VIDEO: Guerra entre China y EEUU

November 21st, 2022 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

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San Francisco Bay Area researchers sued President Joe Biden and the National Archives on Wednesday over the postponement of the release of records on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. 

Two members of the Mary Ferrell Foundation claim in their federal lawsuit that the Biden administration has postponed releasing certain records on Kennedy’s assassination without doing a review of the records or maintaining an accurate index of the redacted content. They say the National Archives and Records Administration violated the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992 by preventing them from being fully informed on the history of the assassination.

The foundation, based in Massachusetts, maintains the largest searchable electronic collection of materials on the JFK assassination. Plaintiffs Josiah Thompson, a private investigator and author of books and articles on the JFK assassination, and author Gary Aguilar claim the government’s obstruction has interfered with the foundation’s core mission to educate the public.

According to the plaintiffs, Biden’s postponement of the records release deprives them from their legal right to information on the assassination. They also say the president and National Archives make it impossible to determine the number and identity of redacted and withheld assassination records in the JFK Collection — or records that may be in other government offices.

As a result of pressure to end what was then three decades of government secrecy about Kennedy’s death, Congress unanimously enacted the JFK Records Act in 1992, signed into law by then-President George H.W. Bush on Oct. 26, 1992. Congress declared that the “legislation is necessary to create an enforceable, independent, and accountable process for the public disclosure of such [assassination] records.”

Just before the October 2017 statutory deadline to put out the remaining secret assassination records, then-President Donald Trump issued a memorandum instructing National Archives to temporarily postpone the public disclosure of some unidentified records for six months. He later ordered National Archives to postpone the release for another three and a half years beyond the statutory deadline.

In October 2021, Biden issued an executive memorandum ordering the continued postponement of release of an unknown number of unidentified records — without, according to the plaintiffs, conducting a record-by-record review. They claim in doing so, the president breached his duties by not giving reasons with evidence for postponement, or stating how withholding the records outweighs the public interest in having the records.

The plaintiffs also say National Archives acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” and violated the Administrative Procedures Act by implementing Biden’s orders, and failed to perform assigned duties under the JFK Records Act such as maintaining an accurate guidebook and index to the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection. They also claim National Archives failed to follow up with government offices on outstanding record searches requested in 1998.

The plaintiffs want a judge to declare that Biden’s postponement violates the JFK Records Act and to order the president and National Archives to explain their continued postponement for each withheld record with clear evidence of “identifiable harm posed by the potential disclosure” and how it outweighs the public interest in disclosure.

“If the court finds that the proposed grounds for postponement do not meet the statutory criteria. the court should order the release of such assassination records to the American people,” the plaintiffs say in their complaint.

The plaintiffs also want National Archives ordered to complete a search for other records without identification in the department’s directory, remove all unjustified redactions in the central directory and find missing records identified in the complaint. They also want the agency to verify that there are no additional records withheld in full, and to establish a procedure to ensure the public release of all records “at the earliest possible date.”

National Archives did not respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit.

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Too Little Too Late? Pfizer, Moderna to Study Long-Term Risk of Myocarditis After COVID Vaccines

By Dr. Suzanne Burdick, November 21, 2022

Pfizer and Moderna are launching clinical trials to track long-term health issues following a diagnosis of vaccine-associated myocarditis and pericarditis in teens and young adults, but some experts said the risks are already clear.

They Will Lock You Down Again

By Jeffrey A. Tucker, November 21, 2022

The lords of lockdown barely escaped their worst possible fate, namely that the topic would become the national and international source of scandal that it should be. And let’s add the vaccine mandates here too: even if such had been morally justified, which they were not, there is absolutely no practical reason for them at all.

CBDC: How COVID Became the Path to Global Financial Surveillance

By Joshua Stylman, November 21, 2022

It’s seemed evident for a while that the current fiat monetary system is, at best, unstable. At worst, it’s a Ponzi scheme whose time has expired. If that’s the case, I suspect the central bankers and 0.1% know this and might be prepared to usher in the new system before the old one collapses on itself – even as they loot it on the way down with the most significant wealth transfer in human history.

Were the 9/11 Aircraft Electronically Hijacked and Remotely Controlled?

By Dan Hanley, November 20, 2022

According to the global grassroots organization 9/11 Pilot Whistleblowers website (https://911pilots.org/), there were no Muslim hijackers at the controls of the 9/11 aircraft but that these aircraft were electronically hijacked and remotely controlled through employment of a system called the uninterruptible autopilot that enables a remote source to take complete control of the aircraft autopilot and flight management computer and remotely guide it to its target destination.

“Veritocracy”: Casting a Mould for “Enlightened Governance”?

By Julian Rose, November 20, 2022

Appealing to the baser instincts of the masses while growing rich and powerful by taxing their hard labour has been the bottom line formula for the maintenance of top-down pyramid power for at least the past thousand years in the Western World. 

It Took 64 Years for the U.S. Government to Admit to Its 1953 Coup that Grabbed Iran

By Eric Zuesse, November 20, 2022

World War III is America’s war to capture Russia, and the way to do it is to position its missiles so close to Moscow that it can then declare “Checkmate!” and the missiles would take just 5 minutes to annihilate The Kremlin. Only Ukraine is that close to Moscow — close enough so that from missile-launch to annihilating Moscow would be so fast that Russia’s central command would be dead before they’d be able to confirm the launch and then launch their retaliatory missiles.

Thuggish Ways: Mike Pompeo, Punishing Leakers and Getting Assange

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, November 20, 2022

Poor, silly, protuberant Mike Pompeo.  The stocky, irritated former CIA director and former Secretary of State is rather upset that those who worked under him dared wag their tongues about Julian Assange.  The wagging so happened to relate to contemplated plans of abduction and assassination, something the US executive formally disallows though permits via various devious mechanisms.

Video: Ukraine’s Undeclared War Against NATO

By South Front, November 20, 2022

During the 9 months of the Russian military operations in Ukraine, NATO member countries have repeatedly become victims of the ongoing hostilities. As soon as Brussels was ready to apply Article 5 on NATO’s collective defense and declare war on Russia, it turned out that Ukraine was causing damage to the Alliance members.

Istanbul Terror Attack May Prompt Turkish Invasion and Deportations

By Steven Sahiounie, November 20, 2022

On November 13, a blast ripped through Istiklal street, a busy pedestrian area in the Beyoglu neighborhood of Istanbul.  The explosion killed six people and wounded 81 at about 4:30 pm local time. Among the dead were Arzu Ozsoy and her 15-year-old daughter Yagmur Ucar, a nine-year-old girl and her father, and a married couple. All were Turkish citizens.

Deadly Games: The Labour Casualties of Qatar’s FIFA World Cup

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, November 20, 2022

A sordid enterprise, nasty, crude and needless.  But the World Cup 2022 will be, should anyone bother watching it, stained by one of the highest casualty rates amongst workers in its history, marked by corruption and stained by a pharisee quality.  The sportswashers, cleaning agent at the ready, will be out in force, and the hypocrites dressed to the nines.

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Almost three years have passed since COVID-19 lockdowns and mandates upended our world. At first, the virus seemed to be an obscure, distant problem, posing little threat. Today, it’s hard to think of a world event more significant, talked about, and politically controversial than the response to COVID.  

Earlier this month, the peer-reviewed journal Minerva: A Review of Science, Learning, and Policy published an important article on COVID-related censorship and heterodoxy. Founded in 1962, Minerva is a well-established academic journal from Springer, one of the world’s top publishers of science journals. The article is an indication of just how mainstream concerns about censorship during the COVID era have become.

The authors are five researchers from universities and colleges in Israel and Australia. They interviewed a sample of leading medical professionals, doctors, and scientists who questioned the prevailing COVID orthodoxy and were heavily reprimanded, censored, or otherwise harassed and suppressed for their views.

The authors state in their abstract:

The emergence of COVID-19 has led to numerous controversies over COVID-related knowledge and policy. To counter the perceived threat from doctors and scientists who challenge the official position of governmental and intergovernmental health authorities, some supporters of this orthodoxy have moved to censor those who promote dissenting views.

Early Pandemic Controversies 

The researchers began by reviewing some of the early pandemic controversies. As they discovered, and as you may find unsurprising, there was no obvious consensus about how to “handle” COVID. While governments around the world argued for nationwide lockdowns and limited social gatherings, many scientists and other leaders questioned the ethics and efficacy of such mandates. As they authors note, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergic and Infectious Diseases, objected to wearing masks in March 2020, only to backtrack a month later.

Meanwhile, social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, with the government’s help, censored scientists, doctors, and others for expressing dissent or even questioning the prevailing pandemic dogma. This still goes on. The researchers paid special attention to the way tech companies suppressed COVID heterodoxy under the guise of “fact-checking” and countering “misinformation.” As the pandemic progressed, it became harder and harder for medical professionals to openly express their views.

Defining Orthodoxy on COVID

However, if the doctors and scientists they surveyed are “heterodox,” what is COVID orthodoxy? The researchers give a helpful definition:

Liester (2022) provides a list comparing what he refers to as the dominant versus dissenting views with respect to COVID-19, which includes the origin of SARS CoV-2 (zoonotic vs. laboratory), mask mandates (will prevent spread vs. will not prevent spread), early treatment with drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin (ineffective and dangerous vs. effective and safe), the usefulness of lockdown measures and other restrictions (effective and beneficial vs. ineffective and harmful), COVID-19 vaccines (safe and effective vs. unsafe and dangerous), and COVID-19 vaccine mandates and passports (necessary and ethical vs. harmful and unethical). While it may be true that none of these dominant positions have been universally adopted by all governments worldwide to the same degree or down to every last detail, nevertheless a dominant or orthodox position on all of these issues can be identified on a country-by-country basis with strong similarities across national borders.

They also recognize that orthodoxy is prone to change, and that some formerly forbidden viewpoints have gained legitimacy. Just last month, The Atlantic ran a piece by economist Emily Oster asking, “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty.” She wrote this in regard to masking and social distancing:

These precautions were totally misguided. In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking. Outdoor transmission was vanishingly rare. Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway. But the thing is: We didn’t know.

What Amnesty Means

While Oster makes a fair point about the lack of knowledge, this study is asking why governmental and other powers acted so adamantly as if they did know, and others didn’t. Why weren’t they more permissive of dissent and open to other views? “Amnesty” in other contexts implies an admission of fault in return for forgiveness. Yet the government, social media platforms, and a range of media pundits have yet to acknowledge the ways they demonized and intimidated doctors, scientists, and others for making common-sense observations about COVID-19, and perhaps even more so, about the vaccine. According to the researchers, much of the pandemic orthodoxy was formed, not out of scientific conviction, but from economic and political interests.

In another article, I will look at how the researchers conducted their survey and the specific ways their sample group experienced censorship and suppression.

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Peter Biles graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois in 2019 and went on to receive a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Seattle Pacific University. He is the author of Hillbilly Hymn (Resource Publications, 2022) and Keep and Other Stories (Resource Publications, 2022). He has also written for a variety of publications, including Plough, Dappled Things, The Gospel Coalition, Salvo, andBreaking Ground. Born and raised in Ada, Oklahoma, he currently serves as Content & Communications Fellow for the Chesterton House, a Christian Study Center at Cornell University.

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Pfizer and Moderna are launching clinical trials to track long-term health issues following a diagnosis of vaccine-associated myocarditis and pericarditis in teens and young adults, but some experts said the risks are already clear.

Myocarditis and pericarditis are heart problems that multiple medical studies have shown to be associated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccination, particularly among young men.

Studies also show that the risk of myocarditis — which can cause permanent damage to heart muscle — increases with the number of boosters a person has taken and can in some cases cause death.

Health officials contacted by NBC News did not suggest that official guidance on COVID-19 vaccination will change while the studies of long-term health issues from vaccine-related heart problems are underway.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declined to comment on Pfizer’s and Moderna’s studies, but an agency official told NBC News the chance of having myocarditis occur following vaccination is “very low.”

Too little, too late?

Commenting on the news, Dr. Peter McCullough — internist, epidemiologist, cardiologist and leading expert on COVID-19 treatment — said in a Nov. 16 Substack post:

“Now two years after public release and mounting cases of fatal myocarditis published in the peer-reviewed literature, both Pfizer and Moderna have announced they will begin studies of cardiac safety that the FDA required in their 2021 Biological Licensing Agreement letters from the FDA.”

“Why did the US government and the vaccine companies wait so long? Do they anticipate their own bad news will kill the failing product line?”

McCullough, who authored “The Courage to Face COVID-19” and developed the McCullough Protocol for early treatment of COVID-19, said only an internal document review from government agencies and vaccine developers will tell the public what was going on during this “biological product safety disaster.”

“As a cardiologist, I can tell you the entire discipline of cardiovascular disease is oriented to preserving heart tissue. Heart muscle is largely terminally differentiated with low rates of turnover; hence, we cannot afford to lose any cardiomyocytes to damage caused by vaccines.”

McCullough listed a number of studies on how the mRNA vaccines affect the heart:

Aldana-Bitar et al., described the excursion of cardiac troponin as about four days with COVID-19 vaccine-induced myocarditis which is oddly about the same duration as an ischemic myocardial infarction due to blocked coronary arteries. …

“Hence the confusion with the terms ‘myocarditis’ ‘myopericarditis’ and ‘heart attack’ in the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] and the media.

“The first two prospective cohort studies, where blood cardiac troponin level was measured before and after receiving mRNA injections, both demonstrated unacceptably high rates of troponin elevations indicating predictable heart damage.

Mansanguan et al. found the rate of heart injury was 2.3% on the second injection of Pfizer in children 13-18 years old. … Two children were hospitalized with myocarditis in this 301-person study.

Le Pessec et al., in a presentation at the European Society of Cardiology, revealed 2.8% of healthcare workers (n=777) had elevated troponin by day 3 after the third mRNA injection. …

“Given the known relationship of coronavirus spike protein and cardiac toxicity from the 1990’s, the vaccine companies should have been measuring troponin during their randomized trials in 2020.

Baric et al. in 1999 reported: ‘We have shown that infection with RbCV [rabbit coronavirus] results in the development of myocarditis and congestive heart failure and that some survivors of RbCV infection go on to develop dilated cardiomyopathy in the chronic phase.’”

But this prior research was apparently overlooked by COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers and public health officials, McCullough suggested.

“Sadly and ineptly,” McCullough said, “BARDA [Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority], DARPA [Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency], vaccine consultants, and the manufacturers had no measures in place to identify expected cardiac damage in humans.”

‘Do we really need to wait years to be absolutely certain this condition is serious?’

According to ZeroHedge, existing data and the freshly-launched clinical trials blatantly contradict the “safe and effective” narrative that Pfizer and Moderna have defended since they launched their vaccines.

“Why is Big Pharma investigating their own COVID vaccines for myocarditis side effects if the vaccines were already supposedly tested and proven safe and effective?” ZeroHedge asked.

“In all likelihood, Pfizer and Moderna are trying to get out ahead of burgeoning side effects with their own studies as a means to spin or mitigate bad press in the future. The chances of these studies providing honest data-driven assessments are low,” they said.

Pfizer is currently embroiled in a whistleblower lawsuit alleging fraud during its initial COVID-19 vaccine trials.

Comedian and political commentator Russell Brand also took aim at the news, asking viewers, “What kind of reality are we living in now” where pharmaceutical companies … whose products were widely mandated by elected officials who later show up on reality TV, are only now, two years later, beginning to investigate heart problems associated with their products?

Brand was referring to a former U.K. British Health Minister who resigned in June 2021 after he was caught breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules and is now starring in a reality TV show.

Brand also called out the media coverage of Pfizer and Moderna’s announcement, reading NBC News’ byline that said, “Both Pfizer and Moderna are launching clinical trials to track health issues — if any — in the years following a diagnosis of vaccine-associated heart problems in teens and young adults.”

Brand accused NBC News of using the phrase “if any” to suggest there may be no adverse health issues following a diagnosis of vaccine-related myocarditis.

“There are certainly some interesting graphs and data available that seem to suggest that there could be significant findings in those areas,” he said, alluding to research mentioned in the rest of the NBC article.

NBC news also summarized a recent CDC-funded study in The Lancet that examined health outcomes in 519 teens and young adults who reported a diagnosis of myocarditis following an mRNA vaccination concluding, “Most got better at least three months after symptoms.”

“Yes. Most of them got better after three months,” said Dr. Madhava Setty, senior science editor for The Defender. “But 1 in 5 were still not cleared for physical activity. One in 4 required daily medication to treat their condition. Ninety-nine of them required intensive care as a result of their vaccine injury.”

Setty added:

“We are talking about young, healthy people that required ICU admissions, that now cannot exert themselves and may require heart medications indefinitely. Do we really need to wait years to be absolutely certain this condition is serious? It is as serious as a heart attack. Literally.

“If the CDC is admitting that it does not know what the long-term repercussions of vaccine-induced myocarditis are in young people, why are they continuing to recommend that they receive these products when they already know there is little to no benefit for this demographic?

“It is nonsensical for an agency of public health to promote these therapies while waiting years for proof that they are NOT dangerous.”

Moderna: ‘We don’t understand’ why vaccines cause heart damage

The FDA in January told Pfizer and Moderna they must conduct several post-marketing safety studies due to the “known serious risks of myocarditis and pericarditis” and the “unexpected serious risk of subclinical myocarditis.”

Moderna launched two trials, the most recent in September. Pfizer told NBC News it plans to start at least one of its trials, which will include up to 500 individuals age 20 and younger, over the next few months.

In collaboration with the Pediatric Heart Network, Pfizer will monitor participants for five years, according to Dr. Dongngan Truong, a pediatrician at the University of Utah Health and a co-lead on the Pfizer study.

Participants will include people who were previously hospitalized with vaccine-related myocarditis and those who were more recently diagnosed.

Dr. Paul Burton, Moderna’s chief medical officer, told NBC News scientists still don’t have a clear explanation yet for why the vaccines cause the condition.

He suspects the virus’s spike protein, once produced in the cell after vaccination, may generate a reaction in the body that can cause inflammation in the heart.

“We don’t understand yet and there’s no good mechanism to explain it,” he said.

Burton did not comment on whether or not he was privy to the cardiology studies McCullough cited in his Substack post that showed a clear association between mRNA vaccines and heart damage.

According to Burton, the two myocarditis studies Moderna has started — one of which is being conducted in collaboration with the American College of Cardiology — are examining public and private health data from tens of millions of people who received the company’s vaccine.

He said the study would answer basic questions including: “Did they get myocarditis? When did it occur? How was it treated? How severe was it?”

Moderna also is conducting two more studies with the European Medicines Agency that will span five different countries.

The drugmaker will assess outcomes for a year or more, Burton said, with results expected to be made public in the summer of 2023.

CDC downplays risk of myocarditis as vaccine makers protected from liability claims

According to some experts, when statistically significant levels of myocarditis reports began appearing in VAERS, government health officials were slow to warn the public of the possible risk — and the agency continues to downplay the risk as “rare.”

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., and Brian Hooker, Ph.D., P.E, in October published research on data showing that although a statistically significant vaccine adverse event “signal” for myocarditis in males ages 8-21 was seen on the VAERS database as early as Feb. 19, 2021 — just two months after the release of the COVID-19 vaccine to the U.S. public — CDC officials buried the connectionbetween COVID-19 vaccination and myocarditis until May 27, 2021.

“By this date, over 50% of the eligible U.S. population had received at least one mRNA COVID-19 vaccine,” Hooker, chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense, told The Defender.

Withholding this type of information is criminal,” he added.

According to Steve Kirsch, executive director of Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, the CDC continues to downplay and underestimate the likely number of vaccine-related myocarditis cases.

On Thursday, Kirsch wrote:

“Large Canadian hospital: before COVID, they’d see 2 cases per year.

“Now they see 27 in just 6 weeks. That’s a 117X increase.

“But the CDC says it’s only ‘slightly elevated.’”

“You would think this is a problem, but it isn’t,” Kirsch said. “When 2 car owners die, the car manufacturer tells people to stop using the car. The reason for this is simple: liability.”

Kirsch added:

“But with these vaccines, there is no liability, so there is no need to set a stopping condition.

“The US government will happily injure hundreds of thousands or millions of kids and it simply just doesn’t matter because there is no liability. That’s just the way it goes.”

As of Nov. 4, there have been 24,608 cases of myocarditis and pericarditis and 4,878 reports of myocardial infarction (i.e., heart attack) reported to VAERS since mid-December 2020.

VAERS is the primary government-funded system for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S.

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Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin (2021), and a master’s degree in communication and leadership from Gonzaga University (2015). Her scholarship has been published in Health Communication. She has taught at various academic institutions in the United States and is fluent in Spanish.

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

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

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

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

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***

The World Health Organization (WHO) is ignoring risks to human health posed by two toxic types of PFAS chemicals, and is failing to propose properly protective measures in draft guidelines for drinking water standards, a group of more than 100 scientists alleged in a letter issued this month.

The 116 scientists – all experts on per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) – said in the Nov. 10 letter that the WHO guidelines should either be “significantly revised” or withdrawn. The group cited examples of areas where they said the WHO has omitted or obscured “strong evidence” of the links between adverse health problems and the PFAS compounds known as PFOS and PFOA. The WHO did not respond directly to criticisms expressed by the scientists in their letter.

“WHO has ignored the last 20 years of scientific research, ranging from observational human studies, animal studies, and mechanistic studies, and concluded that there’s not enough information,” said Linda Birnbaum, former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and one of the signatories on the letter to WHO.

“I don’t understand how they could have come up with this [draft] using an independent group of scientists,” she added. “My impression is that people who consult largely for industry are the people who are involved in writing this. It’s very, very concerning.”

The WHO may release its final drinking water guidelines for PFOS and PFOA as early as December, and some fear the guidance could undermine proposed regulations expected from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) before the end of the year.

PFAS chemicals help products resist heat, oil, stains, and water and are found in everything from nonstick pans to takeout containers to rain coats. PFOS and PFOA, the best-studied PFAS, have been linked to cancers and other serious health problems. PFAS have been increasingly detected in drinking water across the US, and some stateshave proposed or adopted drinking water limits for these toxic chemicals. However, until the EPA issues its final regulations, there are no federally enforceable standards for PFAS in drinking water.

“Much less protective guidelines”

While the EPA issued interim updated drinking water health advisories of 0.004 parts per trillion (ppt) for PFOA and 0.02 ppt for PFOS in June, the WHO draft offered a provisional, technology-based guideline of 100 ppt for individual PFOA and PFOS and 500 ppt for total combined PFAS concentrations in drinking water.

“There have been a number of authoritative bodies that have at least proposed that much lower drinking water levels are needed to be protective of human health,” said Anna Soehl, a science and policy consultant at the Green Science Policy Institute. “WHO completely disregarded this and proposed much less protective guidelines. That can create confusion among nations that might not have the resources to develop their own drinking water standards and sends a message that perhaps higher levels are acceptable.”

The letter specifically accuses WHO of failing to properly account for cancer risks associated with PFOA;  inaccurately concluding there is no evidence of an association between PFAS and liver damage; making “entirely unsupported speculation” downplaying PFAS association to increased cholesterol; issuing “misstatements” regarding immunotoxicity associated with PFOA/PFOS exposure.

“The current science… provide[s] compelling evidence that exposures to PFOS, PFOA and other PFAS have adverse impacts on human and animal health, even at very low levels,” the scientists wrote.

“No technical justification”

Betsy Southerland, an Environmental Protection Network (EPN) member and former director in EPA’s Office of Water, noted that it is common to see two types of assessments – a health-based maximum contaminant level goal and a (usually less stringent) level utilities are required to achieve using available technologies. However, Southerland said it is unclear how the authors of the WHO report developed their technology-based levels.

“There’s no technical justification for how they arrived at that drinking water provisional guideline concentration,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“It looks like they wasted all their time trying to debunk the thousands of health studies, then at the very end grabbed two studies on PFOA and PFOS and two more studies on all the [PFAS] contaminants and based their provisional guidelines on that.”

Southerland, who led EPN’s formal response to the WHO draft, also called the timing of the WHO’s draft “a stunner,” speculating that the WHO was “racing to get this out” because they knew the EPA is expected to propose both health-based and technology-based PFOA and PFOS guidelines in December.

In their letter to the WHO, the PFAS experts urges the organization to issue “science-based guidelines supported by a comprehensive review of the scientific literature and commonly used treatment technologies or otherwise withdraw the proposed guidance.”

The group also requested that the WHO “identify the names, affiliations and potential conflicts-of-interest of those involved in the preparation or peer-review of this draft and any future WHO documents.” The WHO said the contributors to the document would be listed in the final document and posted on the WHO website.

“What is urgently needed is for authorities around the globe to work to prevent exposure and establish mechanisms to hold chemical manufacturers financially responsible for the cost of remediation,” the scientists wrote. “Although PFAS manufacturers’ own research has documented the health harm of PFAS, they continue selling these chemicals contaminating the drinking water and harming the health of numerous communities worldwide.”

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They Will Lock You Down Again

November 21st, 2022 by Jeffrey A. Tucker

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***

The lords of lockdown barely escaped their worst possible fate, namely that the topic would become the national and international source of scandal that it should be. And let’s add the vaccine mandates here too: even if such had been morally justified, which they were not, there is absolutely no practical reason for them at all. 

To have imposed both of these within the course of one year – with zero evidence that they achieved anything for public health and vast amounts of unfolding evidence that they ruined life quality for countless millions – qualifies as a scandal for the ages. It was in the US but also in nearly every country in the world but a few.

Might that have huge political implications? One would suppose so. And yet today it appears that truth and justice are further off than ever. The most passionate of the anti-lockdown governors – those who never locked down or opened earlier than the rest of the country – won on their record. Most of the rest joined the entire political establishment in pretending that all of this is a non-issue. Tragically, this tactic seems to have worked better than it should have.

Meanwhile, a few points to consider:

The US government, through the Transportation Safety Administration, has signed yet another order extending the ban on unvaccinated international visitors until January 8, 2023. This means that no person who has managed to refuse the shot is allowed to come to the US for any reason. This is 30% of the world’s population, banned even to enter the US on their own dime. Something like this would have been inconceivably illiberal three years ago, and been a source of enormous controversy and outrage. Today, the extension hardly made the news.

The Biden administration has once again extended the Covid emergency declaration another 90 days, which continues to grant government vast powers without Congressional approval. Under a state of emergency, the Constitutional structure of the US is effectively suspended and the country remains on a wartime footing. This announcement was not controversial, and, like the above, it barely made the news.

Many colleges and universities, and also other schools and public agencies, continue to enforce the vaccine mandate even without any solid science behind the approval of the bivalent shots or any real rationale behind the push, given that most people have long ago been exposed and acquired natural immunity, and, moreover, it is very well established that the shots do not protect anyone from infection nor stop transmission. They just keep doing this anyway.

Masking is not in disrepute because we never really obtained anything like an honest admission of their failure to control the spread. Even today, there is a percentage of people out there permanently traumatized. On travels, I’m seeing perhaps 10-20% but in some Northeastern cities, regular wearing of masks is also very common. Once they became a symbol of political compliance and virtue, that sealed the deal and the culture was changed. Now we face the threat of mask mandates whenever government deems it necessary because the Transportation Safety Authority has been given the go-ahead by the courts.

The end of vaccine mandates in most areas of life, and hence also the drive for a passport to distinguish between clean and unclean people, is a good sign. But the infrastructure is still in place and becoming more sophisticated. It is hardly a final victory. It might only be a temporary respite, while all the ambitions are still extant.

More than that, the Biden administration (and all that it represents, including the World Economic Forum, the World Health Organization, and everything else called the establishment) has its own pandemic plans in place. The idea is not to dial back the mandates or cool it on them. It’s the reverse: centralize all pandemic planning to make a South Dakota, Georgia, and Florida experience impossible the next time. Also, spend tens of billions in more money.

The principle seems to have emerged among the agencies, intellectuals, and politicians who did this. Whatever you do, never admit to having made any major mistakes. And never connect the economic, cultural, health, and educational disasters all around us to anything the govenrment did in 2020 or 2021! That would be nothing but a conspiracy theory.

The pandemic racket is so huge at this point that it is even embroiled in the FTX meltdown over the weekend. Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabe actually founded a nonprofit solely for the purpose of providing “support” for the $30 billion that the Biden administration has allocated to pandemic planning. The institution “Guarding Against Pandemics” is very obviously a honeypot for such funding, complete with on-the-record endorsements from many Democrat Party candidates who won election.

Meanwhile, yes, there have been many successful court challenges to many features of the pandemic response. But not enough. The main machinery that took away liberty and property in the name of virus control is still in place in all its essentials. The CDC to this day brags of its awesome quarantine powers that it can deploy any time government deems it necessary. Nothing about that has changed.

In the big picture and rendered in a philosophical sense, humanity seems to have lost its ability to learn from its own errors. Put in more gritty terms, too many people among ruling-class interests gained financially and in terms of the lust for power during the pandemic to prompt any serious rethinking and reform.

In any case, that rethinking and reform is now put off for another day. Anyone seriously concerned about the future of humanity and the civilizations it built must throw themselves into the long-term battle for truth and reason. That will require that we use every bit of what remains of free speech and what remains of the longing for integrity and accountability in public life. The group we have come to call “they” want a demoralized population and a silent public square.

We cannot allow that to happen.

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Jeffrey A. Tucker, Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute, is an economist and author. He has written 10 books, including Liberty or Lockdown, and thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He writes a daily column on economics at The Epoch Times, and speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.

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A few days ago we asked how much longer do we have to wait for the “first-day affidavit” in the FTX bankruptcy, traditionally the most detailed and comprehensive summary of how any given company collapsed into Chapter 11 (and in FTX’s case, Chapter 7 soon, as this will soon become a full-blown liquidation)…

… and this morning we finally got our answer when it hit the docket (22-11068, U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware), almost a full week after FTX filed on Nov 11… and boy is it a doozy.

Because how else would one describe it when FTX’s new CEO and liquidator, John Ray III,  who also oversaw the unwinding and liquidation of Enron, admits that “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

And just in case his shock at FTX’s fraud of epic proportions was not quite clear enough, he adds that “from compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.”

Courtesy of the affidavit, here is what the company’s org chart looks like as of Nov 17:

Click here to enlarge the image.

According to Ray, he has located “only a fraction” of the digital assets of the FTX Group that they hope recover during the Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They’ve so far secured about $740 million of cryptocurrency in offline cold wallets, a storage method designed to prevent hacks. This is just a fraction of the $10-$50 billion in liabilities the company disclosed in its bankruptcy filing.

How do we know it’s a fraud: as Ray writes on page 24, although the investigation has only begun and must run its course, it is my view based on the information obtained to date, “that many of the employees of the FTX Group, including some of its senior executives, were not aware of the shortfalls or potential commingling of digital assets.” Many maybe not, but some – and certainly SBF himself – did.

It gets better: Ray said that company’s audited financial statements should not be trusted, Ray said, adding that liquidators are working to rebuild balance sheets for FTX entities from the bottom up.

FTX “did not maintain centralized control of its cash” and failed to keep an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, or pay sufficient attention to the creditworthiness of banking partners, according to Ray. Advisers don’t yet know how much cash FTX Group had when it filed for bankruptcy, but has found about $560 million attributable to various FTX entities so far.

Although restructuring advisers have been in control of FTX for less than a week, they’ve seen enough to depict the crypto company as a deeply flawed enterprise. Lasting records of decision making are hard to come by: Bankman-Fried often communicated through applications that auto-deleted in short order and asked employees to do the same, according to Ray.
Corporate funds of FTX Group were used to buy homes and other personal items for employees, Ray said.

Corporate funds were also used to buy homes and other personal items for employees and advisers, sometimes in their personal names.

“In the Bahamas, I understand that corporate funds of the FTX Group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors. I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of the Bahamas,” Ray said, who also noted that the company didn’t have appropriate corporate governance and never held board meetings. There was no accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, as well as insufficient attention paid to the creditworthiness of banking partners.

Ray said the company did not have “an accurate list” of its own bank accounts, or even a complete record of the people who worked for FTX (see below). He added that FTX used “an unsecured group email account” to manage the security keys for its digital assets.

The filing sheds light on the sloppy business practices, such as FTX employees asking to be paid through an online “chat” platform “where a disparate group of supervisors approved disbursements by responding with personalized emojis.”

Below we excerpt some of the most notable highlights from the affidavit, which we embed at the bottom of the post and which everyone should read to get a sense of just how massive Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud was.

  • I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience. I have been the Chief Restructuring Officer or Chief Executive Officer in several of the largest corporate failures in history. I have supervised situations involving allegations of criminal activity and malfeasance (Enron). I have supervised situations involving novel financial structures (Enron and Residential Capital) and cross-border asset recovery and maximization (Nortel and Overseas Shipholding). Nearly every situation in which I have been involved has been characterized by defects of some sort in internal controls, regulatory compliance, human resources and systems integrity.
  • Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here. From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.
  • For purposes of managing the Debtors’ affairs, I have identified four groups of businesses, which I refer to as “Silos.” These Silos include:
    • (a) a group composed of Debtor West Realm Shires Inc. and its Debtor and non-Debtor subsidiaries (the “WRS Silo”), which includes the businesses known as “FTX US,” “LedgerX,” “FTX US Derivatives,” “FTX US Capital Markets,” and “Embed Clearing,” among other businesses;
    • (b) a group composed of Debtor Alameda Research LLC and its Debtor subsidiaries (the “Alameda Silo”);
    • (c) a group composed of Debtor Clifton Bay Investments LLC, Debtor Clifton Bay Investments Ltd., Debtor Island Bay Ventures Inc. and Debtor FTX Ventures Ltd. (the “Ventures Silo”);
    • (d) a group composed of Debtor FTX Trading Ltd. and its Debtor and non-Debtor subsidiaries (the “Dotcom Silo”), including the exchanges doing business as “FTX.com” and similar exchanges in non-U.S. jurisdictions. These Silos together are referred to by me as the “FTX Group.
  • Each of the Silos was controlled by Mr. Bankman-Fried.2 Minority equity interests in the Silos were held by Zixiao “Gary” Wang and Nishad Singh, the co-founders of the business along with Mr. Bankman-Fried. The WRS Silo and Dotcom Silo also have third party equity investors, including investment funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds  and families. To my knowledge, no single investor other than the co-founders owns more than 2% of the
    equity of any Silo.
  • The diagram attached as Exhibit A provides a visual summary of the Silos and the indicative assets in each Silo. Exhibit B contains a preliminary corporate structure chart. These materials were prepared at my direction based on information available at this time and are subject to revision as our investigation into the affairs of the FTX Group continues.

Click here to enlarge the image.

There is much more information on each of these silos in the affidavit at the bottom of this post, but what we are curious about at this stage is what the Alameda balance sheet looks like: after all, that’s what started this whole avalanche in the first place. Here are the details:

The parent company and primary operating company in the Alameda Silo is Alameda Research LLC, which is organized in the State of Delaware. Before the Petition Date (as defined below), the Alameda Silo operated quantitative trading funds specializing in crypto assets. Strategies included arbitrage, market making, yield farming and trading volatility. The Alameda Silo also offered over-the-counter trading services, and made and managed other debt and equity investments. In short, the Alameda Silo was a “crypto hedge fund” with a diversified business trading and speculating in digital assets and related loans and securities for the account of its owners, Messrs. Bankman-Fried (90%) and Wang (10%).

Alameda Research LLC prepared consolidated financial statements on a quarterly basis. To my knowledge, none of these financial statements have been audited. The September 30, 2022 balance sheet for the Alameda Silo shows $13.46 billion in total assets as of its date. However, because this balance sheet was unaudited and produced while the Debtors were controlled by Mr. Bankman-Fried, I do not have confidence in it and the information therein may not be correct as of the date stated.

Remarkably, among the assets listed in the document was $4.1bn of related party loans extended by Alameda, $3.3bn of which was to Bankman-Fried both personally and to an entity he controlled. Bankman-Fried previously said that FTX had “accidentally” given $8bn of FTX customer funds to Alameda.

The highlighted “related party receivable” is notable because as footnote 3 to the table reveals, it consisted of a loan by “Euclid Way Ltd. to Paper Bird Inc. (a Debtor) of $2.3 billion” and three loans by Alameda Research Ltd.: one to Mr. Bankman-Fried, of $1 billion; one to Mr. Singh, of $543 million; and one to Ryan Salame, of $55 million.

The liabilities as of September 30, 2022 were manageable. Unfortunately, the reality is that the asset and liability numbers at the consolidated level were flipped resulting in an $8 billion hole.

The problem, as we now know, is that the value of the assets was woefully overrepresented. But we’ll get to that.

First, let’s look at the immediate history that led to the bankruptcy filing:

EVENTS LEADING TO CHAPTER 11 FILING

The Debtors faced a severe liquidity crisis that necessitated the filing of these Chapter 11 Cases on an emergency basis on November 11, 2022, and in the case of Debtor West Realm Shires Inc., on November 14, 2022 (collectively, the “Petition Date”). In the days leading up to the Petition Date, certain of the circumstances described in Part III below became known to a broader set of executives of the FTX Group beyond Mr. Bankman-Fried and members of his inner circle. Questions arose about Mr. Bankman-Fried’s leadership and the handling of the Debtors’ complex array of assets and businesses.

As the situation became increasingly dire, Sullivan & Cromwell and Alvarez & Marsal were engaged to provide restructuring advice and services to the Debtors.

On November 10, 2022, the Securities Commission of the Bahamas (the “SCB”) took action to freeze assets of non-Debtor FTX Digital Markets Ltd., a service provider to FTX Trading Ltd. and the employer of certain current and former executives and staff in the Bahamas. Mr. Brian Simms, K.C. was appointed as provisional liquidator of FTX Digital Markets Ltd. on a sealed record. The provisional liquidator for this Bahamas subsidiary has filed a chapter 15 petition seeking recognition of the provisional liquidation proceeding in the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

In addition, in the first hours of November 11, 2022 EST, the directors of non-Debtors FTX Express Pty Ltd and FTX Australia Pty Ltd., both Australian entities, appointed Messrs. Scott Langdon, John Mouawad and Rahul Goyal of Korda Mentha Restructuring as voluntary administrators.

