The United States — The Pacific Bully

June 27th, 2022 by Brian Toohey

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The US dominates the Pacific Islands to an extent China can never hope to achieve. With Australia’s support, the US is now engaged in an arms build-up in its Pacific territories and de-facto colonies in a little known boost to its containment of China.

The US has three self-governing territories in the Pacific: Guam, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. Guam hosts some of the US’s most important bases the world. After a large scale military expansion on one of the main islands in the Northern Marianas, Tinian is expected to rival Guam in importance in coming years.

The US also has Compacts of Free Association with three countries covering thousands of islands in the Pacific – the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands. The compacts are a de-facto form of colonialism which gives the US exclusive military access to these countries’ land and maritime surrounds in return for defence guarantees and financial assistance.

The Federated States of Micronesia has a population of around 100,000. It has a land area of 702  square km on 607 islands amid 2,600,000 square km of ocean. The US will build a new base there. The residents are concerned about the impact of the base as their islands are often tiny and the landscape important to their identity. The US is also establishing a new military base on Palau, which has 340 islands and a total population of just over 18,000. The Marshall Islands landmass is 181 square km amid 466,000 square km of ocean. Although the Kwajalein atoll is only 15 square km, it is exclusively a military base with an extraordinary array of US activities; including a key role in US testing interceptors aimed ballistic missiles.

The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi recently visited seven South Pacific countries and signed various agreements in some, including the provision of infrastructure and police training , but he failed to get support for a 10-country trade agreement. He did not seek permission to build a navy base in the Solomon Island or anywhere else. Nevertheless, some saw the visit as an act of Chinese aggression. It is an odd view of aggression compared to the damage done by US, British and French testing of thermonuclear (also called hydrogen) bombs on Pacific islands, or when Australia helped invade Iraq.

The US conducted 105 nuclear tests in the Pacific, mainly in the Marshall islands, between 1946 and 1962, as part oftits program to develop thermonuclear bombs. Operational weapons were sometimes tested, including a submarine-launched war head. One test in 1952 completely vaporised the island of Eluglab. In 1954, a thermonuclear bomb tested on Bikini atoll exploded with force of 15 megatons – over 1,000 times bigger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The radioactive cloud engulfed a Japanese fishing boat about 80 miles away in a white powder that poisoned the crew. One died from the exposure seven months later and 15 more in following years.

The radioactivity affected the drinking water and food. Children played in the ash-like powder. Some ate it. Marshall Islanders over a wide area were subject to abnormal radiological doses. In 2005, the US National Cancer Institute reported that the risk of contracting cancer for those exposed to the fallout was over one in three.

Nevertheless, in 1946, a US Navy Commodore had asked 167 people living on Bikini atoll to re-locate so their home could be used use “for the good of mankind”. They were resettled in 1969, but had to be evacuated again after high radiation levels were detected.

There has been some increase in the pathetically low initial compensation. But it is hard to compensate for the environmental damage and loss of cultural heritage, traditional customs and skills. In 2014, the Marshall Islands attempted to sue the US and eight other nuclear armed nations, for failing to move towards nuclear disarmament as required by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. A US Court dismissed the suit in 2017.

Britain tested 40 thermonuclear bombs on an islands in the Kiribati group between 1957 and 1962. Troops from Britain , Fiji (then a British colony), and New Zealand worked on the tests. Many were harmed by radiation and other causes. As usual, the locals were treated badly and their water and lands polluted.

France conducted 41 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1966 and 1974 in French Polynesia. It then conducted 140 underground, primarily of thermonuclear bombs, until 1996. One of the islands used was subject to cracking. In an act of state terrorism, French secret service frogman killed a photographer when they bombed a Green Peace protest ship in Auckland harbour on its way to the French nuclear testing area.

Labor’s defence minister, Richard Marles now refers to France as a Pacific county, despite the fact that it is a European country with a tenuous justification for holding onto its colonial possessions in the Pacific – New Caledonia and French Polynesia. Labor used to oppose colonialism. Now it seems it’s good if the colonial power opposes China.

The South Pacific Forum comprises 18 members: Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Not all are normally considered to be in the South Pacific. The inclusion of three countries with Compacts of Free Association with the US and two French possessions basically guarantees they will vote for what the US or France wants.

However, the legacy of the contemptuous disregard for the indigenous residents during massive hydrogen bomb tests ensures that  nuclear issues, including the passage of nuclear submarines, remain sensitive.

At the time of the negotiation of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty in 1985 Paul Malone wrote that it was for a “partial nuclear free zone”, as it did not prohibit the “passage of nuclear-armed ships or aircraft through the region”. Malone reported that some Pacific Island countries wanted to be Treaty to prohibit access to nuclear-armed warships. The then Prime Minister Bob Hawke insisted on that omission which reflected the wishes of the US. However, nuclear issues have been revived by the creation of the 2021AUKUS pact in which Australia is committed to buying nuclear powered submarines.

A journalist and researcher based in the Pacific, Nic Maclellan says, “Any hope that Australia’s island neighbours will welcome further nuclearisation of the region is folly. Within days of the UKUS announcement, statements from Pacific leaders, community elders and media organisations highlighted the persistence of the deep antinuclear sentiment.

The general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Reverend James Bhagwa tweeted

“Shame Australia, Shame.” The Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare told the UN General Assembly his nation “would like to keep our region nuclear-free . . . We do not support any form of militarisation in our region that could threaten regional and international peace and stability.”

The Kiribati President Taneti Maamau told the ABC, “Our people are victims of nuclear testing. We still have trauma. With anything to do with nuclear, we thought it would be a courtesy to discuss it with your neighbours”. He said he was especially concerned about Australia developing nuclear powered submarines which he said “puts the region at risk”

Fiji’s Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama tweeted that his father was among the Fijian soldiers the British sent to help with their nuclear bomb tests. He said, “To honour the sacrifice of all those who have suffered due to these weapons, Fiji will never stop working towards a global nuclear ban.”

The New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern repeated that nuclear submarines “can’t come into our internal waters”. New Zealand and nine South Pacific Forum countries have ratified the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Australia hasn’t. The Samoa Observer wrote, “It is a relief seeing Prime Minister Ardern continuing to maintain the tradition of her predecessors by promoting a nuclear-free Pacific; probably she is the only true friend of the Pacific Islands.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Brian Toohey is author of Secret: The Making of Australia’s Security State.

Featured image: The US conducted 105 nuclear tests in the Pacific, mainly in the Marshall islands, between 1946 and 1962. Image: Wikipedia

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Events of the past few days suggest British journalism – the so-called Fourth Estate – is not what it purports to be: a watchdog monitoring the centers of state power. It is quite the opposite.

The pretensions of the establishment media took a severe battering this month as the defamation trial of Guardian columnist Carole Cadwalladr reached its conclusion and the hacked emails of Paul Mason, a long-time stalwart of the BBC, Channel 4 and the Guardian, were published online.

Both of these celebrated journalists have found themselves outed as recruits – in their differing ways – to a covert information war being waged by Western intelligence agencies.

Had they been honest about it, that collusion might not matter so much. After all, few journalists are as neutral or as dispassionate as the profession likes to pretend. But as have many of their colleagues, Cadwalladr and Mason have broken what should be a core principle of journalism: transparency.

The role of serious journalists is to bring matters of import into the public space for debate and scrutiny. Journalists thinking critically aspire to hold those who wield power – primarily state agencies – to account on the principle that, without scrutiny, power quickly corrupts.

The purpose of real journalism – as opposed to the gossip, entertainment and national-security stenography that usually passes for journalism – is to hit up, not down.

And yet, each of these journalists, we now know, was actively colluding, or seeking to collude, with state actors who prefer to operate in the shadows, out of sight. Both journalists were coopted to advance the aims of the intelligence services.

And worse, each of them either sought to become a conduit for, or actively assist in, covert smear campaigns run by Western intelligence services against other journalists.

What they were doing – along with so many other establishment journalists – is the very antithesis of journalism. They were helping to conceal the operation of power to make it harder to scrutinize. And not only that. In the process, they were trying to weaken already marginalized journalists fighting to hold state power to account.

Russian Collusion?

Cadwalladr’s cooperation with the intelligence services has been highlighted only because of a court case. She was sued for defamation by Arron Banks, a businessman and major donor to the successful Brexit campaign for Britain to leave the European Union.

In a kind of transatlantic extension of the Russiagate hysteria in the United States following Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016, Cadwalladr accused Banks of lying about his ties to the Russian state. According to the court, she also suggested he broke election funding laws by receiving Russian money in the run-up to the Brexit vote, also in 2016.

That year serves as a kind of ground zero for liberals fearful about the future of “Western democracy” – supposedly under threat from modern “barbarians at the gate,” such as Russia and China – and the ability of Western states to defend their primacy through neo-colonial wars of aggression around the globe.

The implication is Russia masterminded a double subversion in 2016: on one side of the Atlantic, Trump was elected U.S. president; and, on the other, Britons were gulled into shooting themselves in the foot – and undermining Europe – by voting to leave the EU.

Faced with the court case, Cadwalladr could not support her allegations against Banks as true. Nonetheless, the judge ruled against Banks’ libel action – on the basis that the claims had not sufficiently harmed his reputation.

The judge also decided, perversely in a British defamation action, that Cadwalladr had “reasonable grounds” to publish claims that Banks received “sweetheart deals” from Russia, even though “she had seen no evidence he had entered into any such deals.” An investigation by the National Crime Agency ultimately found no evidence either.

So given those circumstances, what was the basis for her accusations against Banks?

Cadwalladr’s journalistic modus operandi, in her long-running efforts to suggest widespread Russian meddling in British politics, is highlighted in her witness statement to the court.

In it, she refers to another of her Russiagate-style stories: one from 2017 that tried to connect the Kremlin with Nigel Farage, a former pro-Brexit politician with the UKIP Party and close associate of Banks, and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been a political prisoner in the U.K. for more than a decade.

At that time, Assange was confined to a single room in the Ecuadorian Embassy after its government offered him political asylum. He had sought sanctuary there, fearing he would be extradited to the U.S. following publication by WikiLeaks of revelations that the U.S. and U.K. had committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks had also deeply embarrassed the CIA by following up with the publication of leaked documents, known as Vault 7, exposing the agency’s own crimes.

Last week the U.K.’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, approved the very extradition to the U.S. that Assange feared and that drove him into the Ecuadorian embassy. Once in the U.S., he faces up to 175 years in complete isolation in a supermax jail.

Assassination Plot

We now know, courtesy of a Yahoo News investigation, that through 2017 the CIA hatched various schemes to either assassinate Assange or kidnap him in one of its illegal “extraordinary rendition” operations, so he could be permanently locked up in the U.S., out of public view.

We can surmise that the CIA also believed it needed to prepare the ground for such a rogue operation by bringing the public on board. According to Yahoo’s investigation, the CIA believed Assange’s seizure might require a gun battle on the streets of London.

It was at this point, it seems, that Cadwalladr and the Guardian were encouraged to add their own weight to the cause of further turning public opinion against Assange.

According to her witness statement, “a confidential source in [the] U.S.” suggested – at the very time the CIA was mulling over these various plots – that she write about a supposed visit by Farage to Assange in the embassy. The story ran in the Guardian under the headline “When Nigel Farage met Julian Assange.”

In the article, Cadwalladr offers a strong hint as to who had been treating her as a confidant: the one source mentioned in the piece is “a highly placed contact with links to U.S. intelligence.” In other words, the CIA almost certainly fed her the agency’s angle on the story.

In the piece, Cadwalladr threads together her and the CIA’s claims of “a political alignment between WikiLeaks’ ideology, UKIP’s ideology and Trump’s ideology.” Behind the scenes, she suggests, was the hidden hand of the Kremlin, guiding them all in a malign plot to fatally undermine British democracy.

She quotes her “highly placed contact” claiming that Farage and Assange’s alleged face-to-face meeting was necessary to pass information of their nefarious plot “in ways and places that cannot be monitored.”

Except of course, as her “highly placed contact” knew – and as we now know, thanks to exposes by the Grayzone website – that was a lie. In tandem with its plot to kill or kidnap Assange, the CIA illegally installed cameras inside, as well as outside, the embassy. His every move in the embassy was monitored – even in the toilet block.

The reality was that the CIA was bugging and videoing Assange’s every conversation in the embassy, even the face-to-face ones. If the CIA actually had a recording of Assange and Farage meeting and discussing a Kremlin-inspired plot, it would have found a way to make it public by now.

Far more plausible is what Farage and WikiLeaks say: that such a meeting never happened. Farage visited the embassy to try to interview Assange for his LBC radio show but was denied access. That can be easily confirmed because by then the Ecuadorian embassy was allying with the U.S. and refusing Assange any contact with visitors apart from his lawyers.

Nonetheless, Cadwalladr concludes:In the perfect storm of fake news, disinformation and social media in which we now live, WikiLeaks is, in many ways, the swirling vortex at the centre of everything.”

‘Swirling Vortex’

The Farage-Assange meeting story shows how the CIA and Cadwalladr’s agendas perfectly coincided in their very own “swirling vortex” of fake news and disinformation.

She wanted to tie the Brexit campaign to Russia and suggest that anyone who wished to challenge the liberal pieties that provide cover for the crimes committed by Western states must necessarily belong to a network of conspirators, on the left and the right, masterminded from Moscow.

The CIA and other Western intelligence agencies, meanwhile, wanted to deepen the public’s impression that Assange was a Kremlin agent – and that WikiLeaks’ exposure of the crimes committed by those same agencies was not in the public interest but actually an assault on Western democracy.

Assange’s character assassination had already been largely achieved with the American public in the Russiagate campaign in the U.S. The intelligence services, along with the Democratic Party leadership, had crafted a narrative designed to obscure WikiLeaks’ revelations of election-fixing by Hillary Clinton’s camp in 2016 to prevent Bernie Sanders from winning the party’s presidential nomination. Instead they refocused the public’s attention on evidence-free claims that Russia had “hacked” the emails.

For Cadwalladr and the CIA, the fake-news story of Farage meeting Assange could be spun as further proof that both the “far left” and “far right” were colluding with Russia. Their message was clear: only centrists – and the national security state – could be trusted to defend democracy.

Fabricated Story

Cadwalladr’s smear of Assange is entirely of a piece with the vilification campaign of WikiLeaks led by liberal media outlets to which she belongs. Her paper, the Guardian, has had Assange in its sights since its falling out with him over their joint publication of the Iraq and Afghanistan war logs in 2010.

A year after Cadwalladr’s smear piece, the Guardian would continue its cooperation with the intelligence services’ demonization of Assange by running an equally fabricated story – this time about a senior aide of Trump’s, Paul Manafort, and various unidentified “Russians” secretly meeting Assange in the embassy.

The story was so improbable it was ridiculed even at the time of publication. Again, the CIA’s illegal spying operation inside and outside the embassy meant there was no way Manafort or any “Russians” could have secretly visited Assange without those meetings being recorded. Nonetheless, the Guardian has never retracted the smear.

One of the authors of the article, Luke Harding, has been at the forefront of both the Guardian’s Russiagate claims and its efforts to defame Assange. In doing so, he appears to have relied heavily on Western intelligence services for his stories and has proven incapable of defending them when challenged.

Harding, like the Guardian, has an added investment in discrediting Assange. He and a Guardian colleague, David Leigh, published a Guardian-imprint book that included a secret password to a WikiLeaks’ cache of leaked documents, thereby providing security services around the world with access to the material.

The CIA’s claim that the release of those documents endangered its informants – a claim that even U.S. officials have been forced to concede is not true – has been laid at Assange’s door to vilify him and justify his imprisonment. But if anyone is to blame, it is not Assange but Harding, Leigh and the Guardian.

Effort to Deplatform

The case of Paul Mason, who worked for many years as a senior BBC journalist, is even more revealing. Emails passed to the Grayzonewebsite show the veteran, self-described “left-wing” journalist secretly conspiring with figures aligned with British intelligence services to build a network of journalists and academics to smear and censor independent media outlets that challenge the narratives of the Western intelligence agencies.

Mason’s concerns about left-wing influence on public opinion have intensified the more he has faced criticism from the left over his demands for fervent, uncritical support of NATO and as he has lobbied for greater Western interference in Ukraine. Both are aims he shares with Western intelligence services.

Along with the establishment media, Mason has called for sending advanced weaponry to Kyiv, likely to raise the death toll on both sides of the war and risk a nuclear confrontation between the West and Russia.

In the published emails, Mason suggests the harming and “relentless deplatforming” of independent investigative media sites – such as the Grayzone, Consortium News and Mint Press – that host non-establishment journalists. He and his correspondents also debate whether to include Declassified UK and OpenDemocracy. One of his co-conspirators suggests a “full nuclear legal to squeeze them financially.”

Mason himself proposes starving these websites of income by secretly pressuring Paypal to stop readers from being able to make donations to support their work.

It should be noted that, in the wake of Mason’s correspondence,  PayPal did indeed launch just such a crackdown, including against Consortium News and MintPress, after earlier targeting WikiLeaks.

Mason’s email correspondents include two figures intimately tied to British intelligence: Amil Khan is described by the Grayzone as “a shadowy intelligence contractor” with ties to the U.K.’s National Security Council. He founded Valent Projects, establishing his credentials in a dirty propaganda war in support of head-chopping jihadist groups trying to bring down the Russian-supported Syrian government.

Clandestine ‘Clusters’

The other intelligence operative is someone Mason refers to as a “friend”: Andy Pryce, the head of the Foreign Office’s shadowy Counter Disinformation and Media Development (CDMD) unit, founded in 2016 to “counter-strike against Russian propaganda.” Mason and Pryce spend much of their correspondence discussing when to meet up in London pubs for a drink, according to the Grayzone.

The Foreign Office managed to keep the CDMD unit’s existence secret for two years. The U.K. government has refused to disclose basic information about the CDMD on grounds of national security, although it is now known that it is overseen by the National Security Council.

The CDMD’s existence came to light because of leaks about another covert information warfare operation, the Integrity Initiative.

Notably, the Integrity Initiative was run on the basis of clandestine “clusters,” in North America and Europe, of journalists, academics, politicians and security officials advancing narratives shared with Western intelligence agencies to discredit Russia, China, Julian Assange, and Jeremy Corbyn, the former, left-wing leader of the Labor Party.

Cadwalladr was named in the British cluster, along with other prominent journalists: David Aaronovitch and Dominic Kennedy of the Times; the Guardian’s Natalie Nougayrede and Paul Canning; Jonathan Marcus of the BBC; the Financial Times’ Neil Buckley; the Economist’s Edward Lucas; and Sky News’ Deborah Haynes.

In his emails, Mason appears to want to renew this type of work but to direct its energies more specifically at damaging independent, dissident media – with his number one target the Grayzone, which played a critical role in exposing the Integrity Initiative.

Mason’s “friend” – the CDMD’s head, Andy Pryce – “featured prominently” in documents relating to the Integrity Initiative, the Grayzone observes.

