systems, disable electric power generation, undermine and destabilize command and control, government infrastructure, transportation, energy, etc. Within the same family of weapons, environmental modifications techniques (ENMOD) (weather warfare) developed under the HAARP program could also be applied.27 These weapons systems are fully operational. In this context, the U.S. Air Force document AF 2025 explicitly acknowledged the military applications of weather modification technologies:

Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally. … It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, improve communications through ionospheric modification (the use of ionospheric mirrors), and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in U.S., or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power.28

Electromagnetic radiation enabling “remote health impairment” might also be envisaged in the war theater.29 In turn, new uses of biological weapons by the U.S. military might also be envisaged as suggested by the PNAC: “[A]dvanced forms of biological warfare that can ‘target’ specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.”30

Iran’s Military Capabilities: Medium and Long-range Missiles

Iran has advanced military capabilities, including medium and long-range missiles capable of reaching targets in Israel and the Gulf States. Hence the emphasis by the U.S.-NATO Israel alliance on the use of nuclear weapons, which are slated to be used either pre-emptively or in response to an Iranian retaliatory missile attack.

In November 2006, Iran tests of surface missiles two were marked by precise planning in a carefully staged operation. According to a senior American missile expert, “the Iranians demonstrated up-to-date missile-launching technology which the West had not known them to possess.”31 Israel acknowledged that “the Shehab-3, whose 2,000-km range brings Israel, the Middle East and Europe within reach”.32

According to Uzi Rubin, former head of Israel’s anti-ballistic missile program, “the intensity of the military exercise was unprecedented… It was meant to make an impression – and it made an impression.”33

The 2006 exercises, while creating a political stir in the U.S. and Israel, did not in any way modify U.S.-NATO-Israeli resolve to wage war on Iran.

Tehran has confirmed in several statements that it will respond if it is attacked. Israel would be the immediate object of Iranian missile attacks as confirmed by the Iranian government. The issue of Israel’s air defense system is therefore crucial. U.S. and allied military facilities in the Gulf states, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq could also be targeted by Iran.

Iran’s Ground Forces

While Iran is encircled by U.S. and allied military bases, the Islamic Republic has significant military capabilities. What is important to acknowledge is the sheer size of Iranian forces in terms of personnel (army, navy, air force) when compared to U.S. and NATO forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Confronted with a well-organized insurgency, coalition forces are already overstretched in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Would these forces be able to cope if Iranian ground forces were to enter the existing battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan? The potential of the Resistance movement to U.S. and allied occupation would inevitably be affected.

Iranian ground forces are of the order of 700,000 of which 130,000 are professional soldiers, 220,000 are conscripts and 350,000 are reservists.34 There are 18,000 personnel in Iran’s Navy and 52,000 in the Air Force. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “the Revolutionary Guards has an estimated 125,000 personnel in five branches: Its own Navy, Air Force, and Ground Forces; and the Quds Force (Special Forces).”

According to the CISS, Iran’s Basij paramilitary volunteer force controlled by the Revolu- tionary Guards “has an estimated 90,000 active-duty full-time uniformed members, 300,000 reservists, and a total of 11 million men that can be mobilized if need be”35, In other words, Iran can mobilize up to half a million regular troops and several million militia. Its Quds special forces are already operating inside Iraq.

U.S. Military and Allied Facilities Surrounding Iran

For several years now, Iran has been conducting its own war drills and exercises. While its Air Force has weaknesses, its intermediate and long-range missiles are fully operational. Iran’s military is in a state of readiness. Iranian troop concentrations are currently within a few kilometers of the Iraqi and Afghan borders, and within proximity of Kuwait. The Iranian Navy is deployed in the Persian Gulf within proximity of U.S. and allied military facilities in the United Arab Emirates.

It is worth noting that in response to Iran’s military build-up, the U.S. has been transferring large amounts of weapons to its non-NATO allies in the Persian Gulf including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

While Iran’s advanced weapons do not measure up to those of the U.S. and NATO, Iranian forces would be in a position to inflict substantial losses to coalition forces in a conventional war theater, on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. Iranian ground troops and tanks in December 2009 crossed the border into Iraq without being confronted or challenged by allied forces and occupied a disputed territory in the East Maysan oil field.