At the same time, negotiations were being held between certain senior individuals of the FTX Group and Mr. Bankman-Fried concerning the resignation of Mr. Bankman-Fried and the commencement of these Chapter 11 Cases. Mr. Bankman-Fried consulted with numerous lawyers, including lawyers at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, other legal counsel and his father, Professor Joseph Bankman of Stanford Law School. A document effecting a relinquishment of control was prepared and comments from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s team incorporated. At approximately 4:30 a.m. EST on Friday, November 11, 2022, after further consultation with his legal counsel, Mr. Bankman-Fried ultimately agreed to resign, resulting in my appointment as the Debtors’ CEO. I was delegated all corporate powers and authority under applicable law, including the power to appoint independent directors and commence these Chapter 11 Cases on an emergency basis.

Cash management… or lack thereof:

The FTX Group did not maintain centralized control of its cash. Cash management procedural failures included the absence of an accurate list of bank accounts and account signatories, as well as insufficient attention to the creditworthiness of banking partner around the world. Under my direction, the Debtors are establishing a centralized cash management system with proper controls and reporting mechanisms.

During these Chapter 11 Cases, cash that the Debtors are able to locate and transfer to the United States without adverse consequences, including substantially all proceeds of the global reorganization effort, will be deposited into financial institutions in the United States that are approved depository institutions in accordance with the U.S. Trustee Guidelines. Each Silo will have a centralized cash pool, and the Debtors will implement appropriate arrangements for allocating costs across the various Silos and Debtors. The Debtors expect to file promptly a Cash Management Motion that will describe the new cash management system in more detail.

Because of historical cash management failures, the Debtors do not yet know the exact amount of cash that the FTX Group held as of the Petition Date. The Debtors are working with Alvarez & Marsal to verify all cash positions. To date, it has been possible to approximate the following balances as of the Petition Date based on available books and records:

The Debtors have been in contact with banking institutions that they believe hold or may hold Debtor cash. These banking institutions have been instructed to freeze withdrawals and alerted not to accept instructions from Mr. Bankman-Fried or other signatories. Proper signature authority and reporting systems are expected to be arranged shortly.

Effective cash management also requires liquidity forecasting, which I understand was also generally absent from the FTX Group historically. The Debtors are putting in place the systems and processes necessary for Alvarez & Marsal to produce a reliable cash forecast as well as the cash reporting required for Monthly Operating Reports under the Bankruptcy Code.

And now it gets really good: read this section on the company’s “Financial Reporting”

The FTX Group received audit opinions on consolidated financial statements for two of the Silos – the WRS Silo and the Dotcom Silo – for the period ended December 31, 2021. The audit firm for the WRS Silo, Armanino LLP, was a firm with which I am professionally familiar. The audit firm for the Dotcom Silo was Prager Metis, a firm with which I am not familiar and whose website indicates that they are the “first-ever CPA firm to officially open its Metaverse headquarters in the metaverse platform  Decentraland.

 have substantial concerns as to the information presented in these audited financial statements, especially with respect to the Dotcom Silo. As a practical matter, I do not believe it appropriate for stakeholders or the Court to rely on the audited financial statements as a reliable indication of the financial circumstances of these Silos.

The Debtors have not yet been able to locate any audited financial statements with respect to the Alameda Silo or the Ventures Silo.

Next, human resources: even more insanity here.

he FTX Group’s approach to human resources combined employees of various entities and outside contractors, with unclear records and lines of responsibility. At this time, the Debtors have been unable to prepare a complete list of who worked for the FTX Group as of the Petition Date, or the terms of their employment. Repeated attempts to locate certain presumed employees to confirm their status have been unsuccessful to date.

Nevertheless, there is a core team of dedicated employees at the FTX Group who have stayed focused on their jobs during this crisis and with whom I have established appropriate lines of authority and working relationships. The Debtors continue to review personnel issues but I expect, based on my experience and the nature of the Debtors’ business, that a large number of employees of the Debtors will need to continue to work for the Debtors for the foreseeable future in order to establish accountability, preserve value and maximize stakeholder recoveries after the departure of Mr. Bankman-Fried. As Chief Executive Officer, I am thankful for the extraordinary efforts of this group of employees, who despite difficult personal circumstances, have risen to the occasion and demonstrated their critical importance to the Debtors.

… and better: here are FTX’s “Disbursement Controls”

The Debtors did not have the type of disbursement controls that I believe are appropriate for a business enterprise. For example, employees of the FTX Group submitted payment requests through an on-line ‘chat’ platform where a disparate group of  supervisors  approved disbursements by responding with personalized emojis.

Digital Asset Custody… and the “use of software to conceal the misuse of customer funds.”

The FTX Group did not keep appropriate books and records, or security controls, with respect to its digital assets. Mr. Bankman-Fried and Mr. Wang controlled access to digital assets of the main businesses in the FTX Group (with the exception of LedgerX, regulated by the CFTC, and certain other regulated and/or licensed subsidiaries). Unacceptable management practices included the use of an unsecured group email account as the root user to access confidential private keys and critically sensitive data for the FTX Group companies around the world, the absence of daily reconciliation of positions on the blockchain, the use of software to conceal the misuse of customer funds, the secret exemption of Alameda from certain aspects of FTX.com’s auto-liquidation protocol, and the absence of independent governance as between Alameda (owned 90% by Mr. Bankman-Fried and 10% by Mr. Wang) and the Dotcom Silo (in which third parties had invested.

The Debtors have located and secured only a fraction of the digital assets of the FTX Group that they hope to recover in these Chapter 11 Cases. The Debtors have secured in new cold wallets approximately $740 million of cryptocurrency that the Debtors believe is attributable to either the WRS, Alameda and/or Dotcom Silos. The Debtors have not yet been able to determine how much of this cryptocurrency is allocable to each Silo, or even if such an allocation can be determined. These balances exclude cryptocurrency not currently under the Debtors’ control as a result of (a) at least $372 million of unauthorized transfers initiated on the Petition Date, during which time the Debtors immediately began moving cryptocurrency into cold storage to mitigate the risk to the remaining cryptocurrency that was accessible at the time, (b) the dilutive ‘minting’ of approximately $300 million in FTT tokens by an unauthorized source after the Petition Date and (c) the failure of the co-founders and potentially others to identify additional wallets believed to contain Debtor assets.

In response, the Debtors have engaged forensic analysts to identify potential Debtor assets on the blockchain, cybersecurity professionals to identify the parties responsible for the unauthorized transactions on and after the Petition Date and investigators to begin the process of identifying what may be very substantial transfers of Debtor property in the days, weeks and months prior to the Petition Date. The Debtors’ team includes business, accounting, forensic, technical and legal resources that I believe are among the best in the world at these activities. It is my expectation that the Debtors will require assistance from the Court with respect to these matters as the investigation and these Chapter 11 Cases continue.

Additionally, Ray notes that the fair value of the crypto assets held by the FTX International exchange was just $659,000 as of September 30. As a reminder, SBF made this sound to be as large as $5.5bn just a few days ago. While the filing does not include an estimate of crypto assets owed to customers, but says they are expected to be “significant”.

As the FT notes, amid Ray’s first statements on the collapse of FTX, a jurisdictional fight over the company’s legal proceedings has emerged. Earlier in the week, Bahamian officials filed a Chapter 15 bankruptcy in a New York federal court asking a judge there to respect a liquidation effort that had commenced in the island nation.

At issue is an FTX subsidiary known as “FTX Digital” not involved in the US Chapter 11 case in which the Bahamas says significant customer assets reside. Ray on Thursday wrote in a court filing that the Chapter 15 case should be consolidated in the Delaware bankruptcy court.

The punchline, however, was Ray’s final paragraph, a tangent on corporate communications which hardly needs discussion:

Finally, and critically, the Debtors have made clear to employees and the public that Mr. Bankman-Fried is not employed by the Debtors and does not speak for them. Mr. Bankman-Fried, currently in the Bahamas, continues to make erratic and misleading public statements. Mr. Bankman-Fried, whose connections and financial holdings in the Bahamas remain unclear to me, recently stated to a reporter on Twitter: “F*** regulators they make everything worse” and suggested the next step for him was to “win a jurisdictional battle vs. Delaware”.

To summarize:

  • No record of any bank accounts
  • No record of any cash accounts
  • No record of any signatories
  • No record of any employees
  • No record of any payables or receivables
  • No record of any investments
  • No record of any decision-making
  • No record of any board meetings
  • No record of anything

And, as Bryce Weiner adds, there was also no record of any chats which were set to auto-delete, so there is no record of any internal communications.

Translation: if SBF avoids prison it is only because his tens of millions in (stolen) “donations” to Democrats have bought him a get out of jail for life card.

The full affidavit is here.

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5G warnings and opposition have limited, slowed, and/or stopped deployment worldwide, including near U.S. airports due to dangerous interference issues with aviation equipment (see 1, 2, 3, 4).  Nevertheless, deployment and activation has continued anyway, which may or may not have created some problems at Texas airports last month.  Additionally, last month the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) asked that NO ONE operate 5G in the C-band near airports due to potential interference risks, perhaps because it has been documenting incidents all along.  More recently, the airline industry has asked for more time to address and hopefully resolve these issues.

From Inside Towers:

Airline Industry Asks for Delay Around 5G Retrofit

UPDATE Major U.S. airlines working on retrofitting radio altimeters due to potential interference from 5G C-band wireless services are now asking for an extension, reported Reuters. According to a statement made by the aviation industry on Tuesday, airlines cannot fully meet deadlines to complete upgrades and urged Washington for a grace period through the end of 2023.

Several airlines and their manufacturers, including American, Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, aviation unions, and others, signed a letter backing the FAA’s extension request. According to the letter sent to the White House, global supply chain issues mean “air carriers will likely be unable to fully meet either the December 2022 deadlines for smaller regional aircraft and many large transports or the July 2023 retrofit deadline.”

Reuters reported that the letter noted since January, “the FAA has documented over 100 FAA incidents of potential 5G interference … Unfortunately, the U.S. government agencies do not appear to be on the same page with respect to these safety issues.” The letter continued, “inter-agency government progress appears to be at a stalemate while stakeholders are doing their part to address these issues.” Inside Towers reported earlier this fall that FAA acting Administrator Billy Nolen said the agency wants the FCC to mandate voluntary mitigations both AT&T and Verizon agreed to earlier in 2022, to include 19 smaller telecoms and other spectrum holders.

Of course, 5G interference issues are not isolated to aviation equipment.  In 2020, utility companies and associations filed lawsuits against the FCC for not protecting utility infrastructure from potential electrical interference issues with 5G (see 1, 2).  Telecom provider, SpaceX has stated that Dish’s 5G satellites will cause interference issues affecting Starlink satellite service.  DirecTV and RS Submit have also warned about satellite interference issues.  The Department of Defense (DoD) has also been trying to resolve potential 5G network interference issues with military radar.  In August, a bi-partisan group of senators requested that the FCC reconsider harmful interference risks with associated Ligado’s network before allowing it to be activated.  Fortunately in September, Ligado cancelled trial network plans, perhaps because of a report that also warned about interference.  Then last month, another report revealed that the telecom industry was aware of “known RF challenges” with 5G as well!

Let’s not forget – the FCC has also granted “conditional approval” for testing 6GHz Wi-Fi despite dangerous interference issues with it as well.

But I digress –in regard to 5G, since 2017 doctors and scientists have been asking for moratoriums on Earth and in space due to biological and environmental health risks (see 1, 2, 3, 4).  Since 2018 there have been reports of people and animals experiencing symptoms and illnesses after it was activated (see 1, 2. 3, 4, 5).  In 2019, telecom executives gave congressional testimony that they had NO independent scientific evidence that 5G is safe and the majority of scientists worldwide oppose deployment.  Some researchers have also warned that activation may be contributing to COVID-19 infections as well as hundreds of thousands if not millions of bird deaths.  Of course, research has also revealed biological and environmental harm caused by exposure to 4G and other sources of wireless Wi-Fi radiation and electromagnetic fields (aka “Electrosmog”).  Nevertheless, the FCC (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) – the regulatory agency which lost a lawsuit for NOT updating wireless radiation guidelines (including 5G) since 1996 – and other American government and state agencies and committees (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) have continued to promote and fund 5G deployment anddensification (see 1, 2) as well as that of 4G and public Wi-Fi (which also poses known health and environmental risks).  American businesses – including restaurant chain Panda Express – have committed to expanding 5G deployment and activation too!

Other widely reported issues associated with 5G include poor service (see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) and cybersecurity risks (see 1, 2).  This is what’s best for Americans?!

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Plato once used the allegory of a Ship of Fools to push for his vision of a wise philosopher-king as the ideal pilot for a ship of state.

Looking at the most recent numbers from Morning Consult Political Intelligence’s Projections of Country Trajectories, you would be forgiven for thinking that a great many people believe that their ship of state is piloted by fools.

countries on the wrong track

With the impact of the pandemic, rising inflation, and growing geopolitical instability, it’s probably not surprising that most respondents feel their countries are on the wrong track; India and Switzerland were notable exceptions.

Below are some of the stand-out stories that we found digging through the data.

United States

Midterm elections have rarely been kind to the incumbent party in U.S. politics and the cost of living crisis, an unpopular president, and the aftermath of the global pandemic pointed towards an electoral bloodbath. This year’s election was also expected to set a new spending record, with over $9 billion raised.

Even so, despite 72% of respondents thinking that the country is on the wrong track, the governing Democrats have defied expectations and posted a historic performance during the November 8, 2022, midterm elections. To put this into context, in a president’s first term, there have been three previous instances (since 1922) of the incumbent’s party gaining (or not losing) Senate seats and losing fewer than 10 seats in the House.

u.s. sentiment trajectory 2020-2022

Also worth noting is the large spike in negative sentiment in January 2021, following the U.S. Capitol attack, followed by the convergence of negative and positive sentiments as the peaceful transition of power became more assured.

Brazil

Horace, in Odes 1.14, describes a ship of state that is flailing at sea that eventually rights itself, claiming towards the end of the poem that “it’s my longing and no light love you carry.”

Something like that may be happening in Brazil following the loss of the often turbulent, COVID-19-denying President Jair Bolsonaro to political rival Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in an Oct. 20, 2022, election runoff.

Brazil sentiment trajectory 2020-2022

However, with respondents evenly split on where the country is going and the presidential election results being so close (50.9% vs. 49.1%), Lula will have his hands full governing a divided country.

India

While sentiment was overwhelmingly negative in almost every country tracked in this survey, India stood out as an outlier. India has consistently maintained a positive sentiment of between 60% and 80%, which is something only Switzerland comes close to.

india sentiment trajectory 2020-2022

The only blip was a brief period during the spring of 2021. This coincided with a deadly second wave of COVID-19 infections in the country, on top of country-wide protests against the Narendra Modi government’s deeply unpopular farm bill.

United Kingdom

The data here covers the three most recent UK Prime Ministers: Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and now Rishi Sunak, the first South Asian to hold the post.

uk sentiment trajectory 2020-2022

In January 2020, Johnson had just won a Tory majority and succeeded in “Getting Brexit Done.” Political scandals and the government’s pandemic response pushed the trendline down. It only recovered briefly in the spring of 2021, following Russia’s invasion of the Donbas region of Ukraine, which Johnson was widely seen as handling well. A personal visit to Kyiv on April 9, 2022, helped cement this.

Then followed Prime Minister Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-budget of Sept. 23, 2022, which saw the pound fall to the lowest-ever level against the dollar and the Bank of England intervene in the bond markets. The ascension of Rishi Sunak to No. 10 Downing Street has only just begun to turn around the low of 89% negative sentiment reported on Oct 23-25, 2022.

To quote the BBC comedy series, Yes, Minister, in another context, “the ship of state is the only ship that leaks from the top.”

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***

It’s seemed evident for a while that the current fiat monetary system is, at best, unstable. At worst, it’s a Ponzi scheme whose time has expired. If that’s the case, I suspect the central bankers and 0.1% know this and might be prepared to usher in the new system before the old one collapses on itself – even as they loot it on the way down with the most significant wealth transfer in human history.

To anyone who pays attention to these trends, it seems evident that Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will be that new system.

Every indication is that CBDC’s arrival is imminent. On Tuesday, several global banks announced a partnership with the New York Federal Reserve to pilot digital dollars. Given the ubiquity of credit and debit cards, payment apps and other online payment systems, digital money has been bound to happen for some time. The risk isn’t the electronic part, that’s inevitable – it’s the fact that a central bank will oversee the digital currency.

From my vantage point, it’s impossible to overstate the risk presented by CBDC. Whether it’s a utopian vision based on good intentions or a sinister plot to crush our sovereignty, the result may be the same: control. A Central Bank Digital Currency has all the downsides of fiat money, plus the added layers of surveillance and programmability overseen by the state.

So many people on Team Reality have likely felt like dissidents over the last few years simply for challenging anything beyond the herd mentality. Asking questions or speaking against the narrative about topics including the likely origins of the Covid virus, usefulness of PCR, risk to most of the population, benefits of early treatment, advantages of natural immunity, safety and efficacy of vaccines, pros and cons of masks and lockdowns, and the utility of vaccine passports created an environment where people were stigmatised, alienated or outright censored. Imagine a monetary system with features baked-in to socially engineer how we live. For example:

  • Health: “You didn’t take your booster… sorry, you’re not allowed in public spaces.”
  • Energy: “You used your energy allotment this month… sorry, your electric car won’t start.”
  • Food: “You ate too much meat this week… sorry, your money is only good for plants (or bugs).”
  • Savings: “If you don’t take your rations soon… sorry, your money will expire at the end of the month.”
  • Free Speech: “You shared info that we disagree with… sorry, our algorithm is fining you.” (PayPal has already started doing this.)

If CBDC ultimately becomes the new monetary system, its core features will make it so that world governments will no longer need something like a global health crisis to print money or close society. Lines of code can shape our behaviour and ensure we’re forced to stay home. The entire platform will be designed to expel labour that is no longer deemed necessary. While I initially believed the state-led pharmacological interventions were an isolated, acute threat in this era, it’s become evident they were simply one tentacle in a much larger beast. Whatever forces are insinuating this direction on the world (looking your way, Davos), it’s revealed itself to be unrelenting in its pursuit of perpetuating fear and power.

I’m well aware this must sound insane, especially to anyone that hasn’t paid attention to this trend for a while. A few years ago, I would have thought it was preposterous, but after witnessing the Government’s lies, deception and grab for control, I’ve become fearful that this may be where we’re headed. When you consider that vaccine mandates had no medically justifiable purpose, it’s entirely plausible that they were simply an on-ramp to normalise a ‘papers please’ society. In NYC, where I lived until recently, most people accepted vaxports and loved the Excelsior Pass mobile app because it was convenient. How many will feel the same about digital money, which will undoubtedly come with its share of benefits?

Central Bank Digital Currency will enable governments to impose top-down control, à la Chinese Social Credit Score. Some central bankers are even saying the quiet part out loud. Whether or not this is the programme’s objective, has there ever been a time in history when governments rejected the power they are given? At this stage, this isn’t some tinfoil hat theorising, either. There are many examples of how this type of finance-driven coercion is already underway.

  • “Now the Government is asking people to apply for plastic My Number cards equipped with microchips and photos, to be linked to driver’s licences and the public health insurance plans. Health insurance cards now in use, which lack photos, will be discontinued in late 2024. People will be required to use My Number cards instead.”
    Source
  • “The new pass will guarantee the allocation of fuel quota on weekly basis. A QR code will be given for each National Identity Card number (NIC), once the vehicle identification number and other details are verified.”
    Source
  • “According to a report from 9News Queensland, the department has ruled that unvaccinated teachers who have been allowed to return to their employment this term after being placed on leave without pay, will cop yet another financial blow, with a ‘reduction in remuneration’ for a period of 18 weeks.”
    Source
  • “The trial, which is voluntary, will use facial recognition to identify people and how many tickets they have. The technology could be extended to cover automated purchases at concession stands, restaurants and bars.”
    Source
  • “As part of plans recently announced by the Government, Uganda will begin harvesting DNA and biometric data from its citizens when their cards expire in 2024 to be used in its redesigned digital identity programme.”
    Source

This is just the tip of the iceberg, and it’s global. As we saw with the lockdowns, China is the model emulated in the west. Like the creep towards health-related authoritarian measures, unelected globalists with financial interests lurk in the background.

I’d love to be wrong about all this. However, until there is evidence, we need to be suspicious of anyone perpetuating this dangerous path, regardless of their motivations.

For a deeper dive into this topic, I highly recommend this essay by Fabio Vighi about Long Covid Monetary Policy. Edward Dowd has also spoken extensively about the relationship between the monetary system and Covid, including at this eye-opening presentation. Next, the excellent Maajid Nawaz has covered the drivers behind CBDC. Others, such as Marty BentSaifedean Ammous, and Allen Farrington have been ahead of the curve in identifying these risks. I share their assessment in realising that Bitcoin likely solves this.

If you have yet to notice, a primary theme of the last three-plus years (at least) is ‘freedom vs. control’, so it’s not hyperbole to suggest that the future must be decentralised if we want to ensure our children grow up in a free world.

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Joshua Stylman is a tech entrepreneur and investor who co-founded and ran Threes Brewing, a popular New York brewery until March 2022, when he resigned for reasons related to his public opposition to the New York City vaccine mandates. Find him on Twitter and on Substack, where this post first appeared.

Featured image is from The Daily Sceptic

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La Nuova Guerra Mondiale Dell’occidente

November 20th, 2022 by Manlio Dinucci

Si intensifica il bombardamento mediatico con le armi di distrazione di massa. Pochi giorni fa la Polonia annuncia di essere stata colpita da due missili russi, i grandi media diffondono la notizia, scatta l’allarme, Mosca comunica che è un falso ma nessuno l’ascolta. Infine la NATO ammette che l’incidente è stato causato da un missile ucraino, ma il gioco ormai è fatto.

Altra arma di distrazione di massa la notizia data dal quotidiano britannico Mirror: il filosofo russo Alexander Dugin ha chiesto che il presidente Putin venga rovesciato e ucciso. I grandi media diffondono la notizia su scala mondiale, poi arriva la sconferma di Dugin ma viene sostanzialmente ignorata.

Nella guerra mediatica si distingue il nostro mainstream che, mentre diffonde queste ed altre colossali fake news, nasconde importanti notizie provenienti da fonti ufficiali, tipo:  la quantità di armi e munizioni che NATO e UE forniscono all’Ucraina è tale da rendere necessaria la ricostituzione delle scorte con un enorme costo in denaro pubblico.

La stessa tecnica viene usata nei resoconti di eventi internazionali, come l’incontro al G20 tra il presidente Biden e il presidente cinese Xi.  Ci si limita a riportare le parole di Biden che l’incontro con Xi è stato “aperto e sincero”, ma si nasconde il fatto che, nella National  Defense Strategy 2022, gli Stati Uniti dichiarano di essere “pronti a prevalere in un conflitto, dando la priorità alla sfida della Cina nella regione dell’Indo-Pacifico, quindi  alla sfida della Russia in Europa”.

Dal massimo documento strategico statunitense emerge il quadro di un mondo che si avvicina al baratro della guerra nucleare, spinto da un Occidente sempre più minoritario, disposto a tutto pur di non perdere  il ruolo dominante che esercita da secoli. Tutto questo, però, è nascosto sotto la cappa del silenzio mediatico. 

Manlio Dinucci

 

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***

According to the global grassroots organization 9/11 Pilot Whistleblowers website (https://911pilots.org/), there were no Muslim hijackers at the controls of the 9/11 aircraft but that these aircraft were electronically hijacked and remotely controlled through employment of a system called the uninterruptible autopilot that enables a remote source to take complete control of the aircraft autopilot and flight management computer and remotely guide it to its target destination. Once engaged, the pilots cannot disconnect this system.

According to the 9/11 Commission, the alleged hijackers had never flown the sophisticated B-757 and B-767 aircraft in their lives but were mainly trained in light, single engine Cessna 172s and the like.

This would be akin to only having driven your family automobile and climbing into a huge 18-wheeler semi-tractor trailer that you had never driven before, getting it up to a very high speed, and driving it through a garage without scraping the sides of the truck or hopping into a formula one race car that you hadn’t driven before and keeping it on the track at a very high speed.

Just because one can pilot a Cessna 172 does not qualify one to pilot a large commercial jet aircraft at very high speeds. It just doesn’t work that way.

A comparison of the cockpit layout of these types of aircraft will demonstrate the ludicrousness of the official story. There is no way the hijackers could have climbed into the cockpits of the jet aircraft, interpret the instrumentation and flight navigation systems, and fly the aircraft to their designated targets.

So how did three of four aircraft flies from the point at which they were hijacked to where they flew with cruise missile precision into buildings on the first attempt in New York City and Washington, DC?

One must first review the origin and history of the remote control of large airborne aircraft before we continue.

Over 75-years ago, in 1944, toward the end of World War II, the US Army Air Corp launched Operation Aphrodite in Europe wherein old B-24 bomber aircraft were gutted out to lighten the weight of the aircraft, loaded with 30000 pounds of highly incendiary compound called Torpex, and remotely flown into targets in Europe. Pilots were required to make the takeoff but once airborne, they bailed out of the aircraft.

It should be noted that Joe Kennedy, JFK’s older brother, died on one such top secret missions when the aircraft exploded due to a malfunction before he could bail out of the aircraft.

There are other such examples of remote control of aircraft, but we will jump ahead forty years to 1984 where NASA and the FAA conducted a joint crash test experiment in a remote location using a large four engine B-720 commercial jet aircraft loaded with only crash dummies and video cameras to test crew and passenger survivability in the event of a crash landing. The aircraft was flown by remote control several times around the traffic pattern before being intentionally crash landed.

Jumping ahead yet another ten years or so to the mid-90s, the uninterruptible autopilot system previously described was developed and produced as a device capable of remotely taking control of an airborne hijacked commercial jet and guiding to an auto landing at one of many airports in the world.

(The fact that this technology existed in the mid-90’s years before 9/11 is given by the testimony of an avionics technician who actually worked on this system that was installed on a B-757 aircraft).

Let us now take for example the hijacker of American Airlines flight 77 supposedly flown by 29-year-old Saudi Arabian hijacker Hani Hanjour who was described as a very poor student pilot that could barely speak English, a requirement to obtain a pilot license.

AA77 took off from Washington Dulles airport headed for the west coast. After leveling off at cruise altitude for a while, the aircraft made a U turn heading back towards Washington in a descent. According to the official narrative, at 7000 feet the aircraft commenced a 330-corkscrew turn descended to just a few feet off the surface without skidding it at over 500 mph to strike the Office of Naval Intelligence with military precision on its first attempt!

Digressing, in August 2001, just one month prior to 9/11. Hanjour attempted to rent a small, single-engine Cessna 172 from the Freeway airport in Maryland but was denied rental by the chief flight instructor there, Marcel Bernard, because he could not handle the aircraft! And yet, Hanjour was able to accomplish this amazing aerial feat on his first try.

Given that the alleged hijackers were unqualified to fly the aircraft that day, one must ask how the aircraft were hijacked and flown into buildings as reported by the 9/11 Commission?

The only viable explanation that can be offered is through employment of the uninterruptible autopilot system. How else could this have been accomplished? You be the judge.

In August, 2020, a Federal Aviation Administration whistleblower report was filed via the FAA Hotline by the 9/11 Pilot Whistleblowers members alleging the use of the uninterruptible autopilot on 9/11.

Initially, this federal aviation oversight agency was very receptive to the vast evidence provided and even assigned a Seattle-based FAA aeronautical engineer to handle the case until it was recognized the depth and breadth of the allegations being made.

Communications all but ceased with the exception of a few emails from the FAA that weakly attempted to refute these claims. Freedom of Information Act requests for relevant information indicated that the FAA was being less than truthful in their responses before communications ceased by this agency and the stonewalling began.

Consequently, over the next two years, letters and emails were sent, and phone calls were made to every relevant government office in Washington, including to the FAA Administrator, Secretary of Transportation, Department of Transportation Inspector General, US Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence, FBI Director, the House Government Oversight Committee leadership even President Biden and many others without responses!

Subsequently, appeals have been made to the Pakistani, Chinese, and Russian governments to review evidence and possibly commence an investigation into the lies of 9/11. If the US government is uninterested in investigating our assertions then perhaps a foreign government will.

Hani Hanjour could not fly a Cessna 172, never mind a B-757, a fact that was known by the 9/11 Commission and the FBI but totally ignored. One must ask why the US federal government continues to ignore this case. Again…you be the judge.

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This article was originally published on The Intel Drop.

Captain Dan Hanley had a 35-year combined flying career in US naval aviation/United Airlines as a pilot and currently serves as Director of 9/11 Pilot Whistleblowers. He lives in Islamabad, Pakistan and may be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from The Intel Drop

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***

Appealing to the baser instincts of the masses while growing rich and powerful by taxing their hard labour has been the bottom line formula for the maintenance of top-down pyramid power for at least the past thousand years in the Western World. 

Various forms of deception concerning ‘people power’ disguised the main objective – to convince the mass of the people that their so-called ‘freedom’ depends upon their masters having the where-with-all to instruct their every move.  The particular version whereby these masters of control are ‘elected’ to run the affairs of state earned the infamous misnomer ‘democracy’.

The common denominator throughout is a form of rule which strips out the natural urge of human beings to live a meaningful life of aspiration towards a higher purpose. A purpose that breaks the superficial allure of self-enrichment and/or of a life of slavery sprinkled each day with just enough sweeteners to convey the sense that there is some compensation for unremitting serfdom.

The top-down control system that has run this planet for a long time now has come under various descriptive headings: plutocracy, autocracy, kleptocracy, bureaucracy, technocracy, meritocracy and of course, aristocracy. The last two perhaps offering a tinge of hope concerning a certain level of ability and responsibility to lead.

But of all these headings – and there are more, none advance or describe a leadership based upon adherence to ‘the path of truth’. To follow the path of truth is a calling which goes beyond the responsible leadership suggested by ‘noblesse oblige’ or the meritocracy of ‘greatest ability’.

It suggests another dimension of commitment altogether. A commitment to justice, honour and particularly the nurturing of the very essence of mankind’s spiritual calling.

As these are the qualities that form the ingredients of a maturing vision of ‘the new society’ that we all long for, then we surely need to invent a new heading to encapsulate the aspirations and goals of a human race intent upon laying the foundations of a dynamic, holistic and unifying concept of governance and leadership.

Governance, based upon the premise that to seek and to implement the truth is the highest and most appropriate goal for a humanity whose origins are of a Divine nature.

So bye bye plutocracy, autocracy, kleptocracy, bureaucracy, technocracy, meritocracy, aristocracy – and democracy.

Hello the pursuit of truth as the fundamental precept of a new society. That new society which must arise-up out of the ashes of today’s burned-out status quo, still posing as a working model of untarnished law and order.

Shall we caste a brand new mould for enlightened governance and call it a ‘Veritocracy’? (Veritas, from the Latin ‘truth’).

A Veritocracy will advocate for a transformation in the way governance is structured and put into practice. It will be beyond ‘politics’ and will not be top-down, but ‘people responsible’. It will reach back into the Common Law definition of true governance, in which a chosen leadership commits to follow the principles of Universal law and order; to honouring a calling upon mankind to forever leave behind the political deceit which dogs the world today and ensure that unselfish wisdom triumphs over self-centred personal ambition.

If the leadership of tomorrow is to be an organic form of evolutionary advancement on the best of the past, then it has nowhere else to go other than onwards and upwards, as our natural vision and impulse gravitates towards the supreme consciousness of our Creator from whence we came.

We humans are, when we allow ourselves to be, the standard bearers of highest truth.

So far history has not produced an era motivated by ‘Veritocracy’, the pursuit of truth. But all that seems about to change. The March Hare has a spring in his step; the air is clearing; the light lucid and bright and the intoxicating cyclic rebirth of Spring is just around the corner.

All seems set to announce a special event in the lives of humankind: the supplanting of a decaying democracy by a commitment to the power of truth. A rising sun burning away the mists of deception to reveal a higher calling in the collective governance of the affairs of man.

So, please raise your glasses in a toast to ‘Veritocracy’!

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Julian Rose is an early pioneer of UK organic farming, writer, international activist, entrepreneur and holistic teacher.  He is President of The International Coalition to Protect the Polish Countryside and Co-founder of the Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology HARE. His latest book ‘Overcoming the Robotic Mind – Why Humanity Must Come Through’ is strongly recommended reading for this time: see www.julianrose.info

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Footnote: The name ‘Veritocracy’ was conceived by Hardwick Alliance for Real Ecology  (HARE) co-founder Justin Walker.

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***

World War III is America’s war to capture Russia, and the way to do it is to position its missiles so close to Moscow that it can then declare “Checkmate!” and the missiles would take just 5 minutes to annihilate The Kremlin. Only Ukraine is that close to Moscow — close enough so that from missile-launch to annihilating Moscow would be so fast that Russia’s central command would be dead before they’d be able to confirm the launch and then launch their retaliatory missiles.

This is the reality: America’s goal now isn’t to take Iran, nor to take Ukraine; it now is to take Russia itself; and this is the reason why when the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact ended its side of the Cold War in 1991, America’s side secretly continued on its Cold War, in order ultimately to conquer Russia itself.

On 30 June 2017,  journalist Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian headlined at the neoconservative Foreign Policy magazine, “64 Years Later, CIA Finally Releases Details of Iranian Coup: New documents reveal how the CIA attempted to call off the failing coup — only to be salvaged at the last minute by an insubordinate spy.”

That “insubordinate spy” was Kim Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson and a member of America’s Deep State — the group of perhaps only a thousand extremely wealthy individuals who actually control the post-WW-II (post 1945) U.S. Government. Sometimes, even the U.S. President himself doesn’t know what the Deep State are doing. But President Eisenhower knew very well, and he was among the Deep State’s top agents. His Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and brother Allen Dulles (CIA chief) also knew, and approved.

The following passage from her report summarizes the situation very well, and accurately:

The U.S government long denied involvement in the coup.

The State Department first released coup-related documents in 1989, but edited out any reference to CIA involvement. Public outrage coaxed a government promise to release a more complete edition, and some material came out in 2013. Two years later, the full installment of declassified material was scheduled — but might have interfered with Iran nuclear talks and were delayed again. … They were finally released last week, though numerous original CIA telegrams from that period are known to have disappeared or been destroyed long ago. …

Beyond final proof of CIA involvement, there’s another very interesting takeaway in the documents, said Abbas Milani, a professor of Iranian studies at Stanford University: New details on the true political leanings of Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani, a cleric and leading political figure in the 1950s.

In the Islamic Republic, clerics are always the good guys. Kashani has long been seen as one of the heroes of nationalism during that period. As recently as January of this year, Iran’s supreme leader praised Kashani’s role in the nationalization of oil.

Kashani’s eventual split from Mossadegh is widely known. Religious leaders in the country feared the growing power of the communist Tudeh Party, and believed that Mossadegh was too weak to save the country from the socialist threat.

But the newly released documents show that Kashani wasn’t just opposed to Mossadegh — he was also in close communication with the Americans throughout the period leading up to the coup. …

Actually: the clergy’s antagonism towards Mossadegh for his secularism, non-sectarianism, his being opposed to any theocracy, has always been known, but is too great an embarrassment to Iran’s post-1979 theocratic Government for them to admit that they had actually been in league with the U.S. regime in 1953. The only time when Iran was a democracy was the brief period whem Mossadegh led it. Mossadegh was nobody’s stooge — not America’s, not the Soviet’s, not the clerics’ but an authentic democrat: a progressive, whose top concern was the welfare of the citizenry. That’s why the U.S. regime, which Truman and Eisenhower installed in the U.S. on 25 July 1945, overthrew and replaced him.

President Obama’s chief agent planning and running the coup that took place in Ukraine during February 2014 was the neoconservative Victoria Nuland, of the State Department. She had previously been the chief foreign-policy advisor to the neoconservative V.P. Dick Cheney, and was a close friend of the neoconservative Hillary Clinton.

So: When will the U.S. regime and its ‘news’-media and its academics start to call the overthrow and replacement of Ukraine’s Government in February 2014 a “coup” instead of a ‘democratic revolution’ there? Or: will a terminal nuclear phase of the resulting WW III, that now is being waged, prevent it from ever being acknowledged?

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This article was originally published on The Duran.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

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Bright Light News Video Interview

 

See earlier September 2022 Report on Canadian Doctor Deaths 

Video: 32 Young Doctors in Canada All Dead in 6 to 8 Weeks

By North American News 01,

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***

Smeared, stigmatized, and lied about in Western media propaganda, the mostly Russian-speaking people of the Donbass region were being slaughtered by the thousands in a brutal war of “ethnic cleansing” launched against them by the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, which the U.S. installed after the CIA overthrew Ukraine’s legally elected president in a 2014 coup.

Although the Donbass people had been pleading for Russian military aid to defend them against the increasingly murderous military assaults by the Ukraine government forces, which killed more than 14,000 of their people, Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to intervene. Instead, he tried to broker a peace agreement between the warring parties.

But the U.S. and Britain secretly colluded to sabotage peace negotiations, persuading president Zelenksy to ignore the Minsk III peace agreement that the Ukraine government had previously signed, and which had been countersigned by Russia, France and Germany.

Realizing that the U.S. and its NATO allies would never permit peace negotiations to succeed, Putin finally sent troops into Ukraine on February 24. Russian troops went in to support and reinforce the outnumbered and outgunned Donbass Special Forces who had been defending their land against attacks by the Kyiv government for nearly eight years.

Voices From the Frontlines of Eastern Ukraine

In the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in October, I went to a frontline outpost 70 meters from Ukrainian forces in Avdeevka (north and west of Donetsk), according to the Donbas commanders I spoke with there.

To reach that position, I went with two other journalists to a meeting point with two commanders of Pyatnashka—volunteer fighters, including Abkhazi, Slovak, Russian, Ossetian and other nationalities, including locals from Donbas.

From there, they drove us to a point as far as they could drive before walking the rest of the way, several minutes through brush and trenches, eventually coming to their sandbagged wood and cement fortified outpost.

It has changed hands over the years, Ukrainian forces sometimes occupying it, Donbas forces now controlling it.