This background is not lost on Mason. He notes in his correspondence the danger that his plot to “deplatform” independent media could “end up with the same problem as Statecraft” – a reference to the Institute of Statecraft, the Integrity Initiative’s parent charity, which the Grayzone and others exposed. He cautions: “The opposition are not stupid, they can spot an info op – so the more this is designed to be organic the better.”

Pryce and Mason discuss creating an astroturf civil-society organization that would lead their “information war” as part of an operation they brand the “International Information Brigade”.

Mason suggests the suspension of the libel laws for what he calls “foreign agents” – presumably meaning that the Information Brigade would be able to defame independent journalists as Russian agents, echoing the establishment media’s treatment of Assange, without fear of legal action that would show these were evidence-free smears.

‘Putin Infosphere’

Another correspondent, Emma Briant, an academic who claims to specialize in Russian disinformation, offers an insight into how she defines the presumed enemy within: those “close to WikiLeaks,” anyone “trolling Carole [Cadwalladr],” and outlets “discouraging people from reading the Guardian.”

Mason himself produces an eye-popping, self-drawn, spider’s web chart of the supposedly “pro-Putin infosphere” in the U.K., embracing much of the left, including Corbyn, the Stop the War movement, as well as the Black and Muslim communities. Several media sites are mentioned, including Mint Press and Novara Media, an independent British website sympathetic to Corbyn.

Khan and Mason consider how they can help trigger a British government investigation of independent outlets so that they can be labeled as “Russian-state affiliated media” to further remove them from visibility on social media.

Mason states that the goal is to prevent the emergence of a “left anti-imperialist identity,” which, he fears, “will be attractive because liberalism doesn’t know how to counter it” – a telling admission that he believes genuine left-wing critiques of Western foreign policy cannot be dealt with through public refutation but only through secret disinformation campaigns.

He urges efforts to crack down not only on independent media and “rogue” academics but on left-wing political activism. He identifies as a particular threat Corbyn, who was earlier harmed through a series of disinformation campaigns, including entirely evidence-free claims that the Labour Party during his tenure became a hotbed of antisemitism. Mason fears Corbyn might set up a new, independent left-wing party. It is important, Mason notes, to “quarantine” and “stigmatize” any such ideology.

In short, rather than use journalism to win the argument and the battle for public opinion, Mason wishes to use the dark arts of the security state to damage independent media, as well as dissident academics and left-wing political activism. He wants no influences on the public that are not tightly aligned with the core foreign policy goals of the national security state.

Mason’s correspondence hints at the reality behind Cadwalladr’s claim that Assange was the “swirling vortex at the centre of everything.” Assange symbolizes that “swirling vortex” to intelligence-aligned establishment journalists only because WikiLeaks has published plenty of insider information that exposes Western claims to global moral leadership as a complete charade – and the journalists who amplify those claims as utter charlatans.

In part two, we will examine why journalists like Mason and Cadwalladr prosper in the establishment media; the long history of collusion between Western intelligence agencies and the establishment media; and how that mutually beneficial collusion is becoming ever more important to each of them.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Jonathan Cook is a MintPress contributor. Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net

Featured image is from MintPress News

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on British “Watchdog” Journalists Unmasked as Lap Dogs for the Security State
  • Tags:

Why a US War with Iran Would be a Catastrophe

June 27th, 2022 by Dr. Assal Rad

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

In September 2002, then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu testified in front of Congress to support the Bush administration’s push for a US invasion of Iraq.

At the time, Netanyahu claimed that there was no doubt that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons and erroneously stated: “If you take out Saddam, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

Six months later, the United States illegally invaded Iraq, found no weapons of mass destruction, and unleashed decades of violence and war in the region.

Now, Israel is using the same playbook to push for a military buildup against Iran, led by the US.

At the same time, hawkish voices in the US are pressing President Biden to break a campaign promise of accountability for Saudi Arabia and pursue greater security pacts contingent on “normalising” relations with Israel. Yet, this strategy ignores the need to include Iran – a central power within the region – in its security architecture and overlooks the important ongoing dialogue between these state actors and the progress made.

Rather than seeking an actual peace, these calls for pressure-only policies on Iran further risk an escalation that could entrench the US in another “forever” war.

Nearly 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, it is commonly understood as a historic mistake of US foreign policy. However, we do not need hindsight to understand that a war with Iran would be a far worse blunder, not only for its fallout but also because a clear peaceful alternative exists.

Stoking fears

Much like the case of Iraq, hawks in the US and Israel have tried to stoke fears of Iranian nuclear weapons in order to justify a possible war.

In fact, the public has been told that Iran is on the verge of building nuclear weapons for decades. Still, the supposed threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons was finally resolved through diplomacy.

Despite strong opposition from Israel and proponents of war in the US, under the Obama administration the US and Iran, along with the international community, reached a landmark agreement in 2015 known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal.

The JCPOA delivered unprecedented international oversight and access to Iran’s nuclear programme and imposed strict limits to guarantee Iran could not weaponise its programme, in exchange for economic relief from sanctions for Iran.

Not only did the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) repeatedly report that Iran was complying with the deal – even after the Trump administration backed out of the deal in May 2018 and violated it by reimposing sanctions – but President Biden also attested to the merits of the deal as a candidate in 2020 and emphasised that it was Trump that walked away from the deal, not Iran.

Despite this admission and the years Biden spent lambasting the former administration’s failed Iran policy, his administration has essentially maintained the policies of his predecessor, including sanctions that continue to impede the flow of humanitarian goods in a pandemic and the designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) on the US list of foreign terrorist organisations (FTO).

Another disastrous war

While as a presidential candidate Biden promised to repair the JCPOA, his administration squandered an early opportunity to restore the agreement before Iran’s June 2021 election. It ushered in a new hard-line administration in Iran and the US remains outside of the deal.

With Biden failing to restore the historic deal, Iran has continued to grow its nuclear programme by enriching uranium and producing a stockpile far beyond the limits they maintained under the JCPOA.

It is a point of irony that the very groups and individuals who worked to undermine the deal have used it in recent weeks as a measure of Iran’s expansion. Though opponents of the deal often claimed to want a “better deal”, the push for another disastrous war in the Middle East appears to be the real intention of hawkish voices.

The urgency of the current situation is stressed by recent IAEA reports stating that Iran, for the first time, now has enough medium-grade fissile material for one bomb. It is important to note that Iran would have to make the political decision to pursue a weapon and that this process would take one to two years itself.

However, the present circumstances will likely magnify calls for military action, especially once diplomacy is taken off the table. Given this prospect, Biden’s Iran policy and his administration’s posturing on the JCPOA is dangerously shortsighted.

Just consider the current war in Ukraine.

While US officials have consistently employed the rhetoric of international law to rebuke Russia’s illegal campaign, escalation to military conflict or bombing Iran would violate the same rules-based order and evoke the memory of a preemptive strike against Iraq.

Witnessing the death and devastation in Ukraine and concerns over nuclear escalation with Russia, it is all the more crucial to weigh the consequences of war.

This is not to mention the global impact of such conflicts, as can be seen in rising food and energy costs, a looming global food crisis that will starve many already facing food insecurity around the world, and inflation in the United States that is heavily impacting the lives of American workers.

A war with Iran will likely worsen these conditions, especially the significant flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. Under such dire circumstances, the last thing we can afford right now is escalation or war with Iran.

A historic blunder

In fact, American public opinion is against more wars, which is why both the Biden and Trump administrations promised to “end endless war” in what has become a popular catchphrase in US political discourse.

Even in a war effort that Americans support, like Ukraine, the majority do not want the US to risk war with Russia. Additionally, a majority of Americans continue to support the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

This is not surprising given the failures of US militarism – most notably the swift takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban after 20 years of war – and the enormous cost of these conflicts to American taxpayers as many struggle at home.

A war with Iran – a country with a larger population than Iraq and Afghanistan combined and a stronger position in the region in the wake of US wars – would be another historic blunder with far worse outcomes than what we have already seen.

The merits and nonproliferation benefits of the JCPOA speak for themselves. However, the costs of the failure to restore the deal and the potential for conflict go beyond the limitations placed on Iran’s nuclear programme.

In a recent speech about the war in Ukraine by former President George W Bush, an ironic slip of the tongue revealed the truth of his own legacy: “…[T]he decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq.”

Though he immediately corrected himself to say “Ukraine”, under his breath he added, “Iraq too”, prompting laughter from the audience. If Biden does not correct his current course on Iran soon – which undermines the successes of the administration he served for as vice president – his legacy may also be a war of his own making.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Assal Rad is the Research Director at the National Iranian American Council, where she works on research and writing related to Iran policy issues and U.S.-Iran relations. Her writing can be seen in Newsweek, The National Interest, The Independent, Foreign Policy and more. She has appeared as a commentator on BBC World, Al Jazeera, NPR, and others. She completed a PhD in Middle Eastern History from the University of California, Irvine in 2018 and has a forthcoming book titled, The State of Resistance: Politics, Culture, and Identity in Modern Iran (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Featured image is from OneWorld

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Why a US War with Iran Would be a Catastrophe
  • Tags:

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

They were shooting directly at the journalists: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces”. Thus read a CNN headline on May 26, 2022, for an article describing what may have been a “targeted killing,” – that is, assassination – of Al Jazeera journalist Shirleen Abu Akleh, a 51-year-old highly esteemed Palestinian-American journalist who had covered Israeli repression of the Palestinian population for about 25 years before she was killed.

With this killing and its aftermath, one knows that it is all hands on deck for an Israeli government cognitive campaign in the perpetual cognitive war Israel wages against the world, as will be explained below.

According to the CNN article, Abu Akleh was killed by a bullet to the head at around 6:30 a.m. on May 11, while standing with a group of journalists near the entrance of Jenin refugee camp as they covered an Israeli raid. “We stood in front of the Israeli military vehicles for about five to ten minutes before we made moves to ensure they saw us. And this is a habit of ours as journalists; we move as a group and we stand in front of them so they know we are journalists, and then we start moving,” a Palestinian reporter, Shatha Hanaysha, told CNN, describing their cautious approach toward the Israeli army convoy before the gunfire began.

Video recordings of the surrounding area showed the killing shots could have come only from the Israeli soldiers in specially designed “sniper” vehicles that were in direct line-of-fire positions to Abu Akleh that morning. Eyewitnesses told CNN that they “believed Israeli forces on the same street fired deliberately on the reporters in a targeted attack. All of the journalists were wearing protective blue vests that identified them as members of the news media.”

“Lawful Targets” in a “Cognitive War”

The “blue vests” might have been what ensured the journalists would be targeted by Israeli forces, if Israeli forces see journalists as “lawful targets” in the war they continue to wage against the Palestinians, in what is in fact a continuation of the 1967 War. That is, an unrelenting military occupation in violation of international law, which constitutes a continuation of the “war.” And the evidence shows Israeli military/intel forces do see journalists as “lawful targets,” as part of the “Cognitive War” they wage against the Palestinians, but more particularly against the global population in an attempt to legitimize their military oppression of the Palestinians in their ongoing effort of “population expulsion” of the Palestinians from Palestinian territory. As Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Benzion, proclaimed shortly before he died, this is the objective of Israel Zionists like him.

In fact, while Abu Akleh was the only journalist killed that day by Israeli forces, she wasn’t the only Palestinian journalist shot. A group of four Palestinian reporters was fired upon as well, with one also injured in the gunfire. That was not because Israeli forces had an obstructed view; footage showed a direct line of sight between the reporters and the Israeli convoy. That only one of the four was hit, besides Abu Akleh, is probably taken by military superiors as a sign that their marksmanship must be improved.

A firearms expert told CNN: “The relatively tight grouping of the rounds indicate Shireen was intentionally targeted with aimed shots and not the victim of random or stray fire.”

But an indication of how the Israeli military sees journalists, other than “reliable” Israeli press, was revealed on the day of the shooting by an Israeli military spokesperson, Ran Kochav. Kochav told Army Radio that Abu Akleh had been “filming and working for a media outlet amidst armed Palestinians. They’re armed with cameras, if you’ll permit me to say so.” And if they are “armed,” they are “lawful targets” in “war.”

In fact, the killing of journalists has been openly called for in the “flagship publication” of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, The Journal of International Security Affairs, by retired U.S. Army Officer Ralph Peters. The odious 2009 article – potentially a war crime in itself – stated: “Although it seems unthinkable now, future wars may require censorship, news blackouts, and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media.”

The Power of “Cognitive Warfare”

The Israeli military said it was conducting an investigation into the killing of Abu Akleh, and added, “assertions regarding the source of the fire that killed Ms. Abu Akleh must be carefully made and backed by hard evidence. This is what the IDF is striving to achieve.” In fact, obfuscating that is what the IDF and its Cognitive Warfare component must be seen as “striving to achieve” – at least if Israeli Cognitive War theorists, one of whom is quoted at length below, are to be believed.

Leaving it to those few journalists who report honestly to provide more facts on this assassination – as Abu Akleh would have, giving motive to Israeli forces to particularly target her with lethal fire – “Cognitive Warfare” should be explained further.

The best source for understanding the concept is Israel’s own doctrinal statements about the “cognitive domain” of warfare. A clue to that was presented when an Israeli lawyer filed a lawsuit alleging that “Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs [is] carrying out a global propaganda campaign on behalf of the Israeli government that violates human rights and is acting without authority to do so… Attorney Schachar Ben Meir’s petition demands that the High Court of Justice order a halt to the activities carried out by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, headed by Gilad Erdan.”

The substance of the claim was that the Israeli government had approved the payment of NIS 128 million ($38 million) to a private organization called Kela-Shlomo to carry out “mass consciousness activities” within the framework of what the Ministry of Strategic Affairs calls “extra-governmental discourse.” That is, publication of government propaganda on social networks and newspapers often carried out through private businesses and non-profit organizations operating in Israel and abroad.

But to determine the correct “messages” to promote or counter requires “surveilling citizens and conducting illegal operations intended to influence and manipulate public opinion.” That is what constitutes “mass consciousness activities” – a fascist type of governmental activity if there ever was one, but “updated” to utilize “private contractors” to conduct operations, in addition to governmental military/intel assets. This explains the proliferation of “private Israeli intelligence/influence” firms.

The Musings of a Cognitive Warfare Theorist

The current Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Nachman Shai, who in the past was a spokesperson for the Israeli military, explained and promoted the higher level to which cognitive warfare has been taken from its origins as mere “propaganda” or “hasbara,” in his book “Hearts and Minds: Israel and the Battle for Public Opinion.”

He explained that, in the expected 21st-century wars of Israel and the United States, the “principal effort will be the battle for consciousness.” He explained further:

[There] are various terms to describe the battle for consciousness. In Britain, it is called the fight for hearts and minds. The U.S. military uses the expressions psychological warfare, perception management, influence management, and information operation. The idea speaks about consciousness: the strategy of limited conflict is to win a decision of consciousness in the society with the help of military means. The battle is for the society’s consciousness and for national resilience.”

Furthermore, according to Shai: “Consciousness is not a natural and inherent concept but rather a structured process, continually shaped by interested parties and by those who wield wealth and power.” How this is done in its current terminology is described in a publication of the Israeli “Institute for National Security Studies” entitled: “The Cognitive Campaign: Strategic and Intelligence Perspectives.” Its Preface states:

It is important to distinguish between cognition and the cognitive campaign. Cognition is the set of insights that an individual or individuals have regarding the surrounding reality and the way they want to shape it, derived from the set of the values and beliefs through which they examine and interpret their environment and work to confront its inherent challenges, and even to change it. In contrast, the cognitive campaign involves the actions and tools that entities that are part of a certain campaign framework use to influence the cognition of target audiences or to prevent influence on them. The purpose of  the cognitive campaign is to cause target audiences to adopt the perception of reality held by the side wielding the effort, so that it can more easily advance the strategic and/or operational objectives that it sees as critical. The cognitive campaign can be negative, that is, prevent the development of undesirable cognitive states, or positive, with an attempt to produce the desired cognition.

That the “cognitive campaign can be negative, that is, prevent the development of undesirable cognitive states,” is why Julian Assange has been imprisoned for years now, with no likelihood he will ever be freed by the U.S. government and why Edward Snowden was forced to take refuge in a foreign country to avoid the same fate. The U.S. must silence them and other dissidents, lest an “undesirable cognitive state” develops in the U.S. population – as one eventually developed over the Vietnam War, and eventually forced the U.S. out of Vietnam.

Thus it is reasonable to believe that is why Israel has targeted so many journalists over the last couple of decades – as has the U.S. It would be foolish and/or naïve not to believe that when retired military officers openly call for “targeted killings” of journalists, that they aren’t already being targeted!

Making Our Own Reality

When Karl Rove was alleged to have said how the United States is now “an empire, we make our own reality,” he was not just making a hubristic statement. Rather, it can be seen as an indication that he was aware of how powerful a “cognitive campaign” is. In fact, such campaigns were always how the CIA conducted post-World War II coups, and it can be speculated that “cognitive campaigns” were introduced into U.S. political campaigns by Arthur Finkelstein and his “Six-Party Theory” in the 1972 Nixon campaign, down to the 2016 Trump campaign, based upon cognitive warfare principles drawn from CIA coups and the Israeli military occupation.

The authors of “The Cognitive Campaign: Strategic and Intelligence Perspectives” wrote:

The cognitive campaign is not new, and it is an inseparable aspect of every strategic and military conflict. In recent years, this struggle has played a much more important role than in past conflicts; at times it takes place without a direct military context and is not even led by military bodies. The cognitive campaign is a continuous campaign; thus, its prominence is greater in the period between wars (as a part of the “campaign between wars).”

In fact, as these authors know, there is no such thing as “between wars” in Israel or the United States, with both countries in “Perpetual War” regardless of the level of aggressive kinetic war they are waging at any given moment.

Carl von Clausewitz wrote in “On War” that two different motives make men fight one another: hostile feelings and hostile intentions. Inciting those “feelings” is done by both Israel and the U.S. continuously, by multifarious networks to “condition” their populations with “hostile feelings and hostile intentions.” As has been done in the U.S. to incite hatred of Russia, China, Iran, et al., so that a war with either one, or all, can explode at any moment. Israel does the same against Iran and the Palestinians. Mission Accomplished!

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, JA, USA (ret.) served in the U.S. military as a Judge Advocate defense attorney representing Guantanamo prisoners. Before that, he was trained as a Sr. PsyOps NCO, and initially trained as a U.S. Marine Corps Rifleman. 

Featured image: Carlos Latuff for MintPress News

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

In interviews with The Defender, pilots injured by COVID-19 vaccines said despite a “culture of fear and intimidation” they are compelled to speak out against vaccine mandates that rob pilots of their careers — and in some cases their lives.

As a commercial pilot, Bob Snow had long looked forward to seeing his daughter follow in his footsteps by helping her learn to fly an airplane.

However, having received the COVID-19 vaccine “under duress,” this dream is no longer a possibility for Snow.

“I will probably never fly again,” Snow said in a video he made about his story. “I was hoping to teach my daughter to fly. She wants to be a pilot. That will probably never happen, all courtesy of the vaccine.”