Even in the event of an effective Blitzkrieg, which targets Iran’s military facilities, its communications systems etc., through massive aerial bombing, using cruise missiles, conventional bunker buster bombs and tactical nuclear weapons, a war with Iran, once initiated, could eventually lead into a ground war. This is something which U.S. military planners have no doubt contemplated in their simulated war scenarios.

An operation of this nature would result in significant military and civilian casualties, particularly if nuclear weapons are used.

Within a scenario of escalation, Iranian troops could cross the border into Iraq and Afghanistan.

In turn, military escalation using nuclear weapons could lead us into a World War III scenario, extending beyond the Middle-East – Central Asian region.

In a very real sense, this military project, which has been on the Pentagon’s drawing board for more than ten years, threatens the future of humanity.

Our focus in this chapter has been on war preparations. The fact that war preparations are in an advanced state of readiness does not imply that these war plans will be carried out.

The U.S.-NATO-Israel alliance realizes that the enemy has significant capabilities to respond and retaliate. This factor in itself has been crucial in the decision by the U.S. and its allies to postpone an attack on Iran.

Another crucial factor is the structure of military alliances. Whereas NATO has become a formidable force, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which constitutes an alliance between Russia and China and a number of former Soviet Republics has been significantly weakened.

The ongoing U.S. military threats directed against China and Russia are intended to weaken the SCO and discourage any form of military action on the part of Iran’s allies in the case of a U.S. NATO Israeli attack.

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Video Interview: Michel Chossudovsky and Caroline Mailloux

November 2023 Interview

 

Notes

1. See Target Iran – Air Strikes, Globalsecurity.org, undated.

2. William Arkin, Washington Post, April 16, 2006.

3. Ibid.

4. New Statesman, February 19, 2007.

5. Philip Giraldi, Deep Background,The American Conservative August 2005.

6. U.S.CENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#U.S.Policy, link no longer active,

archived at http://tinyurl.com/37gafu9.

7. General Wesley Clark, for further details see Chapter I.

8. See Michel Chossudovsky, Planned U.S.-Israeli Attack on Iran, Global Research, May 1, 2005.

9. Dick Cheney, quoted from an MSNBC Interview, January 2005.

10. According to Zbigniew Brzezinski.

11. Michel Chossudovsky, Unusually Large U.S. Weapons Shipment to Israel: Are the U.S. and Israel Planning a Broader Middle East War? Global Research, January 11, 2009.

12. Defense Talk.com, January 6, 2009.

13. Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009.

14. Webster Tarpley, Fidel Castro Warns of Imminent Nuclear War; Admiral Mullen Threatens Iran; U.S.-Israel versus Iran-Hezbollah Confrontation Builds On, Global Research, August 10, 2010.

15. Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Global Research, January 3, 2006.

16. David Ruppe, Pre-emptive Nuclear War in a State of Readiness: U.S. Command Declares Global Strike Ca- pability, Global Security Newswire, December 2, 2005.

17. U.S. Nuclear Option on Iran Linked to Israeli Attack Threat – IPS ipsnews.net, April 23, 2010.

18. Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran – Times Online, January 7, 2007.

19. Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds, Defense News, November 29, 2004.

20. See Michel Chossudovsky, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons” against Afghanistan?, Global Research, December 5, 2001. See also http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf03norris.

21. Jonathan Karl, Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran? ABC News, October 9, 2009.

22. Ibid.

23. ABC News, op cit, emphasis added. To consult the reprogramming request (pdf) click here.

24. See Edwin Black, “Super Bunker-Buster Bombs Fast-Tracked for Possible Use Against Iran and North Korea Nuclear Programs”, Cutting Edge, September 21, 2009.

25. See Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding America’s Defenses Washington DC, September 2000, pdf.

26. Ibid, emphasis added.

27. See Michel Chossudovsky, “Owning the Weather” for Military Use, Global Research, September 27, 2004. 28. Air
Force 2025 Final Report, See also U.S. Air Force: Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, AF2025
v3c15-1.