One soldier, a unit commander who goes by the call sign “Vydra” (Otter), was formerly a miner from the DPR who had been living in Russia with his family. In 2014, he returned to the Donbas to defend his mother and relatives still there. He spoke of the outpost.

“We dug and built this with our hands. Several times over the years, the Ukrainians have taken these positions. We pushed them back, they stormed us…Well, we have been fighting each other for eight years.”

There, artillery fire is the biggest danger they face.

“You can hide from a sniper, but not from artillery, and they’re using large caliber.”

His living quarters is a dank, cramped room with a tiny improvised bed, with another small room and bed for others at the outpost.

Image: “Vydra,” a unit commander of the Pyatnashka fighters. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

A sign reads: “If shelling occurs, go to the shelter.” The kind of sign you see all over Donetsk and cities of the Donbas, due to Ukraine’s incessant shelling of civilian, residential areas. In a frontline outpost where incoming artillery is the norm, the sign is slightly absurd, clearly a joke.

An Orthodox icon sits atop the sign. Ukrainian nationalists hang and spray Nazi graffiti and slogans of death; these fighters revere their faith.

A poster, with the DPR flag, reads: “We have never known defeat, and it’s clear that this has been decided from above. Donbas has never been forced to its knees, and no one will ever be allowed to.

The only things decorating the space are tins of tuna and canned meat, instant noodles, and washing powder. Their existence is bare minimum, nothing glamorous about it; they volunteer because, as they told me, this is their land and they will protect it.

Perhaps surprising to some, when Vydra was asked whether he hates Ukrainians, he replied emphatically no, he has friends and relatives in Ukraine.

“We have no hatred for Ukraine. We hate those nationalists who came to power. But ordinary Ukrainians? Why? Many of us speak Ukrainian. We understand them, they understand us. Many of them speak Russian.

I’ve been involved in sports a lot of time, wrestling. So, I’ve got a lot of friends in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kirovograd, Odessa, Lvov, Ivano-Frankivsk, Transcarpathia.

I have relatives in western Ukraine, and we still communicate. Yes, they say one thing on the street, but when we talk to each other, they say, ‘Well, you have to, because the SBU is listening.’

Ukraine shouts about democracy, then puts people in handcuffs for no reason. My aunt got in trouble because they found my photo on her Skype.

And I’m on the Myrotvorets [kill list] website.” [As is the author, see this article.]

He spoke of Ukraine’s shelling from 2014, when the people of the Donbass were unarmed and not expecting to be bombed by their own country.

“When the artillery hit the city of Yenakievo, east of Gorlovka, we were defenseless. We went with hunting rifles and torches to fight them. Most of the weapons we had later were captured from them. We had to go to the battlefield without weapons in order to get the weapons.”

When asked if he was concerned that Ukrainian forces might take Donetsk he replied no, of course not, they didn’t succeed in 2014, they won’t now.

When asked whether he had a message for soldiers of the Ukrainian army, Vydra replied without hesitating,

“Go home! We’ve been saying that since 2014: Go home. Unequivocally, we don’t want them here, but we don’t want to kill them. I’m not speaking about nationalists, I’m speaking about Ukrainian soldiers, who are drafted or forcefully employed in the Ukrainian army. Guys, go home, either surrender or go. This is our land. We’re not leaving, we’re not going anywhere.”

I asked how he felt to be treated and described as sub-human, to be called dehumanizing names, a part of the Ukrainian nationalists’ brainwashing propaganda. As I wrote previously:

“Ukrainian nationalists openly declare they view Russians as sub-human. School books teach this warped ideology. Videos show the extent of this mentality: Teaching children not only to also hate Russians and see them as not humans, but also brainwashing them to believe killing Donbas residents is acceptable. The Ukrainian government itself funds neo-Nazi-run indoctrination camps for youths.”

“It’s offensive,” Vydra said, “We are saddened: There are sick people. We need to heal them, slowly.”

I asked whether he thought friendship between Ukrainians and Russians would be possible.

“It will take years for any friendship. Take Chechnya, one region of Russia, it was at war. But slowly, slowly…We must all live together. We are one people.”

Indeed, now Chechen fighters are one of the most effective forces fighting alongside Donbas and Russian soldiers to liberate Donbas areas from Ukrainian forces.

He opened a zippered trousers pocket and proudly brandished a small plastic sleeve containing children’s drawings, also containing icons of saints and Christ, and prayers…

“This is very personal, it’s like my guardian angel. I put it in plastic, I don’t even keep my ID in plastic. I’ve been carrying this one in my pocket since February. I’ve been in all sorts of hot spots. A child drew this, we receive letters from children. It’s very nice to look at them when it’s hard and we are under fire.”

He read one letter:

“We are waiting for you. Thank you for risking your lives to defend Donbas. Yulia and Ira.”

“I don’t even know who are Yulia and Ira,” he said smiling.

Showing the icons, he said, “This is Saint Ushakov, our great commander. This is Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Protector. This Abkhazi icon was given to me by the guys. This is a prayer book. And here is a prayer,” he said of one page prayer.

“These words are to support when times are very hard. When there is heavy shelling, it can go on for hours. So, while you’re sitting there, you can read this.

Especially for the younger guys, 22, 23 years old, just finished college. This is new to them.”

Commanders Speak of Geopolitical Reasons for Ukraine’s War

Outside, sitting in front of an Orthodox banner and a collection of collected munitions—including Western ones—two platoon commanders, “Kabar” and “Kamaz,” spoke of the bigger geopolitical picture. [See video]

“America is running the show here,” Kabar said. “It builds foreign policy on the basis of how its domestic policy is built, which is through conflicts with external countries. They are accustomed to proving their power to their people through terrorism around the world, inciting fires in Syria, in the east. They played the card of radical Islam there.

And now they are playing the card of fascism. They do not see themselves on the other side of good. They need wars, blood, cruelty, and they signed Europe up for this.

However, they’ve missed one point: Russia, since the days of the Soviet Union, has never retreated in large scale wars. They took Europe and pushed it to slaughter Russia, and they put Russia in such a position that it must secure its national interests. Europe needs to understand this, to pay attention to history, to stop being led by the United States.”

When asked about his feeling regarding Ukrainians, “Kabar” replied similarly to Vydra.

“We don’t blame the whole Ukrainian people. Ukrainians are our friends, they are our relatives. They’ve been struck by evil, and it’s not their fault, ordinary people are not to blame for this. We will liberate them from fascism, we’ll show them brotherhood, and we’ll make friends.

Image: “Kabar,” a commander of the Pyatnashka fighters. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

This is a good opportunity for us to defeat evil. God has honored us with this right to fight evil.”

Kamaz, when asked why he is fighting, replied that this is his homeland, he was born here, and that he has a son who he doesn’t want to inherit Ukraine’s war on the Donbas.

“I myself am Greek by nationality. Ukrainians are Slavs, they are our brothers, their grandfathers fought together shoulder to shoulder with our grandfathers against Nazism and fascism. We are here to finish it, so that our children live a normal happy life. We are fighting for the future.”

He spoke of America’s continuous need for war.

“We’ve seen it in Syria and Yugoslavia, where they destroyed everything and then set everything up their own way, so the people must submit, almost like slaves.”

I asked whether he thought peace between Ukraine and Russia is possible.

“Yes, possibly, why not? But at the moment, the President of Ukraine said there will be no negotiations.

Negotiations are possible, but I think not with this president. When he comes to his senses, he will not be able to negotiate, because he took a lot of money.”

Before leaving the outpost, we chatted a bit with the commanders. A puppy sought the attention of a young soldier. Another puppy ran around our feet. The outpost commanders and soldiers take care of the dogs. Their presence added a somewhat surreal touch to the scene: an outpost which is routinely shelled, where life can cease to exist at any moment, and these happy, well-cared for puppies running around like dogs anywhere.

Western Media Inverted Reality, Lauding Nazis and Demonizing Defenders

While many in the West think that this conflict started in February 2022, those following events since 2014 are aware that, following the Maidan coup and Odessa massacre, and the rise of fascism in Ukraine against the Ukrainian people, the Donbas republics wanted to distance themselves from Ukraine’s Nazis and fascism.

The sacrifices which the people of the Donbas republics have endured, particularly those fighting to protect their families and loved ones, have been and continue to be immense.

Just as the heroes of the Syrian Arab Army were maligned, so too have Donbas forces have been maligned by Western media, though both are defending their homelands from terrorist forces trained and funded by the West. Terrorists given the freedom to commit endless atrocities against Donbas civilians.

These defenders, many living in dank trench conditions didn’t choose war, they responded to it, to protect their loved ones and their future. In spite of more than eight years of being warred upon by Ukraine, they retain their humanity.

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Eva Karene Bartlett is a Canadian-American journalist who has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). Where is live

She was a recipient of the 2017 International Journalism Award for International Reporting, granted by the Mexican Journalists’ Press Club (founded in 1951), and was the first recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

See her extended bio on her blog In Gaza. She tweets from @EvaKBartlett and has the Telegram Channel, Reality Theories. Eva can also be reached at [email protected].

Featured image: The author with Pyatnashka commanders at outpost near Avdeevka, Donetsk People’s Republic. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]

End Sanctions Against Nicaragua

November 20th, 2022 by Green Renaissance - Sovereign Rights Movement

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***

 

On November 10, 2022, an online White House statement announced that President Biden had invoked emergency powers on October 24, declaring Nicaragua a continuing “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.” This renews for yet another year the Executive Order unjustly issued by Donald Trump in November 2018. It accompanies the biggest escalation of hostility toward Nicaragua – by the United States, but also by its allied nations and the media – since the Reagan Administration made similar declarations in the 1980s.

Ronald Reagan applied US sanctions and illegally funded terrorists to overthrow the Sandinista government, using money from sales of cocaine to US citizens and weapons to Iran. Nicaragua’s economy was destroyed, and its people eventually voted the Sandinistas out of power in 1990 to stop the war and the economic embargo. Conditions for most Nicaraguans, however, only got worse during the three successive US-backed governments.

So the Nicaraguan people voted the Sandinistas back into office. On President Ortega’s first day in office in January 2007, he signed an Executive Order restoring the people’s Constitutional rights to free and universal health and education, rights that had been systematically denied during the previous 17 years of neoliberal governments. Since then, Nicaragua has made tremendous social progress, and the economy has grown across social demographics.

But now the United States has returned to the hostility of the 1980s, pressuring its allies to follow suit, illegally escalating sanctions and funding violence to destabilize Nicaragua. Many news media promote the same falsehoods about Nicaragua that they used in the 1980s.

It’s time to set the record straight – to ask all our governments and media, wherever we live, to portray Nicaragua with greater accuracy and to stop interfering with its sovereignty. Nicaragua has been called “the threat of a good example.” This small country, with one of the world’s tiniest military budgets, may threaten some – but it is an inspiration to many!

Did you know that NICARAGUA…

  • provides universal and free health care throughout the country, with 24 new hospitals, 181 maternity wait homes, and well over 3,000 health centers and health posts?
  • adopted special measures to achieve among the lowest rate of excess deaths during the pandemic in Latin America, and the highest level of Covid vaccinations in Central America, as certified by the World Health Organization?
  • has universal and free education from preschool through trade school, university, and professional school?
  • recently held its municipal elections with an impressive 57% turnout of voters, with candidates from five parties – and paper ballots secured and counted by all party representatives?
  • has several TV channels, numerous radio stations and well-used news websites expressing opposition viewpoints, alongside government-oriented media?
  • consistently receives high ratings from international financial institutions for its transparency and execution of development projects, and for its prudent fiscal policies?
  • is ranked 7th in the world for gender equality in 2022, with women in half of all government positions and 164 Women’s Police Stations to attend to violence against women?
  • is a world leader in renewable energies, with 70% of its energy from renewable sources?
  • builds and provides thousands of good quality, low-cost homes annually?
  • is a pioneer in defense of the rights of its indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, who have communal title to a third of the national territory?
  • has an ambitious National Plan to Fight Poverty that exceeds 2030 UN Sustainable Development Goals?
  • actively encourages citizen participation in government at many different levels?
  • sponsors and helps develop thousands of cooperative businesses and agricultural enterprises?

More such examples of Nicaragua’s recent achievements and sources of information can be found here.

Nicaragua is not a threat to the United States. It deserves our recognition and support in affirming its national sovereignty. Please help by signing and circulating the enclosed statement. Thanks so much!

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Sources

White House Briefing, November 10.

Iran-Contra Scandal: The Intercept

CIA cocaine trafficking: Review from US Department of Justice, Office of Inspector General

Nicaragua’s achievements

(1) “National Plan for the Fight against Poverty and for Human Development, 2022” (intro in English, full document in Spanish)

(2) A review of achievements up to 2021

(3) More recent article from November 2022

Thuggish Ways: Mike Pompeo, Punishing Leakers and Getting Assange

November 20th, 2022 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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***

Poor, silly, protuberant Mike Pompeo.  The stocky, irritated former CIA director and former Secretary of State is rather upset that those who worked under him dared wag their tongues about Julian Assange.  The wagging so happened to relate to contemplated plans of abduction and assassination, something the US executive formally disallows though permits via various devious mechanisms.

It’s not every day that officials of the Central Intelligence Agency open up about their operations but on the occasion of the Yahoo! News report, it was clear that Assange had driven a number to sheer distraction.  Had these security types caught the bug of transparency?  Unlikely, but it might have been a slight rash of irritation doing the rounds in the clandestine community.

Having first designated WikiLeaks a “hostile non-state intelligence service” in April 2017, Pompeo evidently thought that the laws of engagement would have to change.  The publishing outfit would have to be subject to “offensive counterintelligence”, while Assange himself would be given special treatment.

Suggestions varied, with Pompeo leading the pack on the idea that the Australian publisher be seized from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London and rendered to a second country where he would be subjected to interrogation.  In that way, the war on terror could be reincarnated, only this time deployed against a publishing organisation’s founder.

Through his tenure as CIA chief, Pompeo showed an increasing irritation against the tendency of intelligence services to leak.  Some few months after his open declaration of war against WikiLeaks, he complained to MSNBC that a phenomenon had taken root, “the worship of Edward Snowden, and those who steal American secrets for the purpose of self-aggrandizement or money or for whatever their motivation may be”.

Now no longer in the limelight, Pompeo made a modest attempt to step into it. in appearing on Megyn Kelly’s podcast, where he was asked to respond to the Yahoo! News account.  His target on this occasion: those thirty or so officials in the intelligence community unable to shut their traps on the Assange affair.  “I can’t say much about this other than whoever those 30 people who allegedly spoke to one of these [Yahoo! News] reporters – they should all be prosecuted for speaking about classified activity inside the Central Intelligence Agency.”

US governments of whatever stripe have shown fanatical zeal in pursuing whistleblowers and leakers in the context of national security. Justice Department attorneys have even opined that the leaker does more harm than the foreign spy.  In the 2019 prosecution of Daniel E. Hale, an intelligence analyst who disclosed classified documents on the US drone assassination program, this view was put starkly: “While spies typically pass classified national defense information to a specific foreign government, leakers, through the internet, distribute such information without authorization to the entire world.”

The government attorneys go on to argue that such a “broad distribution of unauthorized disclosures may actually amplify the potential damage to the national security in that every country gains access to the compromised intelligence.”

Leakers are also afforded different levels of treatment, often depending on rank and the nature of what was leaked.  One would think that the higher the rank and position, the heftier the sentence.  All leaking, it should also follow, should be targeted with equal fairness and judgment.  But we know this not to be the case.

General David H. Petraeus’s pillow talk with his biographer and former lover Paula Broadwell led to a misdemeanour charge of mishandling classified materials, a fine of $100,000 and a two-year probationary period.  This was markedly generous, given his standing as a wartime general and his own stint as CIA director.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, then Senate Intelligence Committee Vicechair and an early advocate for prosecuting Assange using the Espionage Act of 1917, publicly urged the government to avoid indicting Petraeus.  He had “made a mistake” and had “suffered enough in my view.”

A less charitable view was reserved for former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling, who was charged with seven counts under the Espionage Act and three related charges.  Prosecutors argued that Sterling had provided classified details about an Agency program designed to disrupt Iran’s nuclear plans to New York Times reporter James Risen for a chapter in his 2006 book, State of War.  Again, we saw the prosecution logic that such disclosures “may be viewed as more pernicious than the typical espionage case where a spy sells classified information for money”.  Sterling was convicted and sentenced to 42 months in prison.

All of this conformed with the assessment made by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in a letter to President Bill Clinton in September 1998: “An evenhanded prosecution of leakers would imperil an entire administration.”

As to the issue of how accurate the contents of the Yahoo! News story was, Pompeo confirmed that elements of it were “true”, including efforts by the CIA to target WikiLeaks in the aftermath of the Vault 7 publication detailing hacking tools and methods used by the organisation.  This was a rather different tune to that initially struck: that the story made “for pretty good fiction.”

For Pompeo, the purpose was clear.

“When bad guys steal those secrets we have a responsibility to go after them, to prevent [that] from happening.”  He and other officials “desperately wanted to hold accountable those individuals that had violated US law, that had violated requirements to protect information and had tried to steal it.”

He also reiterated that the CIA was not permitted to conduct assassinations.  “We never acted in a way that was inconsistent with that.”  There had never been any “planning to violate US law – not once in my time.”

Other observations seem to suggest a rogue at play, a vigilante intent on cracking skulls and moving away from the law.  Except that for Pompeo, pursuing the likes of Assange was very much part of “a deep legal framework”, where “actions” were taken “consistent with US law to try to achieve that.”

This peculiar viewpoint can only shock the more legally minded.  The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Nils Melzner, stated it with bone dry precision.  “This is not about the law. It is about intimidating journalism; it’s about suppressing press freedom; it’s about protecting immunity for state officials.”

The thirty intelligence and national security officials hardly deserve medals or citations of honour; but their information cast light into dark spaces, revealing a thuggish mentality at play in the National Security State.  While the revelations were not brand spanking in their freshness, they served to back up previous accounts of surveillance and contemplated abduction and violence submitted in the Assange extradition trial.

As for Pompeo’s actual state of knowledge, further material promises to make the light of day.  On October 29, the unsuspecting figure was served by plaintiffs including such legal luminaries as human rights Margaret Ratner Kunstler.  The lawsuit, which names the CIA, Pompeo, David Morales Guillen and Undercover Global, S.L. as defendants, is seeking monetary and injunctive relief for violations of the Fourth Amendment – the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

As the case involves targeted surveillance of the plaintiffs at the Ecuadorian Embassy, including during consultations with Assange, and the forced surrender of electronic devices on entering the embassy, the gaps in Pompeo’s account may well be given further stuffing.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Video: Ukraine’s Undeclared War Against NATO

November 20th, 2022 by South Front

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***

During the 9 months of the Russian military operations in Ukraine, NATO member countries have repeatedly become victims of the ongoing hostilities. As soon as Brussels was ready to apply Article 5 on NATO’s collective defense and declare war on Russia, it turned out that Ukraine was causing damage to the Alliance members.

.

On the evening of March 2, a Romanian MiG-21 Lancer aircraft that was patrolling over the area over Dobrudja disappeared from radar. 13 minutes after departure, the fighter was shot down by a Ukrainian S-300 air defense system. The pilot was unfortunately killed. Immediately, a Romanian rescue helicopter was sent to search for the pilot, but the second aircraft was apparently also shot down by the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces. All 7 specialists on board were killed.

Just a week later, on March 10, a Soviet-made Ukrainian Tu-141 Strizh drone struck Croatia. It crossed Romania and Hungary, and then entered Croatian airspace and crashed near a student dormitory in Zagreb.

The Ukrainian military has also killed citizens of NATO countries who came to Ukraine, including for alleged humanitarian purposes.

On March 13, in the Irpen region near Kiev, members of the Ukrainian territorial defense shot the car of  an American journalist from the New York Times, Brent Renaud, who reportedly worked as a CIA officer in Iraq.

Many vessels of the NATO countries also fell victims of the unprofessional activity of the Ukrainian Navy.

On March 3, the Estonian bulk carrier Helt was blown up by a Ukrainian naval mine off the coast of Odessa. 4 people are still missing. On September 9, a Romanian minesweeper was blown up by a Ukrainian naval mine near Constanta. On November 9, a Turkish boat was blown up off the coast of Turkey.

Moreover, Ukrainian Nazis support extremist organizations in Europe and prepare terrorist attacks on the territories of NATO member states. On November 16, Italian Special Forces arrested four members of the extremist organization “Order of Hagal”, including a citizen of Ukraine who was responsible for contacts with subversive and paramilitary neo-Nazi groups operating in Ukraine.

Most recently, the world was on the verge of a global NATO war against Russia on November 15, when a missile struck the Polish village of Przevodow, killing 2 Polish citizens and destroying a tractor trailer. Immediately after the photos from the scene were published online, it became obvious that this was a Ukrainian S-300 missile. However, NATO has clearly demonstrated its intention to blame Russia. As a result, with obvious disappointment, Poland, NATO and the United States agreed with the conclusions that the missile most likely belonged to Ukraine. Nevertheless, a representative of the US National Security Council said that regardless of the results, Washington will consider Moscow to be involved in it.

Despite the fact that Ukraine continues to regularly threaten the security of the citizens of NATO countries, Russia is always the main culprit.

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Featured image is from SF

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***

On November 13, a blast ripped through Istiklal street, a busy pedestrian area in the Beyoglu neighborhood of Istanbul.  The explosion killed six people and wounded 81 at about 4:30 pm local time.

Among the dead were Arzu Ozsoy and her 15-year-old daughter Yagmur Ucar, a nine-year-old girl and her father, and a married couple. All were Turkish citizens.

Later, politicians visited the site where a reported 1,200 Turkish flags were displayed along with flower memorials to the victims.

On November 15, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said 58 of those injured had been discharged after being treated, while 17 were still in hospital, with six more in intensive care.

The suspect

According to state-run news agency Anadolu, the suspect is a Syrian woman Ahlam Albasir, who after being detained by police had confessed to the bombing and having acted on behalf of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group. She is claimed to have been trained by the PKK and its Syrian affiliate, the People’s Defense Units (YPG), and she is claimed to have entered Turkey illegally from Afrin, Syria.

The police conducted a raid in the Istanbul suburb of Kucukcekmerce early on November 14, while visiting 21 addresses, and had taken at least 46 people into custody in the course of the investigation into the attack.

The police released on November 16 security footage of a woman wearing a headscarf, camouflage pants, a backpack, and carrying a plastic bag walking across Taksim square on her way to the scene of the blast.  In another security footage, the same woman sits on a bench at 3:30 pm, leaves her backpack at 4:11 pm, walks away towards Taksim square, and when the explosion occurs she runs away from the scene.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu said that police have a phone/audio tape that indicates the PKK had ordered her killing to prevent her capture.

However, on November 14, the PKK and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is comprised chiefly of YPG fighters, denied responsibility for the attack.

“Istanbul terror attack suspect would have fled to Greece today if she had not been caught,” said Soylu on November 14.  He was referring to the PKK training camp in Lavrio, south-east Attica in Greece.  The camp in Lavrio began as a Kurdish refugee camp but evolved into a self-governed camp where even the Greek police and authorities are afraid to enter.

Questions abound concerning if the captured suspect is the same woman in the video. To wrap up the deadly attack, did the police find the right suspect? Terrorist attacks in Turkey have come from the PKK for decades, but there is a possibility of other groups such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State (IS).

Kurds

From 2015 to 2017 the PKK and IS carried out attacks across Turkey.  One such attack also occurred on the same Istiklal street in March 2016, which was carried out by an IS suicide bomber that killed four people.

While the PKK is deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union, Washington allied with the YPG against IS in the conflict in Syria.  The fiercest fighting group in the SDF is the YPG, and they were the fighting partners with the US military, and remain so in the northeast of Syria where the US maintains several illegal military occupation bases.

Turkish President Erdogan and US President Trump, and now President Biden, have long strongly disagreed on the support and alliance given by the US to the separatist Kurdish in Syria, who are administered by the communist ideology founded by Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK.

The PKK has carried out terrorist attacks in Turkey for the last three decades and has killed more than 40,000 people.  The YPG in Syria is directly linked to the PKK.  The Syrian government has control of most of Syria, except the Al Qaeda enclave in Idlib, and the northeast region under the occupation of the SDF and YPG.

Turkey has conducted three invasions into northern Syria against the YPG. Erdogan has long threatened another incursion into Syria to pursue Kurdish targets, and the recent attack in Istanbul may prompt a decision to carry out a new attack into Syria.  The Syrian military cannot attack Turkey for fear of invoking Article 5 of NATO.   Additionally, the Russians are attempting to keep the peace in the northeast region of Syria while negotiating with Turkey on shared interests.

Syrian refugees

Syrian refugees in Turkey are afraid of the response of the Turkish government to the blast.  Since the prime suspect is claimed to be Syrian, what will that do to the Syrians who are law-abiding refugees inside Turkey?

Turkish political parties have listened to the Turkish citizens who feel that the poor economy is to blame on the Syrian refugees.  The Syrians feel they are no longer welcome as violence and racism against the refugees have become increasingly common.

IS

When Trump asked Erdogan for help in the fight against IS, it was noted by the US and its western allies that Turkey was not forthcoming.  Trump commented publically to the effect that everyone is against IS, but Turkey didn’t share that enthusiasm.

Turkish elections

“This attack, if followed by others, could result in the electorate swinging to the right and consolidating around the security candidate,” said Soner Cagaptay, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, to Al Jazeera.

Cagaptay said,

“This is what happened the last time Turkey went through a series of terror attacks in 2015.”  A wave of bombings and other attacks began nationwide when a ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK broke down in mid-2015, ahead of elections that year.

Turkish elections are set for June 2023; polls suggest Erdogan could lose after two decades in power.  Erdogan’s opposition has said they will deport the Syrian refugees if elected.  Erdogan has matched that promise to gain the voter’s waning support ahead of the elections.

Erdogan’s failed policies

Turkish foreign policy towards Syria was ordered by US President Obama ahead of the March 2011 attack on Syria for ‘regime change’.  Erdogan and his AKP party are aligned with the global organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, which stands on the same political platform as Al Qaeda and IS.  This is the political ideology known as Radical Islam, which French President Macron has declared war on.

At the time the US ordered Turkish support of terrorists against Syria, the Turkish exports to Syria equaled all of the combined Turkish exports globally.  Syria later banned all business with Turkey and that began the descent of the Turkish economy.  It is now at its lowest point, with hyperinflation and currency devaluation.

After supporting the international terrorists flowing through Turkey for ‘boots on the ground’ in Syria, Trump cut off in 2017 the CIA and Pentagon programs begun by Obama to support the terrorists fighting for Syrian ‘regime change’.

Recently, Erdogan and his senior officials have voiced publicly their overtures toward Damascus, and their willingness to repair their broken relationship with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Syria became a national security problem for Turkey because Erdogan supported Radical Islamic terrorists who were successful in creating chaos inside Syria which prompted the Kurds to take advantage of the security vacuum to establish a communist administration in the northeast region, which has come back full circle to haunt Erdogan.

President Assad has said before, to be careful when you feed a monster because it can later turn to bite you.

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This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

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Deadly Games: The Labour Casualties of Qatar’s FIFA World Cup

November 20th, 2022 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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***

The 2022 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony represents the unofficial kickoff of the anticipated tournament, with kickoff of the inaugural match following shortly after.

The Al Bayt Stadium in the city of Al Khor will be the stage for both the opening ceremony and the first game. The $850 million facility was built for the World Cup and opened in 2021, featuring a retractable roof.”

The June 21, 2021 article by Prof Binoy Kampmark focusses on the countless deaths of migrant workers involved in the construction of the stadium:

The Guardian revealed in February 2021 that 6,750 migrant workers hailing from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had perished in Qatar since December 2010.  Such a total would be further inflated were it to account for other source countries of migrant labour, including Kenya and the Philippines.

The circumstances behind each death vary from suicide to being killed in shoddy worker accommodation.  But the authorities have done their best to relay the causes in murky terms, often aided by a reluctance to conduct autopsies.  “Natural deaths” tops the list as a favourite, with respiratory and acute heart failure featuring strongly” (article below)

***

A sordid enterprise, nasty, crude and needless.  But the World Cup 2022 will be, should anyone bother watching it, stained by one of the highest casualty rates amongst workers in its history, marked by corruption and stained by a pharisee quality.  The sportswashers, cleaning agent at the ready, will be out in force, and the hypocrites dressed to the nines.

From the start, the link between the world’s premier football (or soccer) competition and the gulf state was an odd one.  Qatar and the World Cup are as connected in kinship as gigantic icebergs and parched desert sands.   But money was the glue, prestige the aim, and there was much glue to go around when it came to securing the rights to host the competition.  What was lacking was a football tradition, an absence of sporting infrastructure, and the presence of scorching weather.

The central figure in this effort of bald graft over distinguished merit was Mohamed Bin Hammam, Qatar’s football grandee and construction magnate.  From his position as a member of the executive committee of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), he is said to have acted, on occasion, more like “the head of a crime organisation” than a mere board official.  All the time, he risibly claimed that he was a fan of reform, calling for “more transparency in FIFA.”

There was little evidence of transparency when it came to Doha’s bid.  With manoeuvring and cash incentives, the votes fell Qatar’s way in December 2010.  FIFA’s own comically named ethics committee cleared the country’s officials of any misdemeanour (it was “verified internally” that no secret plots had been made leading up to the award), while also having harsh words for other bidders, notably England.

The body also commissioned a 430-page report from lawyer and ethics investigator Michael Garcia that put the officialdom of both Russia and Qatar at ease.  For one thing, Garcia seemed mild in noting that, “A number of executive committee members sought to obtain personal favours or benefits that would enhance their stature within their home countries or considerations.”  With specific reference to Qatar, Garcia mentioned the country’s Aspire sports academy, alerted to it being used to “curry favour with executive committee members”.  This gave “the appearance of impropriety.  Those actions served to undermine the integrity of the bidding process.”  But not enough, it would seem, to invalidate the choice.

In all the scrounging, haggling and dealing, the fate of tens of thousands of migrant workers have fallen into the void, showing that sporting choices, even if nourished by a grossly unethical base, will still be tolerated.  Despite this, the reports about the appalling treatment Qatar affords its imported labour have not stopped coming.  For one thing, 2 million workers retained to build the various stadia, a new airport, roads, the metro system, not to mention providing a range of other services (restaurants, transport, in some cases, even security), would generally count as indispensable.  The problem with modern trafficking and slave practices lies in the fact that they will, when the time comes, be dispensable.  The pool is large and constantly replenished.

The years since Qatar was awarded the right to host the World Cup have seen a degree of ugliness that would make the hair stand on the back of any labour and human rights activist.  Much of this predates the commencement of work upon the facilities needed for the sporting event, a legacy shaped by the Kafala system.  The system of sponsor-based employment effectively indentures the worker to the employer, or kafeel, trapping the employee by restricting mobility, choice of employment and visa status.

In 2017, Qatar reluctantly signed an agreement with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) giving an undertaking to combat labour exploitation and “align its laws and practices with international labour standards”.

Despite such undertakings, The Guardian revealed in February 2021 that 6,750 migrant workers hailing from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka had perished in Qatar since December 2010.  Such a total would be further inflated were it to account for other source countries of migrant labour, including Kenya and the Philippines.

The circumstances behind each death vary from suicide to being killed in shoddy worker accommodation.  But the authorities have done their best to relay the causes in murky terms, often aided by a reluctance to conduct autopsies.  “Natural deaths” tops the list as a favourite, with respiratory and acute heart failure featuring strongly.

In May this year, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, FairSquare, and a number of international migrant rights groups, labour unions, business and rights groups, along with football fans and abuse survivors, made a plea to FIFA.  In a letter addressed to its President Gianni Infantino, the collective writes of “hundreds of thousands of migrant workers” who had yet to receive “adequate remedy, including financial compensation, for serious labour abuses they suffered while building and servicing the infrastructure essential for the preparation and delivery of the World Cup in Qatar.”

In urging Infantino to work with the Qatar government, trade unions, the ILO and other relevant bodies to address labour abuses, the collective acknowledges various modest improvements.  But minor labour reforms and the Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy Initiatives came “too late”.  The various reforms have also been unevenly enforced.  Many workers essential to the World Cup enterprise also fall outside the remit of the Supreme Committee’s initiatives.

This whole endeavour, in short, remains plagued and blotted by institutional callousness.  But a good deal of this will be forgotten come the opening ceremony and lost among the hordes of politically illiterate fans.  The sporting show will go on, and anyone wishing to protest its merits will risk five-year prison sentences and a fine of 100,000 Qatari riyals (US$27,000) for “stirring up public opinion”.  That’s mightily sporting of the authorities.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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First published on October 30, 2022

***

In recent developments, Elon Musk has restored Donald Trump’s Twitter account after holding of a ridiculous poll “that asked Twitter users to click “yes” or “no” on whether Trump’s account should be restored”

The “yes” vote won, with 51.8 per cent.

Previously, Musk had said Twitter would establish new procedures and a “content moderation council” before making decisions to restore suspended accounts.”

***

Back in April of this year, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, stated,

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”

A question: can you declare that you are for freedom of speech/expression and ban, or maintain a ban, on a person from expressing himself in a purportedly public forum and preserve your integrity? Whether the new owner of Twitter, Musk, steadfastly stands on the principle of freedom of expression looks like it is about to be revealed.

One question is whether the former president Donald Trump will be allowed back onto the Twitter platform.

Musk was critical of Twitter’s ban of Trump. He called it a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”

A section of the corporate sector (obviously, the corporate sector is not a monolith, as Trump and Musk both belong to this sector) is threatening a boycott of its advertising dollar if Musk allows Trump back on Twitter. This has set the stage for what could turn out to be a showcase of corporate infighting.

Does one section of the corpocracy predominate? Politically, the answer would seem to be no. In the United States, the Democrats and Republicans represent two wings of the corpocracy that alternate between them in forming the government, with, what many would contend, is minimal separation politically.

USA Today, the newspaper with the largest circulation in the US, pointed the finger at Trump as the instigator behind the riot on Capitol Hill that led to him being banned from Twitter. This is an allegation — borne out by the panoply of media takes on the Capitol Hill riot and who is to blame. Allegations, however, do not carry the imprimatur of certitude.

While supporting the principle of freedom of speech/expression is fine in the abstract, it should not be an absolute. For instance, the 2004 Halifax Symposium on Media and Disinformation participants unanimously held disinformation to be a crime against humanity and a crime against peace. In a moral world, lies that cause death and suffering must not be condoned or given a deceitful, argumentative free pass.

So the billionaire Musk seemingly finds himself on the horns of a dilemma: losing money or losing face. Musk has a choice. He can give in to corporate blackmail and uphold the ban on Trump and preserve advertising revenue for Twitter or he can reinstate Trump and, at least on this measure, maintain his integrity.

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Kim Petersen is an independent writer and former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be emailed at: kimohp at gmail.com. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from YugaTech

Of relevance to the crisis in US-China relations, we bring to the attention of our readers this incisive historical analysis of CIA interference in Tibet by Shawn Quinn,  first published in January 2020

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America’s position as the world’s strongest country faces its greatest challenge today from China, as is widely acknowledged. Yet the United States-China power struggle is not merely a phenomenon of this century, but has been ongoing for at least 70 years.

Following China’s autumn 1949 communist revolution, the US has attempted in varying degrees to negate Beijing’s influence and regional control in areas like Xinjiang and Tibet. It may be important to note that Tibet itself lies within China’s official frontiers, and is located in the far south-west of the country.

Tibet comprises an ancient and idyllic region with landscapes too arid to support much human life, which very likely accounts for the surprising array of large animals there, more than anywhere else in China – from brown bears and foxes to wild horses. In size, Tibet is five times larger than the United Kingdom (UK), but is home to just three million people, about 30% of whom live in the capital Lhasa, and Buddhism is the primary religion of Tibetans.

Since China’s revolution seven decades ago, the most serious armed challenge to have faced Beijing’s authority came from Tibet. This culminated with terrible bloodshed in the March 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese government control – with Washington and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) strongly supporting the Tibetans – and which Beijing ended up crushing.

America’s influence in Tibet can, in fact, be traced to as early as the second half of 1942, when the CIA’s predecessor organisation – the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) – dispatched two of its secret agents to Tibet while America was tightening the screws on Imperial Japan. The OSS operatives’ mission was to supply the Tibetan cabinet with “three fully-equipped portable wireless stations to set up a trans-Tibet network”; while another of their aims was to identify a corridor through Tibet from US ally India, that would allow easy access for American forces into Chinese territory.

The American agents were successful in “establishing friendly relations with the Tibetan authorities”. William J. Donovan, the OSS chief and future “founding father of the CIA”, recognised in a memorandum dated 12 April 1943 that Tibet “will be strategically valuable in the future”. Donovan also revealed that the current Dalai Lama received “a letter of greetings from the President of the United States”, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1). At the time, the Dalai Lama was just seven years old, he is now 84.

The 1959 Tibetan revolt was led by the Dalai Lama’s older brother, Gyalo Thondup, who for years had connections to Washington (2). Thondup, still alive and aged in his early 90s, lives in north-eastern India and he first travelled to the US in 1951, becoming a “top asset” of the CIA.

From the early 1950s, Thondup provided extensive details to the US Department of State, in return for guarantees that the American government would back strategies to “make Tibet independent” from China. Also as part of the deal, Thondup organised Tibetan guerrilla fighters who received large-scale training, arming and financial support from the CIA.

Immediately after the failed 1959 uprising the Dalai Lama, with CIA assistance, fled Tibet to northern India where he currently still resides. In the time following March 1959, around 80,000 Tibetan refugees joined the Dalai Lama by taking the arduous route to India.

The Dalai Lama’s eldest brother, Thubten Jigme Norbu, had even stronger links to the Americans, and he was known as “the first Tibetan to settle in the US”. Norbu moved to Washington in 1951, as a guest of the CIA-bankrolled broadcaster, Committee for Free Asia. Norbu was in effect a CIA agent for a time; and in 1953 he made contact with the CIA so as to seek covert aid and advice.

By 1956 both of the Dalai Lama’s brothers, Thondup and Norbu, were part of a CIA program which gathered together a clandestine network of agents inside China’s frontiers in Tibet. Thondup and Norbu were also assisting the CIA in the recruiting and training of Tibetan guerrillas, from the territory of Kham in eastern Tibet.