Snow is one of a growing number of pilots coming forward to share stories of injuries they experienced after getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

Some of these accounts are “hair-raising and deeply disturbing,” according to Maureen Steele, a paralegal and head of media relations for the John Pierce Law Firm.

The firm represents U.S. Freedom Flyers (USFF), an organization opposing vaccine and mask mandates for pilots and airline staff, in a series of legal actions against the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and several airlines.

Josh Yoder, a pilot with a major commercial airline, Army combat veteran and former flight medic, is a co-founder of USFF.

In a recent interview with The Defender, Yoder said the FAA has been aware of cases of pilots suffering vaccine injuries since at least December 2021, when the California-based Advocates for Citizens’ Rights hand-delivered an open letter to the FAA, major airlines and their insurers.

Yoder said USFF “has received hundreds of phone calls from airline employees who are experiencing adverse reactions post COVID-19 vaccination,” describing the stories as “heartbreaking.”

According to Yoder, the warnings contained in the letter, including testimony by “world-renowned experts,” were “completely ignored,” adding that “we are now beginning to see the consequences.”

This is leading an increasing number of pilots to “come forward to expose the truth regarding these toxic injections,” Yoder said.

The Defender recently reported on a series of reports that have been submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, involving pilots who sustained severe injuries and side effects following the COVID-19 vaccine.

Congressional testimony from Cody Flint, an agricultural pilot who has logged more than 10,000 flight hours, was included in this letter.

“The FAA has created a powder keg and lit the fuse,” Flint said in an interview with The Defender.

“We are now seeing pilots experiencing blood clots, myocarditis, pericarditis, dizziness and confusion at rates never seen before. Pilots are losing their careers and having to call in sick or go on medical leave from medical issues developing almost immediately after vaccination.”

Vaccine-injured pilots share stories with The Defender

Several pilots, including Bob Snow, shared their stories with The Defender in a recent series of interviews.

Snow, a captain with a major U.S. airline, told The Defender he received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine on Nov. 4, 2021, “as a result of an unambivalent company mandate to receive the vaccine or be terminated.”

According to Snow, he “began experiencing issues a little over two months” after receiving the vaccine. Due to a history of gastroenteritis, he underwent an endoscopy and an abdominal CT scan.

The results of the endoscopy were normal and Snow was awaiting the results of the CT scan when he suffered cardiac arrest on April 9, immediately after landing at Dallas-Forth Worth International Airport.

As Snow described it:

“I was very lucky to have collapsed when and where I did, as the aircraft was shut down at the gate post-flight and care was immediately provided.

“There was absolutely no warning preceding my collapse in the cockpit. It was literally as if someone ‘pulled the plug.’”

After receiving CPR and AED (automated external defibrillator) shocks to be revived, Snow spent almost a week in the hospital, where he was diagnosed with having sustained sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).

Medical studies indicate survival rates for out-of-hospital SCA cases are estimated at 10.8% to 11.4%.

Snow said:

“Needless to say, that’s not an encouraging number and I feel very, very lucky to have survived.

“Had this happened in a hotel, in flight, at home or almost anywhere else, I do not believe I would be here right now.”

Snow said prior to this incident, he had “no history of prior significant cardiac issues,” based on two EKGs (electrocardiograms) per year for each of the previous 10 years — none of which, according to Snow, “provided any indication of incipient issues that might lead to cardiac arrest.”

“I have no known family history to indicate a predisposition to developing significant cardiac issues at this point in my life,” Snow added.

Snow has been recuperating at home since April 15, while awaiting more tests that will provide a prognosis for his long-term survival.

However, it is likely that he will never fly again in any capacity.

Snow said, “[f]or now, it appears my flying career — indeed, likely all flying as a pilot —  has come to a rapid and unexpected conclusion as SCA is a red flag to FAA medical certification.”

This, according to Snow, has resulted “in a significant loss of income and lifestyle,” adding that he has a college student and high school student at home and a non-working spouse who relied on his livelihood.

‘Last thing I remember is . . . praying I would make it’

Like Snow, Cody Flint had no prior medical history to indicate he was at risk.

“I have been extremely healthy my whole life with no underlying conditions,” said Flint, adding:

“As a pilot that held a second-class medical [certification], I was required to get a yearly FAA flight physical to show I was healthy enough to safely operate an airplane.

“I have renewed my medical every year since I was 17. The last FAA medical I received was on January 19, 2021. The medical showed I was perfectly healthy just 10 days before receiving the COVID-19 vaccine.”

Flint got his first (and only) dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine on Feb. 1, 2021. He told The Defender:

“Within 30 minutes, I developed a severe burning headache at the base of my skull and blurred vision. After a few hours, the pain was constant, but didn’t seem to be getting worse. I thought the pain would go away, eventually. It did not.”

Two days later began his seasonal job as an agricultural pilot, which typically runs from February to October of each year, Flint said.

He said:

“Approximately one hour into my flight, I felt my condition starting to rapidly decline and I was developing severe tunnel vision. I pulled my airplane up to turn around to head home and immediately felt an extreme burst of pressure in my skull and ears.”

Flint initially considered landing on a nearby highway, unsure he’d make it back to the airstrip, but chose not to so as not to put the public in danger.

Instead, according to Flint:

“The last thing I remember is seeing our airstrip from a few miles out and praying I would make it.

“Later, my coworkers told me I landed and immediately stopped my plane. They described me as being unresponsive, shaking and slumped over in my seat … I do not remember landing or being pulled from the plane.”

Flint said various doctors, including his longtime hometown doctor, refused to consider that his recent COVID-19 vaccination caused his symptoms. Instead, he was prescribed Meclizine for vertigo and Xanax for panic attacks.

According to Flint, doctors told him he would be “completely better within two days.” But two days later, Flint “could barely walk without falling over.”

Seeking a second opinion, Flint visited the Ear & Balance Institute in Louisiana, where he was diagnosed with left and right perilymphatic fistulas (a lesion in the inner ear), and highly elevated intracranial pressure due to swelling in his brainstem.

As Flint described it,

“[m]y intracranial pressure had risen so high that it caused both of my inner ears to ‘blow out.’” Doctors told him this is usually caused by major head trauma.

“Obviously, I did not have head trauma,” said Flint. “What I did have, though, was an unapproved and experimental ‘vaccine’ just two days prior to suffering this bodily damage.”

“My doctors [at the Ear & Balance Institute] clearly stated my health issues were a direct result of a severe adverse reaction to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine,” he added.

Flint says he now cannot receive renewed medical certification from the FAA due to the injuries he sustained, the physical condition he is currently in and “the fact that I will be on the FAA-unapproved medicine Diamox for the foreseeable future.”

Like Snow, Flint believes “it is … highly unlikely that I’ll ever be able to fly again,” adding, “On most days, I am too dizzy to even safely drive a vehicle.”

Greg Pierson, like Snow and Flint, shared a similar story. A commercial pilot with a major U.S. airline that is also a federal contractor, he was mandated to get vaccinated.

Pierson told The Defender:

“I felt extremely pressured to consider getting vaccinated, even though I am adamant against any mandates that violate personal freedom choices.

“I did research and consulted several medical professionals regarding the associated risks.

“I have never had a flu shot in my lifetime, so this was not something I wanted to do. I reluctantly received the first dose of the Pfizer vaccine on August 26, 2021.”

For Pierson, the onset of symptoms was almost immediate, beginning “approximately 14 hours” after receiving the vaccine, when he experienced “an extremely erratic and highly elevated heart rate.”

Pierson visited a local emergency room, where he was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. His condition was stabilized and he was soon discharged, though he remained on medication to help his heart return to a normal rhythm.

While Pierson says he has not experienced any further episodes, he nevertheless still has not been cleared to return to the cockpit.

“I successfully passed all the required protocols to re-obtain my certification that will allow me to return to work,” he said, adding the FAA has had his records and test results since Feb. 16, but he still hasn’t received a determination.

“I have been on disability since this occurrence, and combined with the leave, the personal and financial impacts have been significant,” Pierson said.

Pierson also described a similar experience to that of Flint, regarding the attitudes of some medical professionals regarding the possibility that his condition was brought on by the COVID-19 vaccine.

“When I brought the subject up to the ER cardiologist, that it was obvious what triggered my onset, she simply stated ‘s*it happens,’” Pierson said.

Widow describes husband’s last days

Snow, Flint and Pierson are fortunate in that they have managed to survive, even if their flying careers are in jeopardy.

But other pilots have not been so lucky.

American Airlines pilot Wilburn Wolfe suffered a major seizure following his COVID-19 vaccination, which cost him his life. Fortunately, Wolfe was not on duty when his seizure hit.

Claudia Wolfe, his widow, shared her late husband’s story with The Defender.

Wolfe, a former Marine just a few years from retirement, “was definitely against getting this vaccine but was put in the position to take it or lose his job as a captain,” Claudia Wolfe said.

He received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine on Nov. 9, 2021.

Claudia Wolfe told The Defender:

“[The] first 10 days were without any event … [on] day 11, it started with a migraine-like headache which got better that afternoon after taking a couple of aspirin.

“Unfortunately, the migraine came back and he was hoping that it’s nothing else but a migraine.

“On November 22, 13 days after the COVID vaccine, he had a seizure. When paramedics arrived and my husband came out of the seizure, he was paralyzed on his right side, arm and leg, and was taken to the emergency room.”

At the emergency room, a CT scan showed he was experiencing brain bleeding, and he was admitted into intensive care. There, according to Claudia Wolfe, “he continued to have convulsions on his right hand … shortly after he was admitted, he had another seizure and doctors decided to sedate him and put him on a ventilator.”

“That was the last time I talked to my husband, before the seizure in the ICU,” Claudia Wolfe said.

Wolfe never regained consciousness and died on Nov. 26, 2021 — only 17 days after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. Even if he had survived, he likely would not have been able to work as a pilot again.

As Claudia Wolfe explained:

“Doctors told me that he couldn’t work as a pilot anymore because he would have to be on seizure medication.

“But as the bleeding continued to spread I was told that he probably would not recognize me or his family and he probably would need a 24-hour facility to help him.

“This man was so strong and never needed a doctor, he was never sick enough to need one, and [he] just had a physical a couple months prior for his job as a pilot.”

Pilots describe culture of fear and reluctance to come forward

Pilots who spoke to The Defender described a culture of intimidation that has led to many of their colleagues fearing professional or personal consequences if they speak publicly about injuries following COVID-19 vaccination.

According to Yoder, “Many pilots and other airline employees capitulated to the tactics of threats, harassment and intimidation perpetrated by the very companies they serve.”

Yoder described airlines, as well as aviation industry unions, as “state actors” illegally “working in lockstep with the U.S. government” to “enforce unconstitutional mandates via a culture of fear.”

Snow told The Defender several of his colleagues shared stories of vaccine injuries with him:

“Since my SCA I have heard from several other airline personnel regarding potential vaccine injuries up to and including cardiac issues (chest pain and myocarditis).

“Many crewmembers are very reluctant to divulge potential significant health issues for fear of losing their FAA medical certification and, potentially, their careers.”

According to Snow, such fear exists “due to both concern for one’s career and also the fear of being portrayed as a vaccine skeptic.”

“There seems to be genuine reluctance on the part of corporations, businesses, government and the medical community in general to acknowledge the potential for COVID vaccine injury,” Snow said.

Claudia Wolfe also shared her experience, stating that following her husband’s death, she learned “of others that died after the COVID vaccine,” adding that “not many talk about it or believe this vaccine can harm or kill you.”

Pierson also expressed concerns, telling The Defender, “Some things I have stated publicly could have consequences in this regard.”

This culture of intimidation appears to extend beyond just accusations of being a “vaccine skeptic.”

Steele described incidents of airline employees’ non-work and online activities seemingly being monitored by their employers, who are then using this as a justification to question or harass those employees.

“I believe the airlines have people on staff that must be trolling the social media of employees and when they find a conservative, or someone they believe to be, they attack,” Steele said.

Steele said female employees appear to be particular targets of the airlines, as they “appear to be isolated and intimidated for hours on end.”

Flint connected incidents such as those described above to political interests, telling The Defender the FAA approved COVID-19 vaccines for pilots just two days after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued its first Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for such vaccines, on Dec. 10, 2020.

“I thought to myself, how could the FAA analyze the data and determine it was safe for pilots in just two days, when it took the FDA months to go over the trial data?” Flint said.

Flint said that was an especially jarring development, in light of the increased risk that pilots and cabin crew face:

“I was also extremely curious to know how the FAA is so certain that this vaccine will be safe for pilots when it’s obvious that Pfizer did not do a trial solely on pilots to find out if it would cause some of the serious health problems that immediately started to show up once the mass vaccination campaign [began].”

In the process, Flint stated, the FAA violated its own regulations.

Under the Guide for Aviation Medical Examiners: Pharmaceuticals (Therapeutic Medications) Do Not Issue – Do Not Fly, the FAA has a long-standing rule that states:

“FAA requires at least one year of post-marketing experience with a new drug before consideration for aeromedical certification purposes. This observation allows time for uncommon, but aeromedically significant, adverse reactions to manifest themselves.”

Flint said it “became painfully obvious” the FAA issued this guidance based not on science or safety, but political reasons.

“Why did the FAA abandon its own rules by encouraging pilots to take a brand-new experimental drug?” Flint asked. “This action by the FAA was totally unprecedented and extremely dangerous.”

Providing an example of such danger, Flint said, “it is now widely reported that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines can cause blood clots,” adding that several peer-reviewed studies going back more than a decade “show pilots are approximately 60% more likely to experience blood clots due to the ‘nature of the job.’”

Supporting this assertion, on May 5, the FDA announced that it would restrict who could receive doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, due to the risk of blood clots.

Pierson also believes politics are at play in the medical community, telling The Defender even his longtime doctor told the FAA, in paperwork aimed at restoring Pierson’s suspended medical certification, that “it is impossible for the vaccine to have caused” his condition, though “he could not provide any explanation for an alternative hypothesis” — a stance Pierson characterized as “medical malpractice.”

Such politics are also found in professional organizations within the aviation industry, according to Pierson, who described his experience with one such entity:

“I approached the medical division of ALPA, the Air Line Pilots Association, to which I am a member, and presented them with data to substantiate my concerns.

“It was initially seemingly a concerned, open dialogue, which quickly was dismissed at the highest levels.”

Legal actions to follow against the FAA, federal agencies, airlines

The USFF, according to Yoder, is currently pursuing several legal actions related to the vaccine injuries that pilots and air staff are increasingly reporting.

He told The Defender:

“The U.S. Freedom Flyers have always taken a strong stance against the threats of government and corporate totalitarianism.

“We are filing massive, individual plaintiff lawsuits against the FAA, DOT [U.S. Department of Transportation] and commercial airlines to hold them accountable for the criminal and civil atrocities they’ve committed against our members.

“We will not rest until justice is served and constitutional American freedom is restored.”

Steele added:

“We are teeing up lawsuits for all the major airlines, with thousands of potential plaintiffs on our plaintiff lists.

“We also are going to be holding the FAA and the [U.S. Department of Transportation] accountable for their part in this atrocity.”

Steele said USFF “will be seeking retribution and restitution for these crimes against humanity,” mirroring remarks made by Pierson, who described the actions taken in the name of the pandemic as “nothing short of the highest crimes against humanity ever.”

According to Steele, unions are, in part, responsible for the injuries being sustained by pilots and other employees, as a result of their acceptance of vaccine mandates.

“Unfortunately the unions — from all industries — have let their members down,” Steele told The Defender. “They simply are rolling over and are in bed with the state and the corporations.”

Flint, in turn, assigned a significant amount of blame to the federal agencies:

“The FAA has failed at its duties in the most spectacular fashion, causing pilots to lose their lives, livelihoods and careers.

“The federal government, including the FAA, has not helped one single person injured by the COVID-19 vaccine.

“They [the federal agencies] have not publicly acknowledged there is a problem. They haven’t even so much as adjusted their ‘guidance’ to prevent this from happening in the future.”

Are passengers at risk from pilot vaccine mandates?

When Snow suffered cardiac arrest, it occurred only a few minutes after he had landed a commercial airliner, full of passengers, at one of the most heavily trafficked airports in the U.S.

This begs the question: Are passengers — and the public at large — at risk due to potential adverse effects that may impact vaccinated pilots during flight?

According to Pierson, there is indeed a risk of a “catastrophic” incident:

“I became an outspoken critic of the vaccines after my injury, and due to becoming much more knowledgeable of all the potential health and safety risks from the vaccines.

“It became very clear to me that the implications of having an immediate, severe adverse reaction could be catastrophic if actively piloting an aircraft.”

Flint believes such a disaster may be an inevitability.

“It is only a matter of time before a pilot has a medically significant event from an adverse reaction to this [COVID-19] vaccine and crashes an airliner, killing a few hundred American citizens in the process.”

He added:

“When will the FAA finally do the right thing by trying to adhere to its own mission statement, which is ‘to provide the safest, most efficient aerospace system in the world’?

“How many more pilots have to die or be severely injured before the FAA acknowledges the horrible and dangerous problem it has created?”

In addition to the risk of a disaster involving casualties among passengers and the general public, the difficulties that pilots are experiencing as a result of vaccine-related adverse reactions are creating other disruptions for the airline industry and the flying public, such as flight cancellations and delays.

Yoder described this as a “ripple effect”:

“Vaccine mandates are having a ripple effect in the aviation industry that will continue for years to come.

“Pilot shortages were a concern pre-mandate, [and] have now been amplified due to early retirements and medical disqualification due to certain adverse vaccine reactions which prohibit pilots from maintaining medical certification.”

Pilots, advocates describe importance of speaking out

The pilots, legal professionals and advocates who spoke to The Defender all expressed their hope that by speaking out and sharing their stories and experiences, they will make a difference.

Snow said:

“I hope to shine the spotlight on the potential for significant safety issues that exist within the airlines, commercial vehicles/transportation, and other safety-sensitive work that might be affected by [the] sudden onset of health issues that could be attributed to the COVID vaccines.

“It is in our collective best interest that real research and data analysis be undertaken to address this potentially dangerous situation.

“Why is there such a reluctance to investigate these EUA COVID vaccines which are still being aggressively marketed to, if not outright forced upon, the global public?”

Snow went on to discuss the history of unsafe drugs and therapies that had initially received FDA approval and the importance of “clinical and scientific studies to evaluate the possibility of injuries and deaths” instead of “parroting the marketing mantra ‘safe and effective.’”

Flint described the FAA’s handling of the issue as “one of the most glaring instances of incompetence and corruption I have ever witnessed,” adding that “the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has taken nearly everything from myself and my family … my health and my career have been taken from me.”

He added that due to his inability to fly, he is facing mounting debt and unpaid taxes, with an income “20% of what it was before vaccination.”

Steele, who also organized the People’s Convoy, expressed her view that “[t]he only way to push back on the government and corporate overstep is demanding accountability … to hold these policymakers unequivocally accountable.”

She specifically referenced the importance of pursuing legal claims, telling The Defender:

“The only way to ensure it never happens again is to hit them in the pocketbook … In doing so, the awarded damages will also assist the victims of these policies that have been so grievously harmed.”