29. See Mojmir Babacek, Electromagnetic and Informational Weapons:, Global Research, August 6, 2004.

30. Project for a New American Century, op cit., p. 60.

31. See Michel Chossudovsky, Iran’s “Power of Deterrence” Global Research, November 5, 2006.

32. Debka, November 5, 2006.

33. www.cnsnews.com November 3, 2006.

34. See Islamic Republic of Iran Army – Wikipedia.

Featured image is from The Libertarian Institute

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The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9879389-0-9

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

Price: $9.40

Click here to order.

No dia 24 de fevereiro completaram-se dois anos do início da intervenção da Rússia na guerra da Ucrânia. Todos os grandes meios de comunicação ocidentais – monopolizados por bilionários que usam a imprensa para manter a sua dominação – chamam a Operação Militar Especial, nome oficial da campanha russa, de “guerra”. Com isso, propagam a ideia de que foi a Rússia que começou a guerra.

Uma mentira que encobre (propositalmente) a culpa, não apenas do governo que hoje é encabeçado por Vladimir Zelensky, como, principalmente, das grandes potências ocidentais. A propaganda disseminada por esse gigantesco monopólio da imprensa tenta fazer uma lavagem cerebral nos cidadãos comuns, acusando a Rússia malvada de invadir a Ucrânia indefesa em uma criminosa guerra de conquista.

A verdade é que a guerra começou não há dois anos, mas há dez anos! E quem a iniciou não foi a Rússia, mas a própria Ucrânia. A Rússia sequer esteve envolvida diretamente no conflito. Quem desempenhou um papel fundamental para a eclosão dessa guerra foram precisamente os que hoje acusam a Rússia.

Vladimir Putin, o presidente russo, na sua entrevista com o repórter americano Tucker Carlson, recapitulou os dramáticos acontecimentos que levaram à guerra. Analisemos a história das relações do chamado “Ocidente” com a Rússia nos últimos 30 anos e veremos que, na verdade, a Rússia foi obrigada a se defender de uma guerra que já estava em curso contra ela.

O desmantelamento da União Soviética enfraqueceu a Rússia como jamais havia ocorrido na história. Praticamente de um dia para o outro os territórios periféricos que, durante séculos, haviam pertencido a ela, se tornaram independentes. O grande objetivo das potências imperialistas desde o início do século XX havia sido alcançado. A onda de separações incentivou ainda duas guerras na Chechênia nos anos 90 e 2000, ao mesmo tempo em que a política de choque neoliberal devastava a sua economia.

Além de ter perdido grande parte do território da antiga União Soviética, a Rússia viu esses novos países serem completamente dominados pelo imperialismo. Em 2004, uma “revolução colorida”, conhecida como Revolução Laranja, impediu a eleição de um presidente neutro na Ucrânia para garantir um fantoche dos Estados Unidos – Viktor Yushchenko – no poder. Em 2008, foi a vez da Geórgia ser capturada pelas nações ocidentais, o que fez a Rússia esboçar sua primeira resposta a essa asfixia que procuravam lhe impor, no que ficou conhecido como a Guerra da Ossétia.

Todos os antigos aliados da Rússia estavam sendo varridos do mapa. Os bombardeios da OTAN na Líbia, com a execução de Muammar Kadafi, em 2011, acenderam de uma vez por todas o sinal de alerta para Moscou. Quando os Estados Unidos, a Inglaterra e a França tentaram fazer o mesmo na Síria, logo em seguida, Putin aprendeu a lição líbia e vetou no Conselho de Segurança da ONU uma operação idêntica para derrubar o regime de Bashar al-Assad, além de apoiá-lo militarmente.