Norbu’s name features in reports of covert CIA camps established in the United States, and also on the Pacific island of Saipan (3). By at least 1959, China’s communist leader Mao Zedong was himself aware of the connection between the Dalai Lama’s brothers and the CIA, which may have been a factor behind his harsh reactions to the uprisings.

The American author Tom Grunfeld, who has long specialised in Chinese and Tibetan history, wrote that “It was Gyalo Thondup who arranged the first CIA training missions, picking six Tibetans for that purpose”. Grunfeld also notes, “Despite cries of innocence on the part of the Dalai Lama, officials in Washington were planning for the events months before that fateful March in 1959”.

The insurgency in Tibet against Beijing’s governance can be traced to the mid-1950s, and was even undergoing formulation within the borders of the United States. From early 1956, several revolts broke out in the Kham and Amdo regions of Tibet, which were encouraged by the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration.

Beginning in 1956, the CIA instituted a remarkable program whereby it flew up to 300 “Tibetan freedom fighters” all the way to the western US state of Colorado. This top secret initiative was overseen by the Tibetan-speaking CIA officer, Bruce Walker.

Walker conducted lengthy training exercises of these Tibetan commandos at Camp Hale, the remote Colorado US Army facility, situated almost 3,000 metres above sea level and astride the Rocky Mountains. The CIA’s training of Tibet’s separatists continued at Camp Hale until it was closed in 1964. Less than 40 miles from Camp Hale, and also in Colorado, the CIA established a separate camp in the famous ski resort destination of Aspen.

The Brazilian historian and political scientist, Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, revealed that after completion of basic training at Camp Hale Tibet’s insurgents “were subsequently transported in Curtiss C-46 Commando planes of the Intermountain Aviation and Intermountain Airways (a CIA airplane) and USAF” where, in extraordinary scenes reminiscent of a World War II airborne mission, they were then “parachuted above the mountains of Aspen where a secret base for the operations in China were established” (4).

In 1958 the CIA was also using its air bases in Thailand, south-east Asia, from where American aircraft flew northwards to the Kham area of eastern Tibet. US planes air-dropped modern weaponry and ammunition to ethnic-Tibetan regions of Kham (5). Another CIA command centre was built in New Delhi, India, where intensive monitoring of guerrilla activities in Tibet was undertaken.

An unnamed, retired CIA agent, who was heavily involved in the operations recalled that,

“The idea was to make Tibet very expensive for China. The Chinese had these long, vulnerable supply lines. The guerrillas were supposed to harass them. And for a while, they actually succeeded” (6).

From the summer of 1959, Eisenhower’s administration also decided to provide backing for Tibet’s guerrilla army, the Dokham Chushi Gangdruk, which had been founded the previous year. Their specialty, led by CIA operatives, was in implementing ambushes on Chinese forces emanating from mountain-high bases in Nepal nearby to the south.

A central reason behind these policies was Allen Dulles’ influence, the CIA director from 1953 until 1961, and a fervent anti-Communist. Dulles wished to capitalise upon any possibility of destabilising China.

By early 1960, the CIA had managed to amass about 14,000 Tibetan guerrillas, along with other fighters of ethnic minority background, in order to wage a de facto war on China. Tibet’s proxy forces were almost entirely dependent on the Americans, with the CIA providing all of their arms, equipment and sustenance (7).

Up to 10 CIA-run camps were erected in Nepal, directly bordering Tibet to the south. These CIA training facilities were situated less than 200 miles from Mount Everest, and close to the city of Pohkara in central Nepal. Other CIA bases were located within Tibet itself and also in India.

US military aircraft were seen flying unhindered into Chinese territory, and towards Tibet where, as the Himalayan peaks came into view, American pilots air-dropped further supplies to Tibetan forces.

The US Army transport plane, Lockheed C-130, underwent specific modification so that it could fly unhindered through Tibet’s exceedingly thin atmosphere. CIA-trained agents working, somewhat surreally, from the Dalai Lama’s caravan, were assisting the US C-130 planes by laying out special air-drop targets in the snow.

The American airborne expeditions into Tibet enjoyed crucial direction from a CIA station positioned in eastern Pakistan. From the mid-1950s onwards, Washington also dispatched hundreds of Tibetan exiles by aircraft to the US-controlled Pacific islands of Okinawa, Saipan and Guam, where they underwent training in guerrilla warfare.

Thereafter, during the blissful safety of night hours, the Tibetans were flown back to their homeland in American aircraft, where they were released into the great depths below by parachutes, and could now commence their guerrilla activities against Beijing’s forces.

These Tibetans, many recruited from the warrior Khamba tribe in eastern Tibet, were equipped with American-made submachine guns, while each fighter had a locket dangling from his neck, with a photograph enclosed of their beloved Dalai Lama.

One former Tibetan fighter, Nawang Gayltsen, outlined that,

“None of us knew how to fight the Chinese the modern way. But the Americans taught us. We learned camouflage, spy photography, guns and radio operation”.

During the late spring of 1960, two CIA teams embedded in Tibet were forced to flee southwards over the Himalayas in horrendous conditions, but they somehow managed to navigate through the daunting mountain tops and reach India – such was their determination to avoid capture from communist soldiers. These occurrences, straight out of a James Bond film, are even today little known.

Meanwhile, four CIA radio teams were wiped out altogether, while just six of almost 20 CIA-trained Tibetan agents survived the fighting. A former security chief for the Dalai Lama, Lobsang Tsultrim, was recruited by the CIA in 1964, and he said that he was “not ashamed” about accepting American support. “I’m just disappointed that it was too little, too late”, Tsultrim continued.

Yet the CIA’s funding of Tibetan independent causes was hardly what could be described as little. In the year 1964 alone, the CIA spent $1,735,000 on its program of subversion in Tibet, a sum now equivalent to $14 million.

Almost a third of this money in 1964 went to Tibetan guerrillas based in Nepal, $400,000 was dispensed on covert training operations in Colorado, while the Dalai Lama was furnished with $180,000 that year (8). CIA activities in Tibet lasted for almost 20 years until 1974, and we can safely assume that a massive amount of money was spent on this project, which ultimately ended in abject failure for the Americans, and indeed their Tibetan proxies.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

1 United States Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, Diplomatic Papers: China, (USGPO, Washington D.C., 1957) p. 626

2 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA, (Springer 1st ed. 2017 edition, 23 June 2017), p. 76.

3 John Gittings, “Thubten Jigme Norbu” obituary, The Guardian, 8 September 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/sep/08/tibet

4 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA, (Springer 1st ed. 2017 edition, 23 June 2017), p. 75.

5 Revolutionary Worker Online, “The Dalai Lama and the CIA”, Revolutionary Worker, #765 17 July 1994, https://revcom.us/a/firstvol/tibet/cia5.htm

6 Paul Salopek, “The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet”, Chicago Tribune, 26 January 1997, https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:k_D8kxvN0VsJ:https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-01-26-9701270002-story.html+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ie

7 A. Tom Grunfeld, The Making of Modern Tibet, (Routledge; 2 Edition 25 July 1996) p. 157.

8 Luiz Alberto Moniz Bandeira, The Second Cold War: Geopolitics and the Strategic Dimensions of the USA, (Springer 1st ed. 2017 edition, 23 June 2017), p. 76.

Coercive Mind Control and Brainwashing Tactics

November 20th, 2022 by Dr. Margaret Singer

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First published on October 27, 2021

***

Global Research Editor’s Note

This analysis by the late Dr. Margaret Singer is of utmost relevance to an understanding of the Covid Crisis.

The  imposition of the killer vaccine coupled with socially destructive policies have relied on coercive persuasion and brainwashing tactics, coupled with media propaganda and the fear campaign.

The objective of national governments is to ensure “Acceptance” on behalf of powerful financial interests.

Dr. Singer also refers to coercive influence, anxiety and stress-producing tactics over continuous periods of time“.

That is precisely what have been experiencing since the outset of the Covid crisis in January 2020.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, October 27, 2021, November 20, 2022

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Today Mind control or brainwashing in academia is commonly referred to as coercive persuasion, coercive psychological systems or coercive influence. The short description below comes from Dr. Margaret Singer professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley the acknowledged leading authority in the world on mind control and cults.

A short overview

Coercion is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as:

1. To force to act or think in a certain manner
2. To dominate, restrain, or control by force
3. To bring about by force.

Coercive psychological systems are behavioral change programs which use psychological force in a coercive way to cause the learning and adoption of an ideology or designated set of beliefs, ideas, attitudes, or behaviors. The essential strategy used by the operators of these programs is to systematically select, sequence and coordinate many different types of coercive influence, anxiety and stress-producing tactics over continuous periods of time. In such a program the subject is forced to adapt in a series of tiny “invisible” steps.

Each tiny step is designed to be sufficiently small so the subjects will not notice the changes in themselves or identify the coercive nature of the processes being used. The subjects of these tactics do not become aware of the hidden organizational purpose of the coercive psychological program until much later, if ever.

These tactics are usually applied in a group setting by well intentioned but deceived “friends and allies” of the victim. This keeps the victim from putting up the ego defenses we normally maintain in known adversarial situations. The coercive psychological influence of these programs aim to overcome the individual’s critical thinking abilities and free will – apart from any appeal to informed judgment.

Victims gradually lose their ability to make independent decisions and exercise informed consent.

Their critical thinking, defenses, cognitive processes, values, ideas, attitudes, conduct and ability to reason are undermined by a technological process rather than by meaningful free choice, rationality, or the inherent merit or value of the ideas or propositions being presented. How Do They Work?

The tactics used to create undue psychological and social influence, often by means involving anxiety and stress, fall into seven main categories.

TACTIC 1

Increase suggestibility and “soften up” the individual through specific hypnotic or other suggestibility-increasing techniques such as: Extended audio, visual, verbal, or tactile fixation drills, Excessive exact repetition of routine activities, Sleep restriction and/or Nutritional restriction.

TACTIC 2

Establish control over the person’s social environment, time and sources of social support by a system of often-excessive rewards and punishments. Social isolation is promoted. Contact with family and friends is abridged, as is contact with persons who do not share group-approved attitudes. Economic and other dependence on the group is fostered.

TACTIC 3

Prohibit disconfirming information and non supporting opinions in group communication. Rules exist about permissible topics to discuss with outsiders. Communication is highly controlled. An “in-group” language is usually constructed.

TACTIC 4

Make the person re-evaluate the most central aspects of his or her experience of selfand prior conduct in negative ways. Efforts are designed to destabilize and undermine the subject’s basic consciousness, reality awareness, world view, emotional control and defense mechanisms. The subject is guided to reinterpret his or her life’s history and adopt a new version of causality.

TACTIC 5

Create a sense of powerlessness by subjecting the person to intense and frequent actions and situations which undermine the person’s confidence in himself and his judgment.

TACTIC 6

Create strong aversive emotional arousals in the subject by use of nonphysical punishments such as intense humiliation, loss of privilege, social isolation, social status changes, intense guilt, anxiety, manipulation and other techniques.

TACTIC 7

Intimidate the person with the force of group-sanctioned secular psychological threats. For example, it may be suggested or implied that failure to adopt the approved attitude, belief or consequent behavior will lead to severe punishment or dire consequences such as physical or mental illness, the reappearance of a prior physical illness, drug dependence, economic collapse, social failure, divorce, disintegration, failure to find a mate, etc.

These tactics of psychological force are applied to such a severe degree that the individual’s capacity to make informed or free choices becomes inhibited. The victims become unable to make the normal, wise or balanced decisions which they most likely or normally would have made, had they not been unknowingly manipulated by these coordinated technical processes. The cumulative effect of these processes can be an even more effective form of undue influence than pain, torture, drugs or the use of physical force and physical and legal threats.

How does Coercive Psychological Persuasion Differ from Other Kinds of Influence?

Coercive psychological systems are distinguished from benign social learning or peaceful persuasion by the specific conditions under which they are conducted. These conditions include the type and number of coercive psychological tactics used, the severity of environmental and interpersonal manipulation, and the amount of psychological force employed to suppress particular unwanted behaviors and to train desired behaviors.

Coercive force is traditionally visualized in physical terms. In this form it is easily definable, clear-cut and unambiguous. Coercive psychological force unfortunately has not been so easy to see and define. The law has been ahead of the physical sciences in that it has allowed that coercion need not involve physical force. It has recognized that an individual can be threatened and coerced psychologically by what he or she perceives to be dangerous, not necessarily by that which is dangerous.

Law has recognized that even the threatened action need not be physical. Threats of economic loss, social ostracism and ridicule, among other things, are all recognized by law, in varying contexts, as coercive psychological forces.

Why are Coercive Psychological Systems Harmful?

Coercive psychological systems violate our most fundamental concepts of basic human rights. They violate rights of individuals that are guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and affirmed by many declarations of principle worldwide.

By confusing, intimidating and silencing their victims, those who profit from these systems evade exposure and prosecution for actions recognized as harmful and which are illegal in most countries such as: fraud, false imprisonment, undue influence, involuntary servitude, intentional infliction of emotional distress, outrageous conduct and other tortuous acts.

The late Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer, professor of psychology at University of California at Berkeley was an expert in cults and sects, brainwashing, and coercive persuasion and coercive mind control. She was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize.

Her Legacy will Live.
Margaret Thaler Singer, Ph.D. Biography

 

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First published on June 7, 2021

Is there a policy to euthanize older patients in the hospital?
.
Are older people being killed before their time? What is the role of the state in this dramatic policy-shift?
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GR Editor’s Note
In recent developments France’s Macron Government is envisaging Euthanasia as a political mandate under the auspices of the national health authorities 

In September 2022, President Emmanuel Macron presented a plan for a six-month citizens consultation on euthanasia:

“France’s euthanasia legislation, known as the Claeys-Léonetti law, dates from 2016. This law has been criticised for many years by patients and politicians because it only allows a sick person to be sedated, and only if the prognosis is vital in the short term.”

.
The Mentor of President Macron Jacques Attali considers that euthanasia is an instrument of progress. 
.

“Euthanasia will be one of the essential instruments of our future societies in all cases. In a capitalist society, killing machines, prostheses that will eliminate life when it is too unbearable, or economically too expensive, will emerge and will be common practice. ”Jacques Attali, 1981

.

What he says in a more recent statement is that as a socialist he is against extending the life of senior citizens. It’s too costly

Euthanasia for Jacques Attali [79 years old] is presented as an instrument of social progress.

The question we are now facing: is euthanasia being considered by national governments as a formal instrument (mandate) of depopulation to be implemented by the national health authorities

Below: Outstanding analysis by Mike Whitney in an article first published in June 2021

 

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Jacqui Deevoy is an investigative journalist who has interviewed over 50 whistleblowers who believe their parents or partners were euthanized while in hospital. While I have no way to verify their claims, Deevoy’s presentation of the evidence is compelling to say the least.

For that reason, I decided to transcribe part of the interview so readers could parse the words for themselves and make their own determination. I should add, that I have read enough anecdotal accounts of suspicious elderly care treatment in Europe and the US (since the pandemic began), that I suspect Deevoy may be onto something bigger and more sinister than we might have imagined. And if there is a grain of truth to what she says, then open-minded people will have to mull-over the prospect that “depopulation” might not be such a loony “conspiracy theory” after all.

 

But that’s for you to decide. I’m merely presenting this video because I found it so disturbing and because I’m convinced that You Tube will remove it before it is widely circulated.

State Euthanasia??

Jacqui Deevoy, investigative journalist:  (Text starts at 2-minute mark)  “Last summer, someone contacted me….he said his father was murdered in hospital… which was pretty shocking… but because I’ve had alot of people coming to me about it… I took it seriously…. So, I started looking into it, and what I found was pretty shocking….  We now have alot of evidence that what he said was true, not just for his father but alot of other people’s relatives as well who were victims to this “protocol”…  I decided that this needed to “go public” so I contacted 28 editors…… But didn’t get even one single reply…. and that surprised me because I’d never been ‘blanked’ so broadly…

“… what I’d actually pitched to them (the 28 mainstream media editors) was a story, backed up with alot of evidence that the elderly were being killed in hospitals, care homes, and hospices; being put on “end of life” care before they needed to be. And I’ve spoken to 50 people who have experienced this firsthand, and I found 16 who were willing to speak to the papers and to go public. …We have so much evidence now.  We have documents from the House of Commons, we have documents to prove that Midazolam was ordered last March, to treat Covid patients. How Midazolam can treat Covid patients, I don’t know, because Covid is a respiratory disease, and Midazolam works by suppressing the respiratory system leading to death. The more midazolam you give, the more likely the person will die. Midazolam is used in America as an execution drug, in a huge amount…. It’s a horrible way to go. I have evidence that Midazolam was given to unconscious patients… people who had one jab and fell unconscious, and while they were still unconscious, were still being administered it, which doesn’t make any sense. There are so many stories. …..

Gareth Icke–…”The proof is there in black and white.. and the amount of this drug that was administered compared to other years, is insane!  It’s on average a 100,000 more doses of it (midazolam) per month then before the pandemic. And, the excuse that it’s being used in operations, but they haven’t done any operations! (The whole thing was a fraud.) So where is this drug going??”

Jacqui Deevoy: “I think we’re all arriving at the same conclusions… I think this is going on worldwide.” (End of interview)

A little background on Midazolam: 

“Midazolam, sold under the brand name Versed, among others, is…used for anesthesia, procedural sedation, trouble sleeping, and severe agitation. It works by inducing sleepiness, decreasing anxiety, and causing a loss of ability to create new memories…. (Wikipedia)
.
End of life care

In the final stages of end-of-life care, midazolam is routinely used at low doses via subcutaneous injection to help with agitation, myoclonus, restlessness or anxiety in the last hours or days of life…

The drug has been introduced for use in executions by lethal injection in certain jurisdictions in the United States in combination with other drugs…. Midazolam acts as a sedative to render the condemned prisoner unconscious, at which time vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride are administered, stopping the prisoner’s breathing and heart, respectively….

Use in executions

The usage of midazolam in executions became controversial after condemned inmate Clayton Lockett apparently regained consciousness and started speaking midway through his 2014 execution when the state of Oklahoma attempted to execute him with an untested three-drug lethal injection combination using 100 mg of midazolam. Prison officials reportedly discussed taking him to a hospital before he was pronounced dead of a heart attack 40 minutes after the execution began.” (Midazolam, Wikipedia)

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Michael Whitney, renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State. He initiated his career as an independent citizen-journalist in 2002 with a commitment to honest journalism, social justice and World peace.

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

Featured image is from The Ethics Centre

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First published by Global Research on April 4, 2019

70 years ago NATO was born. In April 1949, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) established what was designated as the doctrine of “Collective Security” under Art. 5 of the Washington Treaty.

NATO has a sordid history of aggression and war crimes.  The US not only continues to “occupy” World War II “axis countries” (Italy, Germany), it has used the NATO emblem to install US military bases throughout Western Europe, as well as in Eastern Europe in the wake of the Cold War, extending into the Balkans in the wake of NATO’s war on Yugoslavia.

NATO is a criminal entity, an instrument of the Pentagon. There is no “Alliance”. There is “Military Occupation”.

What is required is a vast movement in Europe and North America in support of NATO-Exit. 

There is a (somewhat contradictory) clause within the Treaty of the Atlantic Alliance (Article 13) which enables withdrawal from NATO.

This clause has to be examined and a strategy must be envisaged.

 

Michel Chossudovsky calls for a Country by Country withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well as closure of US military bases.

 

Video: NATO-EXIT

 

 

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Global Warming: Ten Facts and Ten Myths on Climate Change

November 19th, 2022 by Prof. Robert M. Carter

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Originally published by GR in 2009 incisive article by the late Professor Robert M. Carter, Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia)

NOTE: The data presented by the author pertains to the period prior to 2009

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Ten Facts about Climate Change

1.     Climate has always changed, and it always will. The assumption that prior to the industrial revolution the Earth had a “stable” climate is simply wrong. The only sensible thing to do about climate change is to prepare for it.

2.    Accurate temperature measurements made from weather balloons and satellites since the late 1950s show no atmospheric warming since 1958.  In contrast, averaged ground-based thermometers record a warming of about 0.40C over the same time period. Many scientists believe that the thermometer record is biased by the Urban Heat Island effect and other artefacts.

3.    Despite the expenditure of more than US$50 billion dollars looking for it since 1990, no unambiguous anthropogenic (human) signal has been identified in the global temperature pattern.

4.    Without the greenhouse effect, the average surface temperature on Earth would be -180C rather than the equable +150C that has nurtured the development of life.

     Carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas, responsible for ~26% (80C) of the total greenhouse effect (330C), of which in turn at most 25% (~20C) can be attributed to carbon dioxide contributed by human activity. Water vapour, contributing at least 70% of the effect, is by far the most important atmospheric greenhouse gas.

5.    On both annual (1 year) and geological (up to 100,000 year) time scales, changes in atmospheric temperature PRECEDE changes in CO2. Carbon dioxide therefore cannot be the primary forcing agent for temperature increase (though increasing CO2 does cause a diminishingly mild positive temperature feedback).

6.    The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has acted as the main scaremonger for the global warming lobby that led to the Kyoto Protocol. Fatally, the IPCC is a political, not scientific, body.

Hendrik Tennekes, a retired Director of Research at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, says that “the IPCC review process is fatally flawed” and that “the IPCC wilfully ignores the paradigm shift created by the foremost meteorologist of the twentieth century, Edward Lorenz“.

7.    The Kyoto Protocol will cost many trillions of dollars and exercises a significant impost those countries that signed it, but will deliver no significant cooling (less than .020C by 2050, assuming that all commitments are met).

The Russian Academy of Sciences says that Kyoto has no scientific basis; Andre Illarianov, senior advisor to Russian president Putin, calls Kyoto-ism “one of the most agressive, intrusive, destructive ideologies since the collapse of communism and fascism“. If Kyoto was a “first step” then it was in the same wrong direction as the later “Bali roadmap”.

8.    Climate change is a non-linear (chaotic) process, some parts of which are only dimly or not at all understood. No deterministic computer model will ever be able to make an accurate prediction of climate 100 years into the future.

9.    Not surprisingly, therefore, experts in computer modelling agree also that no current (or likely near-future) climate model is able to make accurate predictions of regional climate change.

10.   The biggest untruth about human global warming is the assertion that nearly all scientists agree that it is occurring, and at a dangerous rate.

The reality is that almost every aspect of climate science is the subject of vigorous debate. Further, thousands of qualified scientists worldwide have signed declarations which (i) query the evidence for hypothetical human-caused warming and (ii) support a rational scientific (not emotional) approach to its study within the context of known natural climate change.

LAYING TEN GLOBAL WARMING MYTHS

Myth 1     Average global temperature (AGT) has increased over the last few years. [prior to 2009]

Fact 1       Within error bounds, AGT has not increased since 1995 and has declined since 2002, despite an increase in atmospheric CO2 of 8% since 1995. 

Myth 2     During the late 20th Century, AGT increased at a dangerously fast rate and reached an unprecedented magnitude.

Facts 2      The late 20th Century AGT rise was at a rate of 1-20C/century, which lies well within natural rates of climate change for the last 10,000 yr. AGT has been several degrees warmer than today many times in the recent geological past. 

Myth 3     AGT was relatively unchanging in pre-industrial times, has sky-rocketed since 1900, and will increase by several degrees more over the next 100 years (the Mann, Bradley & Hughes “hockey stick” curve and its computer extrapolation).

Facts 3      The Mann et al. curve has been exposed as a statistical contrivance. There is no convincing evidence that past climate was unchanging, nor that 20th century changes in AGT were unusual, nor that dangerous human warming is underway.

Myth 4     Computer models predict that AGT will increase by up to 60C over the next 100 years.

Facts 4      Deterministic computer models do. Other equally valid (empirical) computer models predict cooling. 

Myth 5     Warming of more than 20C will have catastrophic effects on ecosystems and mankind alike.

Facts 5      A 20C change would be well within previous natural bounds. Ecosystems have been adapting to such changes since time immemorial. The result is the process that we call evolution. Mankind can and does adapt to all climate extremes.

Myth 6     Further human addition of CO2 to the atmosphere will cause dangerous warming, and is generally harmful.

Facts 6      No human-caused warming can yet be detected that is distinct from natural system variation and noise. Any additional human-caused warming which occurs will probably amount to less than 10C. Atmospheric CO2 is a beneficial fertilizer for plants, including especially cereal crops, and also aids efficient evapo-transpiration. 

Myth 7     Changes in solar activity cannot explain recent changes in AGT.

Facts 7      The sun’s output varies in several ways on many time scales (including the 11-, 22- and 80-year solar cycles), with concomitant effects on Earth’s climate. While changes in visible radiation are small, changes in particle flux and magnetic field are known to exercise a strong climatic effect. More than 50% of the 0.80C rise in AGT observed during the 20th century can be attributed to solar change. 

Myth 8     Unprecedented melting of ice is taking place in both the north and south polar regions.

Facts 8      Both the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are growing in thickness and cooling at their summit. Sea ice around Antarctica attained a record area in 2007. Temperatures in the Arctic region are just now achieving the levels of natural warmth experienced during the early 1940s, and the region was warmer still (sea-ice free) during earlier times.

Myth 9     Human-caused global warming is causing dangerous global sea-level (SL) rise.

Facts 9      SL change differs from time to time and place to place; between 1955 and 1996, for example, SL at Tuvalu fell by 105 mm (2.5 mm/yr). Global average SL is a statistical measure of no value for environmental planning purposes. A global average SL rise of 1-2 mm/yr occurred naturally over the last 150 years, and shows no sign of human-influenced increase. 

Myth 10   The late 20th Century increase in AGT caused an increase in the number of severe storms (cyclones), or in storm intensity.

Facts 10    Meteorological experts are agreed that no increase in storms has occurred beyond that associated with natural variation of the climate system.

***

The late Robert M. Carter was a Research Professor at James Cook University (Queensland) and the University of Adelaide (South Australia). He is a palaeontologist, stratigrapher, marine geologist and environmental scientist with more than thirty years professional experience.

When Green Turns Brown – And Nobody Notices

November 19th, 2022 by Peter Koenig

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First published on September 25, 2022

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Imagine – there is a Green Movement, supposedly environmentally friendly, people friendly. It has a relatively short history, some 20 to 30 years, maybe?

Who wouldn’t like that? Green is beautiful. It pretends to protect Mother Earth and Humanity. Over the years, it becomes increasingly popular and turns into a political party. “The Greens”. Growing ever stronger throughout the Global West.

They talk about and predicate against men’s wasteful lifestyle. They promote organic food and fight against genetically modified or GMO food.

They make inroads in western countries’ Parliaments and become major decision-makers.

They turn the two decades old “global warming” converted to “Climate Change” into their agenda.

Climate Change becomes soon the driving force of the Greens. Man-made Climate Change – meaning fossil fuel-caused carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in 2022 peak almost at 420 parts per million (PPM). This, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather station in Mauna Loa, on the island of Hawaii. NOAA’s 2022 budget is estimated at US$ 6.9 billion.

Is this a dangerous level? We are made to believe it is.

The NOAA agency feeds important information into the Green’s agenda – worldwide.

Never mind that global oceans absorb some 67 billion tons of carbon dioxide since the creation of NOAA in 27 years, from 1992 until 2018. But a complex system of “positive and negative fluxes” are creating an equilibrium, oceans also emit carbon dioxide into the air, namely when the concentration of CO2 in the water is higher than in the air. CO2 from the oceans help feed the plants on land, when they do not find enough CO2 in the air. Plants live off carbon dioxide and release oxygen into the atmosphere. Without CO2, no plants. No oxygen. No life.

See this.

This little detail is conveniently ignored by the climate gnomes, by the Greens. It doesn’t fit into their agenda.

May the above explanation of positive and negative fluxes just be an illustration inspiring reflection on reality which is conveniently ignored by the climate freaks and especially by the Greens. They have taken over a lucrative political movement, funded by  philanthropists like Soros and Bill Gates. They also push against meat-eaters, hoping to convert them into insect-eaters.

The Green Agenda is in the process of restraining people’s liberties by abject and deceitful mind manipulation. In other words, humanity is made believe what isn’t.

One may ask, whose agenda is this?

And why are the Greens all over the Global North so eager to help promoting it?

Perhaps because it is part of a larger agenda of oppression, total control and transfer of assets from the bottom and middle to the top.

The Greens know exactly what they are doing. Just look what they are doing to Germany. They help ruining the German economy, and by association the EU economy. This is a process well underway. The Greens occupy five ministries in Germany, among them the two most powerful ones, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economy Minister Robert Habeck.

They are responsible for promoting relentlessly the sanctions program against Russia – obviously dictated by the US – plunging Germany and by association Europe, potentially into the worst recession Europe has ever known, shutting off Russia’s gas supply on which Germany’s economy depends to 50% and the rest of Europe to a slightly lesser proportion.

Ms. Baerbock and Mr. Habeck, plus their Chancellor, Scholz, are at least co-responsible for accepting Washington’s dictate of the Russian sanctions program leading to Europe’s suicide. Others like France’s Macron and the Netherland’s Mark Rutte and more of so-called European leaders, happily join the club. It’s a wanton suicide, because they all know what they are doing and why they are doing it.

They are not working for the benefit of the European people, of their fellow countrymen, but for the benefit of the faltering empire and those who pull the strings even on Washington, like financial giants, BlackRock, Vanguard, StateStreet and Co. These so-called leaders of the world, are betraying their people with miserable lies and a 24/7 indoctrination media machine, for the benefit of themselves and the financial giants which are poised to take over the world.

So, what we are living is not really Washington’s dictate.

There may be something much bigger behind the Greens and their agenda?

Perhaps the World Economic Forum (WEF) – which in turn is the visible instrument of the all dominating financial sector, led by the forementioned BlackRock and Co. – and then some smaller but still big enough “fish”, like City Bank, Chase and more. All those elegantly labeled, “too big to fail and too big to jail”.

The CEO’s and managers of these financial giants may have been promised some kind of “compensation” for playing along. For sure, they know what they are doing – ruining the lives of their countries’ people and economy. That’s for sure worth a hefty reward, maybe a “life-saving” recompence.

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In many parts of the world, especially in Europe, the Greens are still hailed as the saviors of environment and humanity, hardly anybody has noticed the conversion from green to brown, from their environmental-social agenda into outright fascism. And yes, generously funded by such “philanthropes”, as the Gates Foundation, the Soros Fund, the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds.

Connecting the Dots

Somebody with a lot of credibility may connect the dots between climate crisis, (geoengineering) crop destruction (famine and death), energy shortage during predicted ice-cold western winters, no heating, driving low resistance people into flu-like diseases, for which efficient remedies are withheld, so they get sick and many may die.

Cold winters will be an opportunity to administer flu “vaxxes” to the masses (same content as covid vaxxes), killing millions, because people still trust in flu-vaxxes and get them by the 100-dreds of thousands. Since their immune systems are already compromised from the various covid shots and boosters, many-many, maybe hundreds of thousands, may die. Indeed, form the flu shots. Official cause of death: Covid.

A great argument for more covid vaxxes, and the spiral of life destruction goes on. Will people wake up, before it’s too late?

Then there is massive infrastructure destruction – Pakistan is a recent case in point – by geoengineered weather (see this), leading “bankrotten” countries, to seek monetary enslavement from IMF and the World Bank.

Climate change-caused infrastructure destruction, further reduces energy consumption, heating reduction, fossil oil-based fertilizer production, leading to food shortages and death by famine, or famine-related diseases.

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The agenda is perfect. All plays into The Great Reset’s / UN Agenda’s 2030 population reduction scenarios, leaving at the end of the vaxx-decade, as WHO calls the 2020s, much fewer people. The elite – financial hegemons – expect to joyfully benefit from the bankrupted small and medium size companies  of which the assets were sucked up-up and away into the blue sky of the billionaires.

The usual villains, the financial giants, are calling the shots on the common survivors – maybe you and me – or the next generation.

If we don’t stand up, rise up to the next level of humanity, becoming from purely material beings, spiritual entities, vibrating on a higher cord, we may be chipped. The idea of being electronically manipulable, through algorithms or robots, for their benefit of the elite, of course, course, may be accepted voluntarily, because it’s so “cool” being a chipped transhumans, 5G-happy, while owning nothing.

That would be the end-stage. Largely facilitated by the legendary Greens turned Browns.

It won’t happen. We are many, they are few, and we will resist without violence, with a brand-new non-material lifestyle that will evolve dynamically.

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

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

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version). 

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

***

This was first posted on GR in July 2020.

This tragedy perhaps has relevance once more, as it is being widely covered in the Western media at present, and they usually fail to mention some of the details which I’ve outlined below.

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Eight years ago, on 17 July 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17) was shot down approximately 30 miles from the Ukrainian-Russian border, while fighting raged below between Western-supported groups and Moscow-backed separatists.

During late afternoon local time 298 people, including crew members, lost their lives when the scheduled passenger aircraft was blown out of the sky. In the following time, some of the dead were found scattered in the surrounding sunflower fields.

Many reports later emanated from Western media, without necessary supporting evidence, claiming that “Russian-sponsored militants” were responsible for firing a Buk surface-to-air missile at the plane. Buk missile systems are in fact under possession of both Moscow and Kiev.

Almost 200 of those killed were of Dutch nationality – with the aircraft itself, a 64 metre long Boeing 777-200ER, having intended to reach Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital, after departing Amsterdam about three hours before.

Also among the dead were dozens of Malaysians and Australians, along with smaller numbers of deceased from Indonesia, Britain, Germany, etc. One should firstly question the planning involved behind allowing a civilian airliner to fly, however high, over one of the world’s most volatile war zones; while over preceding weeks, several warplanes had been blasted down in nearby areas. Such is the relentless advancement in military technology that little is out of harm’s way.

The fighting that erupted in the east of Ukraine can be traced to a US-instituted coup d’état of February 2014 – confirmed by president Barack Obama on CNN a year later when he confided that Washington had “brokered a deal to transition power” in the country, forcing Viktor Yanukovych from office.

Notwithstanding who was culpable in shooting down MH17, there would have been little chance of such a tragedy had the US not consistently interfered in a nation which shares a thousand-long kilometre border with Russia to the east. One can imagine the response were Moscow destabilizing a government in Mexico.

American intrusion in Ukrainian state affairs was taking place for many years. As the Soviet Union crumbled, the United States made moves to enter Russia’s traditional “backyard”. Victoria Nuland, a then US Assistant Secretary of State, confirmed as much in a December 2013 interview when she said that,

“Since the declaration of Ukrainian independence in 1991” the US has “invested more than five billion dollars to help Ukraine”.

Also in December 2013, US Senators John McCain and Christopher Murphy were immersed in the “Maidan protests” taking place in Kiev, actively encouraging the marchers; which constituted flagrant interference by foreign elected representatives in a sovereign country, let alone one sharing a broad frontier with a nuclear superpower in Russia.

What’s more, many of the protesters comprised of armed far-right gangs belonging to fascist parties like Svoboda and Right Sector. Among those was the neo-Nazi Dmytro Yarosh, a future and current Ukrainian member of parliament (MP), who in the past was briefly placed on Interpol’s international wanted list. Yarosh is a long-time admirer of the Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.

Nuland herself assisted in the Maidan protests’ organization, whose aim was the quick departure of president Yanukovych, while she remained in contact with McCain and Murphy in Kiev. Furthermore, Nuland visited the Ukrainian capital during December 2013 where she met with among others Oleh Tyahnybok, leader of the far-right Svoboda party. Tyahnybok was another key figure amid the supposedly democratic-minded Kiev protesters, that Western audiences were so often informed of.

The reality was different. One local observer to the clashes occurring in Kiev’s Maidan Square remarked that,

“I think’s it’s very funny to see European politicians make grandiose statements about ‘Maidan’ and democracy, when virtually all these types facing the police in the streets are fascists. It is one big hypocrisy. The Euro-Atlantics are willing to work with anyone as long as this contributes to weakening Russia”.

The true identity underlying much of those protesting either went unreported or was misrepresented by journalists; who are presumably not permitted to write unequivocal terms like “neo-Nazi” and “fascist”, instead using obscure descriptions such as “ultra-conservative” or “maverick”.

In addition, during February 2014 Nuland participated in choosing Yanukovych’s potential successor, such is the extent of control Washington has in the Ukraine. When Nuland was informed of European ambivalence in provoking Moscow regarding Ukrainian government institutions – due to Europe’s economic reliance on the Kremlin – she replied, “F*ck the EU”.

Despite a clear increased risk of nuclear war between America and Russia, as was surely known beforehand, the coup underwent prompt implementation. Ousted was Yanukovych, an unpopular but democratically elected leader, to be replaced with Petro Poroshenko, an even worse figurehead. Poroshenko would receive a bare minimum of criticism and scrutiny while serving his appointed role as US proxy leader.

In the more than five years since elapsing, what followed was a remarkable willingness from the West to support, arm and overlook the far-right elements of Kiev’s regime. Relating to MH17, it is hardly surprising that from the beginning suspicion was diverted from US-backed elements, in spite of their dubious links.

The MH17 aircraft was destroyed over a region in which the Battle of Shakhtarsk was unfolding below, as part of the War in Donbass. During this clash, among those fighting in the Western-supported Ukrainian forces was the Azov Battalion, which is a fully-fledged neo-Nazi regiment.

The Azov Battalion, donning Hitlerite insignia on its equipment and armoured vehicles, was at the time led by Andriy Biletsky, its founder. He is a rather formidable white supremacist, who has been working as a Ukrainian MP since November 2014. Earlier in 2014 Biletsky outlined that their “mission” is “to lead the white races of the world in a final crusade for their survival. A crusade against the Semite-led Untermenschen [sub-humans]”.

Biletsky is merely one of a range of extremists elected as MPs since the “pro-democracy revolution” of early 2014 took hold. Many other far-right figures were sworn to office in the following months, from Dmytro Yarosh and Ihor Mosiychuk to Boryslav Bereza, Semen Semenchenko and Volodymyr Parasyuk.

In Germany, images of Azov Battalion soldiers kitted out in helmets emblazoned with Nazi swastikas were shown on national television. German viewers were appalled that such groups were associated with the West, as past visions came flooding back.