Yoder described the resistance he has observed to such private and government mandates, saying that “Americans have rallied in defiance to the totalitarian dictators dubbed ‘government,’” adding that “American patriots will never succumb to totalitarianism.”

Steele drew upon her experience with the People’s Convoy to share her own observation of wide public opposition to such mandates, while expressing a message of hope:

“My greatest takeaway and the most refreshing finding on the Convoy was that patriotism is alive and well in our great country.

“The American people have had it with the nonsense with the overstepping, with the ‘PC police,’ the degrading of morality in our country. They are simply over it and looking for actionable items that they can do.

“They want to see accountability. They want to see our country restored … It is important for people to know they are absolutely not alone. In fact, we are the majority.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., is an independent journalist and researcher based in Athens, Greece.

Featured image is from CHD

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Pilots Injured by COVID Vaccines Speak Out: ‘I Will Probably Never Fly Again’
  • Tags:

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Lawmakers are betting $45 million that a nuclear war does not automatically mean the end of the world.

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) recently added an amendment to the House version of the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that would provide $45 million for the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile, even though President Joe Biden’s administration has indicated it wants to stop the program.

Defense officials have not said publicly how powerful the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile is, but Pentagon spokesman Oscar Seára described it as a “low-yield weapon.”

The missile would give the U.S. military a relatively small nuclear weapon that is meant to deter Russia and China from using their own low-yield nuclear weapons because they assume the United States would not respond with far more powerful strategic weapons.

“Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression,” according to the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review. “It will raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely.”

The Biden administration continues to stand by its decision to cancel the  Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile in the proposed Defense Department budget for fiscal 2023, a National Security Council spokesman said. That decision was based on the findings of the 2022 Nuclear Posture Review –  which the Pentagon completed earlier this year but has not yet released an unclassified version of the review – as well as an interagency process led by the Defense Department.

It is too early to tell whether funding for the missile will be included in the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which will likely be negotiated by lawmakers at a conference committee much later this year. Even if the $45 million is included in the final law, the House Appropriations Committee did not include any money for the missile in its version of the defense appropriations bill, which funds the U.S. military.

Still, the fact that money for the missile was included in the House version of the latest defense policy bill shows that several lawmakers believe the United States needs to be prepared to fight a limited nuclear war. Once you accept that there is such a thing as a “limited nuclear war,” it’s not much of a logical leap to assume it is possible for the United States to escape mutually assured destruction by limiting a nuclear exchange with Russia or China to low-yield weapons.

However, the purpose of having the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile in the U.S. military’s arsenal is to deter adversaries from launching nuclear attacks rather than making it easier to wage limited nuclear conflicts, said retired Navy Rear Adm. Vic G. Mercado, who served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities from July 2019 to January 2021.

“To me, it is all about deterrence,” Mercado told Task & Purpose. “We need some capacity to be able to fill a deterrence gap. If we leave the gap, then we are at risk.”

The Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile is meant to fill that gap by providing the U.S. military with the types of weapons that Russia already has, he said.

“If deterrence has failed and they decide to use a low-yield weapon, then what’s our option: Accept it or go high,” Mercado said. “But you want to deter that in the future, and how can you deter that if you don’t have that option?”

Moreover, experts continue to debate whether the United States would launch a full-scale retaliation against any sort of nuclear attack, even those involving low-yield weapons, he said.

“If you were the decision-maker and the president and somebody pops an EMP [electromagnetic pulse] – a low-yield EMP, or something – then would you nuke an entire country?” Mercado said.

When discussing any gaps in the U.S. government’s deterrence posture, however, it is worth remembering the United States consistently overestimated the Soviet Union’s nuclear capabilities during the first decades of the Cold War. In the 1950s, the U.S. government feared the Soviets had more bombers than the Air Force, but the “bomber gap” turned out to be nonexistent. Beginning in 1958, future President John F. Kennedy argued that the Soviets had more nuclear missiles than the United States, but the “missile gap” also turned out to be a fantasy. The movie Dr. Strangelove famously parodied this type of thinking in a scene in which military advisers were discussing the need for underground fallout shelters ahead of a nuclear apocalypse and an Air Force general decried, “Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!

Then there’s the question of exactly how much deterrence value the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile actually has.

“Critics have argued that the capabilities highlighted by advocates of SLCM-N deployment — regional presence, lower yield, and discriminate attack options — would lower the threshold for nuclear use and increase the likelihood of nuclear war,” according to an April report from the Congressional Research Service. “They argue that by adding those capabilities to its nuclear force posture, the United States would be adopting a war-fighting posture rather than pursuing a doctrine based on deterrence.”

The Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile may also prove to be redundant because the Air Force is developing the Long-Range Standoff Weapon, which could be capable of carrying warheads with yields ranging from five to 150 kilotons, said Hans M. Kristensen, of the Federation of American Scientists, a non-profit group that seeks to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world.

It is likely that the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile would be equipped with warheads that would deliver similar yields that could be programmed to explode both in the air and on the ground, Kristensen told Task & Purpose.

As for the notion that nuclear war could be limited to low-yield weapons, Kristensen called the idea a “dangerous illusion.”

“There is no reason to believe that either side would back down after a few detonations but that all would escalate and seek to defeat the other side and win,” Kristensen said. “Limited scenarios are created by warfighters as tactical means of achieving certain war objectives but are over-sold by theorists and advocates who try to make nuclear weapons sound more acceptable.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Jeff Schogol is the senior Pentagon reporter for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for 15 years. You can email him at [email protected], direct message @JeffSchogol on Twitter, or reach him on WhatsApp and Signal at 703-909-6488. Contact the author here.

Featured image: Photo illustration by Paul Szoldra/Task & Purpose.


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   

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Dangerous Crossroads, The Road to WW III? Congress Is Bringing Back the Idea of a ‘Limited’ Nuclear War
  • Tags: , ,

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The Environmental Protection Agency released final biological evaluations today confirming that three widely used neonicotinoid insecticides likely harm roughly three-fourths of all endangered plants and animals, including all 39 species of amphibians protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The EPA’s assessments of clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethoxam marked the first time the agency has completed biological evaluations of any neonicotinoids’ harms to the nation’s most imperiled plants and animals. Species found to be harmed by all three of the neonicotinoids include rusty patched bumblebees, whooping cranes, chinook salmon, northern long-eared bats and orcas.

“These deeply troubling findings leave no doubt that these dangerous pesticides are silencing the songs of frogs, the flutter of butterfly wings and the buzz of bees,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Many of the species harmed by neonicotinoids are experiencing precipitous declines, and this EPA’s choices may well determine whether or not they go extinct.”

Neonicotinoids, which are banned in the European Union, are the most popular insecticides in the United States. Hundreds of studies have shown they play a major role in population-level declines of bees, birds, butterflies and freshwater invertebrates. More recent studies are showing they cause significant harm to mammals as well.

The biological evaluations released today found that 67% of all endangered species — 1,225 different plants and animal species — are likely to be adversely affected by clothianidin and that the pesticide will likely adversely modify the designated critical habitats of 446 species.

For imidacloprid, 1,445 species, or 79% of all endangered plants and animals, are likely to be adversely affected. The pesticide will likely adversely modify the designated critical habitats of 658 endangered species.

Thiamethoxam was found to likely adversely affect1,396 species, or 77% of all endangered species. The pesticide will likely adversely modify the designated critical habitats of 644 species.

“We’re in the midst of a heartbreaking extinction crisis and neonicotinoids are playing an outsized role in driving it,” said Burd. “Now that the EPA has completed its analysis, the only question is whether it will muster the courage to stand up to Big Ag and ban these chemicals or will choose to facilitate extinction.”

Pollinator populations are declining nationwide. The American bumblebee, once the most common bumblebee species in the United States, has declined by an estimated 89% in just the past 20 years. The Center has petitioned for Endangered Species Act protection for the American bumblebee.

Neonicotinoids are used on hundreds of millions of acres of agricultural lands across the country. They can be directly sprayed or injected and are commonly used as coatings on seeds such as corn and soy, which are planted on hundreds of millions of acres each year.

The insecticides are “systemic,” meaning they are absorbed by plants, making the entire plant deadly toxic, including its nectar, pollen and fruit. Neonicotinoids are also highly persistent and can linger in soil for years, causing long-term harm.

Imidacloprid is also one of the two active ingredients in Seresto flea collars, which have been linked to the deaths of more than 2,500 family pets. A scathing report released Wednesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, chastises the EPA for ignoring evidence of the collar’s harm, and called for the agency to ban the pesticide-impregnated collar. Last year the EPA announced the Seresto collar was under consideration for cancellation following a petition from the Center.

Authors of a major scientific review of the catastrophic decline of insects have said that a “serious reduction in pesticide usage” is key to preventing the extinction of up to 41% of the world’s insects in the next few decades.

For decades the EPA has steadfastly refused to comply with its obligations under the Endangered Species Act to assess pesticides’ harms to protected species. The agency was finally forced to do these evaluation under the terms of legal agreements with the Center for Food Safety and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: California red-legged frog/Gary M. Fellers/USGS

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on EPA Confirms Three Widely Used Neonicotinoid Pesticides Likely Harm Vast Majority of Endangered Plants, Animals
  • Tags: ,

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

A common thread in postwar histories of WW2 was one that liked to paint Adolf Hitler as increasingly unhinged and detached from reality towards the end of the Third Reich. We were told stories of how he liked to indulge himself in flights of fancy, surveying architectural models of a new Berlin, one that was to be built after Germany won the war, despite the Allies already closing in on both sides. Delusions of future grandeur, while everything was collapsing all around him. A case of “cope”?

The feel of omnipotence after a string of great successes can often lead one to think of themselves as permanent victors, incapable of defeat. This enters the realm of delusion when the facts on the ground run counter to the perception of victory. This is the real estate currently occupied by a large segment of the US foreign policy community.

Yesterday, I was alerted to this “online briefing” that is taking place tomorrow:

Image

Yes, you read that right: a discussion on the “need” to partition Russia for “moral and strategic” reasons.

Who is the Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe, you ask?

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent commission of the U.S. Federal Government. For over 45 years, the Commission has monitored compliance with the Helsinki Accords and advanced comprehensive security through promotion of human rights, democracy, and economic, environmental, and military cooperation in the 57-nation OSCE region.

In short: it’s another of the zillions of committees run and financed by the US Government. The US Government held a panel earlier today on the “need” to partition Russia. Let that sink in for a bit.

This panel is being led by four women and one man, all of whom have cycled through the NGO Regime Change Complex, whether it be the International Crisis Group, Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, the German Marshall Fund, the Soros Foundation, and so on. There are too many groups in total that they have collectively worked for to list, so we won’t do that. Instead, here are their names and bios:

  • Fatima Tlis(ova) – Fellow at National Endowment for Democracy (regime change central)
  • Botakoz Kassymbekova – Oxus Society, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of History and Social Sciences at the John Moores Liverpool University
  • Erica Marat – National Defense University (USA)
  • Hanna Hopko – Chair, Democracy in Action Conference
  • Casey Michel – Hudson Institute

These are your typical “analysts” who profit of the misery of those targeted by the USA for regime change. Their views always match up with the policies of the US State Department, regardless of how they couch their words. Pure coincidence, of course.

The Shift in Terms

What is notable about this panel is the shift from “spreading freedom and democracy” to the need to “decolonize” Russia.

Exporting democracy was one of the main concepts used to justify US expansionism and interventionism after 9/11. It was a product of the neo-conservatives who had their hands on the steering wheel of US foreign policy under George W. Bush. The failures of the USA in spreading democracy in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, etc., tainted these neo-conservatives, resulting in reputational harm. But because accountability for failure has been for some time now in the USA a foreign concept, these neo-conservatives took time out to lick their wounds and then rehabilitate their image by latching themselves onto the opposition to Trump, branding themselves as “defenders of democracy”, be it at home or abroad. They managed to successfully weasel their way back into the corridors of power.

These neo-conservatives have managed to once again grasp the steering wheel of policy, and in tandem with liberal interventionists are happily driving the West into open conflict with Russia by escalating their support for Ukraine and by trying to bait Russia into an overreaction, such as pushing Lithuania to to stop the passage of goods from Russia Proper into the Kaliningrad Oblast. Their matron is Vicki “F**k the EU” Nuland, the woman in charge of Russia policy who has effortlessly glided through White House Administrations whether they be D or R.

At the beginning of this war, the stated US objective was to degrade Russian forces as much as possible in the theatre of conflict. High on their own propaganda supply after the first few weeks of the war, the tone shifted to regime change in Moscow (the most sought-after goal in the US State Department). After all, Russia needs democracy, and Russians need to be freed of Dictator Putin so that they can enjoy its fruits like the rest of the Free World aka countries that the USA likes.

Tomorrow’s panel is a further step forward in that it tells ordinary Russians that even regime change and democracy is not good enough for them. They require the partition of their country into smaller (more easily controlled) polities, so that they can be free. Needless to say, this is a propaganda coup for Putin and the Kremlin as it allows them to paint the conflict in Ukraine as an existential fight.

I am fond of saying that the genius of the United States of America is its ability to absorb, co-opt, and then monetize any trend that comes its way. “Decolonizing Russia” is simply woke terminology for its partition. This symbolizes how the USA has managed to co-opt “Wokeness” for its own foreign policy objectives.

Russia’s barbaric war on Ukraine—and before that on Syria, Libya, Georgia, and Chechnya—has exposed the Russian Federation’s viciously imperial character to the entire world. Its aggression also is catalyzing a long-overdue conversation about Russia’s interior empire, given Moscow’s dominion over many indigenous non-Russian nations, and the brutal extent to which the Kremlin has taken to suppress their national self-expression and self-determination.

Please note the bolded portions. Yes, it is hilarious that these fucking assholes have the temerity to ignore what the USA did to Syria and Libya and instead blame it on the Russians. It is also hilarious that they attack Russia for extinguishing an al-Qaida-led insurgency in Chechnya. However, this takes us away from the main point: the use of woke terminology in the service of US Empire.

I have been predicting this to happen for well over a decade, and other people have noticed this:

In fact, I wrote two pieces about this:

The Desquamation of America – the USA shifting from a mercantilist empire to an ideological one that incorporates wokeness

Turbo-America – the USA going for gold i.e. global hegemony in a world where multipolarism is taking shape

I am certain that many of you will take the position that I formerly had; that the adoption of woke terminology in service of empire is a cynical ploy. I no longer believe that. I think that these are true believers. Chechens, Volga Tatars, the Komi, the Yakuts, all “indigenous” peoples suffering under Russian colonization, all yearning to be free, all seeking to release the American that is inside of them, screaming to get out. They are US Blacks who still suffer from the legacy of slavery and segregation, they are the Sioux on the reserve, they are the bullied Transgendered, they are the oppressed WaPo journalist from a rich family who went to Swiss boarding school.

My readers know full well that western reporting on the war in Ukraine was so propagandistic as to render it useless, until very recently. The actual situation on the ground simply became too obvious to continue the push to claim that the Ukrainians were on the verge of victory over Russia. This is what makes a USGov panel on partitioning Russia delusional. Who exactly is this for, other than to convince themselves and to justify their own employment?

In my recent piece “Hubris”, I explained just how dangerous a course has been set by the USA in choosing to take on Russia AND China at the same time, pushing these two states together in an existential alliance.

In “Incompetence”, we took a look at how the sanctions regime against Russia has boomeranged against the USA and EU (and is damaging other places such as Africa), without snuffing out the Russian economy, the actual objective of these sanctions.

We can now safely add delusion to hubris and incompetence when describing US foreign policy today. If you think that this is bad enough, US officials are reportedly happy to plunge the world into a global recession and mounting hunger (starvation) to ensure that Russia doesn’t win in Ukraine:

Europeans and North Americans need to sacrifice their standard of living so that the USA can triumph in Ukraine.

Africans might need to starve as well. It’s for a good cause, the decolonization of Russia. How can you say no?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Assange Put on Suicide Watch After Patel Decision, Father Says

By Joe Lauria, June 27, 2022

After British Home Secretary Priti Patel signed Julian Assange’s extradition order on Friday the authorities in Belmarsh prison stripped Julian Assange and threw him into a completely empty cell in an attempt to prevent his suicide, Assange’s father has said.

Guantanamo: Afghan National Released After 15 Years in Detention Without Charge

By Middle East Eye, June 27, 2022

An Afghan prisoner who was held in US custody for nearly 15 years without charge was released from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre on Friday and returned to his home country of Afghanistan.

The Brutality of “Bulldozer Justice” in India

By Dr. Binoy Kampmark, June 27, 2022

It looks all too eerily similar as a method: the expulsion of individuals from their home, the demolition of said home and the punishing of entire families.  All excused by a harsh reading of local regulations.  But this method, used by Israeli authorities for years against vulnerable Palestinians, has become a weapon of choice for the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Governance ‘E.S.G.’ Agenda: The Threat to Liberty You Haven’t Heard Of

By Tommy Salmons, June 26, 2022

In March of 2020 COVID-19 spread to the shores of the United States, introducing a medical threat that had all the signs of devastating families from sea to shining sea. But in the shadows, slipping in under the veil of a potentially deadly pandemic, another threat loomed. This threat, known as ESG, was not airborne or viral in the traditional sense. This threat was birthed in the imaginations of banks, corporations, and governments, and much like COVID, this threat is going to alter the life of millions of people worldwide.

Summer Preview: Rolling Blackouts, Higher Gas Prices, Natural Gas Rationing in Europe and a Historic Diesel Crisis

By Michael Snyder, June 26, 2022

For quite some time, the amount of oil that is being produced around the world each day has been lower than the amount of oil that is being used around the world each day, and as a result supplies have been getting tighter and tighter

The US Government’s Plan to Partition Russia Into Small States. The Danger of A Broader War

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, June 26, 2022

Not only is the US going to bust up Russia into small states, but also, according to the US National Security Council, “Zelensky is going to get to determine what victory looks like” and to determine “when the conditions are met to build peace.”

Brzezinski’s Proxy War Playbook: “Regime Change in Moscow”

By Patrick MacFarlane, June 26, 2022

In 1998, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski told Le Nouvel Observateur that the CIA “knowingly increased the probability” that the Russians would invade Afghanistan by covertly supporting the Mujahideen before the Soviet invasion.

Syria Repairs Relationship with Arab Countries. Geopolitical Implications

By Steven Sahiounie, June 26, 2022

The leader of the group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, recently stated that the dispute with Syria is over, and the relationship between Hamas and Damascus is starting a new phase.  He praised Syria for its unwavering support of the Palestinian resistance cause.

29,031 Covid-19 Vaccine Deaths, 240,022 Serious Injuries Reported to VAERS, as CDC Admits Not Monitoring System for Safety Signals

By Megan Redshaw, June 26, 2022

The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel unanimously voted 15 to 0 to recommend two doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 6 through 17 years old. Members of the panel acknowledged there is a risk of heart inflammation associated with both mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, but they said a follow-up survey suggests most fully recover.