A gota d’água para os russos foi o segundo golpe na Ucrânia, iniciado no final de 2013. Viktor Yanukovich, que havia sido impedido de se eleger em 2004, estava no poder. Conduzia uma política amistosa com Moscou, embora fosse vacilante e negociasse com a União Europeia. Porém, no final das contas, ele não aderiu à última, preferindo as maiores vantagens que seu país teria ao manter relações privilegiadas com a nação irmã. A UE e os EUA não aceitaram essa modesta demonstração de soberania da Ucrânia e utilizaram, assim como em 2004, ONGs pagas por George Soros e pelo governo dos EUA para executar uma nova “revolução colorida” em Kiev (Moniz Bandeira, A Desordem Mundial, p. 275). Desta vez, contudo, grupos declaradamente neonazistas foram a tropa de choque das manifestações na Praça Maidan.

O resultado do golpe de Estado, consolidado no início de 2014, não foi somente a queda de um governo que dialogava com a Rússia para substituí-lo por um alinhado com o Ocidente. Foi mais que isso: subiu ao poder um regime apoiado nas mesmas organizações fascistas que lideraram o Maidan. O fascismo ucraniano sempre foi acentuadamente antirrusso e a sua influência no novo regime levou a uma perseguição a todos os ucranianos de origem russa – que representam a maioria da população em cerca de 40% do território do país. As regiões de Donetsk, Lugansk e Crimeia, onde 75% dos eleitores haviam elegido Yanukovich em 2010 e eram de origem russa, foram as mais perseguidas e se rebelaram. A Crimeia fez um referendo onde a esmagadora maioria da população escolheu se reincorporar à Rússia (à qual ela sempre pertencera), resultando em uma anexação realizada logo em seguida pela Federação Russa.

Putin, contudo, não fez o mesmo em Donetsk e Lugansk. Os povos dessas duas regiões declararam independência da Ucrânia e formaram duas autodenominadas repúblicas populares. Em armas, eles resistiram à invasão militar ordenada pelas novas autoridades de Kiev, que teve como ponta de lança milícias paramilitares fascistas como os famigerados batalhões Azov, Aidar e Setor de Direita.

Esse foi o verdadeiro início da guerra atual na Ucrânia, que, até o começo da intervenção russa, havia custado a vida de mais de 14 mil pessoas – a maioria delas morta pelas forças invasoras ucranianas.

Ao mesmo tempo em que tudo isso ocorria, a Rússia via uma aproximação sucessiva da única verdadeira aliança militar do pós-Guerra Fria, a OTAN. Ao invés de deixar de existir, já que a desculpa oficial para sua existência – a “ameaça” soviética – havia desaparecido, a Organização do Tratado do Atlântico Norte se expandiu para a Europa Oriental desde meados da década de 1990, traindo as promessas feitas à Rússia.

Essa expansão significa a integração de novos países à aliança – incluindo antigos membros do Pacto de Varsóvia, a aliança liderada pelos soviéticos, e as próprias ex-repúblicas soviéticas do Báltico. E essa integração significa que esses países passaram a instalar armas pesadas em seu território e a sediar exercícios militares com a participação dos exércitos dos EUA, da Inglaterra, da França e da Alemanha. A parceria com a Ucrânia a partir do golpe de 2014 deixou claro para Putin que ela seria utilizada para um ataque contra a Rússia – a grande meta da OTAN.

Durante os oito anos que se seguiram, a Rússia se preparou econômica e militarmente para esse ataque. Se adaptou às sanções econômicas impostas por EUA e Europa devido à reincorporação da Crimeia e acelerou o desenvolvimento e a modernização de seu poderio bélico. A população russa, contudo, não demonstrava tanta frieza quanto o seu governo. Ela via seus irmãos – a maioria dos russos têm algum familiar ou amigo que vive na região separatista ucraniana do Donbass – serem mortos pelos usurpadores do poder em Kiev, que transformaram a Ucrânia em uma ditadura militar protofascista. Os clamores para que o exército russo fizesse alguma coisa aumentavam.

Finalmente a Rússia interveio, logo após reconhecer oficialmente a independência de Donetsk e Lugansk (aprovada por voto popular ainda em 2014) e estabelecer um pacto com seus governos em que a Rússia se comprometia a proteger os novos parceiros em caso de agressão externa. Ora, essa agressão já vinha ocorrendo há oito anos.