There were no calls to investigate as to whether the Azov Battalion, or other far-right regiments, could have been responsible for shooting down MH17; the finger was pointed with little hesitation at pro-Russian rebels and their Kremlin guardians, while Azov Battalion members were portrayed by the Washington Post as “battle-scarred patriots”.

The Pentagon aim in Yanukovych’s toppling was obvious enough, as it included removing the Ukraine from Russia’s orbit of influence and incorporating it into the West. These regions bordering Russia are also rich in natural resources from high profit agriculture to oil and shale gas.

A resurgent Kremlin is incompatible with the policies of NATO (meaning the US), which this century has expanded to Russia’s actual frontiers – once more leading to a growing chance of nuclear war erupting, but policies which have been broadly accepted. NATO enlargement on its own performed a considerable role in the build-up to the Ukraine crisis.

Regarding the shoot-down of MH17, one can only wonder what benefit this act would have had for the Kremlin. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that no convincing cause can be attached to the Russians deliberately pursuing such an action.

The MH17 aircraft held no links to the fighting then spreading in eastern Ukraine, or likewise to separate foreign policy initiatives that Moscow was embroiled in. Yet five years on, the New York Times continues holding the Kremlin to account, describing the MH17 incident as “murder committed by men acting on Moscow’s orders in a proxy war against Ukraine”.

Not mentioned in the New York Times’ editorial, is the July 1988 shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes, a large American warship – which had previously earned the nickname of “Robo Cruiser” due to its aggressive behaviour. On this occasion 290 people died, 238 of them Iranians, and it ranks as a war crime in which there was no doubt as to the perpetrators.

Air Flight 655’s taking down occurred at the end of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), in which the Reagan administration was backing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein; and in opposition to an Iran which had dislodged itself from Washington’s control in the 1979 revolution.

Rather than the guilty being held to account, they were later decorated with awards for unrelated exploits in the Persian Gulf, including the Vincennes’ commander, William C. Rogers III, who was distinguished with “especially meritorious conduct”. In this instance, the New York Times’ reaction was somewhat different as the newspaper described the aircraft’s destruction as “an accident” and that “it was hard to see what the Navy could have done to avoid it”.

David Carlson, captain of a US warship stationed a short distance from the Vincennes, disagreed with the Times’ analysis. Carlson wrote in the US Naval Proceedings that he “wondered allowed in disbelief” as “The Vincennes announced her intentions” to attack a civilian airliner on its normal flight path. Carlson surmised that the Vincennes “felt a need to prove the viability of Aegis in the Persian Gulf”.

The Aegis radar system was then the most advanced in the world, which could easily discern a passenger aircraft from that of a warplane.

At the time that Air Flight 655 was struck it was flying at an altitude of 13,500 feet, while MH17 was cruising at a height of 33,000 feet. By comparison, Mount Everest’s summit stands at 29,000 feet. Those culpable for bringing down MH17 may not have been certain that it was a civilian airliner to begin with.

A Dutch-led inquiry into MH17, with Australian assistance, has in recent weeks found Russia “liable” and “responsible” for the plane’s demise. It is only natural that the Netherlands’ government would feel aggrieved at the deaths of nearly 200 of its citizens – yet the evidence is far from clear-cut that Moscow is either directly or partly responsible for MH17’s loss.

Russian analysts have been excluded from the inquiry, and it is left to speculation as to why this is the case. When accused of a crime one should surely have the chance to defend oneself, and provide possible proof to the contrary.

Last month, Dutch prosecutors issued international arrest warrants to four men – three Russians and a Ukrainian – despite the chief prosecutor Fred Westerbeke admitting that,

“The possibility also exists that they wanted to shoot down a Ukrainian military aircraft. However, we still hold them responsible”.

Westerbeke has confirmed the men in question are not even accused of firing the weapon, but are instead “just as punishable as the person who committed the crime” under Dutch law.

Nearly two weeks ago another man, Ukrainian citizen Vladimir Tsemakh, was arrested but he is not suspected of attacking MH17; and is instead reported to be a “valuable witness” while his relatives purport that Kiev plans to “frame” him. Tsemakh is under suspicion too for “creating a terrorist group” which could result in 15 years’ imprisonment.

It would be unwise to overlook the likely US government influence behind much of what is transpiring here. The Dutch investigation of MH17 has been consistently supported by Washington officials like Heather Nauert.

In international affairs, the major powers and their interests routinely dictate the actions of smaller nations. This is particularly the case with diminutive states that enter into unions dominated by the strongest countries.

Dutch accession in 1949 to NATO, the US-run military organization, has significantly undermined their independence for a number of decades. Most serious is that the Netherlands is a de facto nuclear power, and has in fact held this status since April 1960, when the country first began accepting US nuclear weapons as part of NATO strategy.

Australia’s involvement in the MH17 proceedings also merits a degree of wariness. In recent years, following the West’s lead, Australian administrations have engineered and expanded a range of sanctions against Russia – relating from the March 2014 Crimea takeover to the Kerch Strait incident of last November.

US-Aussie relations have long been collaborative, and are growing closer in an attempt to offset rising Chinese power in the Pacific region. Australian governments sanctioned military engagement alongside US forces in the highly destructive wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Oriental Review

Is Your Body the Legal Property of Big Pharma?

November 18th, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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The political corruption we see today has grown out of a long-term unholy alliance between U.S. intelligence agencies and organized crime syndicates

This intelligence/organized crime ring is setting into place a technocratic form of feudalism, a transhumanist slavery system

Transhumanism is eugenics rebranded, and the merger of Silicon Valley companies with Big Pharma is eugenics framed as health care. COVID has now shown us that this rebranded form of eugenics can be forced on us

While transhumanism is sold to us as a way to provide health equity for all, the reality is the complete opposite. Military reports confirm that the emergence of augmented cyborgs will not create equity but rather increase disparities. Unless you’re in an elite class, transhumanism will not benefit you. Instead, you’re destined to be a lab rat to help perfect transhumanist tech, as we’re seeing right now with the COVID shots

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In the video above, Glenn Beck interviews investigative journalist Whitney Webb about her book, “One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein,” Parts 1 and 2.

These books provide the necessary framework to understand not just Jeffrey Epstein’s geopolitical role and function, but also, more broadly, the deep connections between the U.S. intelligence community and organized crime.

The political corruption we see today grew out of this unholy alliance, which has led to blackmail and bribery being two key strategies by which the wealthy self-described “elites” maintain power and influence from behind the scenes.

As noted by Beck, Webb “is a massive threat to powerful people. If people will listen and … explore what she’s saying, the game is up.” I agree. People need to understand how the system we thought we knew actually works, how it’s been used against us, and what the end game is.

Organized Crime at the Highest Levels

Epstein’s pedophilia and sexual blackmail enterprise was a central cog in this network of corruption for decades. He was also involved in many other questionable and/or criminal enterprises, including financial crimes, but he wasn’t necessarily at the top level in any of them. Webb describes him more as a middle-management-type of character, carrying out orders from higher-ups, including U.S. intelligence.

Overall, these “higher-ups” are people who favor globalism and global governance, and who don’t want the United States to have a monopoly on power. This is part of why the power of the U.S. is now being dismantled before our eyes, but the undermining and infiltration have been going on for decades.

As noted by Beck and Webb, our government is basically being run by organized crime, and this organized crime ring is setting into place a technocratic form of feudalism, a digital slavery system.

The reason Epstein’s financial crimes matter is because they’re like a microcosm of what has been going on in the U.S. for decades. According to Catherine Austin Fitts and Mark Skidmore, an estimated $21 trillion of U.S. taxpayer money have already been looted, stolen and siphoned out. Where did all that money go? Who took it?

Against that background of having already been looted, we’re now facing a radical degradation of our standard of living, with rising inflation and manufactured energy and food crises piled on top of each other.

All of these things, Webb says, are part of a plan to coerce us into accepting the unacceptable. Making sure people are cold, hungry, destitute and desperate is a surefire way to get people to cooperate with the globalist takeover, which includes a radical transition into transhumanism.

Transhumanism Is Eugenics Rebranded

In the interview, Webb reviews the history of transhumanism, the roots of which go back to Julian Huxley, brother of the famous author Aldous Huxley. Julian was president of the British Eugenics Society.

When the United Nations was created after World War II, he was put in charge of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the stated aim of which is to promote world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture.

But in writing about his vision for UNESCO, Julian said about eugenics, “We need to make the unthinkable thinkable again.” Ten years later, in 1957, he coined the term “transhumanism,” and described it as eugenics through the merging of man with machine.

So, transhumanism is eugenics rebranded. This is also corroborated by the fact that the same people, families and organizations that in the past supported eugenics now support transhumanism. Likewise, the merger of Silicon Valley companies with Big Pharma is nothing other than eugenics framed as health care. And COVID has now shown us that this rebranded form of eugenics can be forced on us.

Transhumanism Is Not for Betterment of the Average Person

As noted by Webb, while transhumanism is sold to us as a way for all people to obtain health and longevity — health equity for all! — the reality will be far from equitable.

She points out that science fiction writer H.G Wells once described the transhumanist future as one in which there is a physically and intellectually augmented elite class, and squat, dwarf-like, slave underclass that eats bugs and doesn’t even have the cognitive capacity to rebel.

Sound familiar? The World Economic Forum and their allied networks are pushing for a transition from real meat to insects. One of the primary side effects of the bioweapon referred to as the “COVID-19 vaccine,” aside from early death, is neurological dysfunction, and the masking, lockdowns and shuttering of schools have resulted in children who are nonverbal, cognitively impaired and/or years behind on core reading and math skills.

The Transhumanist Plan Is Being Fast-Tracked

As detailed in “The Plan to Turn You Into a Genetically Edited Human Cyborg,” a 2021 report by the U.K. Ministry of Defense and the German Bundeswehr Office for Defense Planning offers shocking insights into the dystopian cybernetics future that global technocrats are pushing us toward.

The report, “Human Augmentation — The Dawn of a New Paradigm, a Strategic Implications Project,”1 reviews the scientific goals of the U.K. and German defense ministries, and they are precisely what the title suggests. Human augmentation is stressed as being a key area of development.

It’s worth noting that anything released to the public is a decade or more behind current capabilities, so everything in this report can be considered dated news, even though it reads like pure science fiction.

Importantly, the report notes that “Human augmentation has the potential to … change the meaning of what it means to be a human.” This is precisely what Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), has stated is the goal of The Fourth Industrial Revolution.2

Schwab has stated that “the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to a fusion of our physical, our digital and our biological identities.”3 Beyond your own “enhanced” 5G cloud-connected self, the WEF foresees a near future in which everyone’s digital identity is connected to each other through an “Internet of Bodies” (IoB).4,5

The fact that we’re moving at lightning speed into the transhumanist future envisioned by the WEF and militaries around the world is also evidenced by President Biden’s September 2022 Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology, which places development of genetic engineering techniques “to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology” on the fast-track.

US Defense Department Is Also Working on Human Cyborgs

In a September 14, 2022, Substack article,6 Dr. Robert Malone also reviewed the U.S. DoD’s plans for an army of human cyborgs. Certain report titles alone tell the story, such as the Biotechnologies for Health and Human Performance Council’s report7 “Cyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and the Implications for the Future of the DOD.” According to the assessment abstract:

“The primary objective of this effort was to forecast and evaluate the military implications of machines that are physically integrated with the human body to augment and enhance human performance over the next 30 years.

This report summarizes this assessment and findings; identifies four potential military-use cases for new technologies in this area; and assesses their impact upon the DOD organizational structure, warfighter doctrine and tactics, and interoperability with U.S. allies and civil society.”

Human augmentation technologies deemed technically feasible by 2050 at the latest include ocular enhancements to improve sight and situational awareness, optogenetic bodysuit to restore or improve muscular strength and control, auditory enhancements, and neural enhancement of the brain for two-way data transfers and brain-to-brain communication.

With H.G. Wells’ description of our transhumanist future in mind (the two-tiered society of augmented super humans and bug-eating devolved slaves), it’s worth noting that both the DoD’s “Cyborg Soldier” report and the British/German “Human Augmentation” report address the fact that human augmentation will inevitably widen already existing disparities, inequalities and inequities — not close them! — and therefore, “efforts should be undertaken to reverse negative cultural narratives of enhancement technologies.”8

In other words, don’t let people come to the conclusion that human “borgs” are a bad idea, because at worst that might prevent their development, and at best, it’ll pitch regular people against the augmented elite, making their efforts to rule more difficult. Combating negative narratives about the borgification of mankind is also necessary in order to maintain the lie that transhumanism is about leveling the playing field and allowing everyone to live longer and have lifelong health.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know what it will take to prevent the dystopian post-human world envisioned by technocratic transhumanist elitists, but I suspect education would be a cornerstone of such an endeavor. In order for there to be a resistance, enough people need to be aware of what the plan is, and where we’re actually being led with all these novel therapies and inventions.

In the shorter term, it’s crucial to realize that the fast-tracking of “genetic engineering technologies and techniques to be able to write circuitry for cells and predictably program biology in the same way in which we write software and program computers” means they’re going to cut corners. Loads of them.

Testing is basically going to be done on the population at large, just as they’ve done with the COVID jabs. The results of such experimentation are relatively predictable. People will be seriously injured and many will die.

We also still don’t know what the legal standing of people whose genetics are altered by RNA might be, now or in the future, since that has yet to be established.

So please, think long and hard before you agree to take any of these forthcoming gene therapies, be they COVID boosters or any other “vaccines.” They’re not vaccines. They’re gene transfer technologies that alter your DNA.9,10 They’re part of the transhumanist agenda, the Fourth Industrial Revolution — and remember, transhumanism is a eugenics agenda. Same agenda, just new tools.

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Notes

1 Human Augmentation — The Dawn of a New Paradigm, a Strategic Implications Project May 2021

2 WEF The Fourth Industrial Revolution

3 The Sociable November 23, 2020

4 Rand Corporation October 29, 2020

5 Rand Corporation IoB: Our Connected Future

6 RW Malone Substack September 14, 2022

7, 8 Cyborg Soldier 2050: Human/Machine Fusion and the Implications for the Future of the DOD

9 Curr Issues Mol Biol 2022; 44(3): 1115-1126

10 Fulcrum 7 March 3, 2022

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An all-right-wing-religious governing coalition is raising concerns among those who didn’t vote in favour of the Netanyahu-led bloc and from Israel’s principal ally, the United States.

“We see negotiations between the right and the far-right, between the orthodox with the ultra-orthodox,” said former Meretz MK Mossi Raz to The New Arab.

“It’s really scary,” he added.

Left-wing Meretz missed the electoral threshold on November 1st and is now out of the Knesset for the first time since its founding in 1992.

On Wednesday, the Likud party cancelled meetings with Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich after a deadlock in negotiations over ministerial posts. Later, however, understandings between incoming PM Netanyahu and Jewish Power head Itamar Ben Gvir over legalising settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank were announced.

As a result, dozens of outposts in the occupied West Bank not sanctioned by the Israeli government would be retroactively legalised within 60 days of forming the new government.

Smotrich, who has no substantial military background, is asking to be the minister of defence. The Israeli defence ministry is the effective ruler of the occupied West Bank. It controls nearly everything from managing the occupation to Jewish settlements security to military checkpoints to issuing building permits to infrastructure. The critical post also requires extensive manoeuvring with the United States and countries in the region.

The 42-year-old Smotrich was born in a Jewish settlement in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights but grew up in Bet El near Ramallah.

In 2006, he founded the pro-settler Regavim organisation, a notorious body among Palestinians that tracks construction in area C of the occupied West Bank.

Smotrich’s first stint as a member of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, was in 2015 in Naftali Bennet’s Jewish Home party. In 2019 he became minister of Transportation during the 34th government under the premiership of Benjamin Netanyahu. However, it was short-lived; he served the post for about eleven months, after which the 35th government came, and he was out.

Why the defence ministry?

Partly because Smotrich wants to put the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank under the supervision of the relevant ministries, whereas under the current arrangement, they fall under the direct rule of Civil Administration, a branch of the defence establishment. The proposed transfer of jurisdiction was interpreted as an attempt to annex parts of the West Bank and prompted a sharp response from the US Ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides.

Earlier, members of the 25th Knesset were sworn in. As the formal ceremony was taking place inside the Knesset building, a few left-wing protesters stood outside, voicing fears about the new composition of Parliament.

“More than half of the coalition members are religious extremists,” said Laura Wharton, a City Councilor and member of the Meretz party.

Two ultra-religious parties elected to the Knesset, the Shas and United Torah Judaism parties, do not have women parliamentarians in them as a policy.

Leader of the Shas party Aryeh Deri has said in the recent past that politics is not a woman’s “natural place.”

Three members of the newly elected Parliament are vying for key ministerial posts despite having controversial views and a criminal past.

Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party, one of three parties under the umbrella of the Religious Zionism party, is asking to be the minister of Public Security, the ministry that has authority over the Police. Ben Gvir was convicted of racial incitement and supporting a terror organisation.

The Religious Zionist party, apart from Smotrich’s party and Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish power, includes the Noam party, founded in 2019. Noam aims to advance legislation against the LGBT community.

Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, insists on the defence ministry, a vital post in any Israeli government. However, the relatively young Smotrich has neither the qualifications for the job nor the reputation for a position that requires dealing with foreign counterparts. In 2005, as Israel was withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, the young Smotrich was arrested by the Police for three weeks after he was suspected of planning an attack against Israeli soldiers tasked with enforcing the eviction of settlers out of the Strip. Smotrich was not charged, however.

The third MK heralds from the orthodox Shas party, founded by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in 1984. It represents Jews of Hispanic and Middle Eastern origins, and its followers advocate Jewish religious law. MK Aryeh Deri, now party leader, is looking at the finance ministry. Earlier in the year, Deri was convicted by a court for tax evasion.

“It’s a kleptocracy,” Wharton charged.

“Smotrich is a draft dodger, but he wants to be defence minister. Ben Gvir has a substantial criminal record and wants to be head of the Police and we have Deri who sat in prison for tax fraud and he wants to be the minister of finance.”

According to Hebrew media, the US has signalled Netanyahu to appoint ministers they can work with, most likely a reference to the future defence minister.

Reports that Netanyahu had been conducting unity government talks with rival centrist parties were denied by the Likud, Lapid and Gantz.

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US Expanding Its Military Presence in Syria

November 18th, 2022 by Free West Media

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There are currently an impressive 28 US military bases on Syrian territory. They were erected without the consent of the government in Damascus and serve to provide military security for the oil areas.

The existing 28 bases (17 in Hasakah Province, 9 in Deir Ezzor Province and 2 in Homs Province) will be joined by another one near the Al-Raqqa Bridge over the Euphrates River in Deir Ezzor. The eastern environs of Deir Ezzor are home to the most strategically important military bases, including the al-Omar oil field base – one of the largest in Syria – and the Conoco gas field.

The UK-based opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) recently released photos showing the construction of the facility. According to SOHR, US forces have recently set up another military post in the village of Naqara, three kilometers from Qamishli in the northeastern province of Hasakah. As a result, the United States’ military footprint is growing.

The distribution of illegal US military bases corresponds to a cordon around the oil and gas wells east of the Euphrates, which make up most of Syria’s mineral resources. In doing so, they also prevent the Syrian government from accessing the important resources that would be important for the reconstruction of the pacified areas.

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Poland WWIII Scare Shows Why Top US General Wants Peace

November 18th, 2022 by Douglas Macgregor

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Retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor on the World War III scare in Poland and the reported Pentagon-State Department split over Ukraine-Russia peace.

After accusing Russia of firing missiles into Poland — and triggering calls from Ukraine for direct NATO military intervention — US officials are now acknowledging that Ukrainian air defenses were likely responsible.

Douglas Macgregor, a retired Army Colonel and former senior Pentagon adviser, says the Poland scare underscores why the US top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, has split from White House bureaucrats to call for diplomacy with Russia in order to end the Ukraine war.

Guest: Douglas Macgregor. Retired US Army Colonel and former Pentagon senior advisor.

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Signs of Diplomacy in Ukraine? Finding a Faint Pulse

November 18th, 2022 by Ted Snider

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As the intense combat and missile strikes show, peace is still a distant hope in Ukraine. But, for the first time in a long time, a faint diplomatic pulse has been found.

In early November, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and privately pushed him to “signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power.”

Publicly, Washington insists that its message was not an attempt to push Ukraine to the negotiating table, but rather an attempt to manage international perceptions. The plan was to strengthen Ukraine’s leverage by “reinforc[ing] to the world that it’s Ukraine, not Russia, that wants to resolve the conflict.”

But subsequent reporting has suggested that privately the push was more than perception management. Sullivan “raised the need for a diplomatic resolution to the war,” according to Ukrainian officials. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Two European diplomats briefed on the discussions said Mr. Sullivan recommended that Mr. Zelensky’s team start thinking about its realistic demands and priorities for negotiations, including a reconsideration of its stated aim for Ukraine to regain Crimea, which was annexed in 2014.” A Western European official said,

“We are saying to the Ukrainians that it is up to them to decide when to do it,” but then added, “But it might be a good idea to do it sooner.”

Even Biden made the rare suggestion that Ukraine will need to compromise in negotiations, saying in a press conference the day after the midterms that “it remains to be seen whether or not there’ll be a judgment made as to whether or not Ukraine is prepared to compromise with Russia.”

The change in tone from Washington is not really a change in strategy. The Biden administration has long insisted that its goal is to back Ukraine “on the battlefield” until “facts on the ground” put Ukraine “in the strongest possible position at the negotiating table.”

But there is a position gaining strength in the US that that moment may be now. It is the Pentagon that is leading that camp. On November 9, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said,

“There has to be a mutual recognition that a military victory is probably, in the true sense of the word is maybe not achievable through military means,” he added, “and therefore you need to turn to other means.”

Some military analysts say that Ukraine will face tougher ground and greater logistical challenges as they move further east and that Kherson is likely the last Russian held ground that Ukraine will be able to retake in the foreseeable future. Some officials have begun “to wonder aloud how much more territory can be won by either side, and at what cost.” That has led some to begin to speak of an “inflection point” where Ukraine’s gains may have reached an apex that can no longer be pushed without declining to a weaker position.

There are reports that the “inflection point” view is shared by other NATO militaries. According to those reports, Germany and France believe that “parity will not last long and that now is the optimal time for Ukraine to start talking.”

There are signs that some of those early talks may have – if secretly – begun. On November 6, it was revealed that Sullivan “has been in contact with Yuri Ushakov, a foreign-policy adviser to Mr. Putin” and with Russia’s Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev. That seems to have been the first high level contact between Washington and Moscow since the beginning of the war. Sullivan then went to Kiev to begin the push for “openness to negotiate with Russia.”

On November 8, Zelensky announced a new openness to for “real peace talks” with Russia.

On November 7, Italy’s La Repubblica reported that “The US and NATO think that launching peace talks on Ukraine would be possible if Kiev takes back Kherson.” Two days later, NBC similarly reported that “U.S. and Western officials” have said that “If Ukraine wins in Kherson, it could put the Zelensky government in a better position to negotiate.”

On November 9, reports broke that Russia seemed to be withdrawing from Kherson City.

Those these events are probably not connected, they have the appearance of secret negotiations. The appearance is strengthened by the ease of the Russian withdrawal. It had been suggested that Russian troops leaving Kherson City would be vulnerable to massive Ukrainian assaults. But on November 11, the Russian defense ministry had already reported that the withdrawal was complete with “no loss of personnel. . . .” The safety and ease of the withdrawal suggests very good planning by Russian General Sergey Surovikin. But it also fits the picture of a withdrawal negotiated in secret.

Though that secret negotiation likely never took place, it has now been confirmed that other secret negotiations did.

On November 14, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that “negotiations did, indeed, take place.” He said that the talks were held in Ankara and that they “were initiated by the US side.” It was later revealed that the US official present at the talks in Turkey was CIA Director William Burns and that the official he was meeting was his Russian counterpart, the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin.

A US National Security Council official said that the discussion was limited to warning Russia about using a nuclear weapon and Americans in prison in Russia and that it steered “clear of the matter of Russia’s war in Ukraine and a potential resolution to it.”

But it strains credibility that Biden would send his Director of the CIA to Turkey merely to reiterate a warning against using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The warning had already been issued, and Putin had already clarified that that Russia would not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. The meeting suggests the possibility of more substantive talks on the war.

The seriousness and the signs of hope for negotiations are embodied in the person Washington sent to Ankara. William Burns is a former US ambassador to Russia and one of the few people in Biden’s administration with a real knowledge of Russia and of Russia’s relations with NATO and the West.

It was then ambassador Burns who, in 2008, warned that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin).” He warned Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that “I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” Short even of expansion into Ukraine, Burns called NATO expansion into Eastern Europe “premature at best, and needlessly provocative at worst.” If it came to Ukraine, Burns warned, “There could be no doubt that Putin would fight back hard.”

Though way overqualified to warn Russia against using a nuclear weapon that they are not going to use, Burns would be an appropriate choice to establish negotiations with Russia over the war in Ukraine and NATO’s relationship with Ukraine.

There is growing evidence that Burns is playing that larger role. Zelensky has revealed that on November 15, after Burns spoke to his Russian counterpart in Ankara, he headed to Ukraine for talks with Zelensky and top Ukrainian intelligence officials. US officials told the Washington Post that Burns “discussed a US warning he had delivered on Monday to the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service “not to use nuclear weapons” in its war on Ukraine” and “reinforced the US commitment to provide support to Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.” But Zelensky suggested that the talks did not steer “clear of the matter of Russia’s war in Ukraine and a potential resolution to it.” According to Zelensky, “Yesterday, Burns sat in the bomb shelter. And then we talked with him. We discussed all the issues important to us. We know each other. He is on the side of Ukraine”

NATO’s encroachment on Russia’s borders and its arrival in Ukraine is at the heart of the war. On September 30, Zelensky renewed Ukraine’s plea for accelerated NATO membership. But in another hopeful indication that negotiations are being incubated, Zelensky seems to have removed that core demand three times now.

When Zelensky made his November 8 announcement of a willingness to talk to Putin, he included a list of preconditions, including “restoration of [Ukraine’s] territorial integrity … compensation for all war damage, punishment for every war criminal and guarantees that it will not happen again.” He did not include NATO membership.

Then on November 10, Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov took Zelensky’s formulation of “De facto, we have already completed our path to NATO. Today, Ukraine is applying to make it de jure” and subtly amended it. His updated formulation maintained the first part, “We have become a NATO partner de facto right now” but changed the second part to “It doesn’t matter when we become a member of the NATO alliance de jure.” With that subtle reformulation, Ukraine may have accepted a de jure membership in NATO that falls short of a de facto one.

Then, via video link at the G20 summit in Indonesia, Zelensky dropped the NATO demand for a third time. Zelensky presented a ten-point peace plan. He said then when all the points “are implemented . . . a document confirming the end of the war should be signed by the parties.” Zelensky’s ten points include “preventing ecocide in Ukraine, punishing those responsible for war crimes, withdrawing all Russian troops from the territory of Ukraine, restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity . . . the release of all prisoners of war and deportees [and] ensuring energy security, food security, and nuclear safety.” Not to be found in the ten points was any mention of NATO membership for Ukraine.

Diplomacy has a long way to go, and more compromises will have to be made by both sides. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who was present for Zelensky’s presentation at the G20 summit, saw the ten-point plan as confirmation that Ukraine’s preconditions for ending the war were unrealistic. He said “the only conclusion” he could reach after the presentation was that Zelensky “so far takes no Western suggestion” to be more flexible and to negotiate.

However, the faint pulse may be strengthening. On November 16, Zelensky confirmed that he had received signals from the West that Putin desired direct negotiations with Ukraine: “I received signals that Putin wants direct negotiations. I received such signals. I proposed a public form, because Russia is waging a public war.”

There is a change in tone and there are signs that early negotiations may already have begun.

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Ted Snider has a graduate degree in philosophy and writes on analyzing patterns in US foreign policy and history.

Featured image is from OneWorld

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G20 Summit Closes Civic Space on Freedom of Speech

November 18th, 2022 by Jenny Tuazon

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The Group of 20 (G20) Summit in Indonesia kicks off today where leaders of the world’s major economies are gathering with this year’s theme, “Recover Together, Recover Stronger.

However, groups have reported harassment and closure of civil society events in Bali by the authorities.

The summit’s theme doesn’t seem to make sense when the Indonesian people are being deprived of their basic rights to express themselves freely and to assemble peacefully at a time when these world leaders need to hear people’s voices more than ever. These people are the most impacted by a manifold of crises – economic, health, and climate.

Here’s the joint statement of the Indonesian Civil Society:

Jakarta – The G20 summit will soon take place in Bali. Instead of allowing civic space for meaningful public involvement and participation, the Provincial Government of Bali and the Central Government have issued various policies to limit public activities during the G20 in Bali, including the Governor of Bali Circular No: 35425/SEKRET/2022 regarding the Enforcement of Restrictions on Community Activities in the Implementation of the G20 Presidency. Moreover, the Central Government previously stated that it did not want other narratives other than those considered to be represented by the countries that were members of the G20.

The policy issued by the Provincial Government of Bali and supported by the Central Government is an utter disappointment, which shows the government’s failure to understand the Constitution, the highest legal umbrella in the life of the nation and state, namely democracy. Expressing aspirations, opinions, and thoughts is a constitutional right of citizens and part of citizens’ efforts to play an active role in the life of the nation and state, including development. The government should open various channels for civic aspirations and citizens’ voices should be respected and protected.

This policy even has an impact on various activities to convey aspirations in various forms of religious events and activities that civil society organizations and Balinese people will hold, as well as limiting the daily activities of Balinese people.

Moreover, our records show further enclosure of civic space where civil society activities were unilaterally restricted and canceled, which includes:

  • The eviction of Greenpeace cyclist team by a group of people in Probolinggo
  • One-sided event cancellation by venue through a sudden circulation letter from the indigenous village (desa adat) in Kesiman
  • Threats to disband discussions at the university by the chancellor himself
  • Forced disbandment of YLBHI’s internal event in Sanur by means of intimidation and attempts to control and search personal gadgets
  • Disbandment of a youth community art workshop in Denpasar on grounds that there was a banner that read “from Pollution to Solutions”
  • Intimidation by local thugs entering hotels where activists are staying

Not only that, several hotel managers where environmental activists were staying also received intimidation from parties who claimed to be intelligence officers from the local Kodim. The party claiming to be intelligence agents, persistently asked the hotel manager for the personal phone number of activists staying at the hotel. The hotel did not provide the telephone number to protect customers personal data. Moreover, we also noted that there was surveillance and attempts to hack the activists’ devices before and during the executions of this Summit.

We, civil society organizations, view these restrictions on public activities as an effort to silence the critical voices of the public towards the global and national economic system which has a direct causal impact on multidimensional crises. Economic crisis, climate crisis, health crisis, and many others. We see these state efforts to reflect the government’s anti-democratic and anti-criticism attitude, which does not want a different public voice from the narrative built by the government so far.

The Government of Indonesia as the holder of the mandate of the G20 Presidency, should take the lead by opening the widest possible democratic space for the public, to allow us to take an active role in the implementation of the G20. As an economic forum whose policies will majorly impact society, the G20 should understand the diversity of community needs and interests as the bare essentials in making decisions. Especially in the experience so far, it is the independent initiatives built by the people that are able to survive & are more resilient in the face of crises. The voices of the people and communities at the grassroots should be heard and given space, not silenced.

The principles of democracy and human rights are prerequisites to achieving a just and sustainable life. We also urge the leaders of the G20 member countries to see the issue of democracy as a crucial issue for executing the G20 Summit. Without meaningful involvement or participation from citizens who will be affected by the agreements produced in the G20 forum, then the forum and the communique produced will have no meaning at all for citizens. Furthermore, this will also go down in history as other G20 member countries support the suppression of democracy in Indonesia.

Twelve organisations, including our very own team in Asia, signed this joint statement. You can see the list here.

Let’s stand in solidarity with the Indonesian people who are doing their best right now to have their voices heard at the G20 summit – take action with us.

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The sudden collapse of a crypto exchange linked to the Democratic Party in the US, has revealed that FTX presently suffers from $10-$50 billion in liabilities and virtually no assets. And among those liabilities, are “investments” made by Ukraine’s leadership clique.

The company FTX, in its bankruptcy filing appears to have held tens-of-billions in American “military aid” to Ukraine. Instead of using the alleged funds to fight Russia, the money was instead invested in the FTX Ponzi scheme.

From the bankruptcy filing it is clear that this money has now disappeared.

“Instead of using US military aid to fight Russia, Ukraine ‘invested’ part or all of it, into FTX, and right now, it looks like all the money’s gone,” said Hal Turner, a well-known American radio host.

The crypto money from unsuspecting clients was also used to fund the Democratic Party in the United States. More evidence has surfaced suggesting that the funds may have been stolen.

The CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, was one of the top donors to the Democrats, with only George Soros outperforming his largesse. Recently, he also shared a podium with inveterate globalists Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

According to Turner, it seems that Ukraine was receiving money from the US, and then sent it to FTX, and FTX sent it to the same Democrats, who had originally voted to send it to Ukraine.

“At this hour, it appears to some observers to be pure, criminal, money-laundering, and a criminal conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws,” said Turner.

Reuters exclusively reported that the founder and CEO FTX transferred $10 billion of customer funds from FTX to the trading company Alameda Research, which is run by his girlfriend Caroline Ellison.

Sam Bankman-Fried was born in 1992 on the campus of Stanford University into a family of academics. Born and raised to an upper-middle-class Jewish family in California, he is the son of Barbara Fried and Joseph Bankman, both professors at Stanford Law School. His aunt Linda P. Fried is the current dean of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. His brother, Gabe Bankman-Fried, is a former Wall Street trader and the director of the non-profit Guarding Against Pandemics.

He was the second-largest individual donor to Democratic causes in the 2021–2022 election cycle with total donations of $39,8 million, only behind Soros. Of this, $27 million was given to Protect our Future PAC, bankrolled by Bankman-Fried.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are currently looking into whether FTX.com mishandled customer funds. Bankman-Fried is also being investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for potential violations of securities rules.

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Featured image: CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (right) with Blair and Clinton. Facebook

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The South Korean and Saudi Arabian leaders pledged to boost defense, construction, and energy relations on 17 November, as Riyadh signed agreements amounting to $30 billion with Seoul-based companies to establish a “strategic partnership.” 

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told Saudi’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) that he hopes the two countries can expand bilateral cooperation, adding that the kingdom is a key partner for its energy and economic security.

In a statement, Yoon remarked that South Korea aims to incorporate national companies into projects such as the $500 billion NEOM smart city project northwest of Saudi Arabia, as well as expand nuclear energy cooperation.

“In particular, [MbS] said he would like to drastically strengthen cooperation with South Korea in the areas of the defense industry, infrastructure, and construction,” Yoon’s office disclosed.

Among the agreements, Korea Electric Power Corp (KEPCO) and four other Korean firms signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to build and operate a hydrogen and ammonia production plant in the Saudi kingdom, the company said.

Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco also said it plans to invest $7 billion in South Korea’s petrochemical project.

MbS is currently on a tour of East Asia, having previously stopped in Indonesia to participate in G20. The crown prince will visit Thailand and Japan next to discuss energy and bilateral cooperation, according to state-run news outlet Al Riyadh.

As a result of Washington’s strained relationship with the kingdom after the OPEC decision to cut its oil production by 2 million barrels per day, Saudi Arabia has decided to lean eastwards for economic expansion.

In October, the Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed China’s support for the expansion of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) strategic alliance. Earlier, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said that MbS expressed a desire to join the group.

Saudi Arabia, a founding member of OPEC, is one of the world’s largest crude oil exporters. 

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Crypto Fraud Exposes Woke Capitalism as a Scam

November 18th, 2022 by Michael Shellenberger

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Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, which was, until last week, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange, is today facing prison time for allegedly defrauding his customers of billions of dollars.

Bankman-Fried, 30, donated to many progressive causes allied with the “effective altruism movement,” including pandemic prevention and response. He spoke at, and presumably donated to, the World Economic Forum’s Davos conference last May and the Clinton Foundation’s Clinton Global Initiative in September. Bankman-Fried is similar to Bernie Madoff in that both men used philanthropic giving, and the veneer of humility, to create a positive reputation while running pyramid schemes that should have set off red flags among investors, regulators, and journalists.

In truth, the Bankman-Fried scandal shows that all do-gooder capitalism should set off red flags. Bankman-Fried claimed he was only trying to get rich in order to raise money for charity, and investors and journalists overwhelmingly took him at his word, even while visiting him at his $40 million home in the Bahamas.

“You were really good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers,” a Vox reporter said to Bankman-Fried last night, to which he responded, “ya, hehe… I feel bad for those who get fucked by it. By this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths [sic] so everyone likes us.”

Kelsey Piper: you were really good at talking about ethics, for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers Sam Bankman-Fried: ya. Hehe. I had to be. it’s what reputations are made of, to some extent. I feel bad for those who get fucked by it, by this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shiboleths and so everyone likes us.

Defenders of do-gooder capitalism say that socially-responsible investing, which was rebranded as ESG to refer to investing that takes environmental, social, and governance issues into account, has done a lot of good. They point to ESG investments in things like renewable energy, electric vehicles, and carbon offsets as proof that capitalism and philanthropy can co-exist.

But ESG has been rocked by scandal after scandal for greenwashing things that are bad for the environment, people, and democracy. Few carbon offsets actually reduce carbon emissions. Many are scams. Some pay landowners to not cut down trees they were never going to log. Others pay renewable energy developers who were already going to build wind and solar projects. Most solar panels and electric car batteries are made in Xinjiang, China by incarcerated Uyghur Muslims. Solar projects require 300-600 times more land than nuclear or natural gas plants and are devastating fragile desert environments. And there is no waste disposal solution for used solar panels, a hazardous waste, which means they will be sent to landfills or dumped on poor nations. Even Bankman-Fried acknowledges that “ESG has been perverted beyond recognition.”