Southern Ukraine is the Priority in NATO’s Planning. Snake Island in the Black Sea

By M. K. Bhadrakumar, June 25, 2022

On the night of February 24, when Russian forces crossed the western and northern borders of Ukraine, the world’s attention was riveted on the fate of Kiev. Hardly anyone paid attention to the far south in the Black Sea, some 140 kms from Odessa, when Russian Navy attacked that night and captured the entire Ukrainian garrison on Snake Island, an obscure small clump of rock with little obvious value, just 46 acres of rock and grass. 

  • Posted in NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Selected Articles: Assange Put on Suicide Watch After Patel Decision, Father Says

The Brutality of “Bulldozer Justice” in India

June 27th, 2022 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The Brutality of “Bulldozer Justice” in India

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

After British Home Secretary Priti Patel signed Julian Assange’s extradition order on Friday the authorities in Belmarsh prison stripped Julian Assange and threw him into a completely empty cell in an attempt to prevent his suicide, Assange’s father has said. 

It was just one more instance in which the prison humiliated his son, Shipton told a rally on Tuesday night at the offices of the junge Welt newspaper in Berlin. About 300 people attended, with an overflow crowd watching on close circuit TV in the courtyard.

“The ceaseless malice that has descended upon Julian,  a deluge of malice, the strip-searching of Julian … this is the latest humiliation,” Shipton said. “The staff of the jail, their concern after hearing he has to be extradited to the United States, thought he may commit suicide. Their solution was to strip him naked, and put him in a bare cell.”

Testimony was heard from expert defense witnesses during Assange’s extradition hearing that he might try to end his life in prison once he learned he was going to the United States.

It is not the end of the road for Assange legally, however. His lawyers have until July 1 to file for an appeal of Patel’s decision to the High Court. They also intend to apply for a cross appeal of issues such as the political nature of the charges, the threat to free speech and the reported C.I.A. plot to kidnap or kill Assange before his arrest.

Shipton and Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s brother, are in Berlin to lobby the German government to put pressure on the United States to drop the case against Assange.

On Monday, the Shiptons met with Tobias Lindner, the minister of state, at the German foreign ministry.

“It was a practical and appropriate step for Tobias to take, to welcome Julian Assange’s father and bother into the foreign ministry,” John Shipton said. “The invitation in itself and the meeting in the foreign ministry indicates that the German government is sincere in bringing about the freedom of Julian Assange.”

But Shipton said he would like to hear a public statement from Germany in support of his son. “We’d like Tobias to confirm what he’s said.”

A German government spokesman on Monday said however that Germany was unlikely to intervene with either the U.K. or the U.S. “This is a legal process that is already in motion, so I would be a little wary of political intervention,” he said, the French Press Agency (AFP) reported.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and numerous other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times.  He can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @unjoe  

Featured image: John and Gabriel Shipton at Berlin rally. (Joe Lauria)

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

 

 

 

 

 

***

An Afghan prisoner who was held in US custody for nearly 15 years without charge was released from the Guantanamo Bay detention centre on Friday and returned to his home country of Afghanistan.

Assadullah Haroon Gul, held at Guantanamo under the name Haroon al-Afghani, departed the prison and flew on a US Air Force plane to Qatar, which for years has served as an interlocutor between the Taliban and the US.

Qatari officials then handed him over to Taliban government representatives in Doha, a senior US official told The New York Times.

Soon after this, Afghan government media released photos of Gul meeting with Taliban officials in Qatar.

Gul’s release was also announced by Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban-appointed deputy culture and information minister, who wrote on Twitter that Gul was one of the last two Afghan prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

Gul was sent to Guantanamo in 2007, after the US accused him of being a member of Hezb-e-Islami (HIA), a militia that fought against the allied invasion of Afghanistan. HIA entered into a peace agreement with the then-US-backed Afghan government in 2016.

Following a decision to clear him for transfer out of the prison, a federal court ruled last October that his continued detention at Guantanamo was unlawful, the first time a Guantanamo detainee’s imprisonment has been ruled as such in a decade. The US on Friday complied with the court order, allowing his release.

“After 15 years imprisoned without charge or trial and after a Federal judge declared his detention illegal, Asad is finally free,” Mark Maher, Gul’s lawyer with the organisation Reprieve, said in a statement.

“Asad missed his daughter’s entire childhood and he will never get back what has been taken from him, but he is now at least able to rebuild his life with his family, who have waited so long to see him.

Gul’s departure from the prison leaves it with a population of 36 detainees, 19 of whom have been recommended for transfer but are waiting to be released.

“The Biden administration needs to take more urgent actions to actually put an end to this extralegal and abhorrent prison and system,” Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement welcoming Gul’s release.

The Biden administration has stated it intends to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, but it continues to remain open more than two decades after it was created.

Earlier this month, Majid Khan, who completed a 10-year-sentence at the notorious detention centre, filed a federal suit against the US for keeping him in custody months after his scheduled release.

Middle East Eye reported earlier this week that at least four detainees had tested positive for Covid-19, creating concerns about the safety of the lives of Guantanamo’s ageing population.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Twitter

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

First published on June 21, 2022

***

In March of 2020 COVID-19 spread to the shores of the United States, introducing a medical threat that had all the signs of devastating families from sea to shining sea. But in the shadows, slipping in under the veil of a potentially deadly pandemic, another threat loomed. This threat, known as ESG, was not airborne or viral in the traditional sense. This threat was birthed in the imaginations of banks, corporations, and governments, and much like COVID, this threat is going to alter the life of millions of people worldwide.

ESG is an acronym that stands for Environmental, Social (Justice), and (Corporate) Governance. The goal of ESG, as World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab stated in Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is to utilize investors to move corporations into a more socially progressive direction; moving technologies and businesses away from the current models of doing business to a new stakeholder method of business.

“Entrepreneurs and Investors are the vanguard when it comes to marrying a values-based approach to technological development…It makes sense that thinking about broader social impact at this stage would have significant cascading effects. Investors, on the other hand, have the carrot with which to direct the development of technologies…The values of entrepreneurs and organizational leaders have a tremendous influence on the workplace and how technologies are developed. Leading from the front can transform company culture and prioritize societal values.”

When Coca-Cola, Gillette, Disney, BP, and other multinational corporations act counter to good business practices to advance a political agenda antithetical to the beliefs of most of their consumer base it is an effort to improve the new value-based credit score known as ESG. As corporations respond to investors and the credit score used to determine societal value, they push agendas intended to move the Overton Window and cultural acceptance towards a more progressive agenda.

Proponents of ESG metrics utilize the famous libertarian mantra of private companies being able to do whatever they feel is best for their company and fiduciary responsibilities, but there’s nothing private about ESG.

In March of 2020 the SEC announced they would be forming an ESG Taskforce. The initiative has expanded to requiring publicly traded firms to make detailed disclosures on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. As with all regulations ESG is being sold as serving the greater good at the cost of business, costing the consumer more money.

Proponents of ESG make a litany of arguments to justify their regulatory dreams:

  1. “ESG is crucial because it offers a focused framework through which governments, businesses, and citizens can work consistently toward solving serious global challenges.”
  2. “ESG, at its core, is a means by which companies can be evaluated with respect to a broad range of socially desirable ends.”
  3. “ESG criteria can help investors avoid investment losses when companies engaged in risky or unethical practices are held accountable.”

But they will never address in any detail how ESG metrics will be utilized to make these changes to society. And if ESG is just a tool to help investors make decisions why is the SEC mandating ESG data disclosures? And who is considered an investor?

img 1730

Chart published by the Ethics and Compliance Initiative

According to Investopedia an investor is any person or other entity who commits capital with the expectation of receiving financial returns. Unfortunately for 401k holders, Merrill Edge agrees. In 2018 Merrill Edge added ESG scores to their client’s dashboard, informing their customers whether or not they’re invested in reputationally hazardous companies.

401ks won’t be the only time average citizens find themselves in the crosshairs of ESG. After the trucker convoy in Canada earlier this year their government leveraged financial institutions to freeze the bank accounts of anyone involved in financing or participating in the protest in any capacity.

In 2021 Banks United closed Donald Trump’s accounts after he had left office.

Recently PayPal has cancelled the accounts of many people without explanation, and for further reference Justin Haskins has detailed several instances in which banks have cancelled or frozen bank accounts of politicians accused of wrong-think. Fitch Ratings released a white paper in 2021 detailing how they incorporate ESG to judge individual credit ratings. FICO also has determined that ESG will be taken into account when an individual applies for credit.

What factors could contribute to credit agencies giving you a low ESG score? Do you own a gas run vehicle rather than an electric vehicle? Do you own a firearm? Have you bought ammunition? Do you speak out about the injustices around the January 6 riot? Do you buy Bitcoin? Are you invested in an oil and gas company? Are you openly opposing the agenda to introduce children to the transgender lifestyle? Do you live in a red state? Do you grow your own food? What is your career?

All of these factors and more could lead to a situation where you find yourself being refused credit due to ESG.

As corporations, financial institutions, and governments around the world have introduced ESG standards many people and states have come out against ESG. Several of these states have introduced anti-ESG legislation to protect average Americans from these insane regulatory practices that are meant to advance an agenda.

In response, S&P Global has introduced a plan to track and maintain ESG scores for states. This will penalize states by strong-arming businesses into leaving states with bad ESG scores. If a corporation refuses to flee, they will be excluded from capital, loans, and resources. This will put an overwhelming burden on the people of the states that work for or depend on the corporations targeted.

And that is the plan.

In the past being business friendly—low taxes and minimal regulation—was a benefit to a state’s economy.

Under the rules of ESG the most regulatory happy state sets the rules for everyone.

If Hungary sets specific standards that are stricter than every other nation all corporations adhere to their standards, or they do not do business in Hungary. This may seem relatively unlikely, but in the world of virtue signaling this is how the dominoes fall. Hungary mandates stricter requirements than every other state, and, in an attempt to not be outdone by Hungary, other countries adopt similarly strict ESG requirements. A corporation may not be afraid of losing Hungarian business, but Hungarian, French, British, and Spanish business is a segment of the population worth concerning yourself with.

All hope is not lost. ESG is certainly an effective way for governments to control business and personal actions by weaponizing the financial industry, but as more people become aware of the evils of ESG, how it effects prices, the supply chain, jobs, and business they will become more and more outspoken about its consequences. Though the threat is global, the fight is local. Drawing attention to the ESG agenda is extremely important. The subject must be broached at the local levels of government. Legislation stopping the creep of regulatory capture and the discriminatory policies of multinational corporations must continue; all the while we should be actively seeking out startups and established corporations opposed to ESG before the war on our liberty is complete.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Tommy Salmons is the host of Year Zero, a podcast focusing on government abuse of power.

Featured image is from TLI

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The World Economic Forum’s Global Governance ‘E.S.G.’ Agenda: The Threat to Liberty You Haven’t Heard Of
  • Tags:

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Almost everyone has heard about the rapidly growing global energy crisis by now, but most people assume that this crisis will eventually go away because they think that authorities have everything under control. 

Unfortunately, that is not true at all. 

This crisis has taken our leaders by surprise, and now many of them have shifted into panic mode because they realize that there will be no easy fixes. 

Decades of neglect and foolish decisions have brought us to the precipice of a nightmare, and many of us are going to be absolutely astonished by some of the things that happen in the months ahead.

Here in the United States, we have neglected to properly invest in our power grids for a very long time, and now they are at a breaking point.

We are being warned that there could be widespread “rolling blackouts” this summer, and the situation is particularly dire in Midwest states such as Michigan

The Lansing Board of Water and Light, or BWL, warned in a press release on Tuesday that the company is preparing for potential ‘rolling black-outs’ this summer.

The Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, or MISO, is Michigan’s power grid regulator. MISO will have to ‘load-shed’ if they see expected energy shortages during peak usage times due to hot weather. Load-shedding is purposefully shutting down electric power in some areas of a power-distribution system to prevent the entire system from failing when it is strained by high demand.

Meanwhile, the price of gasoline is likely to continue to go up.

For quite some time, the amount of oil that is being produced around the world each day has been lower than the amount of oil that is being used around the world each day, and as a result supplies have been getting tighter and tighter

Fast forward to today, and where are we? Intrinsic demand is thought to be around 103 million barrels a day now, owing to 1% per year global population growth, plus increased wealth–and demand should keep growing at roughly that pace. But supplies aren’t nearly keeping up. We’re currently producing around 100.6 million barrels (reflecting the loss of about a million barrels from Russia), and the resulting spike in prices is already constraining demand to around 101 million barrels, according to Majcher.

When demand is greater than supply, either prices go up or eventually you have shortages.

And sometimes both things happen.

Bank of America is telling us that oil inventories have reached a “dangerously low point”, and until that changes prices are likely to continue to rise…

The result is a market that for the second straight year is under-supplied, and drawing down inventories as a result–on top of the drawdown in strategic reserves approved by political leaders to try and lower prices. Bank of America is already warning that global oil inventories have fallen to a “dangerously low point,” with certain gasoline and diesel supplies in particular at “precarious levels” as we head into peak U.S. driving season. U.S. oil inventories are already 14% below their five-year average, BofA notes, while distillates (like diesel) are 22% below.

I wish that I could tell you that there is hope that things will turn around eventually.

But at this point the CEO of Exxon is actually warning us to expect “up to five years of turbulent oil markets”

Consumers must be prepared to endure up to five years of turbulent oil markets, the head of ExxonMobil said Tuesday, citing under-investment and the coronavirus pandemic.

Energy markets have been roiled by the Ukraine war as Russia has reduced some exports and faced sanctions while Europe has announced plans to wean itself off dependency on Russian fossil fuels in coming years.

If you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what happens after a major war erupts in the Middle East.

Then things will really start getting crazy.

Speaking of war, over in Europe a looming natural gas shortage due to the war in Ukraine is likely to cause immense economic problems in the months ahead.

Now that Russia has significantly reduced the flow of natural gas to Germany, it looks like the Germans will soon be forced to ration it, and the Wall Street Journal is telling us that authorities expect “a gas shortage by December”…

The German government moved closer to rationing natural gas on Thursday after Russia cut deliveries to the country last week in an escalation of the economic war triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Berlin triggered the second of its three-step plan to deal with gas shortages after the Kremlin-controlled energy giant Gazprom, the country’s biggest gas exporter, throttled delivery via the Nordstream pipeline by around 60% last week. Germany’s gas reserves are at 58% capacity, and the government now expects a gas shortage by December if supplies don’t pick up, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said.

It would be difficult for me to overstate the seriousness of this problem.  Energy prices have already gone completely nuts in Europe, and one German official is actually comparing this crisis to the collapse of Lehman Brothers

With energy suppliers piling up losses by being forced to cover volumes at high prices, there’s a danger of a spillover effect for local utilities and their customers, including consumers and businesses, Economy Minister Robert Habeck said Thursday after raising the country’s gas risk level to the second-highest “alarm” phase.

“If this minus gets so big that they can’t carry it anymore, the whole market is in danger of collapsing at some point,” Habeck said at a news conference in Berlin, “so a Lehman effect in the energy system.”

Needless to say, it isn’t just Germany that is being affected

The crisis has spilled far beyond Germany, with 12 European Union member states affected and 10 issuing an early warning under gas security regulation, Frans Timmermans, the European Union’s climate chief, said in a speech to the European Parliament.

“The risk of a full gas disruption is now more real than ever before,” he said. “All this is part of Russia’s strategy to undermine our unity.”

If the war in Ukraine could be brought to a peaceful resolution, that would greatly help matters.

But we all know that isn’t going to happen any time soon.

On top of everything else, global supplies of diesel fuel get squeezed a little bit more with each passing day.  The price of diesel fuel is 75 percent higher than it was a year ago, and here in the United States we have been warned that the Northeast “is quietly running out of diesel”

The upward pressure on diesel and jet fuel prices in particular is getting attention in the White House, Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects told Squawk Box yesterday. Diesel prices are up a whopping 75% from a year ago, and the spread between diesel and gasoline prices has also widened considerably. The high cost is creating huge strains on truckers and the supply chain; the Northeast “is quietly running out of diesel,” FreightWaves warned two weeks ago.

Even though there could be a historic supply crunch, we won’t completely run out of diesel fuel.

However, as I detailed in an article that has gone extremely viral, we are potentially facing really severe shortages of both diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil if solutions cannot be found.

Urea is required to produce diesel exhaust fluid, and the U.S. doesn’t produce enough.  We are normally one of the largest importers of urea in the entire world, and Russia and China are two of the largest exporters.  Our leaders have decided that we don’t want urea from Russia, and China has restricted exports.

So that puts us in a really tough position.  If you have a diesel vehicle, I would highly recommend stocking up on diesel exhaust fluid while you still can.

As for diesel engine oil, there are several key additives that are in short supply right now due to major problems at several manufacturers.  An article that Mike Adams just posted goes into the details.  This is a very serious situation that is not going to be resolved any time in the near future.

The bottom line is that supplies of diesel fuel are going to get very tight, and there may be times when diesel exhaust fluid and diesel engine oil are not available at all.

All three are required in order for diesel vehicles to operate, and as I explained yesterday, the U.S. economy runs on diesel.

If we were suddenly unable to use our diesel vehicles, all of our supply chains would collapse and we would no longer have a functioning economy.

So hopefully our leaders are working really hard to find some solutions.

Because it looks like this summer could be quite difficult, and the outlook for the months beyond is even less promising.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Michael’s brand new book entitled “7 Year Apocalypse” is now available on Amazon.com. He has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd Of The American Dream and The Most Important News which are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. 

Featured image is from Activist Post

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Summer Preview: Rolling Blackouts, Higher Gas Prices, Natural Gas Rationing in Europe and a Historic Diesel Crisis
  • Tags: , ,

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The United Nations (UN) has concluded that Israeli forces fired the fatal bullet that killed the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank last month, its findings showed on Friday. 

UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva that the organisation found that the shots that killed Abu Akleh came from Israeli forces.

“It is deeply disturbing that the Israeli authorities have not conducted a criminal investigation,” she said.

“We at the UN Human Rights Office have concluded our independent monitoring into the incident.

“All information we have gathered – including official information from the Israeli military and the Palestinian attorney-general – is consistent with the finding that the shots that killed Abu Akleh and injured her colleague Ali Sammoudi came from Israeli Security Forces and not from indiscriminate firing by armed Palestinians, as initially claimed by Israeli authorities.”

Multiple eyewitnesses, including Middle East Eye contributor Shatha Hanaysa, said the 51-year-old veteran Al Jazeera journalist was shot dead by Israeli snipers while reporting during a raid in the West Bank city of Jenin.

However, Israel quickly tried to suggest Palestinian gunmen were responsible, with both Israel’s military and its US embassy tweeting a video of Palestinian gunmen in Jenin firing down an alley.

‘Well-aimed bullets’

In response to the UN’s findings, Israel’s army said on Friday it was “not possible” to determine how Abu Akleh was killed.

“The IDF (Israeli army) investigation clearly concludes that Ms Abu Akleh was not intentionally shot by an IDF soldier and that it is not possible to determine whether she was killed by a Palestinian gunman shooting indiscriminately… or inadvertently by an IDF soldier.”