Antes da entrada da Rússia na guerra, as forças ucranianas já haviam ocupado mais da metade do território de Lugansk e quase todo o território de Donetsk. A situação era dramática para aqueles povos. Se fossem conquistados por Kiev, perderiam todos os seus direitos, como a filiação a partidos políticos de esquerda e pró-russos e o direito de falar seu idioma original (como havia ocorrido no restante da Ucrânia).

Para os povos do Donbass, a chegada das tropas russas foi uma salvação semelhante à realizada pelo Exército Vermelho na Segunda Guerra Mundial contra a invasão nazista. Os militares russos foram considerados libertadores pela maioria dos civis com quem conversei.

Hoje, dois anos após o início da intervenção russa, a relação de forças foi drasticamente modificada. A Rússia desequilibrou o conflito, mesmo com todo o apoio militar e econômico da OTAN a Kiev. Graças à intervenção russa, a República Popular de Lugansk foi totalmente libertada da agressão de Kiev em agosto de 2022. Em setembro, Lugansk e as parcelas de Donetsk, Kherson e Zaporizhia (outras duas regiões ucranianas de maioria russa com movimentos separatistas) realizaram referendos onde a maioria votou pela integração à Rússia – voltando ao seu território original, ao qual haviam pertencido por séculos.

Embora desde então a guerra quase não tenha saído do lugar, todos os analistas sérios que acompanham o conflito concordam que a Rússia leva vantagem sobre Kiev. A recente libertação de Avdeyevka foi uma vitória importante para os russos, que possibilita uma maior segurança para a cidade de Donetsk – a qual continua sofrendo bombardeios diários da Ucrânia, principalmente a civis, causando mortes constantes.

Não há perspectivas de que essa guerra, que entrou em seu décimo ano, termine tão cedo. Mas o principal objetivo da Rússia está sendo alcançado aos poucos: primeiro, a proteção do Donbass, em seguida a paulatina dissolução das organizações neonazistas e a desmilitarização da Ucrânia, na prática expulsando a presença militar imperialista.

Apesar de, aparentemente, estar longe de seu fim, é notório que a grande vitoriosa já é a Rússia e a grande derrotada não é nem mesmo a Ucrânia – ou melhor, o regime presidido por Vladimir Zelensky. Mas sim as próprias forças imperialistas que tanto fizeram para esmagar a Rússia no último século, particularmente nos últimos 30 anos. O mundo não é mais o mesmo nos últimos dois anos. Os países do chamado “Sul Global” vêm se unindo contra a dominação imperialista a partir desse duro golpe que esta sofreu com a ação russa. Rússia e China, essa aliança fantástica, aumentam sua influência a cada dia.

A intervenção russa na Ucrânia para se defender da OTAN evidenciou aos povos do mundo todo que é possível lutar e vencer as poderosas forças opressoras das nações pobres. Os movimentos populares do Oriente Médio, encabeçados pela Resistência Palestina, pelo Hezbollah e pelos houthis, entenderam isso perfeitamente. Mais pessoas entenderão e agirão para quebrar os grilhões que lhes acorrentam.

Eduardo Vasco

 

Imagem : commons.wikimedia.org

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Eduardo Vasco é jornalista, trabalhou como enviado especial no início da intervenção russa na guerra da Ucrânia e escreveu o livro “O povo esquecido: uma história de genocídio e resistência no Donbass”

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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As any experienced diplomat will tell you, in various conflict situations peace offers are most likely to succeed when these have something for both sides of the conflict (or when there are more than two sides then for all sides of the conflict).

Any side that makes a peace offer will obviously give more importance to protecting or advancing its own interests, but if it at all it is serious about pursuing peace then it will also try to ensure that the other sides and particularly its main opponent also see some immediate benefit or at least future hope in the peace offer.

There should be some reflection of a belief that the side which is making the peace offer has at least some care for the concerns of the other side or the opponent.

Seen from this rather simple perspective, peace offers that have been made from time to time in the course of the recent Gaza conflict by Israel to its principal opponent of the day namely Hamas do not appear to pass this elementary test of diplomacy.