“Fraud” may seem like a harsh word for describing ESG, but Black’s Law defines fraud as an activity that relies on deception in order to achieve a gain, and ESG certifiers, and sellers of solar panels and solar projects, know perfectly well that their projects violate the letter and spirit of ESG. Representatives of the renewable energy industry for years claimed their products were cheaper than other energy sources even as they were lobbying Congress for $369 billion in subsidies. And many ESG funds exclude nuclear energy even though nuclear has the smallest environmental footprint of any energy source, pays higher wages than solar, and enjoys the strictest regulatory governance of any energy source.

In truth, societies are much more vulnerable to ESG, renewable energy, and offset frauds than to con artists like Madoff and Bankman-Fried. The latter are caught as soon as the stock market crashes and their pyramid scheme collapses. ESG, renewables, and offsets, by contrast, continue to find customers despite scandal after scandal — as do the the Clinton Foundation and World Economic Forum. The Clinton Foundation is still holding pay-to-play conferences despite having been caught accepting $10 to $25 million from Saudi Arabia and $1 million from Qatar before and while, respectively, Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. And the World Economic Forum’s founder, Klaus Schwab, was at the G-20 meeting this week despite revelations that WEF promoted FTX.

As such, the question is not why Woke frauds like Bankman-Fried do what they do, nor why they get caught, but rather why people fall for it. Why do such transparent efforts to buy public sympathy through greenwashing and woke-washing continue to work?

Wokeism Is The New “Greed Is Good”

Andrew Ross Sorkin and Kate Rooney referring to Bankman-Fried as “the JP Morgan” and “Michael Jordan,” respectively, of crypto.

Over the spring and summer, as investors pulled their money out of cryptocurrencies, Bankman-Fried started bailing out cryptocurrency firms. He characterized his actions as altruistic. Many reporters uncritically accepted this interpretation. CNBC’s Jim Cramer called Bankman-Fried the “J.P. Morgan of this generation,” in reference to banker John Pierpont Morgan’s famous 1907 bail-out of failing banks.

“They call him the J.P. Morgan of crypto,” said CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin of the influential show, Squawk Box, while introducing a September 16, 2022 profile of Bankman-Fried.

“Yeah, the Michael Jordan of crypto!” responded financial reporter Kate Rooney.

She went on. “He spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bail out struggling companies facing bankruptcy, liquidity issues — you name it. The CEO, though, lives a relatively understated life for a billionaire. He drives a Toyota Corolla to FTX’s offices in The Bahamas. He lives with 10 roommates. And a golden doodle named Gopher sometimes sleeps under his desk on a beanbag chair.”

Rooney didn’t mention that Bankman-Fried’s home is valued at $40 million, even though she interviewed him in it. In fact, Bankman-Fried’s FTX allegedly spent $74 million on real estate in the Bahamas.

“You said FTX has a responsibility to seriously consider stepping into the time to save companies,” swooned Rooney. “Why did you have that sense of responsibility?”

In retrospect, there were red flags everywhere. In several interviews this fall, Bankman-Fried’s leg is shaking nervously. In 2020, Bankman-Fried admitted to using stimulants. “In general, probably half of all people or more should be taking meds of some kind, because they just make your life a lot better,” he told a podcaster. And in April, Bankman-Fried appeared to admit that his company was a Ponzi (pyramid) scheme to a Bloomberg reporter named Matt Levine.

“You start with a company that builds a box,” Bankman-Fried told Levine. “Maybe for now actually ignore what it does or pretend it does literally nothing. It’s just a box…. This box is worth zero obviously … But on the other hand, if everyone kind of now thinks that this box [cryptocurrency] token is worth about a billion dollar market cap, that’s what people are pricing it at and sort of has that market cap.”

The interviewer, Matt Levine, a former investor and one of the leading crypto reporters in the U.S., interjected, “You’re just like, ‘Well, I’m in the Ponzi business and it’s pretty good,’” to which Bankman-Fried said, “I think that’s a pretty reasonable response… that’s one framing of this. And I think there’s like a sort of depressing amount of validity.” At that very moment, Bankman-Friedman appears to have been using FTX’s own cryptocurrency as collateral for lending FTX customer money to his hedge fund, Alameda Capital.

In retrospect he appears to be making something of a confession to Levine back in April. “Everyone’s gonna mark to market,” said Bankman-Friedman. “In fact, you can even finance this, right? You put X token in a borrow lending protocol and borrow dollars with it. If you think it’s worth like [not] less than two-thirds of that, you could even just like put some in there, take the dollars out [and] never, you know, give the dollars back.”

And yet, Levine writes, “I came away from that conversation bullish on FTX and Bankman-Fried. My view was, and is, that if you talk to a crypto exchange operator and he is like ‘crypto is changing the world, your old-fashioned economics are just FUD, HODL,’ then that’s bad. A wild-eyed crypto true believer is not the person to operate an exchange. The person you want operating an exchange is a clear-eyed trader.”

Levine’s not alone. In his various interviews, Bankman-Fried came across with humility and an “aw shucks” style while also communicating quiet confidence. Six times, in response to questions from Chuck Todd of “Meet the Press” last September, Bankman-Fried said, silkily, “It’s a good question.” The way Bankman-Fried said it sounded like a compliment, like he was praising the journalist for his intelligence.

As such, Bankman-Fried was making a classic confidence artist move. In many cons, the confidence artist expresses his own confidence in his mark so that the mark will reciprocate by investing his confidence in the con artist. Humans are so wired to reciprocity that it feels rude not to feel confident in someone who has expressed confidence in us.

And con artists like Bankman-Fried and Madoff expressed progressive values broadly shared by elites, including journalists. On “Meet the Press,” Bankman-Fried told Todd that he was making pandemic prevention and response a key part of his “effective altruism” philanthropy. “Covid is one of the clearest examples of this,” he said, “where we did not as a country, or as a world, frankly, have a coherent strategy.”

Why, then, do frauds like Madoff and Bankman-Fried get away with it? And why do we keep trusting people like the Clintons and Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum?

Because many people, particularly liberal-minded investors, but also journalists and members of the voting public, want to trust them.

Wishful thinking is powerful. We saw a similar dynamic with the fraud carried out by Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes. Rich and powerful people wanted to believe in her for the same reason people wanted to believe in Bankman-Fried. And liberals especially wanted to believe Bankman-Fried. That’s because they tend to feel guiltier than conservatives and libertarians about their greed. They thus need Wokeism, an alternative religion, to justify it.

“Greed is good,” said the hostile takeover investor played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 classic, “Wall Street.” Douglas proceeded to give the standard justification of capitalism provided by Adam Smith in 1776. “Greed, in all of its forms — greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind,” said the Douglas character.

Such a justification doesn’t work for liberals. They need to feel that their greed is good because their greed is altruistic. What hucksters like Bankman-Fried, the Clintons, and Klaus Schwab provide is a Woke justification for their greed.

Continue reading here…

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US FDA Willfully Blind on the Safety of COVID-19 Vaccination

November 18th, 2022 by Dr. Peter McCullough

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When the US HHS invoked the Emergency Use Authorization and the Department of Defense offered COVID-19 vaccination to be administered by the US FDA and CDC, it was clear the FDA was going to play no role in stopping the vaccination freight train that was about to steamroll America.  

A recent paper from Dr. Maryanne Demasi points out that the FDA  “checked-out” early in the COVID-19 pandemic:[i] 

“Regulatory documents show that only nine out of 153 Pfizer trial sites were subject to FDA inspection before licensing the mRNA vaccine. Similarly, only 10 out of 99 Moderna trial sites and five of 73 remdesivir trial sites were inspected.  Now, facing a backlog of site inspections, experts have criticized the FDA’s oversight of clinical trials, describing it as “grossly inadequate.”

They say the problem, which predated covid-19, is not limited to a lack of inspections but also includes failing to notify the public or scientific journals when violations are identified—effectively keeping scientific misconduct from the medical establishment.  The FDA is “endangering public health” by not being candid about violations that are uncovered during clinical trial site inspections, says David Gortler, a pharmacist and pharmacologist who worked as an FDA medical reviewer between 2007 and 2011 and was then appointed as a senior adviser to the FDA commissioner in 2019-21.”

Demasi goes on to point out the FDA suspended inspections and despite having vast resources, does not utilize their discretionary budget to protect Americans from product safety threats.  “With a total budget of $6.1bn in 2021, he [Gortler] suggests the agency needs to be leaner and more efficient, with employees interested in improving public health.” “The bottom line is that the FDA has over 18,000 full time employees, more than any other drug regulatory agency by far, so it could have retrained and retooled anybody to tackle the need for increased inspections,” he says. “Half of its budget, about $3bn, is discretionary, which means it could have hired contractors, retirees, or repurpose existing workers. It chose not to. The FDA was just yawning its way through the pandemic. The entire agency is broken.”  “The lack of full transparency and data sharing does not allow physicians and other medical scientists to confirm the data independently and make comprehensive risk-benefit assessments,” continues Gortler, who is now a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington DC.”

The most egregious example of FDA malfeasance is the intent to withhold release of the Pfizer regulatory dossier on its COVID-19 vaccine for 55 years knowing it contained reports of 1223 deaths shortly after administration of their vaccine.  In a continued set of historic blunders, the FDA approved the COVID-19 bivalent vaccines with no randomized trials powered for clinical outcomes with Omicron, and no information on safety.  I believe Drs Demasi and Gortler are correct, the FDA is broken beyond repair, officials and staff involved in malfeasance should be named as targets in federal investigations since so many lives have been impacted by their malfeasance.

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[i] Demasi M. FDA oversight of clinical trials is “grossly inadequate,” say experts BMJ 2022; 379 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.o2628 (Published 16 November 2022) Cite this as: BMJ 2022;379:o2628

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

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

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

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A tense political situation is developing in Peru where socialist President Pedro Castillo is under siege by conservative interest groups representing the middle and upper classes.

Earlier in November, right-wing forces staged a demonstration in the capital of Lima demanding the resignation of the government headed by Castillo, a former rural teacher and trade union leader.

On November 5, anti-Castillo protesters marched through the capital of Lima and other areas throughout the country. At the same time, supporters of Castillo have held demonstrations calling for the end of the attempts to have the president removed from office.

Castillo has been the focus of efforts to overthrow the government which was elected during July 2021. The victory of the current president shocked many within the ruling elites in Peru along with the United States. Since taking power there have already been two attempts to impeach the president. At present, six different investigations are underway by his political adversaries within the parliament along with the attorney general.

A third attempt to pass a motion of no-confidence in the Castillo administration is now before the parliament. The previous two attempts failed due to lack of support within the legislative body.

Peru Libre supporters march in defense of President Pedro Castillo in Lima

Divisions Within the Ruling Free Peru Party (Peru Libre)

There are legal efforts underway to place Peru Libre party leader, Vladimir Cerron, under 36-months of pre-trial detention. Cerron is being accused by opposition forces of funding Peru Libre with illegal money. The leader and party vehemently denies these allegations.

President Castillo resigned from Peru Libre, the party under which he was elected to office in July 2021. Disagreements between the president and the left-leaning party have hampered the capacity to implement much needed reforms.

In an article published by Peru Reports, it emphasized:

“On June 28, Peru Libre’s National Executive Committee issued a statement requesting Mr. Castillo’s resignation, arguing, among other things, that ‘the policies undertaken by his government are not consistent with what was promised in the electoral campaign.’ They claimed that Mr. Castillo has implemented a ‘looser neoliberal program’ and announced that Peru Libre ‘will continue to fight for the conquest of its legitimate aspirations.’ The leaders of Peru Libre blamed Mr. Castillo for having promoted the ‘internal fracture of his caucus,’ which went from having 37 members in July 2021 to just 16 in July of 2022. In May of this year, 10 congressmen from Peru Libre resigned from the party. All outgoing members belong to a group of professors who were invited by Mr. Pedro Castillo to join Peru Libre in the 2021 presidential elections. With the departure of this group, Peru Libre’s general secretary, Vladimir Cerrón, lost influence in Congress, as the dissident congressmen formed two different political parties.”

These divisions have added substantially to the political uncertainty in Peru. As early as October 2021, there were changes made to the cabinet of the Castillo government. Peru in recent years has undergone numerous impeachments and resignations within its ruling administrations.

The country has had five presidents in the last seven years. During the first year of the Castillo administration there have been mixed signals sent to the international community over the direction of domestic and foreign policy.

While Congressman and former Governor Cerron has maintained a harder line on relations with extractive firms, Castillo during his visit to the U.S. sought to provide incentives for the development of natural gas resources inside the country. Observers characterized the cabinet reshuffles as an effort to present a more moderate posture towards the international corporations and other potential investors.

In early October 2021, Gideon Long wrote of the Peruvian situation noting:

“Peru’s leftwing president Pedro Castillo has announced a significant cabinet reshuffle, ousting his divisive prime minister Guido Bellido and distancing himself from the Marxist party that helped to put him into power. In his boldest move since he took office in late July, Mr. Castillo replaced Mr. Bellido with Mirtha Vásquez, a young former congresswoman and moderate leftist who does not belong to the Marxist Free Perú party. The president made six other changes, including in the all-important mining ministry, where he appointed businessman Eduardo González. Labor minister Iber Maraví, a radical from Free Perú, was dismissed along with Mr. Bellido. The number of women in the cabinet increased from two to five.”

The constitution of Peru prohibits the president from standing trial for corruption until he leaves office. Castillo has rebuked his opponents saying he will remain in the presidency until his tenure in office is over in 2026.

Castillo has denied that he and his family are operating a criminal organization as claimed by his opponents in parliament. The president says the calls for him to resign are politically motivated.

Opposition forces are attempting to taint the president through accusations of corruption. These allegations are designed to discourage foreign investment which would result in the decline of the national economy.

Peru’s economy is largely based upon the extraction and export of copper. The country is the second largest supplier of copper in the world, right behind Chile. Copper exports earn 60% of Peru’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Forecasts for the following year suggest that the economy will grow at a slower pace. Despite the global economic crisis since 2020, the Peruvian economy was predicted to grow annually by more than three percent. Projections for 2022 have reduced the growth rate to 2.5 percent.

Peru’s Finance Minister Kurt Burneo told the Financial Times:

“It is obvious that political stability affects confidence on the part of investors. It makes them doubt. If there is no trust or it has been undermined, then obviously the investment rate is not going to make progress. The challenge is to separate economics and politics. We have to achieve that independence again.”

During September, Burneo introduced an economic plan which would provide incentives for capital investments along with an increase in subsidies for public transportation and energy costs for working and impoverished families. Altogether, 11 pieces of legislation are stalled in parliament due to the political turmoil taking place in the country.

Copper Mining and the Rights of Indigenous People

Complicating the political and economic situation even further are conflicts between two local communities against a mining firm which has been the focus of protests in recent months. Although the two communities were paid compensation for being relocated as well as receiving newly built homes from the mining firm, dissatisfaction has arisen due to the vast differences between the traditional and more modern living standards in the area. Protesters earlier in the year blocked access to the roads surrounding the mining project.

The Financial Times noted in the same above-mentioned report that:

“[W]hatever the regulatory framework looks like, negotiating the delicate balance between mining companies and skeptical local indigenous communities is crucial, and nowhere more so than at the massive Las Bambas copper mine, owned by the Chinese-controlled MMG Ltd. Protests at the Las Bambas mine and trucking routes have repeatedly halted operations, with the mine being shut down for over 50 days this year due to demonstrations. The Huancuire community — one of several that lives near the mine — opposes plans to open a new mining pit on land they once owned, though Burneo told the FT that the law was on the company’s side. ‘The piece of land has already been sold to the mining company and it cannot be sold twice, adding that the burden for resolving disputes with communities lies not only with the state. The participation of mining companies must also be seen there because it is these companies that are going to benefit as a result of the economic activity.’”

These events portend much for the future of the Castillo government in Lima. The administration has been able to withstand three attempts to remove the president. However, it remains to be seen how much more the government can sustain in its internal and external struggles.

Nonetheless, the hostility of the U.S. government towards leftist parties and administrations in Latin America cannot be ignored by the Peruvian people. International solidarity forces must uphold the right of the Peruvian people to resolve their internal problems without the interference of the imperialist states.

*

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

All images in this article are from the author

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The US dollar’s real effective exchange rate (its value against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, adjusted for inflation) is up 18% this year and in September it hit a 20-year high, according to the benchmark ICE US Dollar Index. The truth is that it remains overvalued and it has been pulled up mostly by US interest rates – not by other countries’ currency manipulation. Moreover, the overvalued dollar hurts financial markets and damages global capital flows and trades.

In Europe, for the first time in two decades, one euro is worth less than one dollar, and the British pound also has plunged 18% from the previous year. In the current scenario, countries worldwide cannot really benefit from falling currencies (which does make their products cheaper and more competitive) because economic growth is faltering globally. Analysts Paul Wiseman, Kelvin Chan, Samy Magdy, and Ayse Wieting write that the rising US dollar is squeezing governments and companies which borrowed in dollars. It is making other countries’ imports more expensive and thereby adding inflationary pressures, they argue. It is also forcing central banks everywhere to raise interest rates too (to keep money from leaving the country), which, they add, damages economic growth and generates unemployment.

By September, American interest rates had already risen overnight by 300 basis points over the previous 12 months, which is the fastest increase since 1989 (and before that 1981). Moreover, yields on benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasuries rose to 3.80% (which is the highest level in over 12 years) – it is expected rates will need to remain higher to control inflation. And traders estimate that by April 2023 the US central bank will lift its target for the federal funds rate by another 150 basis.

The American central bank lifts interest rates faster as part of an effort to control price increases. In any case, by rising interest rates in the core of the financial system and by its fastly appreciating currency, the US is basically exporting its inflation worldwide, according to John Kemp, senior market analyst and Reuters journalist. The US central bank aims to control domestic inflation (as do other central banks), but it also happens to be the interest rate “setter” for the world’s reserve currency, according to this analyst. This reality puts the supposed “sovereignty” of monetary policies around the world into perspective, as these cannot “deviate” too much from the Fed – or they risk running into debt and currency crises. In other words, monetary policies in the “core” impact the “periphery”, as the global system is still dollar-based (the dollar remains the main reserve currency globally).

Moreover, the surging dollar is increasing the cost of living internationally amid a global food crisis. Cornell University trade policy professor Eswar Prasad sums it up thusly: “A strong dollar makes a bad situation worse in the rest of the world.”

Kemp argues that the rapidly rising US interest rates have been among the primary triggers of global financial instability for the last four decades, as exemplified by the 1998 Russia’s default, the 1997 Asia’s financial crisis and the 1994 Mexico’s default and devaluation (all triggered by rising American rates).

Although facing inflation, the US still has high employment, while the UK and the EU are very close to depression and recession driven by the high cost of energy amid the Ukrainian conflict. In fact, the World Bank has warned that “central banks around the world have been raising interest rates this year with a degree of synchronicity not seen over the past five decades”, and this brings the risk of a global recession in 2023.

I have written before on how Washington weaponizes its currency, which has been described as the “dollar bomb”: in 1972, the US broke the Bretton Woods treaty by reneging its issuance rules. As Brazilian politologist Cesar Benjamin remarks, a national state which is a highly deficit economy issues a fiat currency, which is the world’s currency – “without anything to back it up” and without emission rules.

Moreover, the dollar system and international energy policies are intertwined in a complex geopolitical-geoeconomic game, as the petrodollar has been a pillar of the Western financial system. But there are signs the times are changing. Of course, the April Russian ruble payment for gas decision was a game changer. And, following the trend, more countries are using local currencies for settlement of trade payments.

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) decision to permit the rupee in global trade, for instance, could be a precursor to making it an international currency.  The recent OPEC+ decision to cut oil output has marked the possible end of the US-Saudi relationship, which had been so far the clearest materialization of Washington’s “oil-for-security” policy. Saudi Arabia has also advanced the de-dollarization process through its cooperation with Beijing and its willingness to trade oil in Chinese Yuan.

To sum it up, real monetary and energy sovereignty for Europe and for emerging powers everywhere can only come about with the end of the petrodollar and the dollar system. This will require international coordination by bilateral and multilateral currency agreements. The BRICS reserve currency proposal is promising, but it faces severe challenges, as many emerging countries lack economic sovereignty and it is hard to break the cycle. In any case, de-dollarization is a pre-condition for stability in the emerging polycentric world, whose painful birth we are now witnessing.

*

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

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The “Informal Russia India Iran Troika” on Afghanistan

November 18th, 2022 by Andrew Korybko

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***

Those who aspire to analyze Afghanistan as accurately as possible must acknowledge this new dynamic.

Russia, India, and Iran took a tangible step in the direction of creating a third pole of influence in the present bi-multipolar intermediary phase of the global systemic transition to multipolarity by forming an informal Troika on Afghanistan following Wednesday’s Moscow format talks on that country. Representatives from those three, the Central Asian Republics (CARs), China, and Pakistan participated in the meeting, which also saw Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and the UAE take part as guests.

The purpose was to assemble all responsible stakeholders in Afghanistan’s post-war stability in an attempt to pioneer multilateral solutions to its pressing political, security, and socio-economic challenges. While no breakthrough occurred, nor was one expected this early into the process, it nevertheless was a positive development that everyone came together for that reason. This is especially so since each participant is connected to the SCO either as members, dialogue partners, or aspirants.

Be that as it is, the most important takeaway was the informal Troika that was just established by Russia, India, and Iran. These three don’t intend to compete against China and Pakistan’s influence in Afghanistan in any unfriendly way, but rather endeavor to pragmatically “balance” it by giving that country’s de facto Taliban rulers an alternative to those two. From the perspective of the group’s self-interests, potentially disproportionate dependence on China and Pakistan is disadvantageous.

They fear that the Chinese-Pakistani Strategic Partnership will be leveraged to indirectly influence their policymaking in ways that could result in them feeling pressured to unilaterally concede on what they regard as their objective interests, both ideologically and nationally. Beijing’s powerful economic sway combined with Islamabad’s equally powerful intelligence services could gradually erode their political independence, or so they think, whether rightly or wrongly.

With a view towards preemptively averting that scenario, the Taliban earlier decided to make Russia their partner of choice for geo-economically “balancing” that duopoly in parallel with patching up their historically strained ties with India and Iran. Relations with those last-mentioned two are still characterized by distrust and mutual suspicion, but both have an interest in helping the group diversify from their potentially disproportionate dependence on Pakistan, hence their imperfect rapprochement.

It deserves mentioning that Pakistan and the Taliban are currently locked in a very dangerous security dilemma connected to the first-mentioned’s suspected “passivefacilitation” of US drone strikes in Afghanistan and the second’s harboring of the TTP that Islamabad designated as terrorists. The rapid deterioration of bilateral relations has also hampered China’s envisaged economically driven engagement with Afghanistan seeing as how Pakistan was supposed to help open the doors for it.

This unexpected outcome increased the attractiveness of the Russian-Indian-Iranian Troika from the Taliban’s perspective, which hopes to utilize this emerging framework to tap into those three’s collective economic potential for sustainably reconstructing their war-torn country. That’s not in any way to suggest that the group thinks they can achieve this goal without help from the Chinese-Pakistani duopoly, but just that they want to preemptively avert disproportionate dependence on those two.

To be sure, this newly created Troika also hopes to indirectly influence the Taliban by gently encouraging it to fulfill its prior promise to form a truly ethno-regionally inclusive government, but that group thinks they can balance between them and the aforementioned duopoly to indefinitely delay doing so. The emerging dynamics of friendly competition between these two groups of responsible stakeholders in that country could result in neither of them feeling comfortable pressuring the Taliban all that much.

After all, their diplomats probably realizing that pushing too hard in that direction risks triggering the Taliban’s paranoid fears that they intend to more directly meddle in its policymaking, to which end it could quickly recalibrate its “balancing” act by relying more on their friendly competitors instead. This observation suggests that the group will probably never end up fulfilling its prior promises, whether with respect to governance or socio-cultural rights for minorities and women, which is regrettable.

It also represents a further strategic setback for Pakistan, which seemingly expected to wield the most influence over Afghanistan’s post-war situation but has thus far been unable to successfully do so. Instead, Islamabad will have to settle for a “cold peace” with its newfound “frenemies” there, who are actively seeking to play the newly created Troika off against the Chinese-Pakistani duopoly in order to maximize their strategic autonomy in the extremely difficult conditions that they found themselves in.

This leads to the conclusion that Russia, India, and Iran collectively serve to “balance” Chinese and Pakistani influence in post-war Afghanistan, which is a net gain for those three and the Taliban while representing a comparative setback of sorts for the last two as well as minorities and women. The longer that this friendly competitive dynamic remains in play, the longer that the Taliban will delay fulfilling its prior promises while also keeping the Chinese-Pakistani Strategic Partnership in check.

The Troika will be satisfied with this state of affairs so long as they economically benefit from it and can ensure that the Taliban continues taking action against terrorist groups. They’d of course wish that their well-intended and noble socio-political goals there could be achieved, but they’d be willing to settle for indefinitely delaying their implementation as long as their most direct and immediate interests are met. Those who aspire to analyze Afghanistan as accurately as possible must acknowledge this new dynamic.

*

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, 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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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***

Guten Tag Team Covid.

Danke für Ihre Antwort.

Lügen über Lügen über endlose Lügen.

Es ist nicht fassbar, dass sich der Bundesrat nicht schämt, sich entschuldigt und als Kollegium zurücktritt.

*

Sie können sich vorstellen, dass Ihre Antworten nicht überzeugen, im Gegenteil. Ich stelle fest, dass der BR weiterhin am Belügen der Bevölkerung festhält.

Die Wahrheit is schon längst am Tag, denn es gibt immer mehr Alternativ-Medien die sie verbreiten. Aber sie wird (noch) nicht akzeptiert, von den Regierungen.

Es waere zu hoffen – die Hoffnung ist das letzte was der Mensch verliert – dass der BR den Mut hat, vors Volk zu treten um einzugestehen, dass es sich um einen Irrtum, mit tödlichen Folgen handelt – und als Kollegium zurück tritt.

Da der “Befehl” dieser covid Tyrannei an alle 193 UNO-Mitgliedsländer zur absolut gleichen Zeit gelangt ist, und zwar im „lockstep“, ist klar, dass es sich weltweit um ein noch nie dagewesenes Verbrechen and der Menschheit handelt.

In der Schweiz gibt es eine Übersterblichkeit von 16% ab Jahr 2021, ab dem Zeitpunkt wo die falsch-genannten “Impfungen” den Leuten aufgezwungen wurden. Die Leute wurden erpresst um ihren job behalten zu können.

Wie viele von ihnen leben heute nicht mehr um das zu bestätigen?

In gewissen Gebieten Deutschlands ging die Fruchtbarkeit nach den Zwangs-Impfungen bis zu 40% zurück.

In Australien ist die Zahl noch viel höher.

Geht es um eine massive Bevölkerungsreduktion und Kapitalverschiebung von unten nach oben?

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Warum ist es nicht möglich endlich der Bevölkerung die Wahrheit zu sagen?

Und zurücktreten?

Einige BR tun es auch, und es ist wie man sieht nicht einfach Nachfolger zu finden die wissen um was es geht, und was für sie auf dem Spiel steht – eine Lüge die mindestens noch für weitere acht Jahre durchgezogen werden sollte – UN Agenda 2030, und Great Reset.

Nochmals: Es ist and der Zeit, dass der gesamte BR sich bei der Bevölkerung entschuldigt, zurücktritt; und die Justiz abwartet.

Mit freundlichen Grüssen,

Peter Koenig

*

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Peter Koenig ist geopolitischer Analyst und ehemaliger leitender Wirtschaftswissenschaftler bei der Weltbank und der Weltgesundheitsorganisation (WHO), wo er über 30 Jahre lang weltweit tätig war. Er hält Vorlesungen an Universitäten in den USA, Europa und Südamerika. 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).

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***

For Chinese people, the past decade has been epic and inspirational. The country, under the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core, has made great endeavors in boosting its economy, deepening reforms, improving the rights of its people and acting as a responsible global power.

Global Times (GT) reporter Yan Yuzhu talked to Peter Koenig (Koenig), a geopolitical analyst and a former senior economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization, where he worked for over 30 years around the world, over the efforts China has made in the last decade to improve the international financial architecture and how China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its pursuit of a human community with a shared future differ in economic terms from the international free trade that the West has been actively pursuing for years.

This is the 29th article of the Global Times series about this special decade.

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GT: What efforts do you think China has made in the last decade to improve the international financial architecture? What are the main areas of irrationality in the current architecture?

Koenig: It is irrational of the current international financial and monetary architecture, that currencies around the globe were and largely still are linked to the US-dollar economy. Hence, Washington, through US-dollar dominance, may interfere in most countries’ economies with sanctions, coercions and outright blackmail.

The phenomenon, “dollar-dominance,” has been significantly reduced in the last couple of decades and tends to further lose on importance in the near future.

One significant factor is that China has internationalized its currency, the yuan, also called renminbi. A key step in that direction was taken in 2016, when the yuan joined the IMF basket of currencies, the SDR. This was a milestone in Beijing’s efforts to internationalize its currency. The US currency’s current weighting in the SDR basket amounts to 43.38 percent, and that of the yuan to 12.28 percent.

Of course, with 12.28 percent, the yuan is way undervalued, given China’s economic strength, as the world’s second largest economy in absolute terms, and number one in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).

Other important steps in stabilizing the yuan internationally are the yuan’s properties as an international trading currency. Until about two decades ago, most trading worldwide took place in US dollars. Today’s ratio is significantly lower, fluctuating between 60 and 80 percent, while international foreign exchange reserve holdings in US dollars have dropped to about 60 percent.

Today, a growing number of international deals are traded in yuan, rather than in US dollars. Within the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), trading will take place in yuan or local currencies of the trading partners.

The RCEP is expected to bring tangible new opportunities to the business community in the Asia-Pacific region, especially in creating favorable conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Employing up to 90 percent of the labor force, SMEs are a regional and community force, stabilizing national economies.

Within 3 to 5 years, the RCEP is expected to account for up to 30 percent of world trade. The RCEP will be true to the principle, promoting local production for local and regional consumption, as well as gradually extending into international markets.

The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, is testing a central bank digital yuan for cross border trading with the country’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This virtual currency, or digital central bank currency (DCBC), can function outside any Western currency exchange system, like SWIFT, Wall Street Banks and the City of London.

Importantly, however, is the continuation of physical cash, bank notes and coins. Cash must continue being available for people to use. Cash is and remains a signal of strength and security for people to be able to manage autonomously their own accounts, their own earnings, resources and spendings.

GT: How do you think the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its pursuit of a community of shared future for mankind differ in economic terms from the international free trade that the West has been actively pursuing for years? How does China balance its economic interests with respect to the political and financial sovereignty of other countries?

Koenig: The BRI connects the world through trade, infrastructure, cultural exchange, as well as inter-country research projects. BRI literally spans the globe by at least six different “roads,” and growing.

The BRI enhances economic stability by connecting countries and may act independently from the US-dollar economy.

It is also a formidable means to forge a multi-polar world, moving away from a US-dominated one-polar world.

In addition to providing economic stability to regional and country partners, the BRI aims at creating an economically more balanced world by linking regions and countries through common economic development projects or long-term mutually beneficial programs.

The BRI provides an excellent instrument for China’s objective to achieve a community with a shared future for all mankind. China, through the BRI, encourages all countries to coexist peacefully, engaging in sound interaction and seeking common grounds, while preserving individual national sovereignty.

GT: In what ways do you think the BRI will change the world? What other economic strategies and policies of the CPC have impressed you in the last decade?

Koenig: So far, the BRI has been widely ignored by the West. When recognized, it was and still is, fought against by Western negative China propaganda and by outright “punishing” countries who participate in it. However, there is a muffled but growing interest in Western countries to become part of the BRI, stretching all the way to Latin America.

As the dollar hegemony is losing strength, many countries see their future in the East, in cooperating and connecting to the East, to China and the SCO. A great opening to do so is becoming engaged in the BRI and, generally, approaching closeness to the SCO – which already today encompasses close to half of the world population and a third of the globe’s GDP.

An impressive strategy of the CPC over the last decade or so is China’s shift from predominantly “vertical” growth, to a more “horizontal” growth path. It is a shift from manufacturing and export orientation, toward internal growth through local and regional infrastructure, cultural, educational, health facilities, as well as housing development.

This approach furthers internal stability, improves economic equilibrium between eastern and western China. Over time, it is also expected to reduce west-east in-country migration, thereby laying the groundwork for a solid western China multi-faceted development; for a vibrant, cultural, educational and health infrastructure.

GT: The CPC has been around for 101 years. Looking at the history of the Party’s development, why was it able to lead China to independence and become the second largest economy in the world? What are the lessons of China’s economic development path for other developing countries?

Koenig: One of the most effective means that China applied for her extraordinary development trajectory follows the principle of two phases: First, local production for local markets with local currencies and resources, with local public banking and a sovereign national central banking system – to attain national self-sufficiency. Second, gradual opening up of borders for regional and international trading, to the extent possible with partners pursuing similar development philosophies and objectives, and whenever possible, based on comparative advantages, thus, targeting win-win situations for China as well as partner nations.

GT: Although the Chinese economy is also under pressure amid the COVID-19 epidemic, the general trend of high-quality development of the Chinese economy has not changed, in terms of both foreign investors’ trust and China’s economic boosting policies. What role can China play in the recovery of the world economy from the pandemic?

Koenig: Under the US-dollar system, every country of the 193 UN members, when using the dollar, or keeping dollar reserves, especially in US or British banks, is vulnerable to US “sanctions”. If they don’t dance to Washington’s tune, they may be “punished” and robbed of their reserves – see Venezuela’s gold reserves of over $ 1 billion equivalent stored with the Bank of England; they were confiscated on the orders of the US.

Other monetary sanctions may include Washington blocking payments from “disobedient” countries to their trading partners – and more.

Today, under the Western monetary transfer system which is mostly through SWIFT, all transactions, whether in US-dollars or not, have to transit a US bank, either in New York or London, stressing the vulnerability of “disobedient” partners.

China can help creating an alternative monetary system, away from the Western dollar-based fiat money. As mentioned before, China’s central bank is working on a digital currency – a digital yuan – to be used for international trading. This currency will be fully delinked from the dollar – therefore, “safe” from US sanctions.

When that happens, many countries may switch from trading in US-dollars to trading in Chinese yuan, using the new digital central bank currency (DCBC). Many countries may also dump US-dollars from their reserves and replace them with yuan.

There will be a growing demand for yuan which may result in currency arrangements, especially between China and its closest trading partners, for example, the associates and partners of the RCEP trading agreement.

One or more parallel currencies by several countries joining together, were also mentioned on several occasions, especially by the BRICS+  but also by the SCO.

To repeat – beware from a single currency for an association of sovereign countries without any political links toward creating a sovereign federate nation. The monetary failures of the European Union may serve as an example.

As a first step toward closer monetary association, swap agreements among individual partners may be a solution.

Over the past weeks, the emergence of an artificially strengthened dollar has hit the international monetary arena. It may be targeting China and providing incentives to those who seek more liberal market policies to invest in dollar-based assets abroad, causing capital flights. Tighter currency transaction regulations may become the order of the day.

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This article was originally published on Global Times.

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

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

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The focal questions about war

In dealing from both theoretical and practical points of view about war, at least six fundamental questions arise: 1) What is war?; 2) What types of war exist?; 3) Why do wars occur?; 4) What is the connection between war and justice?; 5) The question of war crimes?; and 6) Is it possible to replace war with the so-called “perpetual peace”?

Probably, up to today, the most used and reliable understanding of war is its short but powerful definition by Carl von Clausewitz:

“War is merely the continuation of politics by other means” [On War, 1832].

It can be considered the terrifying consequences if in the practice Clausewitz’s word “merely” from a simple phrase about the war would be applied in the post-WWII nuclear era and the Cold War (for instance, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962).

Nevertheless, he became one of the most important influencers on Realism in international relations (IR). To remind ourselves, Realism in political science is a theory of IR that accepts war as a very normal and natural part of the relationships between states (and after WWII of other political actors as well) in global politics. Realists are keen to stress that wars and all other kinds of military conflicts are not just natural (meaning normal) but even inevitable. Therefore, all theories which do not accept the inevitability of war and military conflicts (for instance, Feminism) are, in fact, unrealistic.

The art of war as an extension of politics

A Prussian general and military theorist Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz (1780−1831), the son of a Lutheran Pastor, entered the Prussian military service when he was only 12, and achieved the rank of Major-General in his 38. He was studying the philosophy of I. Kant and was involved in the successful reform of the Prussian army. Clausewitz was of the opinion that war is a political instrument similar to, for instance, diplomacy or foreign aid. For this reason, he is considered to be a traditional (old) realist. Clausewitz echoed the Greek Thucydides who had described in the 5th century B.C. in his famous The History of the Peloponnesian War the dreadful consequences of unlimited war in ancient Greece. Thucydides (ca. 460−406 B.C.) was a Greek historian but had a great interest in philosophy too.

His great historiographical work The History of the Peloponnesian War (431−404 B.C.) recounts the struggle between Athens and Sparta for geopolitical, military, and economic control (hegemony) over the Hellenic world. The war culminated at the end with the destruction of Athens, the birthplace of both ancient democracy and imperialistic/hegemonic ambitions.

Thucydides explained the war in which he participated as the Athenian “strateg” (general) in terms of the dynamics of power politics between Sparta and Athens and the relative power of the rival city-states (polis). He consequently developed the first sustained realistic explanation of international relations and conflicts and formed the earliest theory of IR. In his famous Melian dialogue,

Thucydides showed how power politics is indifferent to moral argument. This is a dialogue between the Melians and the Athenians which Thucydides quoted in his The History of the Peloponnesian War, in which the Athenians refused to accept the Melian’s wish to remain neutral in the war with Sparta and Spartan allies. The Athenians finally besieged the Melians and massacred them. His work and dark view of human nature influenced Thomas Hobbes.

Actually, Clausewitz was in strong fear that unless politicians controlled war it is going to degenerate into a struggle with no clear other objectives except one – to destroy the enemy. He was serving in the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars until being captured in 1806. Later he helped it to be reorganized and served in the Russian army from 1812 to 1814 and finally fought at the decisive Battle of Waterloo on June 18th, 1815 which brought about Napoléon’s ultimate downfall from power.

The Napoleonic Wars influenced Clausewitz to caution that war is being transformed into a struggle among whole nations and peoples without limits and restrictions but without clear political aims and/or objectives. In his On War (in three volumes, published after his death) he explained the relationship between war and politics. In other words, war without politics is just killing but this killing with politics has some meaning.