During the press conference, Shamdasani told reporters that the investigation examined multiple sources, including photos, videos, and audio material, visiting the scene, consulting experts, reviewing official communications and interviewing witnesses.

The findings showed that seven journalists arrived at the western entrance of the Jenin refugee camp soon after 6am.

At around 6.30 am, as four of the journalists turned into a particular street, when “several single, seemingly well-aimed bullets” were fired at them from the direction of the Israeli security forces, according to Shamdasani.

“One single bullet injured Ali Sammoudi in the shoulder, another single bullet hit Abu Akleh in the head and killed her instantly,” she said.

US senators call for investigation

UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has urged Israel to open a criminal investigation into Abu Akleh’s killing and all other killings by Israeli forces in the West Bank and in the context of law enforcement operations in Gaza.

On Thursday, two dozen US senators called on President Joe Biden and the FBI to launch an “independent investigation under US auspices to determine the truth” about Abu Akleh’s death.

Led by Senator Chris Van Hollen, the letter read:

“the US government has an obligation to ensure that a comprehensive, impartial, and open investigation into her shooting death is conducted – on in which all parties can have full confidence in the ultimate findings.

“In order to protect freedom of the press, a thorough and transparent investigation under US auspices must be conducted to get to the truth and provide accountability for the killing of this American citizen and journalist.”

Several international news agencies that have looked into the shooting have also concluded that the fatal bullet was fired from Israeli forces.

While Al Jazeera has referred the case to the International Criminal Court and vowed to bring the killers to justice using international legal platforms, Israel has said it is not subject to the court’s mandate because it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, and that abuses in Palestinian territories cannot be investigated because Palestine is not a state.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: Shireen Abu Akleh was an icon in Palestine and throughout much of the Arabic speaking world for her reporting from the occupied territories (Illustration/MEE)

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Jens Stoltenberg, Washington’s NATO puppet, says “peace negotiations,” not Russian victory, will end the conflict in Ukraine. So, Stoltenberg is counting on the Kremlin, whose leaders have said they will never again trust the West, to sit down again with the West and again agree to another worthless agreement. Considering the difficulty the Kremlin has in accepting reality, I suppose it is possible.

On the other hand, perhaps someone in the Kremlin has finally read the Wolfowitz Doctrine. If not, maybe someone in the Kremlin has seen the US Government’s Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe’s plan to break Russia up into a collection of independent small states. See this.

How is this to be done? Military conquest? A color revolution based on years of US financed NGOs permissively operating in Russia? Discrediting of Putin and his government?

The CSCE doesn’t say, but it has to be done as there is the need to break up Russia into smaller states for “moral and strategic” reasons.

When people whistling past the graveyard assure themselves that the Ukraine conflict won’t widen and that nuclear war is impossible because countries don’t commit suicide, they ignore the massive role of delusion that operates throughout the West that provides assurance of American hegemony.

Not only is the US going to bust up Russia into small states, but also, according to the US National Security Council, “Zelensky is going to get to determine what victory looks like” and to determine “when the conditions are met to build peace.” See this.

The war has already widened with the US and NATO countries falling under the Kremlin’s designation of combatants for supplying Ukraine with weapons and military intelligence.

The war has been widened to the extent that Lithuania now prevents Russia from supplying Kaliningrad, a part of Russia, and by NATO’s intended expansion into Finland, thus greatly lengthening NATO’s presence on Russia’s borders. People can fool themselves that this is not widening the conflict, but they forget that the conflict originated in the West’s refusal to acknowledge Russia’s legitimate security concerns. Now the West has greatly expanded the area of Russian concern.

My own view, to again state it, is that the combination of Western delusion with Kremlin toleration of provocations and belief in the value of negotiations, such as the 8 years the Kremlin wasted on the Minsk Agreement, the primary cause of Russian casualties today in Ukraine, guarantees war. There can be no other outcome.

If Russia succumbs yet again to trust in negotiation and makes a deal with Ukraine, the deal will not be kept any more than was the Minsk Agreement, the US pledge not to expand NATO to Russia’s borders, and the arms limitation agreements worked out over the decades, all abandoned by Washington.

The only result of a negotiated settlement will be that once again Russia will have given its enemies more time to demonize Russia, prepare more provocations, and beef up their military capability.

As I have said, the only thing that can prevent a wide war is a strong Russian foot that gives the lie to the US Government’s belief, as recently stated by the Department of State, that Russian red lines are merely “bluster.”

The West is so deluded that Russia is not taken seriously. Even tiny, insignificant, Lithuania is not afraid of Russia. Even countries heavily dependent on Russian energy repeatedly stick their fingers into Russia’s eyes. How much more can Russia take? This is a situation very ripe for a big war.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from danielo / Shutterstock

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The US Government’s Plan to Partition Russia Into Small States. The Danger of A Broader War

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

We bring to the attention of Global Research this important article (translated from German, minor edits by GR) by renowned German author and geopolitical analyst  Wolfgang Effenberger 

See also his earlier article entitled:

Dangerous Crossroads: The World on the Brink of War. The New Cold War Goes Hot?

By Wolfgang Effenberger, January 04, 2022

***

After EU Council President Charles Michel proposed to make Ukraine and Moldova candidates for EU membership, the draft final declaration of the June 23-24 EU summit in Brussels on June 21, 2022, stated,

“The European Council has decided to grant candidate country status to Ukraine and Moldova.”(1) (Georgia is to be granted candidate status as well.) It is assumed that the 27 heads of state and government will follow the EU Commission’s recommendation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated that he believes Ukraine already belongs to Europe. The country attacked by Russia proves every day that it is already part of a united European value area, he said. 

Since June 21, the self-propelled howitzer 2000 promised by Germany “has finally become part of the 155-millimeter howitzer arsenal of the Ukrainian artillery,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Resnikov wrote on Twitter. In doing so, he thanked Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht (SPD) “for all efforts” to support Ukraine.(2)

On the eve of June 22 – on this day in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the then-Soviet Union (killing over 26 million people) – shells from Western-supplied guns hit Luhansk and Donetsk. In Russia, candles were lit to commemorate the Great Patriotic War.

This June 22 would have been an opportunity to pause once to remember the catastrophe of World War 2 and to look for ways to peace. But the opposite was the case. On that day, the German mainstream media again incited actioagainst Russia. 

While British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warns the West of a “long war” in Ukraine(3) in the Times, the Chief of the British Army Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, tunes soldiers to fight alongside their allies to defeat Russia: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine underlines our core mission to protect the United Kingdom – by being prepared to fight and win wars on the mainland,”(4) Sanders said on Sky News on June 19. 

British army chief warns ‘must prepare to fight in Europe'(5)

On the same day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also expressed his concern in an interview with the Bild newspaper that the war could drag on for years; should support for Ukraine weaken, a heavy price would be paid.(6) 

The most incredible statement was made on Friday, June 17, 22 by Germany’s Air Force Chief Ingo Gerhartz (56) at the Kiel International Sea Powers Symposium:

“For credible deterrence, we need both the means and the political will to implement nuclear deterrence if necessary.”(7)

History

In view of the ever louder drums of war that can currently be heard, a reference to the parallels of the present situation to that before 1914 seems not only permissible but even necessary.

After the imperial wars of 1898 (USA against the great power Spain in Cuba and the Philippines), 1899- 1901 (UK against the Boers in Africa) and 1900 (the “value West” against China), tensions were building up in the world and especially on the part of Great Britain, France and Russia against Germany. From early December 1907 to February 1909, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt(8) had a large part of his new war fleet steam around the globe in sensational voyages, to the delight of naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan.(9) Sixteen modern armored battleships and cruisers demonstrated their superiority in striking power and mobility all around the world. 

Today, 11 nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carriers are in service on the world’s oceans along with their accompanying fleets.

In 2020, NATO and U.S. military spending totaled $1,102 billion, while that of China and Russia was $314 billion. Of this, Germany and Russia’s spending balanced out at about $60 billion.(10) 

Such an imbalance(11) was also evident before World War I(12):

pastedGraphic_2.png

Armament budgets 1880-1913 in U.S. Dollars (in thousands)

Only a few weeks after the assassination in Sarajevo on July 28, 1914, the time had come. On the morning of August 5, 1914, the New York Times ran the headline,

“ENGLAND DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY – 17,ooo,ooo MEN ENGAGED IN GREAT WAR OF EIGHT NATIONS.”

In the same issue, the NYT published a column by H.G. Wells in which he wrote that “the sword is now drawn for peace” and “never was a war so just as the war now against Germany.” Wells was convinced that Germany would be crushed and ripe for revolution in 2 to 3 months.(13)

Even before this issue of the NYT appeared, the British cut the German-American Atlantic cable in the early hours of the morning; thus, news from Berlin no longer reached the U.S. and vice versa.

With the beginning of the war, Russian news portals were blocked and further dissemination of Russian news was made a punishable offense. 

 One day after Woodrow Wilson’s pledge of neutrality on August 19, 1914, the naval blockade of Germany by Great Britain, which was contrary to international law, began without any major protest from the United States. This blockade was intended to isolate and economically strangle Germany. According to the official historian of the Royal Navy, Sir Julian Corbett, this blockade had been planned from 1908  by Lord Hankey in the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID) with “an orderly completeness of detail which has no parallel in our history”(14).

In fact, little is known to this day about “how and why a scant dozen leading U.S. investment bankers supported Britain from the beginning through illegal acts of war.”

With the election of a clueless U.S. president in late 1912 and the creation of the FED in 1913 (unlimited debt), the decision to go to war had been made.(15)

Realignments after World War I

Three times in the 20th century the international order was “reordered”(16) 

1) With the Versailles system of peace treaties and the creation of the League of Nations in 1920,

2) With the Potsdam Agreement and the creation of the United Nations in 1945, and

3) After the end of the Cold War in 1990 with the “Charter of Paris” and the creation of the OSCE.

With the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact (and the Soviet Union), the world hoped for a peaceful future.

US-NATO Wars of the Post Cold War Era

But after the victory of the “West” in 1990, “wars of order” [responsibility to protect] were instigated in many places in the world, such as the war against Iraq orchestrated by Bush Sr. in 1991. Some may still remember the unsavory Kuweit “incubator lie” that ultimately tipped the scales in favor of the UN’s blessing for that war.

When, on March 24, 1999, NATO launched the first war of aggression in its history without a UN mandate and thus in violation of international law against a sovereign country, it was immediately followed by a new doctrine permitting future interventions without a UN mandate. 

The wars of the so-called “Value West” [“Humanitarian West”, under “Responsibility to Protect”] in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan, Libya and Syria did not reorganize anything, but only led to “failed states”, i.e. into never-ending chaos – also a war crime. 

NATO’s war in Yugoslavia began on March 24, 1999 – 12 days earlier Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary had joined NATO. Was this just another war in the wake of the post-Yugoslav secession wars since the early 1990s? Certainly not, because 4 imperial motives of the USA can be identified(17)

1) A war of NATO Against the rest of Yugoslavia in order to insert it into the periphery of the West.

2) A war of the USA, in order to subjugate EU-Europe further to their subordination.

3) “A war whose long-distance effect was also aimed at further chastening Russia”; and

4) A war to demonstrate “NATO or US superiority over China”(18).

Color Revolutions

After the Yugoslav war, so-called “color revolutions” were concerted in Eastern Europe, most of which then led to regime change and desired EU and NATO accession.  

Canadian professor of economics, Michel Chossudovsky, drew attention in June 2015 to the fact that behind the Ukraine crisis lies a broad military strategy that goes far beyond Ukraine:

“NATO – and when we say NATO, we also mean the United States – is engaging in war games on Russia’s doorstep … Now they are threatening Russia with nuclear weapons, and it’s obvious that the nuclear option has been discussed in the U.S. Congress.”(19)

Then, in the summer of 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law to that effect,(20) stating that deployment of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction on the soil of Ukraine would be legal “until the deployment target is reached.” Previously, this was ruled out by law.

From 2015, NATO’s maneuver frequency (such as DEFENDER 20/21) on Russia’s doorstep increased dramatically. In parallel, the military infrastructure road and rail from Antwerp/Bremerhaven/ Hamburg towards Görlitz, Krakow and Kiev was made fit for war. 

The Role of Germany 

Three days after the Russian attack on Ukraine – just as illegal under international law as all U.S. wars since the attack on Yugoslavia – Chancellor Olaf Scholz introduced his government’s statement on Feb. 27 with the words:

“February 24, 2022 marks a turning point in the history of our continent.”(21)

In a firm voice, Scholz castigated Vladimir Putin’s cold-bloodedness and ruthlessness over his war of aggression, which he said could not be justified by anything, and asked:

“May might break right?”. The rhetorical answer (with respect to Russia) is clearly no. However, different standards seem to apply to the United States. 

Furthermore, Scholz announced ambitious foreign and military policy goals to the applause of the Bundestag majority: Not only to increase the current German military budget to more than 70 billion euros, but in addition to that, to increase the striking power of the Bundeswehr, a so-called “special fund” of 100 billion euros from the current budget. As a reminder: Three days after the start of the war in 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II convened the Reichstag on August 4 to vote on the war credits. At that time, the term “war loans” was used in all honesty, whereas today the term “special assets” is used to conceal from the public that this is once again a matter of debt. 

The fact that Scholz was able to announce within three days “a complete and detailed concept for a no-alternative swing to the foreign policy course of the U.S. and the abrupt transformation of the Federal Republic into a fiscal warfare state suggests that the state apparatus had drafts already at its disposal.”(22) 

It would be interesting to know who was involved in drafting Scholz’s speech and when Scholz first read it.

Two days before the governmental declaration, the SPD newspaper “Vorwärts” stated: 

“According to media reports, top U.S. diplomats – and also Foreign Minister [Secretary of State] Blinken himself – are engaged in these hours in direct talks to bring about the broadest possible condemnation in the General Assembly.”(23) In a speech to the United Nations that was celebrated as “emotional,” Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Alliance 90/The Greens) condemned Russia in a way “that elevates Germany, the old World War II loser, to the role of moral judge and demonstrates what “values-based foreign policy” means.”(24)

After three days of debate, 141 nations voted yes on March 2 to the UN General Assembly resolution condemning the Russian invasion, with five votes against (Russia, Belarus, Syria, North Korea, and Eritrea) and 35 abstentions (Including China, India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, which together make up about half of humanity). Twelve nations were absent from the vote. According to Michael von der Schulenburg, a former top diplomat working for the UN and OSCE, the support for the resolution by most of the small and medium-sized countries had the background that they wanted to strengthen the UN Charter and the ban on all military action as a whole for political reasons. So far, three other permanent members of the Security Council, the U.S., Britain and France, had also broken international law and waged illegal wars without consequences. 

pastedGraphic.pngIn Asia, only the usual allies of the West, i.e. Japan, Australia and Singapore, participate in the comprehensive sanctions packages against Russia, while the other states in Asia, Africa and Latin America did not. For the Global South, this is again a white man’s war in the North, like the first and second world wars of the 20th century and the cold war.

The supposed winners of the Cold War had expected the loser to cave in, submit to its role as a “regional power” (Obama) and serve as a junior partner to the West. Even today, they are waiting for a coup by a Moscow elite that would rather be the junior partner of the U.S. than that of the Chinese.

With the attack on Ukraine on Feb. 24, the European order that had more or less held since 1950 had come to an end, said the two “European activists and publicists” Vincent-Immanuel Herr and Martin Speer on April 2 in the guest commentary 

“After the war of aggression: the birth of geopolitical Europe” in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. They demand that the EU must now develop into a “value superpower” capable of defense, and in their article they focus on two subjects in particular: “military and security policy issues” and the development of a “European we-feeling.”(25)

That this defensible “value superpower” allows whistleblower Julian Assange to languish in a British prison for years and soon even be extradited to the U.S., and refused asylum to Edward Snowden, so that he had to flee to Russia, is more than shameful. A real “value superpower” must be built on a different foundation than that of the military and a questionable “European we-feeling”. 

This foundation was laid more than 200 years ago by Immanuel Kant in his work “Perpetual Peace”, the formulations of which are the basis of our international law today. 

Concluding Remarks

At the moment, unfortunately, it looks like the ever-increasing bellicosity of government and media will expand the war and eventually lead NATO into active war participation as outlined in the U.S. long-term strategy TRADOC 525-3-1 “Win in a Complex World 2020-2040” (2014).

Meanwhile, the German people are being attuned to blood, sweat and tears. Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck predicted,

“We are all getting poorer”(26).

And Christian Lindner, Germany’s Minister of Finance declared on the memorable June 22 day that he expects: “three to five years of shortages”(27). The task now, he said, is to defend “the substance of the German economy in these times of uncertainty.”

So we should be prepared for a prolonged war – making a “A European security order encompassing the EU as well as Russia” a very distant prospect.

Notes

1)https://web.de/magazine/politik/russland-krieg-ukraine/ukraine-krieg-news-21-juni-2022-nachlesen-37039708

2)Ibid 

3)https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-british-troops-must-prepare-to-fight-in-europe-once-again-says-new-head-of-army-12636637 

4) Ibid

5)https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-krieg-news-grossbritannien-armee-chef-warnung-kampf-europa-vorbereitung-91618815.html 20. Juni 2022

6)https://www.merkur.de/politik/ukraine-krieg-news-grossbritannien-armee-chef-warnung-kampf-europa-vorbereitung-91618815.html

7)https://www.bild.de/politik/inland/politik-inland/top-general-appelliert-an-nato-muessen-bereit-sein-notfalls-atomwaffen-zu-nutzen-80444834.bild.html

8)Als Imperialist der Mahan-Schule verfolgte Theodore Roosevelt eine offensive Außenpolitik mit zahlreichen Militäreinsätzen zum „Schutz amerikanischer Interessen“, so etwa in Dom.Rep., Honduras, Kolumbien, Kuba, Marokko, Syrien.

9)Vgl. Henry F. Pringle: Theodore Roosevelt, a Biography, New York 1931, S. 409 ff.; XX, pp. 535 ff

10) SIPRI Military Expenditure 2020 (April 2021)

11) Zahlen aus Engelbrecht, Helmut C./Hanighen, F.C.: MERCHANTS OF DEATH A Study of the International Armament Industry, Carter Lane 1934, S. 263

12) Da die Angabe für 1914 fehlte, wurde die von 1910 (348.032.000 )genommen. Die tatsächlichen Ausgaben dürften deutlich darüber gelegen haben.

13) Walter Millis: Road to War, America 1914 -1917, Boston/New York 1935, S. 47

14) Corbett, Julian: Official History. Naval Operations, London 1921,Vol. 1, p.18

15) Helmut Roewer: Unterwegs zur Weltherrschaft Warum England den Ersten Weltkrieg auslöste und Amerika ihn gewann. Zürich 2016, S. 16

16) Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, Nr. 130, Juni 2022, S. 16

17)Ibid, S. 15

18)Erhard Crome: In tempori belli, in: WeltTrends, Nr. 23, 1999, S. 138

19)Zitiert in Peter Orzechowski: Ist die Gefahr eines Atomkriegs real? KOPP exklusiv 24 /22, S. 7

20)„Gesetz Über die Bedingungen der Streitkräfte anderer Staaten auf dem Territorium der Ukraine“.