The most consistent, oft-repeated statements of Israel, or rather the Netanyahu-led government of Israel, on this conflict say that it is committed to the elimination of Hamas.

These overwhelming statements remain in place at the time when Israel makes various peace offers of temporary ceasefire in exchange for release of its hostages. So in effect what Israel is saying to Hamas is—I’ll eliminate you in any case. You first release hostages, then after a few days I’ll return to the task of eliminating you!

Obviously this is not a way of offering peace that is likely to achieve any durable peace, justice or goodwill. However the obvious fallacy of the kind of peace that is being offered by Israel has not attracted the due criticism from many highly regarded and experienced diplomats of its western allies.

Another contradiction of the self-righteous stand taken by Israel that can be seen very clearly is that while the Netanyahu government is now so keen to present the Hamas as such an evil force that it simply has to be eliminated, no other  course of action can be considered, at the same fact the stark fact remains that the Israeli authorities led by Netanyahu in particular played an important role in supporting the Hamas in earlier phases to emerge as the main force in Gaza so that the Palestinian leadership could be presented as sectarian and fundamentalist before the international community, as opposed to the many streams of secular and socialist ideology that have existed among the Palestinian resistance from early times and which have been purposely sidelined, crushed or compromised. So when Netanyahu talks of eliminating the Hamas as the solution, one must remember he was to a large extent responsible for creating the Hamas as a powerful force in the first place.

As a result of several serious mistakes made in the past by various sides, today we have a very serious situation in Gaza, as manifested in one of the most serious humanitarian crisis existing in conditions where solutions are difficult to find and each day passes somehow with many noble persons trying their best to minimize the damage as much as possible.

Humanity thanks and salutes all these noble persons, particularly those who are risking their own life at the ground level while trying to save the life of others. In addition there is the threat of risk escalation at various levels in the Middle-East and a wider conflict breaking out in this volatile region when an already badly threatened world is least prepared to bear this additional burden and threat.

Those who are devoted sincerely to finding solutions should remember that both justice and peace are needed, a combination of peace and justice. Some in their enthusiasm are thinking only of justice and not of peace. Hence they voice slogans which may convey concerns of justice but are unlikely to bring peace and may even obstruct peace by creating avoidable suspicions among even the relatively peaceful persons on the other side. Kindly all sides remember, peace is of the highest importance, particularly keeping in view the overall high level of threats in our deeply troubled world, and so it is better to opt for achievable peace with some sense of justice instead of shouting slogans which create new complications. Please look at the difficult situation carefully ad offer solutions in accordance with it.

Once one keeps all this in view then one realizes that the two state solution is still the best way forward, but this should be taken forward in the right spirit and not in any diluted or fragmented form. Any further harm to the Palestinian people by displacing more Palestinians is completely unacceptable.

The Palestinians have suffered so much, and any further disruption of their life and livelihood will be simply too unjust and must be opposed by people who believe in peace and justice all over the world. At the same time, the security of the people of Israel and of Israel as a country (which protects its integrity but does not encroach any more on Palestine land, also takes back West Bank settlements) must be ensured.   

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Earth without Borders, A Day in 2071 and Protecting Earth for Children. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Universal Misery – by Mr. Fish

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Historically, African (Black) women in the U.S. have contributed to social progress movements, including the fight against  racial oppression, patriarchy, capitalist exploitation, western imperialism, and colonialism. Women’s struggle for peace and freedom has challenged the U.S.’ push for war and global dominance. During today’s commemorations for International Women’s Day, women celebrated for their achievements highlight a stark reality of how far our communities have departed from the Black Radical Peace tradition.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli Occupation forces have murdered over 30,000 Palestinians and displaced millions more. Despite the International Court of Justice’s ruling, the U.S. has continued to justify and support Israel in its ongoing genocide, employing individuals like Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to consistently vote no on proposed U.N. Security Council ceasefire resolutions for a toothless “humanitarian pause”. Thomas-Greenfield’s willingness to serve as a loyal Blackface of Empire disregards Palestinians as a whole but also the enduring suffering of Palestinian women under settler colonial occupation, who give birth to still-born babies at checkpoints, and face widespread instances of sexualized torture, rape, and castration, irrespective of gender identity.

Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre is celebrated as a “First Black” for Empire, but her Haitian family background obscures the fact that the Biden administration is pushing the latest call for occupation of Haiti. With the impending Multinational Security Support Mission in Haiti, we must remember the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINSUH) which occupied Haiti after the removal of democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haitian women experienced various forms of violence, exploitation, and marginalization. Haitian workers, predominantly women, have demanded wage increases and protested against the dehumanizing and demeaning sweatshops where they work. However, they have been met with paramilitary forces, used as a pretext for occupation, which will have detrimental effects on women.

Advocating regime change, supporting genocide, and signing draconian bills into law from Washington D.C to San Francisco, African (Black) women are being used as the faces of disparity and military proliferation, exacerbating the challenges faced by working-class African (Black) women. This is a blatant disregard of people-centered human rights and perpetuates full-spectrum domination, inevitably hindering the advancement of liberation struggles of colonized people worldwide. 

The contradictions of celebrating women’s achievements while turning a blind eye to the suffering of colonized women, both domestically and globally, highlight the need to broaden the scope and meaning of International Women’s Day to make it a day of remembrance and resistance focused on the objective of overturning the structures and relationships imposed on the world by the Western colonial/capitalist system that degraded and dehumanized women across the planet. For BAP, International Women’s Day is a call to action. A clarion call to sharpen our weapons of opposition in order to strike at the heart of patriarchy, gender-based violence and capitalism.

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Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

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Harvard University has just announced that the university has dropped its Covid “vaccine” mandate that the university has coerced students to accept. It would be interesting to know how many Harvard students the mandate murdered and how many whose health has been ruined by the stupid and irresponsible Harvard administrators’ mandate. It also raises the question of how smart Harvard students really are that they would risk an untested “vaccine.”

Harvard says, nevertheless, “We strongly recommend that all members of the Harvard community stay up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccines, including boosters. Additionally, we continue to emphasize the benefits of wearing a high-quality face mask in crowded indoor settings.” The university says it still requires that all students supply evidence that they had the initial jab. See this.

The university goes on to say in responding to COVID-19 that “we will continue to monitor public health data and will periodically review requirements.”

Harvard is allegedly an intelligent institution with a medical school and allegedly has a faculty and administrators capable of assessing facts and making intelligent decisions. Yet we see no sign of any intelligence in the university’s much belated dropping of the vax mandate.

We have know for a long time that the mRNA “vaccines” do not prevent a Covid vaccinated person from getting infected with Covid and do not prevent transmission of the virus. Big Pharma Covid vaccine makers themselves now admit this, as do medical authorities. Indeed, the evidence is piling up that the vax makes it more likely for a person to catch Covid.

We also know and it has now been admitted–see for example –that the mRNA “vaccines” have all of the deadly and health damaging effects that the independent medical scientists said they had. These scientists who told the truth were persecuted by the corrupt US medical establishment.

The evidence is in. There is no longer any question that the “vaccine,” which is not really a vaccine, is not only totally ineffective but very dangerous. Evidence mounts that the “vaccine” is a far greater killer than the lab created virus itself.

So why is Harvard still “strongly recommending” more jabs that are ineffective and dangerous? Is this a conclusion from evidence that shows any signs of intelligence?

With athletes in the prime of life dropping dead on playing fields all over the world, why is an allegedly intelligent university still requiring students to have had the initial “vaccination”?

Why does an allegedly intelligent university, which I am beginning to think Harvard most certainly is not, requiring students to have taken a vaccine known to be ineffective and dangerous?

How can such a non-intelligent, non-rational decision be associated with intelligence?

My conclusion is that Harvard is devoid of intelligence and of integrity. The reason is that Harvard is flush with Big Pharma research money, and just as Congress and the President have to vote in keeping with the special interests that fund their campaigns, Harvard votes with Big Pharma.

What do we make of a country where money is the only value, where even universities, allegedly centers of learning, prefer money to truth?

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Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Harvard University Widener Library [Photo by Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 4.0]