Clausewitz’s assumption about the phenomenon of warfare was framed by the thought that if it is reflected that war has its origin in a political object, then, naturally it comes to the conclusion that this original motive which called it into existence should also continue the first and highest consideration in its conduct. Consequently, the policy is interwoven with the whole action of war and must exercise a continuous influence upon it. It is clearly seen that war is not merely a political act, but as well as a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. In other words, the political view is the object while war is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception.

Another important notice by Clausewitz is that the rising power of nationalism in Europe and the use of large conscript armies (in fact, national armies) could produce in the future absolute or total wars (like WWI, WWII), that is, wars to the death and total destruction rather than wars waged for some more or less precise and limited political objectives. However, he was in particular fear leaving warfare to the generals for the reason that their idea of victory in war is framed only within the parameters of the destruction of enemy armies. Such an assumption of victory is in contradiction with the war aim of politicians, who are understanding victory in war as the realization of the political aims for which they started the particular war. Nevertheless, such ends in practice could range from very limited to large and, according to Clausewitz:

“… wars have to be fought at the level necessary to achieve them”. If the aim of the military action is an equivalent for the political objective, that action will, in general, diminish as the political objective diminishes”. This explains why “there may be wars of all degrees of importance and energy, from a war of extermination down to the mere use of an army of observation” [On War, 1832].

Generals and the war

Strange enough but he was of a strong opinion that generals should not be allowed to make any decision concerning the question of when to start and end wars or how to fight them because they would use all instruments at their disposal to destroy an enemy’s capacity to fight. The real reason, however, for the such opinion was the possibility to convert a limited conflict into an unlimited and, therefore, unpredictable warfare. It really happened during WWI when the importance of massive mobilization and striking first was a crucial part of the war plans by the top military commanders in order to survive and finally win the war. It simply meant that it was not enough time for diplomacy to negotiate in order to prevent war from breaking out and to be transformed into unlimited war with unpredictable consequences. In practice, such military strategy effectively shifted the decision about whether and when to go to war from political leadership to military one as political leaders had, in fact, little time to take all matters into consideration being pressed by the military leadership to quickly go to war or to accept responsibility for the defeat. From this viewpoint, military plans and war strategies revised completely the relationship between war and politics and between civil politicians and military generals that Carl von Clausewitz had advocated a century earlier.

It has to be recognized, nonetheless, that Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz, in fact, predicted WWI as the first total war in history in which generals dictated to political leaders the timing of military mobilization and pressed politicians to take both the offensive and strike first. The insistence, in effect, of some of the top military commanders on adhering to pre-existing war plans as it was for instance the case with Germany’s Schlieffen Plan and mobilization schedules took decision-making out of the hands of politicians, i.e. civilian leaders. Therefore, in such a way, it limited the time those leaders had to negotiate with one another in order to prevent the start of the war actions and bloodshed. Furthermore, the military leaders as well as pressured civilian leaders to uphold alliance commitments and consequently spread possibly limited war across Europe into a European total war.

As a matter of illustration, the best-known design of such nature is Germany’s Schlieffen Plan as it was named after German Count Alfred von Schlieffen (1833−1913) who was a Chief of the German Great General Staff in 1891−1905. The plan was several times revised before WWI started. The Schlieffen Plan like some other war plans created before WWI by the European Great Powers was founded on the assumption of the offensive. The key to the offensive, however, was a massive and very quick military mobilization, i.e. quicker than the enemy could do the same.

Something similar was designed during the Cold War when the primacy of a nuclear first strike was at the top of military plans’ priority by both superpowers. Nevertheless, a massive and even general military mobilization meant gathering troops from the whole country at certain mobilization centers to receive arms and other war materials followed by the transportation of them together with logistic support to the frontlines to fight the enemies.

Shortly, in order to win the war, it was required a country to invest huge expenses and significant time in order to strike the enemy first, i.e. before the enemy could start its own military offensive. Concerning WWI, the German top military leaders understood massive mobilization with crucial importance for the very reason regarding their war plans to fight on two fronts – French and Russian: they thought that the single option to win the war was by striking rapidly in the West front to win France and then decisively launching an offensive against Russia as it was the least advanced country of the European Great Powers for the reason that Russia would take the longest period for the massive mobilization and preparation for war.

A trinitarian theory of warfare

For Clausewitz, war has to be a political act with the intention to compel the opponent to fulfill the will of the opposite side. He further argued that the use of force has to be only a tool or a real political instrument, as, for instance, diplomacy, in the arsenal of the politicians. War has to be just a continuation of politics by other means or instruments of forceful negotiations (bargaining) but not end in itself. Since the war has to be only initiated for the sake to achieve strictly the political goals of civilian leadership, it is logical for him that:

“… if the original reasons were forgotten, means and ends would become confused” [On War, 1832] (something similar, for instance, occurred with the American military intervention in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021).

He believed that in the case of forgotten original reasons for war, the use of violence is going to be irrational. In addition, in order to be usable, war has to be limited. All unlimited wars are not usable or productive for civil purposes. However, history experienced during the last two hundred years several developments like industrialization or enlarged warfare exactly going in the direction that Clausewitz had feared. In fact, he warned that militarism can be extremely dangerous for humanity – a cultural and ideological phenomenon in which military priorities, ideas, or values are pervading the larger or total society (for instance, Nazi Germany).

The Realists, actually, accepted Clausewitz’s approach which later after WWII was further developed by them into a view of the world that is distorted and dangerous causing the so-called “unnecessary wars”. In general, such kinds of wars have been labeled to the US foreign policy during and after the Cold War around the globe. For example, in South-East Asia during the 1960s the US authorities were determined not to appease the Communist powers the way the German Nazis had been in the 1930s. Consequently, in attempting to avoid a Communist occupation of Vietnam the US became involved in a pointless and, in fact, unwinnable war, arguably confusing Nazi aims of geopolitical expansionism with the legitimate post-colonial patriotism of the people of Vietnam.

Carl von Clausewitz is by many experts considered to be the greatest writer on military theory and war. His book On War(1832) is generally interpreted as favoring the very idea that war is in essence a political phenomenon as an instrument of policy. The book, nevertheless, sets out a trinitarian theory of warfare that involves three subjects:

  1. The masses are motivated by a sense of national animosity (national chauvinism).
  2. The regular army devises strategies to take account of the contingencies of war.
  3. The political leaders formulate the goals and objectives of military action.

Critics of the Clausewitzian viewpoint of war

However, from another side, the Clausewitzian viewpoint of war can be deeply criticized for several reasons:

  1. One of them is the moral side of it as Clausewitz was presenting war as a natural and even inevitable phenomenon. He can be condemned for justification of war by reference to narrow state interest instead of some wide principles like justice or so. However, such his approach, therefore, suggests that if war serves legitimate political purposes its moral implications can be simply ignored or in other words not to be taken at all into account as an unnecessary moment of the war.
  2. Clausewitz can be criticized for the reason that his conception of warfare is outdated and therefore not fitting to modern times. In other words, his conception of war is relevant to the era of the Napoleonic Wars but surely not to modern types of war and warfare for several reasons. First, modern economic, social, cultural, and geopolitical circumstances may in many cases dictate that war is of a less effective power than it was at the time of Clausewitz. Therefore, war can be today of obsolete policy instrument. If contemporary states are rationally thinking about war, military power can be of lesser relevance in IR. Second, industrialized warfare, and especially the feature of total war, can make calculations about the likely costs and benefits of war much less reliable. If it is the case, then war can simply stop being an appropriate means of achieving political ends. Thirdly, most of the criticism of Clausewitz is stressing the fact that the nature of both war and IR is changed and, therefore, his understanding of war as a social phenomenon is no longer applicable. In other words, Clausewitz’s doctrine of war can be applicable to the so-called „Old wars“ but not to the new type of war – „New war“. Nevertheless, on the other hand, in the case that Clausewitz’s requirement that the recourse to war has to be based on rational analysis and careful calculation, many modern and contemporary wars would not take place.

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a Former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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Wars Tend to Bury Facts: The Polish Missile Narrative

November 18th, 2022 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

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Wars tend to bury facts.  What comes out of them is often a furiously untidy mix of accounts that, when considered later, constitute wisps of fantasy and presumption.  Rarely accepted in the heat of battle is the concept of mistake: that a weapon was wrongly discharged or errantly hit an unintended target; a deployment that went awry; or that the general was drunk when an order was given.  Wars invite ludicrous tall tales and lies with sprinting legs.

In the Ukraine War, where accurate information has almost ceased to be relevant (unless you believe the sludge from any one side), the latest shock and shudder came in the form of a missile that fell on Polish territory.  As a result, two farmers lost their lives in the village of Przewodów.

The farmers, as the pencilled in victims of a broader power play, almost ceased to be relevant.  Discussions moved on to a potential violation of Polish territory and the prospect of NATO engagement.  The missile had been “Russian-made”, which tickled those keen to push a widening of the conflict.  Never mind that Ukraine has its own share of Russian and Soviet-era weapons systems.

The Ukrainian side, ever keen to bring in more military assistance against Moscow, was clear from the outset: it could not have been from their side.

“Russia now promotes a conspiracy theory that it was allegedly a missile of Ukrainian air defense that fell on the Polish theory [sic],” raged the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba.  “Which is not true.  No one should buy Russian propaganda or amplify its messages.  This lesson should have been long learnt since the downing of #MH17.”

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, was also keen to capitalise.  There was little doubt, in his mind, who was responsible.  It could never be a Ukrainian missile battery; never be a deflection arising from the aerial tussle of projectiles.

“I have no doubt that this was not our missile,” he mentioned in televised remarks.  “I believe that this was a Russian missile based on our military reports.”

Then came a slight qualification, if only one phrased in a typically non-qualified manner.

“Let’s say openly, if, God forbid, some remnant (of Ukraine’s air-defences) killed a person, these people, then we need to apologise.  But first there needs to be a probe, access – we want to get the data you have.”

But even Ukraine’s allies and sponsors found this a bit salty and impulsive.  Yes, there was much theatre in rushed emergency meetings as the G20 summit broke into a G7 conclave, but a brake seemed to have been brought to bear.  The NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was left having to explain that the missile was unlikely to have been fired from Russian territory.  The Russian denial of direct responsibility might well be disliked, but it was probably true.  Mistake or not, however, the guilty party for all and sundry was clear: the Polish missile strike was “likely caused by Ukraine but not Ukraine’s fault”.

Poland’s own leaders also began to release statements suggesting that this was not, in fact, a missile released from Russian territory.  Poland’s President Andrzej Duda made an unreserved observation.

“From the information that we and our allies have, it was a S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side.”

He also conceded that the missile may have fallen on Polish territory in the course of Ukraine “launching their missiles in various directions”.  There was “nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”

Knowing the political sensitivity of it all, especially if it might cast a poor light on Ukraine’s heroism, he preferred to rationalise the mistake.  Had Russia not attacked Ukraine and initiated the war, there would have been no reason to fire the deviant missile in the first place.  The law of causality dictated its dark tune, and things followed. Moscow bore “the ultimate responsibility, because this would not have happened hadn’t Russia waged a brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.”

The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, went even further, happy to not bother about what she dismissively called the “facts”.  Such circumstances would “never have happened but for Russia’s needless invasion of Ukraine and its recent missile assaults against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.  The UN Charter is clear.  Ukraine has every right to defend itself against this barrage.”

The US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson also added to the argument that, even if the lethal result had been from a Ukrainian launch, it was all in the course of self-defence.

“[W]hatever the final conclusions may be, it is clear that the party ultimately responsible for this tragic incident is Russia, which launched a barrage of missiles on Ukraine specifically intended to target civilian infrastructure. Ukraine had – and has – every right to defend itself.”

The only question now remains how the next misfiring goes.  On this occasion, the reins were pulled just before the precipice.  Facts or no fact, NATO did not want to be engaged – at least for now.  Poland, despite its past bravura to get a hack at the Russian bear, kept a sense of troubled composure.  Ukrainian officials, however, wished to push the matter further, egging on a NATO trigger for deeper, military commitment.  The grounds for a further expansion of the war are evident; the powder keg is ready.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a regular contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: “Brotherly friends”: Ukrainian President Zelensky (R) and visiting Polish President Andrzej Duda, Kiev, May 22, 2022

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Leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) have issued a joint declaration promoting a global standard on proof of vaccination for international travel and calling for the establishment of “global digital health networks” that build on existing digital COVID-19 vaccine passport schemes.

The joint statement followed the conclusion of the G20 summit held in Bali, Indonesia, where leaders discussed global challenges and coordinating policies in response, including to future pandemics.

“We acknowledge the importance of shared technical standards and verification methods, under the framework of the IHR (2005), to facilitate seamless international travel, interoperability, and recognizing digital solutions and non-digital solutions, including proof of vaccinations,” the G20 joint declaration reads.

The International Health Regulations (2005) is an instrument of international law developed under the auspices of the World Health Organization (WHO) that lays down a global framework for responding to the international spread of disease.

The WHO-backed standard, which entered into force in 2007, required countries to strengthen surveillance capacities at border crossings and introduced a series of health documents, including international certificates of vaccination.

Besides acknowledging the utility of the IHR framework, the G20 leaders said they support ongoing “international dialogue and collaboration on the establishment of trusted global digital health networks as part of the efforts to strengthen prevention and response to future pandemics.”

They added that these global digital health networks should “capitalize and build on the success of the existing standards and digital COVID-19 certificates.”

COVID-19 vaccine passports—and various other forms of digital identity schemes—have been criticized as an invasion of privacy and as having the potential to enable governments and corporations to coerce human behavior by, for instance, denying access to infrastructure or services.

‘Let’s Have a Digital Health Certificate’?

The joint declaration follows recommendations from Indonesia’s Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin made during a Business 20 (B20) panel held ahead of the G20 summit.

“Let’s have a digital health certificate acknowledged by WHO—if you have been vaccinated or tested properly—then you can move around,” he said during a panel on Nov. 14.

Sadikin added that the benefit of a global WHO-standardized vaccine passport would be to facilitate international travel.

“So for the next pandemic, instead of stopping the movement of the people 100 percent, which stopped the economy globally, you can still provide some movement of the people,” he added.

Sadikin added that G20 countries have agreed to such a global digital health certificate and that the idea now is to introduce it as a revision to the IHR framework at the next World Health Assembly, scheduled for May 2023 in Geneva, Switzerland.

In a 132-page document that contains a series of recommendations for the G20, the B20 urged the widespread adoption of digital documentation of COVID-19 certificates that would be part of a “technology-enabled ‘always-on’ global health infrastructure.”

The World Economic Forum (WEF) said in a February 2022 report (pdf) that vaccine passports serve as a form of digital identity.

In an earlier report (pdf), the WEF said that “digital identity determines what products, services and information we can access—or, conversely, what is closed off to us.”

‘Digital Gulag’

Journalist Nick Corbishley, who writes about economic and political trends in Europe and Latin America, has warned that vaccine passports can lead to the implementation of a global digital identity scheme that will threaten privacy and freedom across the world.

“It’s like this checkpoint society. Wherever you want to go, you have to show your mobile phone, your identity … even if it’s just to go into a supermarket or go into a shop,” he told EpochTV’s “Crossroads” program.

Corbishley described the negative aspects of a global digital identification scheme as a kind of “digital gulag” in which people could be “effectively banished from society.”

“That is a terrifying vision,” he said.

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Tom Ozimek has a broad background in journalism, deposit insurance, marketing and communications, and adult education. The best writing advice he’s ever heard is from Roy Peter Clark: ‘Hit your target’ and ‘leave the best for last.’

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

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

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The November 16, 2022 afternoon attack on the Pacific Zircon, a tanker in the Gulf of Oman, owned by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer, comes amidst a time of increased tensions in the region, with both Israel and the United States immediately placing the blame on Iran.

For the past two months, the Islamic Republic has been rocked by riots, ostensibly in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year old Iranian woman who passed away suddenly following an interaction with a female police officer in Tehran. The involvement of regime-change agent Masih Alinejad, and the recent admission by former US National Security Advisor John Bolton that weapons are being supplied to the ‘Iranian opposition’ however, acts as effective confirmation that what had initially begun as legitimate protests, have now been hijacked by Western Intelligence agencies in a bid to implement regime change in Iran, with a similar strategy having previously been carried out in Libya and Syria.

With the eyes of the world focused on the current unrest in Iran, and with the Islamic Republic due to play their inaugural game in the 2022 Qatar World Cup against England on Monday, the question must be asked as to what would be the strategic importance for Tehran to launch a Drone attack on an Israeli-owned tanker at this time, a move with a realistic likelihood of drawing a Western military response?

Indeed, a similar scenario played out in June 2019, when on the same day that then-Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe held a meeting with Ayatollah Khameini in Tehran, with the intention of diffusing tensions between Iran and the United States, mine attacks would be launched against Japanese and Norwegian-owned tankers in the Gulf of Oman.

Again, the blame was immediately placed on Iran for the attacks by the United States, Britain and Saudi Arabia, despite their being no apparent strategic importance for Tehran to carry them out.

In fact, Iran had no issue claiming responsibility for the shooting down of a US Military Drone that had flew over the coastal province of Hormozgan a week later, an objectively more provocative act than attacking two tankers, and one which nearly did draw a US military response, with then-President Donald Trump stating in an interview that he had called off the planned attack ten minutes before it was due to begin, preventing the start of an immediate and devastating regional conflict.

Like the similarity between what is currently playing out in Iran and the Syrian regime change operation, in which arms, funding and training were also provided to so-called ‘opposition’ groups, false flag attacks intended to draw a Western military response also took place against Damascus.

In 2017, Syria had been in the grip of a six-year long proxy war, launched in response to Bashar al-Assad’s 2009 refusal to allow US-ally Qatar to build a pipeline through his country.

Following a requested Iranian military intervention in June 2013, and a further Russian air campaign that began in September 2015, Damascus had made great strides in regaining the vast swathes of its territory that had come under the control of Western-backed terrorist groups since the regime change operation had begun in March 2011.

In order to counter this, Washington’s regime change lobby would ultimately resort to reckless measures.

On the 4th of April 2017, a false flag chemical attack would take place in the Syrian town of Khan Shaykhun, located in the terrorist-controlled Idlib province. With the blame immediately being placed on Damascus, the then-US Trump administration would launch 59 cruise missiles against the Syrian government-controlled Shayrat Airbase three days later, the first direct engagement between US and Syrian forces, though one that just stopped short of the Libya-style intervention that Washington’s Neocons had clamoured for.

Undeterred however, another false flag chemical attack would take place almost a year to the day later, this time in the city of Douma, which would also result in the US, Britain and France launching air strikes against Syrian government targets.

Again however, this would ultimately not escalate into a full-scale military intervention, and this course of action will hopefully not be repeated against Iran amidst the current disturbances, as Tehran’s military capabilities – noticeably displayed in the January 2020 retaliatory missile strike on the Ain Al-Assad US airbase in neighbouring Iraq – would ensure that even a ‘limited’ Syria-style strike against Iranian military infrastructure would immediately result in the eruption of a widespread regional conflict.

A conflict, that with the high possibility that Iran’s Russian and Chinese allies may decide to become involved, would have the potential to reach far beyond the Persian Gulf.

*

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Gavin O’Reilly is an activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism. Secretary of the Dublin Anti-Internment Committee, a campaign group set up to raise awareness of Irish Republican political prisoners in British and 26 County jails. His work has previously appeared on American Herald Tribune, The Duran, Al-Masdar and MintPress News. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. Support him on Patreon.

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

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***

The European (EEA and non-EEA countries) database of suspected drug reaction reports is EudraVigilance, verified by the European Medicines Agency (EMA), and they are now reporting 48,817 fatalities, and 5,107,883 injuries following injections of four experimental COVID-19 shots:

From the total of injuries recorded, almost half of them (2,177,286) are serious injuries.

Seriousness provides information on the suspected undesirable effect; it can be classified as ‘serious’ if it corresponds to a medical occurrence that results in death, is life-threatening, requires inpatient hospitalisation, results in another medically important condition, or prolongation of existing hospitalisation, results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or is a congenital anomaly/birth defect.”

Health Impact News subscriber in Europe ran the reports for each of the four COVID-19 shots we are including here. It is a lot of work to tabulate each reaction with injuries and fatalities, since there is no place on the EudraVigilance system we have found that tabulates all the results.

Since we have started publishing this, others from Europe have also calculated the numbers and confirmed the totals.*

Here is the summary data through November 12, 2022.

Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine Tozinameran (code BNT162b2,Comirnaty) from BioNTech/ Pfizer – 23,210 deathand 2,667,243 injuries to 12/11/2022:

  • 79,297   Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 335 deaths
  • 90,887   Cardiac disorders incl. 3,351 deaths
  • 842        Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 66 deaths
  • 33,754   Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 22 deaths
  • 3,497     Endocrine disorders incl. 13 deaths
  • 38,206   Eye disorders incl. 64 deaths
  • 184,670 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 915 deaths
  • 688,114 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 6,286 deaths
  • 3,020     Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 133 deaths
  • 28,472   Immune system disorders incl. 156 deaths
  • 183,898 Infections and infestations incl. 2,392 deaths
  • 46,012   Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 551 deaths
  • 63,046   Investigations incl. 630 deaths
  • 16,685   Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 406 deaths
  • 298,841 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 331 deaths
  • 3,302     Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 301 deaths
  • 407,210 Nervous system disorders incl. 2,482 deaths
  • 3,515     Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 83 deaths
  • 342        Product issues incl. 4 deaths
  • 46,792   Psychiatric disorders incl. 267 deaths
  • 9,544     Renal and urinary disorders incl. 352 deaths
  • 117,187 Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 11 deaths
  • 107,494 Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 2,481 deaths
  • 117,035 Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 207 deaths
  • 7,110     Social circumstances incl. 30 deaths
  • 29,524   Surgical and medical procedures incl. 309 deaths
  • 58,947   Vascular disorders incl. 1,032 deaths

Total reactions for the mRNA vaccine SPIKEVAX/mRNA-1273(CX-024414) from Moderna – 12,703 deathand 870,106 injuries to 12/11/2022:

  • 23,093   Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 152 deaths
  • 30,044   Cardiac disorders incl. 1,415 deaths
  • 269        Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 16 deaths
  • 10,043   Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 8 deaths
  • 951        Endocrine disorders incl. 6 deaths
  • 11,407   Eye disorders incl. 42 deaths
  • 67,342   Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 487 deaths
  • 229,166 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 4,057 deaths
  • 1,148     Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 69 deaths
  • 9,547     Immune system disorders incl. 46 deaths
  • 38,244   Infections and infestations incl. 1,153 deaths
  • 12,405   Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 250 deaths
  • 19,071   Investigations incl. 413 deaths
  • 6,813     Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 300 deaths
  • 107,976 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 251 deaths
  • 1,156     Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 115 deaths
  • 142,329 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,231 deaths
  • 1,154     Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 13 deaths
  • 149        Product issues incl. 3 deaths
  • 14,434   Psychiatric disorders incl. 201 deaths
  • 4,428     Renal and urinary disorders incl. 244 deaths
  • 25,857   Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 11 deaths
  • 34,767   Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,337 deaths
  • 45,736   Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 118 deaths
  • 3,412     Social circumstances incl. 46 deaths
  • 11,812   Surgical and medical procedures incl. 228 deaths
  • 17,353   Vascular disorders incl. 491 deaths

Total reactions for the vaccine AZD1222/VAXZEVRIA (CHADOX1 NCOV-19) from Oxford/ Astra Zeneca  – 9,667deathand 1,388,494 injuries to 12/11/2022:

  • 15,933   Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 360 deaths
  • 24,615   Cardiac disorders incl. 1,012 deaths
  • 298        Congenital familial and genetic disorders incl. 12 deaths
  • 15,431   Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 8 deaths
  • 876        Endocrine disorders incl. 8 deaths
  • 22,942   Eye disorders incl. 34 deaths
  • 123,551 Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 511 deaths
  • 376,016 General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 2,239 deaths
  • 1,253     Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 91 deaths
  • 7,141     Immune system disorders incl. 49 deaths
  • 59,884   Infections and infestations incl. 818 deaths
  • 15,929   Injury poisoning and procedural complications incl. 239 deaths
  • 33,678   Investigations incl. 228 deaths
  • 15,264   Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 150 deaths
  • 201,842 Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 199 deaths
  • 969        Neoplasms benign malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 65 deaths
  • 276,325 Nervous system disorders incl. 1,402 deaths
  • 740        Pregnancy puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 23 deaths
  • 216        Product issues incl. 1 death
  • 24,640   Psychiatric disorders incl. 88 deaths
  • 5,020     Renal and urinary disorders incl. 107 deaths
  • 18,719   Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 3 deaths
  • 48,116   Respiratory thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1,271 deaths
  • 60,805   Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 81 deaths
  • 2,537     Social circumstances incl. 11 deaths
  • 3,529     Surgical and medical procedures incl. 45 deaths
  • 32,225   Vascular disorders incl. 612 deaths

Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine JANSSEN (AD26.COV2.S) from Johnson & Johnson – 3,234 deaths and 178,053 injuries to 12/11/2022:

  • 1,794     Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 72 deaths
  • 3,948     Cardiac disorders incl. 267 deaths
  • 64           Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 3 deaths
  • 1,946     Ear and labyrinth disorders incl. 3 deaths
  • 164        Endocrine disorders incl. 2 deaths
  • 2,337     Eye disorders incl. 16 deaths
  • 11,933   Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 129 deaths
  • 49,033   General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 897 deaths
  • 221        Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 23 deaths
  • 848        Immune system disorders incl. 12 deaths
  • 16,007   Infections and infestations incl. 273 deaths
  • 1,699     Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 38 deaths
  • 8,184     Investigations incl. 171 deaths
  • 1,142     Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 88 deaths
  • 22,051   Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 74 deaths
  • 160        Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps) incl. 14 deaths
  • 30,257   Nervous system disorders incl. 317 deaths
  • 135        Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 1 death
  • 38           Product issues
  • 2,651     Psychiatric disorders incl. 37 deaths
  • 773        Renal and urinary disorders incl. 53 deaths
  • 4,159     Reproductive system and breast disorders incl. 7 deaths
  • 6,227     Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 405 deaths
  • 5,438     Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 17 deaths
  • 718        Social circumstances incl. 8 deaths
  • 1,332     Surgical and medical procedures incl. 104 deaths
  • 4,794     Vascular disorders incl. 203 deaths

Total reactions for the COVID-19 vaccine NUVAXOVID(NVX-COV2373) from Novavax – 3 deaths and 3,987 injuries to 12/11/2022:

  • 90           Blood and lymphatic system disorders
  • 243        Cardiac disorders
  • 0             Congenital familial and genetic disorders
  • 56           Ear and labyrinth disorders
  • 1             Endocrine disorders
  • 82           Eye disorders
  • 262        Gastrointestinal disorders
  • 861        General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 1 death
  • 5             Hepatobiliary disorders
  • 41           Immune system disorders
  • 205        Infections and infestations
  • 43           Injury poisoning and procedural complications
  • 107        Investigations
  • 22           Metabolism and nutrition disorders
  • 497        Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders
  • 2             Neoplasms benign malignant and unspecified (incl cysts and polyps)
  • 705        Nervous system disorders
  • 2             Pregnancy puerperium and perinatal conditions
  • 3             Product issues
  • 67           Psychiatric disorders
  • 21           Renal and urinary disorders
  • 78           Reproductive system and breast disorders
  • 204        Respiratory thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 1 death
  • 255        Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders
  • 7             Social circumstances
  • 34           Surgical and medical procedures
  • 94           Vascular disorders incl. 1 death

*These totals are estimates based on reports submitted to EudraVigilance. Totals may be much higher based on percentage of adverse reactions that are reported. Some of these reports may also be reported to the individual country’s adverse reaction databases, such as the U.S. VAERS database and the UK Yellow Card system. The fatalities are grouped by symptoms, and some fatalities may have resulted from multiple symptoms.

Sudden Deaths and Injuries Among Young and Formerly Healthy People Continue

24-Year-Old British Professional Athlete and Actress Genevieve Florence. (Left 2 image sources.)

Sudden deaths and injuries continue to be reported all across Europe and around the world, and more and more European politicians are beginning to speak out about how deadly the COVID-19 vaccines are.

But instead of halting these vaccines, the EMA has actually just approved a new COVID-19 vaccine by GSK and Sanofi.

After months of review at European regulators’ desks, GSK and Sanofi have scored a world-first nod to enter the COVID-19 vaccine market in Europe with their pandemic booster VidPrevtyn Beta.

Thursday, the European Commission signed off on the Sanofi-GSK booster to augment protection against COVID-19 in adults ages 18 and up, making VidPrevtyn the first next-gen, protein-based adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine approved in Europe. (Full article.)

Australia has done the exact opposite, and has stated they are NOT approving new COVID-19 boosters for those under the age of 30 due to the high risks of heart disease from the shots.

The Australian government says the risk of myocarditis from a COVID booster might be greater than COVID itself — so it won’t allow people under 30 to get a fourth vaccine.

“In males aged 16-40 years, it is uncertain whether the risk following COVID-19 remains higher than the risk following vaccination,” the government said. (Full article.)

Here is the latest montage of young victims who have either suffered “sudden deaths” or crippling injuries. It starts with the testimony of 24-year-old British professional athlete and actress Genevieve Florence, who was mandated to get the shots to be able to continue filming, and totally disabled her.

This is on our Bitchute channel, and will also be on our Odysee and Telegram channels.

*

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Featured image is from Children’s Health Defense


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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

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

Price: $11.50 Get yours for FREE! Click here to download.

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

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on 48,817 Dead and 5,107,883 Injured Following COVID-19 Vaccines in European Database of Adverse Reactions

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Deaths attributed to excessive alcohol consumption in the U.S. are trending upward. Between 2015 and 2019, 1 in 5 deaths (20.3%) in the 20- to 49-year age group was related to excessive alcohol intake. The percentage of men dying from excess alcohol consumption (15%) was higher than that of women (9.4%), but both are on the rise

Common types of alcohol-related deaths include alcohol poisoning, motor vehicle accidents, suicides, falls and alcohol-related liver disease or pancreas failure

Other data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest the rate of deaths directly attributed to alcohol rose by more than 25% in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, when many were self-isolating and working from home. The trend continued into 2021, by then up 34% from prepandemic levels

Researchers have established a clear link between isolation, loneliness and alcohol abuse and addiction so, clearly, health officials did not have public health in mind when they declared liquor stores to be an “essential business” during the pandemic, while churches, gyms and even parks and beaches were shut down

Two alcoholic drinks per day or less for men and one drink or less for women is considered “moderate” consumption. Binge drinking is defined as having five or more alcoholic drinks on a single occasion for men, or four or more for women. A “drink” is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor

*

Recent research1,2 looking at deaths attributable to excessive alcohol consumption in the U.S. has found rates are trending upward. Between 2015 and 2019, 1 in 5 deaths (20.3%) in the 20- to 49-year age group was related to excessive alcohol intake.

Expanding the age group to 20- to 64-years of age, alcohol related deaths were 1 in 8. This makes alcohol a leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. The percentage of men dying from excess alcohol consumption (15%) was higher than that of women (9.4%), but both are on the rise. Common types of alcohol-related deaths include alcohol poisoning, motor vehicle accidents, suicides, falls and alcohol-related liver disease or pancreas failure. According to the authors:3

“The number of premature deaths could be reduced with increased implementation of evidenced-based, population-level alcohol policies, such as increasing alcohol taxes or regulating alcohol outlet density.”

Alcohol Intake Skyrocketed During Pandemic

Other data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest the rate of deaths directly attributed to alcohol rose by more than 25% in 2020,4,5 the first year of the pandemic, when many were self-isolating and working from home. The trend continued into 2021, by then up 34% from prepandemic levels.6

alcohol-related deaths increase during the pandemic

Clear Links Between Loneliness and Alcohol Abuse

This should come as no surprise, seeing how researchers have long since established a clear link between isolation, loneliness and alcohol abuse and addiction. As noted in the 1992 scientific review “Loneliness and Alcohol Abuse: A Review of Evidences of an Interplay”:7

“A theoretical discussion based on clinical observations can be dated back to the 1950’s … knowledge is still incomplete, but the review indicates that loneliness may be significant at all stages in the course of alcoholism: as a contributing and maintaining factor in the growth of abuse and as an encumbrance in attempts to give it up.

Concordant reports demonstrate that alcoholics do feel more lonely than members of most other groups do. In advanced abusers, loneliness is obviously connected with a number of negative characteristics and, together with several of those, directly linked to a poor prognosis.

There are, however, no obvious relations to the external social situation (i.e. network) or amount of drinking. Instead, the feeling of loneliness appears to be more connected with a general negative perception about oneself and one’s relations to other people and also with a general dissatisfaction with most things in life …”

An even earlier study8 found “feeling of loneliness” was the most important factor influencing the prognosis of advanced alcohol abusers, followed by “a general dissatisfaction with the existing situation, independent of its nature.”

As noted by the authors, “To sum up, the lonely abuser showed a recurrent pattern characterized by discontentment and dissatisfaction, in combination with some traces of passivity in essential life-spheres.”

The American Addiction Centers also stresses that isolation is a barrier to getting and staying sober.9 It certainly didn’t help that liquor stores, of all things, were deemed to be an “essential business” during the pandemic, and were kept open while churches, gyms and even parks and beaches were shut down. Clearly, public health officials did not have public health at the top of their minds when they made these decisions.

A Brief History of Alcohol

In the video above, podcast host Joe Rogan interviews university scholar and philosophy professor Edward Slingerland, Ph.D., author of “Drunk.” Slingerland highlights an important point, which is that, historically, mankind has not been drinking hard liquor.

Traditionally, alcohol was primarily consumed in the form of beer with an alcohol content of 2% to 3%, and wine with an alcohol content of 8% to 10%. As noted by Slingerland, there’s a built-in limit to the amount of alcohol you can obtain through fermentation. Fermentation, as you likely know, is the process of yeast turning sugar in the brew into alcohol.

Over the past century or two, alcohol makers have developed hardier yeasts capable of fermentation rates as high as 16%. At present, that’s the upper limit for fermentation, as at that point, the alcohol shuts down the activity of the yeast.

Distillation, which is another modern invention, is a way around that. By heating the alcoholic beverage, you can capture the ethanol as a vapor and then turn it back into a liquid, giving you a really concentrated form of alcohol, i.e., distilled liquor or spirits, which can be as high as 90% alcohol by volume (ABV).

As noted by Slingerland, the human body is not equipped to handle that kind of concentration. So, while mankind has been making and consuming alcoholic beverages for many thousands of years, it’s only in recent times that alcohol has become a potent toxin that needs to be carefully regulated.

How Much Is Too Much?

According to experts, two alcoholic drinks per day or less for men and one drink or less for women is considered “moderate” consumption. Binge drinking is defined as having five or more alcoholic drinks on a single occasion for men, or four or more for women. A “drink” is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of hard liquor.

Excessive Alcohol Intake Is a Primary Driver of Liver Damage

According to researchers, the rise in cirrhosis mortality is entirely driven by excess alcohol consumption by young adults. While, historically, alcohol-related liver cirrhosis has been regarded as a condition that develops after two or three decades of heavy drinking, these newer statistics reveal it doesn’t have to take that long at all, as it’s now occurring in (and killing) 20- and 30-year-olds.

In the 25 to 34 age group, death from alcohol-related liver disease nearly tripled between 1999 and 2016. This increase parallels statistics10 showing a rise in binge drinking between 2002 and 2012.

It also correlates with the global financial crisis in 2008, after which more people began dying from cirrhosis. Researchers believe financial worries and unemployment may have been significant contributing factors, causing more people to drink more heavily. The good news is that alcohol-related liver cirrhosis can be reversed if caught early enough — and provided you quit drinking.

Limit Fructose to Protect and Heal Your Liver

While giving up the drink is a prerequisite, you’ll also want to strictly limit or eliminate fructose from your diet, the primary sources of which are sweet beverages like soda and most all processed foods and condiments.

Fructose is metabolized differently in your body than glucose, resulting in the production of toxic byproducts (like uric acid) that are similar to those produced by the metabolism of alcohol, with similarly damaging effects on your liver.

There are clear data linking fructose consumption to causing your body to make fats — a disease process associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) fat accumulation in the liver, which causes insulin resistance and associated diseases, such as Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia.

One of the best books ever written about the dangers of fructose is “The Sugar Fix” by Dr. Richard Johnson, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado. A majority of Johnson’s work involves research, which primarily focuses on how fructose relates to obesity, high blood pressure, kidney disease and fatty liver disease.

Another leading expert in this area is Dr. Robert Lustig, professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of California in San Francisco (USCF). His research shows sugar, in most forms, but fructose in particular, acts as a poison when consumed in excess.

Data suggest the average American consumes 126.4 grams of sugar a day11 — more than five times the recommended max, and your liver, which processes sugar, simply cannot handle that kind of load. When you overload your liver in this way, you inevitably end up with chronic metabolic disease. Type 2 diabetes, Lustig has pointed out, is nothing other than insulin resistance in the liver.

As a standard recommendation, I recommend keeping your total fructose consumption below 25 grams per day, but for many, it would actually be wise to limit it to 15 grams or less, as most all processed foods contain hidden fructose.

Nutraceuticals That Support Liver Health

Aside from cutting out fructose and other forms of sugar, there are also nutritional supplements that can help protect and restore health and function to your liver, such as:

  • N-acetylcysteine (NAC) — NAC is a precursor needed for glutathione biosynthesis. In fact, research suggests NAC may be a better alternative for supporting liver health in those with chronic liver diseases than the antioxidant resveratrol.12 NAC supplementation can also help minimize the damage associated with alcohol consumption when taken prior to alcohol ingestion.13
  • Folate (vitamin B9) — Increasing your intake of folate can also help protect your liver function. In one study,14 researchers found levels of folate and vitamin B12 were inversely related to the development of fibrosis (formation of scar tissue).