21) https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/zeitenwende-im-bundestag,SyfVl4E

22)Zeitschrift Marxistische Erneuerung, Nr. 130, Juni 2022, S. 12

23)Zitat aus der SPD Zeitung “Vorwärts”. 25.02.2022

24)https://www.heise.de/tp/features/Was-die-Zeitenwende-von-Bundeskanzler-Scholz-bedeutet-6665130.html?seite-all

25)Zeit-Fragen  14. Juni 2022/ 30. Jahrgang , S. 4

26)https://www.fr.de/meinung/kolumnen/ein-einziger-satz-91456992.html

27)https://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/videos/wirtschaft/Lindner-warnt-vor-drei-bis-fuenf-Jahren-der-Knappheit-article23414488.html

Translated from German. Minor Editing by Global Research.

Wolfgang Effenberger, born in 1946, a former officer in the German armed forces, has been a committed peace advocate since his first book, “Pax americana” (2004). In April 2022, he published “Die unterschätzte Macht: Von Geo- bis Biopolitik – Plutokraten transformieren die Welt”. Other books by him on the subject: “Wiederkehr der Hasardeure” (2014, Koautor Willy Wimmer), die Trilogie „Europas Verhängnis 14/18“ (2018/19) sowie “Schwarzbuch EU & NATO” (2020).

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

  • Posted in English, Mobile, NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on “Loud Drums of War”: The Dangers of a “Longer and Extended War” in Ukraine. Towards a Unipolar World?

Video: United Nations: A Redundant Body?

June 26th, 2022 by wionews.com

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This was originally published in September 2020

***

The United Nations has been held hostage by 5 countries since 1945.

Can they still be allowed to dictate terms to rest of the world?

On GravitasPlus WION’s Palki tells you why it’s time to decolonise the global body.

 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Video: United Nations: A Redundant Body?
  • Tags:

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

In 1998, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski told Le Nouvel Observateur that the CIA “knowingly increased the probability” that the Russians would invade Afghanistan by covertly supporting the Mujahideen before the Soviet invasion. Later in that same interview, Brzezinski claims that this covert intervention caused the end of the Soviet Union:

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.” Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

In July 2014, almost six months after the Maidan Revolution and Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea, Brzezinski hinted at a similar plan for Ukraine, although he couched it in defensive terms. He wrote on the Atlantic Council’s blog:

If Ukraine has to be supported so that it does resist, the Ukrainians have to know the West is prepared to help them resist. And there’s no reason to be secretive about it. It would be much better to be open about it and to say to the Ukrainians and to those who may threaten Ukraine that if Ukrainians resist, they will have weapons. And we’ll provide some of those weapons in advance of the very act of invasion. Because in the absence of that, the temptation to invade and to preempt may become overwhelming. But what kind of weapons is important. And in my view, they should be weapons designed particularly to permit the Ukrainians to engage in effective urban warfare of resistance.

In September 2014, Brzezinski revisited the topic in an MSNBC interview:

Brzezinski: For the moment, the NATO alliance—as well as Europe and America jointly—have not been giving military aid to Ukraine. But I would not exclude the possibility of some defensive weaponry being given to the Ukrainians before too long, simply if the Russians, and particularly Putin, continue to try to intimidate Ukraine. That’s not the same thing as defending them; it’s helping them defend themselves.

MSNBC: Is that the middle path you think the United States is going to take—something more than economic sanctions, but less than proxy war?

Brzezinski: I think so. It seems to me that if we really are serious about Ukraine having the right to be an independent state with a friendly relationship with Europe, but not necessarily a member of NATO, and if Ukraine is not only threatened but actually victimized by Russia using force, then some defensive arms — publicly given — but only defensive weaponry, handed over to the Ukrainians makes eminent sense. It contributes to greater stability and it’s more likely to deter Mr. Putin than if he’s in effect given the green light to use as much force as he feels like.

Despite Brzezinski’s defensive framing in Ukraine, Washington’s support for the Ukrainian military bears many similarities to its support of the Mujahideen.

The first documented CIA support to the Mujahideen came in July 1979 when “a small political action program [was approved] to support the burgeoning [Afghan] insurgency through Pakistan.” After the invasion, Washington’s clandestine assistance to the Mujahideen sought to “get arms in [their] hands and keep them fighting.”

These efforts consisted of sales of military equipment through the Pakistani ISI. The most effective support included the transfer of Stinger missiles, which equipped the Mujahideen to destroy Russian helicopters. In the Reagan years, these transfers were facilitated by the deployment of “CIA Special Activities Division paramilitary officers.”

In early February 1980, Brzezinski visited Pakistan for a series of meetings with then-Pakistani President Mohammed Zia ul-Haq to discuss American support to Pakistan in the wake of the Soviet invasion. As a part of the delegation, Brzezinski made a “symbolic visit” to Afghan refugees in the Khyber Pass. Speaking of the Mujahideen, he told the refugees:

We know of their deep belief in God and we are confident that their struggle will succeed. That land over there is yours. You’ll go back to it one day because your fight will prevail. And you’ll have your homes and your mosques back again, because your cause is right and God is on your side.

In January 2022, a month before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it was revealed by U.S. intelligence officials that the CIA had been providing covert assistance to the Ukrainian military since 2014. The program began under Barack Obama, was expanded under Donald Trump, and continued under Joe Biden. According to Yahoo News:

The multiweek, U.S.-based CIA program has included training in firearms, camouflage techniques, land navigation, tactics like “cover and move,” intelligence and other areas, according to former officials.

…The program has involved “very specific training on skills that would enhance” the Ukrainians’ “ability to push back against the Russians,” said the former senior intelligence official.

The training, which has included “tactical stuff,” is “going to start looking pretty offensive if Russians invade Ukraine,” said the former official.

One person familiar with the program put it more bluntly. “The United States is training an insurgency,” said a former CIA official, adding that the program has taught the Ukrainians how “to kill Russians.”

Although some of the cited intelligence officials denied the training aimed to “create an insurgency,” much of the training is dually applicable. The semantic squirming that Brzezinski and other intelligence officials employ in their attempts to distinguish defensive support from prepping an insurgency is literally in-credible. This is especially true considering the type of weapons that complimented this training: “sniper rifles, armed boats, RPGs, and Javelin anti-tank missiles[.]”

Further, in an address that is eerily similar to Brzezinski’s 1980 visit to the Khyber Pass, Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) spoke to the Ukrainian 36th Separate Marine Brigade. During the January 2, 2017 address, Graham and McCain praised the Ukrainian soldiers.

Graham: “I admire the fact that you will fight for your homeland. Your fight is our fight. 2017 will be the year of offense. All of us will go back to Washington and we will push the case against Russia. Enough of the Russian aggression. It is time for them to pay a heavier price…Our promise to you is to take your cause to Washington, inform the American People of your bravery, and make the case against Putin to the World.”

McCain: “I believe you will win. I am convinced you will win and we will do everything we can to provide you with what you need to win. We have succeeded not because of equipment but because of your courage. So I thank you and the world is watching because we [] cannot allow Vladimir Putin to succeed here, because if he succeeds here, he will succeed in other countries.”

In the 1980s, Brzezinski’s covert “bleeder” strategy was calculated to give the USSR “its own Vietnam,” which Brzezinski later claimed caused the end of the Soviet Union.

In Spring and early Summer 2022, the goal of Washington’s involvement in Ukraine became more openly stated: regime change in Moscow. Was this always the objective?

Unlike the debatable effect of Brzezinski’s 1980s Afghanistan intervention, Washington’s involvement in Ukraine was directly cited by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a casus belli. In his February 2022 speech, Putin stated:

Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.

Brzezinski’s influence on the foreign policy establishment is immense. Brzezinski was among the first to call for the end of Putin’s government. He was also among the first to compare Putin to Hitler. Brzezinski’s protégés include such figures as Barack Obama, Madeline Albright, Victoria Nuland, Jake Sullivan, and Antony Blinken.

Although Washington’s actual role in provoking the Soviet invasion is debatable, one must wonder: if the Russian invasion of Ukraine were to bring the end of Putin’s Russia, would Brzezinski’s ghost and its lineage of Straussian ghouls champion Washington’s role in exacerbating the conflict?

More importantly, if regime change is the goal, what cost must the world be made to pay?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from The Libertarian Institute

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The Liberals are intent on funneling ever more of our collective resources to bolster the US Empire, spending lavishly to “modernize” Canada’s chief bi-national military accord.

On Monday Defence Minister Anita Anand announced the government would spend $4.9 billion to upgrade the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The federal government said it will devote $40 billion to NORAD over 20 years, but it may be far more than that noted David Pugliese in a story headlined: “Cost to modernize NORAD set at $40 billion, but will final tally be higher?”

The media and government framed the announcement as strengthening Canada’s defences. According to the Globe and Mail report, “the Canadian government has pledged $4.9-billion over six years to help upgrade North America’s air defences, addressing the growing threat posed by hypersonic missiles and advanced cruise missile technology developed by Russia and China.”

But it’s absurd to present NORAD as a defensive arrangement. Its lead actor has 1,000 international bases and special forces deployed in 149 countries. Rather than protect Canada and the US, NORAD supports violent missions led by other US commands. In 1965 NORAD’s mandate was expanded to include surveillance and assessment sharing for US commands stationed worldwide (United States European Command, United States Pacific Command, United States Africa Command, etc.).

The Pentagon has put satellites into space to enable first strike ballistic missile defence (BMD). While Paul Martin’s Liberals claimed to oppose BMD, they granted “full cooperation by NORAD in missile-defence work”, explained Richard Sanders in a Press for Conversion report on the subject. In 2004 Ottawa formally permitted the US BMD system to use data from NORAD’s “Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack Assessment”.

It’s called “missile defence” because it’s designed to defend US missiles sites after they launch offensive operations. US-installed missile defence systems in Romania and Korea, for instance, are designed primarily to stop opponents’ missiles following a US first strike.

US space-based missile defence interceptors able to eliminate Russia’s early warning satellites without warning puts that country on edge. This ratchets up the arms race and the likelihood of nuclear war.

NORAD has also drawn Canada into US belligerence in other ways. During the July 1958 US invasion of Lebanon NORAD was placed on “increased readiness” while US troops checked secular Arab nationalism after Iraqis toppled a Western-backed king (at the same time British troops invaded Jordan to prop up the monarchy there).

In a higher profile incident, Canadian NORAD personnel were put on high alert when the US illegally blockaded Cuba in October 1962. This transpired even though Prime Minister John Diefenbaker hesitated in supporting US actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

During the 1973 Ramadan/Yom Kippur/Arab–Israeli War NORAD was placed on heightened alert. Washington wanted to deter the USSR from intervening on Egypt’s behalf.

NORAD systems offered surveillance and communications support to the 1991 war on Iraq. It monitored the region and provided information to launch US Patriot surface-to-air missiles. NORAD ballistic missile warnings were also sent to Ottawa and Canadian units in Bahrain.

NORAD also supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The same can be said for US bombing in Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, etc.

Thousands of Canadian military personnel assist NORAD’s operations. One hundred and fifty Canadians are stationed at NORAD’s central collection and coordination facility near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Hundreds more work at regional NORAD outposts across the US and Canada and many pilots are devoted to the Command.

A Royal Canadian Airforce general is the vice commander of NORAD and runs the entire command when the US commander is absent. In discussing the two countries’ most significant bilateral military accord, Ann Griffiths explains,“NORAD brings the Canadian military more deeply within the US defense establishment than any other ally. The United States quite simply, would not entrust such responsibilities to the military of any other close ally, not even Britain.”

NORAD makes Canada a junior partner to US militarism and imperialism. If Canada was truly a force for good in the world, a peacekeeper and adherent of a rules based international order, Ottawa would withdraw from NORAD, rather than spend billions more strengthening it.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Yves Engler

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The leader of the group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, recently stated that the dispute with Syria is over, and the relationship between Hamas and Damascus is starting a new phase.  He praised Syria for its unwavering support of the Palestinian resistance cause.

Hamas ideology is viewed by many as Muslim Brotherhood ideology, which is similar to the Radical Islamic political ideology followed by Al Qaeda and ISIS. Founded in 1987, Hamas opposed the secular approach of the PLO, and in 2001 the political bureau established new headquarters in Damascus, Syria.

One unnamed official said the Hamas and Damascus have held several “high-profile meetings to achieve that goal.”

Qatar sponsors Hamas

Haniyeh’s comments would not have been possible without approval from Qatar’s leadership.  Qatar has been one of the main sponsors of Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group based in Gaza, which is considered to be a terrorist organization by Israel and the US but is not classified as such by Brazil, China, Egypt, Iran, Norway, Qatar, Russia, Syria, and Turkey.

Qatar was one of the oil-rich Gulf monarchies which funded the US-backed terrorists fighting in Syria from 2011 to 2017.

In March, Qatar’s Emir Al Thani paid a visit to the White House, and US President Biden designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally, the same distinction that was bestowed on Israel.

Qatar and Saudi Arabia blockade

Saudi Arabia took a change in direction while President Trump was in office, and moved away from the Obama administration directive of funding the terrorists in Syria for regime change.  In 2017, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain cut off ties with Qatar and blocked all air and land traffic to the emirate due to its alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, while Qatar worked in tandem with Turkey, which is ruled by a Muslim Brotherhood AKP party, and their leader, President Erdogan.

Syria repairs relationship with Arab countries

Bahrain’s new ambassador to Syria formally took up his post in Syria on Sunday, the country’s first full diplomatic mission there in more than a decade as Damascus continues to improve its relations with Gulf Arab states. The Embassy of Bahrain was reopened in Damascus in 2018.

Syrian President Assad’s visit to the United Arab Emirates in March was the first such trip to an Arab country since Syria’s conflict erupted in 2011, as most Gulf countries seek warmer ties with Damascus. The Arab re-think of Damascus will head towards bringing Syria in from the cold based on realities on the ground and Arab national interests.

According to Dr. Shehata Al-Arabi, “In March 2021, the UAE and Saudi Arabia demanded restoring Syria to the Arab incubator. The Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, expressed Riyadh’s support for Syria’s return to its Arab surroundings, stressing that the solution in Syria “will only be political”. In April 2021, Iraq’s Prime Minister, Mostafa al-Kadhimi, declared in Baghdad, when he received the Arab League secretary general, Ahmad Abu al-Ghait, his country’s support for the return of Syria to the Arab league. In May 2021, the Syrian Minister of Tourism visited the KSA, which was the first visit of a Syrian government official to Riyadh since 2011. In the same month, the kingdom sent its intelligence chief to Damascus for talks with his Syrian counterpart.”

Al-Arabi added, “In September 2021, the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Sameh Shukri, met his Syrian counterpart, Faisal al-Meqdad, for the first time in more than a decade, during his participation in the UN General Assembly meetings in New York. After the meeting, the Egyptian minister announced his support for Syria’s return “as an active party in the Arab framework”.”

Will Qatar re-open its embassy in Damascus?

Recently, Engineer Moaz Hekmat Shaker, who is in charge of maintenance at the Embassy of Qatar in Damascus, said in a phone interview with Q Street Journal Syrian news agency, that he was asked to clean up the embassy, care for the garden and make all necessary repairs.

Qatar had been opposed to Syria’s return to the Arab League; however, a change in Turkey is taking place, Qatar’s former staunch ally, and with Turkey drawing closer to Saudi Arabia, Qatar may find it beneficial to repair ties with Syria.

Turkey and Saudi Arabia repair their relationship

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrived in Turkey for the first time in years on June 22 for talks with President Erdogan, while Erdogan has also been getting closer to Israel and Egypt.

Turkey has hosted the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, which was designated as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people and headquartered in Istanbul. However, the US has lost interest in the Obama-era regime change they sought in Syria and has generally abandoned all interest in finding a solution to the lingering Syrian conflict.

In 2017, President Trump cut the funding on the CIA program to support terrorists fighting in Syria, which effectively dropped US support of Erdogan’s role in supplying the Radical Islamic terrorists with weapons and cash from the CIA office in southern Turkey. Since then, the relationship between the US and Turkey has been steadily sliding downhill.

Syria returns to the Arab League

James Jeffrey, a former US envoy to Syria, told the Kurdish officials in the northeast of Syria, partners with the US, that it was in their interest to repair their relationship with Damascus, as it would be the Syrian Arab Army who could defend them against Turkish invasion and attacks.

Turkey and Syria may see a repairing of their former excellent relationship which would serve the purpose of preventing terrorist attacks on Turkey while promoting the departure of Turkish occupation forces from Syria.  Syria would possibly safeguard its northern border from all types of terrorist occupation, including those aligned with the PKK.

The Arab Summit in Algeria, in November, might see the decision taken to restore Damascus to the Arab League.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from MD

Staying Healthy in the Age of Tyranny and Deceit

June 26th, 2022 by Dr. Joseph Mercola

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Diet is a key strategy that can make or break your health. Rather than attempting to list everything you need to include in a healthy diet, it’s far easier to identify and eliminate the dietary components that do the most harm

Linoleic acid (LA), an omega-6 fat, is by far the most damaging ingredient in the modern diet. Excessive LA intake — in the form of industrial seed oils — is responsible for most chronic diseases, including obesity, cancer and heart disease

As a general rule, anything over 10 grams of LA a day is likely to cause problems. The lower the better, but a reasonable goal for most people is to get your level below 5 grams per day

Fats to be avoided include cottonseed oil, canola, corn, soybean, safflower and sunflower oil. Use avocado oil and olive oil in moderation, and only if you can ensure it hasn’t been adulterated with industrial seed oil. Healthy cooking fats include coconut oil, tallow, organic grass fed butter, ghee, duck fat and organic lard

Conventional chicken and pork are both loaded with LA due to being fed high-LA grains. This is why I don’t recommend either as a protein source. Grass fed beef is relatively low in LA, but lowest of all are bison and lamb

*

In the featured video, independent journalist Corey Lynn and I discuss tips on how to stay healthy and what we can do, at the individual and community level, to fight medical tyranny. The first question I address is how to address stress. After more than two years of pandemic pandemonium, most are “running on empty.”

This topic is covered in greater depth in a new book I’m writing, called “The New Take Control of Your Health,” which is an update of my 2017 book “Take Control of Your Health.” The update will hopefully be available later this year.

Essentially, the book will cover dozens of strategies that act as hormetic stressors, such that if you do them, you will develop natural resiliency against nearly every chronic degenerative disease. Most of these are very basic and foundational, such as optimizing your sleep and circadian rhythm. There’s really no single magic bullet for stress; rather, certain lifestyle choices act synergistically to create a higher level of stress tolerance.

How Diet Has Destroyed Our Health

Diet is, as you might expect, a key strategy that can make or break your health (and your tolerance for stress). The Paleo diet, which has gained popularity over the years, essentially strives to mimic the diet our ancestors ate during the Paleolithic era. But we don’t actually have to go that far back.