Studies have also shown folate deficiency can increase your risk for liver cancer.15,16 In one, which involved hepatitis B-positive patients (who are at higher risk for liver damage), higher folate levels were associated with a 67% lower risk of liver cancer.17,18

Your body stores approximately 10 to 30 milligrams of folate at a time, nearly 50% of which is in your liver. Folate is the natural form of vitamin B9 found in foods. Green leafy vegetables, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and avocados are excellent options.19

  • Milk thistle — An herb used for thousands of years to support liver, kidney and gallbladder health, in modern times, it’s been used to treat alcoholic liver disease and toxin-induced liver diseases. In your liver, the active ingredient, silymarin, works as an antifibrotic, thereby preventing tissue scarring.

It also blocks toxins by inhibiting the binding of toxins to liver cell membrane receptors. Silymarin also protects your liver and promotes healthy liver function by suppressing cellular inflammation20 and increasing glutathione, a powerful antioxidant that plays a role in the detoxification of heavy metals and other harmful substances.

How to Cut Down or Quit Drinking

If you’re not addicted but tend to drink more than what’s considered “moderate,” consider cutting down your consumption, or just quit cold turkey. Drink more water, including between drinks when socializing. If plain water gets old, get a Soda Stream and add some digestive bitters, fresh fruit or herbs.

Other strategies include drinking only on certain days, and keeping it within moderate limits, or mixing weaker cocktails than usual. If you’re at a social event and want to limit your alcohol consumption, keep a nonalcoholic drink in your hand so the offer of another drink doesn’t come up. You can also slow down your body’s alcohol absorption by eating something at the same time.

Help for Substance Use Disorders

If you live in the U.S. and need help or support for your alcohol addiction (or if you need support because a family member or friend has an addiction problem), contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration by calling 800-662-HELP (4357).21

It’s a free, confidential helpline, available in English and Spanish, that’s open 24/7, every day of the year. They can offer acute help and provide treatment referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups and community-based organizations for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders.

*

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Notes

1 JAMA Network Open November 1, 2022; 5(11): e2239485

2 CNN November 2, 2022

3 JAMA Network Open November 1, 2022; 5(11): e2239485 Conclusions and Relevance

4, 6 CDC March 18, 2022

5 AP News November 4, 2022

7 Soc Sci Med February 1992; 34(4): 405-414

8 Scand J Soc Med 1987;15(3):175-83

9 Alcoholrehab.com May 18, 2022

10 American Journal of Public Health 2015 Jun;105(6):1120-7

11 World Population Review, Sugar Consumption in 2022

12 World Journal of Gastroenterology, 2010; 16(15): 1937

13 Indian Journal of Clinical Biochemistry 1994; 9(64)

14 Nutrients, 2018;10(4):440

15 Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, 2007;16(6):1279

16, 18 Nutraingredients, July 19, 2008

17 Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev June 2007; 16(6): 1279-1282

19 The World’s Healthiest Foods, Folate

20 Journal of Natural Products, 2015; 78(8):1990

21 SAMHSA National Helpline

Governor DeSantis, Ban the Covid mRNA Jab!

November 17th, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Sansone

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***

Dear Governor DeSantis and Surgeon General Dr. Ladapo,

You must act decisively and prohibit Covid gene therapy shots and mRNA injections in the state of Florida. The clinical data from February 28th of 2021 appear to have demonstrated that Covid shots were both, ineffective at stopping transmission, while at the same time posing a risk to those receiving Covid shots and those around them. Pfizer’s data revealed that ingredients of the shots could be transmitted via respiratory and skin contact and even posed a risk to pregnant women having a miscarriage after having skin contact with a recently injected person. There were over 42,000 adverse cases and 158,000 adverse incidents, 1223 deaths, and over 1000 side effects during this clinical trial. Although, the study claims the deaths are not due to Covid shots, time has certainly increased suspicion on the validity of that claim. This information that Covid shots were unsafe and ineffective was available to government agencies and withheld from the public. This constitutes fraud on the part of the federal government.

As governor and surgeon general you have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the public from dangerous biological agents. The ingredients of these shots are unknown and kept secret. However, physicians and researchers from around the world have reported what appears to be self assembling nano particles apparently utilizing artificial intelligence and computer circuitry, and unknown materials in these shots.

Birthrates are down and miscarriages are up. People are literally dropping dead and sudden adult death syndrome (SADS) is becoming commonplace. Research shows that Covid gene therapy shots may alter human DNA. There is no way to measure the long-term impact this will have on the human race. Doctors have stated that it is possible that if this is a gene editing program, the human race may become extinct in a few generations.

The obvious deaths may be reported, but those dying of diseases that may be attributed to spike proteins from the shots are not being considered as potential Covid shot deaths. All cause mortality continues to rise. Increasingly, there appears to be a correlation between vaccination and an increase in all cause mortality.

Physicians from around the world have been warning that cancer, heart attacks, strokes, autoimmune diseases, and neurological disorders, are resulting from these shots. DOD data obtained by Renz law showed increases in these diseases, and others, among those in the military, and was reported in Senator Ron Johnson’s hearing earlier this year.

A recent peer reviewed article of an autopsy demonstrated brain and heart damage caused by the C19 shot. Embalmers are reporting blood clots that have never been seen before and world renowned physicians are reporting that these blood clots appear semisynthetic, and that the Covid vaccination program may be a DARPA program. As governor you must immediately direct medical examiners from across the state to perform autopsies on anyone that dies that previously received a Covid 19 injection. Arguably, the law requires it.

You must also begin a longitudinal study, examining health outcomes of the vaccinated and unvaccinated, matching groups by age and sex. This study must monitor all cause mortality, and various diseases such as cancer, heart attacks, strokes, neurological disorders, autoimmune diseases, and so on.

VAERS data shows Covid 19 shots are responsible for more deaths and injuries than all prior vaccines combined. VSAFE data, which was a voluntary program of 10 million participants, also shows that there are an enormous number of injuries from Covid shots. Approximately 7.7% required medical attention after getting the shots, 25% missed work or school, and 40% had joint pain, which is a concerning autoimmune signal. There is no way to know the long-term effects.

Estimating the true number of deaths is difficult. If we go by the VAERS data, and the previous factor of only 1% getting reported, then we are looking at around a million and a half Americans dead. However, the number is potentially much higher. Only obvious cases will get reported. A person getting cancer or a heart attack a year or two after the shots will not likely draw the association to the shots.

In May of this year, at The Global Covid Summit, 17,000 of the world’s leading scientists and physicians called for Covid gene therapy mRNA shots to be pulled off the market because they pose a public health risk. It was stated that Covid shots are in violation of the Nuremberg Code and constitute crimes against humanity.

It is not enough for the state of Florida to simply recommend against these shots. They must be prohibited. They pose a danger to those that get the shots, and also to those around them. This statement is based on the Pfizer clinical data asserting material transmission from vaccinated to unvaccinated, and the evidence that people that get Covid shots are getting graphene oxide in their blood, and the fact that those that didn’t get these shots are now often showing graphene oxide in their blood. A phenomenon never seen prior to the rollout of these mRNA gene therapies.

The state of Florida must act, or risk becoming complicit in the crime. I strongly urge you to follow the guidance of the Global Covid Summit, and prohibit Covid shots and all mRNA shots in the state of Florida.

It appears that the plan is to introduce mRNA shots widely into other vaccines. Taking action to prohibit Covid shots and all mRNA shots in the state of Florida could save millions of lives, as there may be a domino effect across the nation and the world, as other states will be forced to follow suit.

Governor DeSantis, after your unconstitutional government lockdown, you admitted that you were wrong and that the lockdown caused harm, and apologized for it. In the past, you and your administration promoted these dangerous gene therapy shots. Governor, I am assuming that you, and Surgeon General, Dr. Ladapo, were not privy to the clinical trial data that was available in April of 2021 to the federal government. Whether my suspicion that these shots are a biological weapon is correct, or not, is irrelevant. The data appears to demonstrate that these shots are a biological hazard and there is no informed consent.

Now, you must immediately cease and desist all compliance with these dangerous shots, and ban them in the state of Florida, to prevent further harm and injury.

Governor, you must impanel a grand jury to investigate hospital administrators across the state, pharmaceutical employees and executives, federal government employees, and anyone else that is responsible for these crimes against humanity, that may fall within the jurisdiction of the state of Florida.

I, like most in this state, voted for your reelection. I assure you that part of that mandate is to ban the jab! I am sure the same advisors that would advise against this action are the same advisors that told you to do the lockdown.

Respectfully, Floridians deserve immediate action. Start by hosting a roundtable of the experts that attended the Global Covid Summit. I implore you to do everything humanly possible to protect the public from these shots.

Sincerely,

Joseph Sansone, PhD

*

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

by Michel Chossudovsky

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

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

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

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***

 

 

GEOFOR: Sir, what’s your view of the prospects of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

Dr. Roberts: The future prospects depend entirely on the Kremlin. The situation in Ukraine can radically change if the Kremlin realizes it is at war and not involved in a limited operation and makes the decision to win the war.

So far the Kremlin maintains, despite extensive US and NATO involvement, that Russia is conducting a limited military operation to protect Donbass Russians from being slaughtered by Ukrainian neo-Nazis.

Consequently, the Kremlin has done very little to prevent Kiev and its Western allies from conducting war against the Russian forces and attacking the territories recently reincorporated into Russia. So the Kremlin is now fighting on Russian territory.

Not long ago Putin said that Russia would never again fight on her own territory. Yet Russia is.

As long as the Kremlin refrains from attacking Kiev’s ability to wage war, the war will continue, and it will continue to widen.

Already the war has gone from the West supplying weapons and financial aid to intelligence and targeting information, to US troops deployed on Ukraine’s border, to the attack on the Crimea bridge, to the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, to the addition of Finland and Sweden to NATO, to the reformulation of US nuclear doctrine to permit first use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear threat. Clearly, the mistaken attempt to limit the war has greatly expanded it by allowing the conflict to drag on and on, thus enabling increasing Western involvement.

GEOFOR: What are the consequences of the conflict being dragged out, and was the revision in US nuclear doctrine permitting the use of nuclear weapons in the absence of a nuclear threat one consequence?

Dr. Roberts: In my considered opinion the purpose of loosening Washington’s constraints on the use of nuclear weapons is to put more pressure on the Kremlin. The purpose of the revision is to tell Russia that if the US decides a Russian victory in Ukraine is a threat to US national interest, the US can use nuclear weapons to prevent a Russian victory. Washington has seen so much of what Washington regards as Kremlin hesitancy, unpreparedness, and half-hearted commitments to the conflict, such as too few troops and no reserves, that Washington has decided to apply more pressure on the Kremlin. By permitting a long drawn-out conflict, the Kremlin gave the West the time it needed to take the initiative in the conflict. The West now sees Russia as reacting to Western propaganda and initiatives. When the attacking party loses the initiative defeat follows.

GEOFOR: In view of the vast superiority of Russian military capability over the Ukraine, what, in your opinion, explains the length of the conflict and the Russian withdrawals from Kherson and the Kharkov areas?

Dr. Roberts: The Kremlin’s basic mistake was to regard its intervention as a legalistic rather than a strategic matter. The Kremlin was concerned not to open itself to being labeled a war criminal by attacking Ukraine. Therefore, Russia went to the aid of the independent republics who were under attack. The purpose was to protect the Donbass populations, not to defeat Ukraine. This is permissible and is not considered an attack on Ukraine. It is unclear why the Kremlin thought the West would refrain from calling Russia’s intervention an “invasion of the Ukraine.”

The limited intervention was a strategic mistake. The Kremlin somehow overlooked that Washington, having forced the Russian intervention, would not allow the conflict to be limited. Much had been said and written in US foreign policy circles about involving Russia in a “Vietnam” in the Ukraine in order to break off European business deals with Russia and growing energy dependence, both of which threatened Washington’s hold on its European empire.  Apparently, the Kremlin paid no attention to this dimension of the situation.

Additionally, the Kremlin intervened with insufficient forces and no reserves, leaving the Russian forces with insufficient troops to hold existing lines and continue the offensive. This mistake permitted the Ukraine to seize the initiative and launch counter-offensives that have been presented in the West as Russian defeats. These “defeats” have emboldened more crossings of Russian red lines and more serious provocations.

What the Kremlin needed was a quick decisive victory over the Ukraine with a Russian imposition of peace terms dividing the country as the winner–Russia–saw as necessary for Russian security. Such a clear decisive victory would have deprived Washington of the opportunity to get the West involved and most likely would have discouraged Europe from contemplating military conflict with Russia. Indeed, I suspect NATO would have broken up instead of expanding. Instead, what the West has seen is unenforced Russian red lines, indecision, and a Russian military that can be defeated. And still the Kremlin fails to see the impracticality of its “limited operation.”

It is the limited operation that is the cause of an ever widening war.

A new development might cause the war to widen into a direct US/Russia conflict. The small number of soldiers with which the Kremlin entered Donbass and the extraordinary amount of time it is taking to reinforce these troops is causing Washington to wonder if Russia really has a standing army. The Russian military must have known for some time that Russia had insufficient troops in the field to both defend existing lines and continue its offensive. Yet, in place of reinforcements, there are embarrassing withdrawals and retreats. Kherson, an important city of psychological value, now a Russian city, had to be given up to the Ukrainian Nazis. Russia’s loss of Kherson has made Washington much more confident that the Russian military can be defeated on the battlefield. Washington is no longer certain that Russia even has a one million man standing army or any defense of her homeland other than nuclear weapons.

*

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy, US economist and ex-Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.  He was a senior member of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a member of the Cold War  Committee on the Present Danger, consultant to the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, and advisor to President Reagan on achieving the end of the Cold War. He is a regular contributor to Global Research. 

Serge Duhanov is a journalist, specializing in international relations and national security issues. Не worked as the NOVOSTI Press Agency’s own correspondent in Canada (Ottawa, 1990-1992) and the US Bureau Chief (Washington, 1996-2001) of the newspapers Business MN, Delovoy Mir and Interfax-AiF.

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***

The Government of Ethiopia, civil society (especially Tigrayans), and their supporters abroad must prepare for defending against this impending scenario, though if the latest conflict is anything to go by, then they’ll certainly succeed.

Ethiopia Had A Good Reason To Vote Against The UN Resolution On Ukrainian Reparations”, namely to preemptively defend itself from the “lawfare” scenario of further US meddling in its domestic affairs through the creation of similar mechanisms as those that’ll be created against Russia on that pretext. That sequence of Hybrid War events is no longer the realm of speculation after an unnamed senior State Department official told the media on Tuesday that the US might sanction Ethiopia yet again.

That figure threatened to wield these economic weapons if non-ENDF forces like Afar militias, Amhara special forces, and Eritrean troops don’t withdraw from the Tigray Region per their commitment as enshrined in this month’s peace agreement between the Government of Ethiopia (GOE) and the TPLF. They also added that this could be pursued to “hold actors accountable for human rights violations or for the purposes of trying to ensure that this agreement is respected and abided.”

On that topic, the unnamed source said that while the US hasn’t yet made a determination on the atrocities allegedly committed throughout the course of the Northern Ethiopian Conflict, it’s still “absolutely committed to ensuring that those who are responsible for gross violations of human rights are held accountable”. This very strongly hints that sanctions could be wielded against those that it determines are supposedly responsible for committing war crimes.

It should also be pointed out that “The US Continues To Disrespect Ethiopia By Playing Word Games With The TPLF’s Name” after the unnamed official referred to that group as the “Tigrayan Defense Forces” and its TDF acronym a total of three times.  State Department spokesman Ned Price had earlier done the same and even doubled down upon being challenged about this by a journalist, thus confirming that it’s the US’ unofficial policy to provocatively use these terms interchangeably.

By contrast, that same unnamed official only used the proper TPLF terminology twice, meaning that the improper one that isn’t mentioned anywhere in the recently signed peace agreement was employed one time more. Considering this tacit signal of support for that group as well as its sanctions threats that it plans to wield as a Damocles’ sword over the heads of the GOE, irrespective of whether they’re implemented on a similar pretext as the Ukrainian reparations one, it’s clear that the US is meddling.

This illegal interference in Ethiopia’s domestic affairs amounts to a violation of both conflicting parties’ will with respect to the part of their joint statement calling on everyone across the world to support their fledgling peace process. Provocatively employing wartime terminology and preparing to wage another form of Hybrid Warfare against the GOE is unfriendly to the extreme and suggests that America plans to complicate the peace process as revenge for the very fact that it was agreed to in the first place.

The US planned to fight the GOE to the last Tigrayan as punishment for the former’s independent foreign policy and attendant decision to remain neutral in the New Cold War between that declining unipolar hegemon and its vassals on one side and the rising multipolar Great Powers of China and Russia on the other. Ethiopia’s defeat was supposed to serve as a powerful example deterring all other Global South countries and especially those in Africa from following in its footsteps.

Instead, Ethiopia’s victory resulted in the opposite outcome in the sense that all other Global South countries and especially those in Africa now see that it’s possible to winagainst seemingly insurmountable odds so long as society remains united and stands in solidarity with their armed forces. The powerful example set by Ethiopia therefore works against the US’ hegemonic interests, hence why it’s once again conspiring to destabilize that rising African leader through “lawfare”.

Raising awareness of this plot, the existence of which is unquestionably confirmed by the unnamed State Department official’s own statement of intent with respect to once again sanctioning Ethiopia on human rights and military pretexts, is meant to ensure that it fails. The GOE, civil society (especially Tigrayans), and their supporters abroad must prepare for defending against this impending scenario, though if the latest conflict is anything to go by, then they’ll certainly succeed.

*

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, 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.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

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***

“For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.” – John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, Washington, DC, January 20th, 1961

***

As the 21st century unfurls its harrowing shadow, a moldering American republic groans in its agonizing death throes. Its heritage, collective memory, and canon lie in ruins. Its ties to reason, the rule of law, and the intellect rest in ashes. For the avarice of empire has hollowed out once noble institutions, and the voracious hunger for hegemony increasingly wields no other tool but the bloody truncheon.

This rapaciousness has, even with regard to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, squandered trillions of dollars on barbaric wars of imperial conquest. Moreover, this relentless, brutal, and self-destructive ideology that seeks to subjugate the planet to the whims and dictates of a ruthless cabal has put us on a path to a third world war, a war in which the predator will perish along with the prey.

“She goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy” said John Quincy Adams when addressing the subject of US foreign policy in a speech to the House of Representatives on July 4th, 1821. Over two hundred years have passed since these words reverberated in the House Chamber, their echo ringing alongside the ghosts of history. How many bombs have been dropped? How many governments overthrown? How many innocents slaughtered in the pursuit of phantom monsters?

While Americans drown in joblessness, mass incarceration, tribalism, atomization, medical mandates, and substance abuse both neocons and neolibs continue to clamor for more war. That they pursue this perilous path threatens not only the survival of our civilization, but of humanity. The growing censorship, glaringly on display with regard to both the Ukraine war and the Covid psyop, is intertwined with the dark shadow that has enveloped journalism and academia in an increasingly authoritarian discourse devoid of any fact-based analysis. Both deceivers and deceived, the priests of neoliberalism knowingly and unknowingly foment authoritarianism.

Unconcerned that tens of billions of taxpayer dollars are being used to fund a murderous Kiev junta, congressman Jamie Raskin writes on his website that Moscow “is a world center of antifeminist, antigay, anti-trans hatred, as well as the homeland of replacement theory for export.” Of the totalitarian Banderite state notorious for torturing dissidents and militiamen, he writes that “a Ukrainian victory would give us an opening to a much better future for all humanity.”

The idea that the Russian military will be driven from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea, territories where they have the support of the overwhelming majority of the locals, is no less delusional, and yet this is clearly one of NATO’s principal goals in its proxy war against Russia.

Ignoring the fact that the war in Ukraine began with the ultranationalist Maidan putsch in February of 2014, and that the primary objective of the Russian military is to protect Russian speaking Ukrainians from persecution and genocide at the hands of the Banderite entity, NBC informs us, in what is clearly a fabricated story, that Russian soldiers have raped Ukrainian children. How many Ukrainian children have been raped by neo-Nazi gangs and death squads? Quite a few I would imagine, yet that is the real war which the presstitutes have no interest whatsoever in either learning about or discussing. The article offers a photo of a Russian soldier standing guard in Mariupol, implying that the Russian military committed war crimes there, when the city was held hostage to the Azov battalion for eight years.

If the Russian military had such contempt for Russian speaking Ukrainians – and indeed, they are operating exclusively in Russian language dominant oblasts – then why not simply leave the locals to the savagery of Azov, Aidar, and Right Sector? Such a question invariably falls on deaf ears in a dystopian technocracy where logic and reason have all but ceased to exist. The NBC stenographers go on to tell us that these atrocities have been confirmed by United Nations “experts.” Replace the UN with the WHO and we could be talking about Hydroxychloroquine.

Enclosed are some headlines taken from Google which embody the deplorable state of the media generally, and its coverage of the Ukraine war in particular:

  • “Madmen like Putin who sanction killing of children shouldn’t be appeased,” by Trey Gowdy (Fox News)
  • “1 in 5 Russians want Gays and Lesbians ‘eliminated,’ survey finds,” by Elizabeth Kuhr (NBC News)
  • “Why Russia’s War in Ukraine is a Genocide,” by Kristina Hook (Foreign Affairs)
  • “Women who were raped by Russian soldiers yearn for justice,” by Valerie Hopkins (The New York Times)
  • “Russia using rape as ‘military strategy’ in Ukraine: UN envoy,” by Philip Wang, Tim Lister, Josh Pennington and Heather Chen (CNN)
  • “How Moscow Grabs Ukrainians Kids and Makes them Russians,” by Sarah El Deeb, Anastasiia Shvets, and Elizaveta Tilna (Associated Press)
  • “Russia is depopulating parts of eastern Ukraine, forcibly removing thousands into remote parts of Russia,” by Katie Bo Lillis, Kylie Atwood, and Natasha Bertrand (CNN)
  • “Female Fighters Detail Russian Atrocities in Ukraine,” by Nike Ching (Voice of America)
  • “Mad Vlad is likely to use nukes – we have to stop him,” by Tony Parsons (The US Sun)

Where are all the plucky “fact checkers” condemning these spreaders of “misinformation” and “disinformation?” Replace “Russians” with “Jews” and this language bears an eerie resemblance to anti-Semitism in the Third Reich.

Washington’s Russophobia and its loathing of the Putin government constitute almost insurmountable obstacles towards achieving a negotiated settlement at this time. (Consider Biden referring to Putin as “a murderous dictator” and “a pure thug,” language which would have been unthinkable during the Cold War). Clearly, the ultimate goal of the American ruling establishment is the breaking up of the Russian Federation and the total degradation of the Russian people. This desire to bully Russia as if she were no different than Libya or Somalia is indicative of an American exceptionalism that has lost all touch with reality.

The Pentagon has accelerated the delivery of upgraded nuclear weapons to its European vassals, and the 101st Airborne Division is training in Romania, replete with copious quantities of bravado and preposterous boasting. The Kremlin wouldn’t go to war with the US over eastern Syria, but can the same be said with regard to Odessa, a Russian speaking oblast inextricably linked with centuries of Russian culture and founded in 1794 by Catherine the Great?

In an Atlantic Council memo to the president of the United States, the think tank nonchalantly suggests that if the Kremlin decides to use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine (for which there would presently be no justification vis-à-vis the Russian nuclear doctrine), one option is that “The United States could conduct a limited conventional strike on the Russian forces or bases directly involved in the attack.”

Retired Army General David Petraeus, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have reiterated this position in even more threatening language. In conjunction with this madness, the Pentagon is planning to send nuclear-capable bombers to the Tindal air base in northern Australia, yet another provocation meant to antagonize China and which threatens to further destabilize the region.

Having lost all moral, political, and legal credibility, the United States no longer has anything to offer the world except violence, anarchy, and unfettered capitalism. Barring the annihilation of China and Russia and the breaking up of BRICS (which the Saudis have notably asked to join), nothing can stop the inevitable disintegration of US imperial power, and yet the destruction of these two titans could only be achieved with a nuclear war which would irrevocably hurl humanity towards the abyss of extinction.

Nevertheless, the destruction of Russia and China is precisely what Pentagon war planners have on their minds right now; hence the interminable, almost hypnotic, calls to defend the “rules-based order.” As retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor points out in “Will Biden Gamble on a Ukraine Coalition,” any attempt on the part of the United States and its allies to directly enter the conflict is ill-conceived and fraught with tremendous danger.

The Biden administration’s recent Nuclear Posture Review significantly lowers the threshold for a nuclear first strike, and there is a chance that Finland and Poland may host nuclear weapons – likewise incredibly reckless provocations.

What makes the proxy war in Ukraine so volatile, is that while Russia is firmly committed to denazification and to protecting Russian speaking Ukrainians and Ukrainians of ethnic Russian origin from the Banderite entity, Washington is increasingly alarmed by the waning of American power and the rise of an increasingly multipolar world. Scott Ritter writes in Consortium News that “Should the US opt to resist the tides of history, the temptation to use the final weapon of existential survival — America’s nuclear arsenal — will be real.”

Image: President Dwight D. Eisenhower (National Archives)

The US must free itself from the cannibalistic maws of the military industrial complex and its insatiable lust for endless conflict. Speaking to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of an America in a state of permanent war:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people….

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

All empires eventually wither and die, yet no dying empire ever possessed thousands of nuclear weapons before. Where is the fear of Armageddon from our leaders, the dread crossing of the final Rubicon?

Unlike World War I, once coined “the war to end all wars,” a nuclear war truly would constitute such a cataclysm. Indeed, following the apocalyptic conflagration of a third world war, due to pollution and disease and an annihilated infrastructure, the survivors would be physically incapable of fighting another.

*

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David Penner’s articles on politics and health care have appeared in Dissident Voice, CounterPunch, Global Research, The Saker blog, OffGuardian and KevinMD; while his poetry has been published with Dissident Voice and Mad in America. Also a photographer, he is the author of three books of portraiture: Faces of The New Economy, Faces of Manhattan Island, and Manhattan Pairs. He can be reached at [email protected]

Featured image is from Struggle-La Lucha

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Den Kriegstreibern in den Arm fallen Neuer “Krefelder Appell”

November 17th, 2022 by Dr. Rudolf Hänsel

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***

Immer offensichtlicher wird das Treiben derer, die das Leben auf unserem Planeten gefährden und schon in erheblichem Umfang zerstört haben. Weltweit gehörten und gehören Kriege, strangulierende Sanktionen, Embargos und Hunger-Blockaden zum Agieren des US-Machtkomplexes. Die USA haben wichtige Abrüstungsverträge wie ABM, INF und OpenSkies aufgekündigt. Die gegen Russland und China gerichteten Manöver werden immer aggressiver. Die Gefahr eines Atomkriegs nimmt bedrohlich zu.

Aber die Machthaber dieser Welt führen Kriege auch an neuen, andersartigen Fronten. Unter dem Deckmantel der Pandemie-Bekämpfung wird das Leben von Milliarden Menschen gefährdet. Das betrifft vor allem Länder der so genannten “Dritten Welt”. Allein in Indien hat der Lockdown nach Angaben der “World Doctors Alliance” Millionen Menschenleben gekostet. Eine noch größere Gefahr geht von der “Impf”-Kampagne aus – für Milliarden von Menschen. Dahinter steht die Strategie des “Great Reset” des Forums der Superreichen, das sich “Weltwirtschaftsforum” nennt, mit dem der Kapitalismus über einen gezielten Zusammenbruch und einen “Neustart” auf eine noch perversere Stufe gehoben werden soll – unter weitergehender Verletzung der bürgerlichen Rechte, der Menschenrechte und des Völkerrechts – d.h. mit weniger Rechten und mehr Überwachung für den überwiegenden Teil der Menschheit.

Es sind die gleichen Kräfte, die hinter den verschiedenen Formen von Krieg stehen. Ein Beispiel: einer der Drahtzieher der Operation 9/11 und des nachfolgenden “Kriegs gegen den Terror”, Ex-US-Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld, war Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender und Aktionär des Pharma-Unternehmens Gilead Sciences, das im Jahr 2005 mit Tamiflu aus der Angst vor der Vogelgrippe seinen Profit schlug. Ein weiteres Beispiel: die Carlyle Group mit Sitz in Washington ist gleichzeitig im Rüstungs- wie im Pharma-Geschäft aktiv. Es gilt, dem Krieg in all seinen Formen zu begegnen – dem militärischen wie auch dem mit wirtschaftlichen, biologischen und psychologischen Mitteln geführten.

Die Unterzeichnerinnen und Unterzeichner dieser Erklärung fordern daher – insbesondere von der deutschen Bundesregierung – sich von einer Politik der Kriege abzuwenden. Es gilt, den Kriegstreibern in den Arm zu fallen. Alle Mitbürgerinnen und Mitbürger werden aufgerufen, diesen Appell zu unterstützen, um durch unablässigen und wachsenden Druck der öffentlichen Meinung eine Politik herbeizuführen,

  • die es nicht zulässt, dass das US-Imperium inkl. Deutschland und der anderen NATO-Staaten die Welt weiter mit Kriegen überzieht,
  • die zu Frieden und Freundschaft mit allen Staaten bzw. Völkern der Welt führt,
  • die US- und NATO-Truppen verbannt – aus Deutschland mit 2-Jahresfrist durch Kündigung des Truppenstationierungsvertrags,
  • die zum Austritt aus der NATO führt – in allen NATO-Staaten mit 1-Jahresfrist durch Kündigung des NATO-Vertrags,
  • die sich verweigert, unter dem Deckmantel der Pandemie-Bekämpfung Milliarden Menschenleben zu gefährden und die Überlebenden einer Totalkontrolle zu unterwerfen,
  • die der Maxime folgt: Nicht Einschränkung, sondern Sicherung und Erweiterung der demokratischen Grundrechte ist das Gebot der Stunde.

Wir, die wir zur Unterstützung dieses Appells aufrufen, kommen aus allen Teilen der Gesellschaft – insbesondere aus der Friedensbewegung und der Bewegung zur Wiedererlangung unserer Grund- und Menschenrechte. In diesem Sinne rufen wir auch zur Überwindung der gesellschaftlichen Spaltung auf, die in vielen Ländern in den vergangenen 18 Monaten systematisch erzeugt worden ist. Wir haben nur dann eine Chance, wenn wir den Bedrohungen gemeinsam begegnen.

Dieser Aufruf ist initiiert von Mitgliedern der Kampagne “NATO raus – raus aus der NATO”, inspiriert vom “Krefelder Appell” vom 16. November 1980. V.i.S.d.P: Anneliese Fikentscher, Köln

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Dr. Rudolf Lothar Hänsel ist promovierter Pädagoge (Dr. paed.) und Diplom-Psychologe (Dipl.-Psych.). Er war jahrzehntelang als Lehrer (Schulleiter im Ruhestand) und als Psychotherapeut im Ruhestand in eigener Praxis tätig. In seinen Büchern und pädagogisch-psychologischen Artikeln plädiert er für eine bewusste ethisch-moralische Werteerziehung sowie für eine Erziehung zu Gemeinsinn und Frieden. Er ist regelmäßiger Mitarbeiter von Global Research.

Das Bild stammt aus The Transnational

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***

False flag or accidental missile strike on Polish border identified in 2019 simulation as possible spark for a nuclear war with Russia. Do the hawks in Washington want nuclear war?

On March 4, 2022, Harry J. Kazianis—director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest in Washington DC—wrote a provocative piece in the Federalist titled, “Nato Intervention in Ukraine Could Spark Nuclear War. Here’s How It Could Happen.”

Yesterday I was reminded of this article when I saw reports of a purportedly Russian missile strike just inside of Polish territory. Though I sensed that this report was probably false, I still found it frightening, because it is precisely such an attack that was identified as THE SPARK for nuclear war in a 2019 simulation described by Mr. Kazianis.

The Spark

Here is where things take a turn for the worst. A Russian ballistic missile’s guidance system fails and crash-lands into NATO member Poland, killing 34 civilians as it tragically lands into a populated village along the Polish-Ukraine border. While the missile was not directed at Poland intentionally, pictures on social media show children crying for their mothers and bodies left unrecognizable, and demands for justice and revenge mount.

From here the situation rapidly escalates, leading inexorably to a nuclear exchange that kills a billion people.

As I suspected, the AP Report was false, as AP admitted in today’s Correction (see below).

I wasn’t at all surprised to read in the correction that the missile was “most likely fired by Ukraine in defense against a Russian attack.” The question of why Ukrainian forces fired a missile towards Poland without proper guidance is apparently not being asked by our mainstream media, and perhaps not even by whoever is calling the shots of US-Nato policy in Ukraine.

What concerns me is that THE SPARK identified in the 2019 simulation is well-known to people in Ukraine who seem to be doing everything in their power to induce direct Nato involvement in the war with Russia.

I also question the wisdom of printing such highly inflammatory reports based on the verbal assurances of “a senior American intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.”

Aren’t WE THE PEOPLE tired of being misinformed and manipulated by senior intelligence officials who speak on condition of anonymity?

After the abysmal performance of our intelligence and military establishments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya, aren’t WE THE PEOPLE tired of our country being dragged into wars thousands of miles from our territory—wars that kill and maim hundreds of thousands, achieve nothing, and even make matters worse?

Now we’re not talking about ISIS maniacs being unleashed on Iraq after the US pulls out, or Afghanistan given back to the Taliban after twenty years of US blood and treasure was spilled in that godforsaken country. Now we’re talking about the dramatically elevated risk of nuclear war with Russia.

Is it possible that certain hawks in Washington want nuclear war with Russia?

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John Leake is a True Crime Writer. Coauthor with Dr. Peter McCullough of “The Courage to Face COVID-19.: Preventing Hospitalization and Death While Battling the Biopharmaceutical Complex.”

Featured image is from Countercurrents


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

Available to order from Global Research! 

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-5-3
Year: 2012
Pages: 102

PDF Edition:  $6.50 (sent directly to your email account!)

Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Reviews

“This book is a ‘must’ resource – a richly documented and systematic diagnosis of the supremely pathological geo-strategic planning of US wars since ‘9-11’ against non-nuclear countries to seize their oil fields and resources under cover of ‘freedom and democracy’.”
John McMurtry, Professor of Philosophy, Guelph University

“In a world where engineered, pre-emptive, or more fashionably “humanitarian” wars of aggression have become the norm, this challenging book may be our final wake-up call.”
-Denis Halliday, Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations

Michel Chossudovsky exposes the insanity of our privatized war machine. Iran is being targeted with nuclear weapons as part of a war agenda built on distortions and lies for the purpose of private profit. The real aims are oil, financial hegemony and global control. The price could be nuclear holocaust. When weapons become the hottest export of the world’s only superpower, and diplomats work as salesmen for the defense industry, the whole world is recklessly endangered. If we must have a military, it belongs entirely in the public sector. No one should profit from mass death and destruction.
Ellen Brown, author of ‘Web of Debt’ and president of the Public Banking Institute   

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***

A class action lawsuit has been filed against the US state of Massachusetts for what the plaintiffs claim is a case of covert mass surveillance carried out via “Covid spyware” installed on over one million phones.

The complaint asks for declaratory and injunctive relief (a bid to legally compel the defendants to fulfill their mandatory duties) and nominative damages, and was filed on November 14, 2022, by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA) non-profit.

We obtained a copy of the complaint for you here.

It names the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) and Commissioner Margret Cooke as the defendants.

The US District Court for the District of Massachusetts will consider the case.

The complaint consists of nine counts against the DPH, citing violations of Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights (protections against unlawful searches, and rights pertaining to criminal and civil legal proceedings). Moreover, the DPH/ activities are said to have violated Articles X and XIV of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.

According to the filing, the DPH teamed up with Google and proceeded to install spyware on more than one million phones in “auto-install” mode, without giving the users a chance to consent to this action, and even without informing them about it.

The justification was to combat the pandemic by introducing the Covid tracing app, in a way that the NCLA says violates not only the state’s but the US Constitution as well, blasting it as a brazen disregard for civil liberties that “cannot stand.”

The assertion is that this way of warrantless tracking and surveillance of people and of gaining access to their location and personal contacts by a government agency represents a breach of the right to privacy and property.

The lawsuit, Wright v. Massachusetts Department of Public Health, et al., alleges that the contentious app tracked and recorded the phone owners’ movements and their contacts, all the while keeping them in the dark – “without their permission or awareness.”

According to the class action lawsuit, which cites Massachusetts residents and Android phone users Robert Wright and Johnny Kula as the plaintiffs, the DPH and Google started engaging in this secret activity in July 2021.

The filing further explains how the covert app behaved, once “auto-installed” without the device owner’s consent or knowledge: it would not – as is otherwise the case with newly installed Android apps – appear on one of the home screens.

Instead, a user could only become aware of its existence if they dug deep into the “settings”: first accessing it, then going to the “view all apps” feature, and finding it listed there. In other words, the plaintiffs allege, not something a typical user does.

The allegations get worse, claiming that if a user went to the trouble of reviewing all their installed apps, and decided to delete the Covid tracing one installed in collaboration with Google – the Massachusetts DPH would “simply re-install it.”

It appears that initially, the DPH offered the app to Massachusetts residents openly, and “a few” decided to install it, knowing what it was and what it entails. And then, this apparently led the agency down the path of secretly installing it on the phones of more than one million more people.

In a press release announcing the class action, the NCLA stresses the importance of obtaining consent and making sure that Covid tracing apps are only installed voluntarily – this is “necessary in a free society,” even if it may be the less easy way of going about it, NCLA Litigation Counsel Sheng Li noted.

The non-profit’s Peggy Little, who acts as Senior Litigation Counsel, remarked that the Massachusetts DPH, being a government agency, is legally constrained by its actions by both the US Constitution and state rules.

Little further describes the situation with the secretly installed app as an “Android attack” that was deliberately designed to trump citizens’ rights, including to privacy and freedom from government intrusion. And according to the counsel – it not only “reads like dystopian science fiction” – but must also be “swiftly invalidated” by the court.

The DPH is accused of having no statutory authority to do what it has done, particularly in light that Massachusetts has in the meanwhile put an end to its contact tracing scheme.

The lawsuit also notes that “it appears” iPhone users were asked to consent before having the same app installed on their devices.

Regardless, “No law or regulation authorizes DPH to secretly install any type of software – let alone what amounts to spyware designed specifically to obtain private location and health information – onto the Android devices of Massachusetts residents,” reads a statement sent to Reclaim The Net.

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