Merely turning back the dial about 150 years will do. That’s when industrial food processing began. That’s also when industrial processed seed oils (aka, vegetable oils) were introduced as a replacement to healthy animal fats like lard and tallow, which had previously been the norm.

The first commercial food seed oil to be introduced was cottonseed oil — a waste product from cotton production. That was the primary ingredient of Crisco. Prior to the 1900s, only 1% to 2% of daily calories came from omega-6 fats, the primary one of which is linoleic acid (LA). Today, the average intake is 10 times that.

Like omega-3, LA is a polyunsaturated fat (PUFA), but unlike omega-3, LA, when consumed in excess, acts as a metabolic poison. Anything above 4% of your daily calories is likely to cause problems.

Importantly, LA is in virtually all foods, so it’s near-impossible to be deficient. This is why I disagree with claims that LA is an essential fat. You need very little of it, and you’re getting it from most whole foods. If you eat processed foods made with seed oils, you’re bound to get far too much and will suffer adverse health consequences.

Before the 1900s, fewer than 10 Americans suffered heart attacks in any given year. Today, it’s the leading cause of death. Cancer deaths were also much lower. Pre-1900, fewer than 1 in 100 of Americans died from cancer, and today, cancer kills 1 in 3.

Most health-minded experts still believe the primary cause for these trends is sugar, but LA is far more dangerous than sugar, from a metabolic perspective. I’m convinced it’s really the massively excessive amounts of LA in our modern diet that drives these metabolic diseases.

Looking at statistics of seed oil consumption and chronic diseases such as obesity, cancer and heart disease, these trends all rise in tandem, even in areas where sugar consumption has remained extremely low well into the modern era. Another major difference between sugar and seed oils that demonstrate the superior risks of seed oils is this:

Sugar, when consumed in excess over time will result in insulin resistance and metabolic inflexibility. However, if you cut out sugar, you can rather rapidly restore both your insulin sensitivity and metabolic flexibility, because your body can only store about a day’s worth of glucose.

Not so with fat. Your body can store a lot of it, for long periods of time. LA is literally incorporated into and stored in your cell membranes, where it can remain for seven years. So, even if you go on a low-LA diet, it’ll take years to fully clear it out of your body. This also means you won’t notice improvements in your health as quickly as you do when cutting out sugar.

Damaging Fats to Avoid

So, which fats are high in LA and need to be avoided? Some of the most common ones to be avoided include:

While avocado oil and olive oil are known for their health benefits, they too are high in LA and should be used in moderation — and ONLY if you can ensure their quality. I recommend limiting them to 1 tablespoon a day. A primary problem with both of these is food fraud.1

Most of the avocado and olive oil on the market have been adulterated with one or more or the cheaper oils listed above. Another pesky quality problem is that of rancidity. A 2020 Food Control report2 found 82% of avocado oils went rancid before their expiration date.3

Healthy Fats

I recommend swapping all of the oils listed above with the following, all of which are great to cook with as they’re very stable and won’t oxidize when exposed to high heat:

  • Coconut oil
  • Tallow (fat from cows)
  • Organic grass fed butter
  • Ghee

Healthiest Protein Sources

In this interview, we also discuss protein sources. Conventional chicken and pork are both loaded with LA due to being fed high-LA grains. This is why I don’t recommend either as a protein source. Grass fed beef is relatively low in LA, but lowest of all are bison and lamb.

Fish is also a healthy choice, provided you stick with low-mercury alternatives, such as Alaskan salmon and smaller fish like wild mackerel and sardines. These, in addition to providing you with healthy omega-3 fats also contain resolvins and protectins — biomolecules that augment the benefits of omega-3. Neither of these are available in omega-3 oils, so you can’t get those from a supplement.

How to Calculate and Reduce Your LA Intake

The best way to ensure your LA intake is within a safe range is to use a nutritional calculator such as Cronometer. Ideally, it is best to enter your food for the day before you actually eat it. The reason for this is simple: It’s impossible to delete the food once you have already eaten it, but you can easily delete it from your menu if you find something pushes you over the ideal limit.

Once you’ve entered the food for the day, go to the “Lipid” section on the lower left side of the Cronometer app. To find out how much LA is in your diet for that day, just note how many grams of omega-6 is present. About 90% of the omega-6 you eat is LA. You can also move your cursor over the omega-6 field and the program will rank the order your largest contributors of LA, and tell you how much is in each food.

As a general rule, anything over 10 grams of LA a day is likely to cause problems. The lower the better, but a reasonable goal for most people is to get your level below 5 grams per day. So, how do you cut seed oils out of your diet? Top culprits to minimize or eliminate include:

The Potent Benefits of Sun Exposure

Beside cleaning up your diet, one of the most potent health strategies I know is to get sensible sun exposure. I have been fascinated with the effects of sun exposure on health for nearly three decades.

Over time, we’ve discovered more and more mechanisms by which sunlight influences health, and most recently, it was discovered that near-infrared radiation (NIR), which makes up 54.3% of sunlight,5 triggers the production of melatonin in the mitochondria inside your cells.6

This is a phenomenal benefit, as melatonin is a master hormone,7 a potent antioxidant8 and antioxidant recycler,9 and a master regulator of inflammation and cell death.10 (These functions are part of what makes melatonin such an important anticancer molecule.11)

Your mitochondria are where oxidative stress ends up doing the most damage. So, by producing melatonin in your mitochondria, your body is literally making it right where it’s needed the most — and it does this in response to sunlight!

Ideally, you’d want to get an hours’ worth of sunlight on large portions of your body, every day. For men, this means going out wearing only shorts, and for women, wearing shorts and a sports bra or tank top.

If you go out around solar noon, without sunscreen, you also get the benefit of vitamin D production. I have not swallowed a vitamin D supplement since I moved to Florida nearly 15 years ago, and my serum vitamin D is in the optimal range year-round.

Time-Restricted Eating

Time-restricted eating (TRE) is a form of intermittent fasting, and in my opinion, the easiest to implement, as all you need to do is eat all your meals and snacks within a six- to eight-hour window each day. (You’ll want to make sure your last meal is at least three hours before bedtime). For the remaining 16 to 18 hours, you fast.

In the U.S., 90% eat across 12 hours. Some will even wake up in the middle of the night to eat, and this is a surefire recipe for ill health. One of the primary benefits of TRE is that it will make you metabolically flexible, so that you can burn both fat and carbs for energy.

If you’re constantly hungry, chances are you’re metabolically inflexible and cannot efficiently burn fat. Your body is basically just screaming for another quick energy fix, because carbs burn fast and when they’re gone, you need more.

Once your body can efficiently burn fat, hunger usually disappears. Without hunger pangs driving your search for food, you’ll also be able to simply not eat if you’re in a situation where you can’t find healthy food. This way, you’re not “forced” to eat junk that will deteriorate your health.

Are You Prepared for What’s Coming Next?

In the last third of the interview, we move on to discuss the now-constant attacks on our freedoms and liberties. I’ve interviewed a number of experts, all of whom agree that things are going to get far worse before they get better.

Some of my more important interviews include professor Mattias Desmet (the psychology of mass formation and totalitarianism), which has not yet been released, Dr. Mark McDonald (the psychology of fear addiction), Naomi Wolf (the stages of tyrannical takeover), Patrick Wood (the transhumanist, inhumane goals of technocracy) and Catherine Austin-Fitts (the financial takeover and theft of America).

The way things look right now, barring seemingly nothing short of a miracle, the ruling technocracy will indeed achieve their one world government, their New World Order (NWO), now openly discussed under the banners of The Great Reset, the fourth industrial revolution, the “build back better” plan, the Green New Deal, Sustainable Development and many others.

The control grid is being erected all around us; attacks are coming at us from every conceivable angle, all at once. And technological advancements give them advantages that no other tyrant in history had. They literally have the ability now to surveil, monitor and in various ways control the behavior and movement of most humans on the planet.

Already, we can see they’ve queued up more “emergencies” in the form of pandemics, climate change, famine and energy shortages, just to name a few. They have many tricks up their sleeve, and we have to be ready for them. How? Suggestions include but are not limited to:

  • Getting out of densely-populated urban areas and forming parallel communities that aren’t dependent on the state
  • Protecting your assets by investing in real assets that can’t be vaporized by grid failures or bank failures
  • Investing in food. Learn to grow your own food, stock up on nonperishables, and befriend local farmers
  • Securing alternative sources of energy and transportation

Post-collapse, we’ll eventually have to reinvent and rebuild basically everything — education, and the medical, financial and food systems. While some are trying, I do not believe we can change these systems while the old systems are still in operation. They’re too powerful.

This is particularly true for medicine. They destroy anyone who attempts to compete at scale. So, as illustrated in the book, “Atlas Shrugged,” the old system must essentially be allowed to self-destruct, and then the survivors can rebuild something brand-new. Knowing how to care for your health, then, becomes truly crucial, because that’s the only way you’ll make it through whatever’s coming.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Notes

1, 2 Food Control October 2020; 116: 107328

3 The Counter June 17, 2020

4 YouTube, Omega-6 Apocalypse 2, Chris Knobbe August 25, 2021, 15:01

5 Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology February 2016; 155: 78-85

6 Physiology February 5, 2020 DOI: 10.1152/physiol.00034.2019

7 Indian J. Exp Biol. May 1996; 34(5): 391-402

8 Frontiers in Pharmacology August 21, 2020 DOI: 10.3389/fphar.2020.01220

9 Allergy Research Group, Melatonin, the Antioxidant Recycler

10 Cell Death & Disease 2019; 10 article number 317

11 Oncotarget June 13, 2017; 8(24): 39896–39921

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Staying Healthy in the Age of Tyranny and Deceit

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Britain will begin legislating for a new bill of rights on Wednesday, giving the government the authority to disregard European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgments, which last week thwarted ministers’ plans to transfer migrants to Rwanda.

Last Tuesday, the EHCR issued last-minute injunctions to prevent a handful of asylum seekers from being deported to the East African country, meaning Britain’s first scheduled deportation flight did not take place as planned.

The new bill of rights, which will be debated in parliament on Wednesday, would state unequivocally that Britain’s Supreme Court, which approved the Rwanda flights, had legal supremacy and that ECHR judgments did not necessarily have to be followed by British courts.

According to the Ministry of Justice, it would certify that injunctions ordered by the ECHR under Rule 39, which halted the Rwandan flight, were not binding.

“These reforms will reinforce freedom of speech, enable us to deport more foreign offenders, and better protect the public from dangerous criminals,” British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said.

According to the administration, the proposed bill would limit foreign criminals’ ability to utilize their right to family life to avoid deportation and would prevent “trivial” human rights issues from reaching court. It will also enshrine more journalistic freedom and expression in law, according to the statement.

However, lawyers and campaigners warned that the idea would weaken people’s rights and give ministers more control. As things are, British courts are not bound by ECHR decisions.

Stephanie Boyce, president of the Law Society of England and Wales, said it would create an acceptable class of human rights violations, while Sacha Deshmukh, Chief Executive of Amnesty International UK, said it was unsurprising that politicians held accountable by human rights laws wanted them removed.

Following last week’s decision, some Conservative lawmakers wanted Britain to withdraw entirely from the European Convention on Human Rights, but Raab indicated there were no plans to do so.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Al Mayadeen

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Ever since U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel formally ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the U.S. last week, press freedom advocates around the world have been mobilizing.

Assange Defense, on whose advisory board I serve, is organizing a national and international campaign to pressure U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and President Joe Biden to drop the extradition request and dismiss the charges against Assange. The stakes could not be higher.

The charges, which include 17 counts under the infamous Espionage Act, could result in 175 years in prison for the journalist who exposed U.S. war crimes.

Last week, Assange’s brother, filmmaker Gabriel Shipton, wrote in an email to Truthout,

“UK Home Secretary has decided today that any publisher who exposes national security information of an allied country may face extradition to two lifetimes in prison. Julian will appeal this decision and this once in a lifetime fight for freedom of the press continues.”

Assange’s indictment is based on WikiLeaks’s 2010-2011 disclosures of U.S. war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and the military prison at Guantánamo. Those revelations included 400,000 field reports about the Iraq War; 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians; and systematic rape, torture and murder committed by Iraqi forces after the U.S. military “handed over detainees to a notorious Iraqi torture squad.” WikiLeaks also disclosed the Afghan War Logs, which are 90,000 reports of more civilian casualties by coalition forces than the U.S. military had admitted to. And its revelations additionally included the Guantánamo Files, 779 secret reports showing that 150 innocent people had been held there for years and documenting the torture and abuse of 800 men and boys in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

WikiLeaks also published the notorious “Collateral Murder” video, which documented how in 2007, a U.S. Army Apache helicopter gunship targeted and fired on unarmed civilians in Baghdad. At least 18 civilians were killed. They included two Reuters reporters and a man who came to rescue the wounded. Two children were injured. Then, a U.S. Army tank drove over one of the bodies, severing it in half. That video contains evidence of three separate war crimes that are prohibited by the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Army Field Manual.

As several civil liberties and human rights organizations declared in October 2021, when they asked Garland to dismiss the case against Assange, his prosecution poses a significant threat to First Amendment freedom of the press.

The UK’s decision to extradite Julian Assange to the nation that plotted to assassinate him — the nation that wants to imprison him for 175 years for publishing truthful information in the public interest — is an abomination,” wrote Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and Alice Walker — co-chairs of Assange Defense — in reaction to Patel’s extradition order. “The U.S. government argues that its venerated Constitution does not protect journalism the government dislikes, and that publishing truthful information in the public interest is a subversive, criminal act. This argument is a threat not only to journalism, but to democracy itself.”

Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation, warned that if Assange is extradited to the United States and convicted of the charges against him, it “would potentially make receiving classified information, asking for sources for more information, and publishing certain types of classified information a crime.” Timm noted, “Journalists, of course, engage in all these activities regularly.”

Moreover, Assange has suffered psychological torture while confined in the U.K. for more than a decade, according to Nils Melzer, United Nations special rapporteur on torture. In December 2021, Melzer tweeted that the “U.K. is literally torturing him to death.”

On June 10, more than 300 doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists calling themselves “Doctors for Assange” wrote to Patel that Assange’s “deteriorating health” made it “medically and ethically unacceptable” to extradite him.

“Julian’s 13-year persecution culminates in a decision of ostentatious callous indifference,” John Shipton, Assange’s father, told Truthout.“Who amongst us would not burn with indignation and loathing?”

Stella Assange, who recently married Julian in prison, called Patel’s decision “a dark day for press freedom and for British democracy.” She told the Associated Press, “Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher, and he is being punished for doing his job.”

Yet U.K. officials disregarded Assange’s health and the injustice of his prosecution, insisting that the U.S. would treat him “appropriately.” In its June 17 statement ordering Assange’s extradition, the U.K. Home Office wrote:

In this case, the UK courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust or an abuse of process to extradite Mr Assange. Nor have they found that extradition would be incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression, and that whilst in the US he will be treated appropriately, including in relation to his health.

But after a three-week evidentiary hearing, U.K. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled in January 2021 that if Assange were extradited to the United States, he would likely attempt suicide because of his mental state and the onerous conditions of confinement in U.S. prisons.

The United States later came forward with qualified “assurances” that Assange wouldn’t be kept in solitary confinement and the U.K. High Court reversed Baraitser’s decision in January 2022. The U.K. Supreme Court affirmed the High Court’s dismissal of Assange’s appeal in March, paving the way for Patel’s decision ordering extradition.

Amnesty International’s Agnes Callamard — former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution — was skeptical of the so-called assurances that Assange would be treated humanely in U.S. custody. “Diplomatic assurances provided by the U.S. that Assange will not be kept in solitary confinement cannot be taken on face value given previous history,” Callamard said, referring to the U.S. reneging on past extradition assurances.

Assange now has until July 1 to appeal Patel’s decision and will apply to the High Court to reverse Baraitser’s rulings on other issues Assange raised at the extradition hearing. They include:

  • The U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty prohibits extradition for a political offense and “espionage” is a political offense;
  • Extradition is forbidden as the U.S. request is based on Assange’s political opinions;
  • The request for extradition is an abuse of process as it was made for a political motive and not in good faith;
  • Extradition would be oppressive or unjust because so much time has passed;
  • The charges against Assange do not comply with the “dual criminality test” because they encompass acts that are not criminal offenses in both the U.S. and the U.K.; and
  • Extradition would violate Assange’s rights to free expression and a fair trial, in addition to the prohibition against inhuman and degrading treatment in the European Convention on Human Rights.

Assange will also raise on appeal the CIA’s plot to kidnap and assassinate him while he was in the Ecuadorian Embassy under a grant of asylum.

If Assange loses his appeals to the U.K. High Court and Supreme Court, he could appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. The appeals could take several months or even years.

The indictment against Assange has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Claude M. Hilton, who jailed former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in 2019 for refusing to appear before a federal grand jury investigating Assange. The indictment charges that Assange conspired with Manning to gain access to a government computer.

This is the first time the United States has prosecuted a journalist or media outlet for publishing classified information. The extradition, trial and conviction of Julian Assange would have frightening ramifications for investigative journalism. On June 17, the editorial board of The Guardian wrote, “This action potentially opens the door for journalists anywhere in the world to be extradited to the US for exposing information deemed classified by Washington.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

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

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Terrapiattismo geopolitico dell’Italia

June 25th, 2022 by Manlio Dinucci

L’Italia, mentre chiede a Washington di essere ammessa alla Five Eyes, la più potente alleanza spionistica mondiale a guida Usa, boicotta il Forum economico internazionale di San Pietroburgo a scapito dei propri interessi nazionali.  

Due eventi – uno a Occidente e uno a Oriente – sono emblematici dei cambianti del quadro internazionale: a Washington la missione del Copasir (Comitato parlamentare per la sicurezza della Repubblica); a San Pietroburgo il Forum Economico Internazionale promosso dalla Russia, di cui ci riferisce la giornalista Daria Platonova, esperta di geopolitica.

Nella conferenza stampa a Washington il presidente del Copasir, Adolfo Urso, ha dichiarato che nessuno dei quattro rapporti dei servizi esaminati dal Copasir ha a che fare col dossier del Corriere della Sera sui “putiniani d’Italia”. La vicedirettrice del Corriere Fiorenza Sarzanini deve quindi spiegare se il dossier se lo è inventato oppure se lo ha redatto in base a “informazioni” ricevute sottobanco dai servizi segreti. Quale ulteriore contributo alla “sicurezza della Repubblica” il presidente del Copasir ha sollecitato l’ammissione dell’Italia alla Five Eyes, la più potente alleanza spionistica mondiale tra Stati Uniti, Canada, Gran Bretagna, Australia e Nuova Zelanda, perché l’Italia è “terra di frontiera e di cerniera rispetto alla proiezione russa, cinese, ma anche alla minaccia islamica e alle questioni inerenti potrei dire la sopravvivenza dell’Africa”.

Allo stesso tempo l’Italia ha boicottato il Forum Economico Internazionale di San Pietroburgo, dove, con una larga partecipazione anche dell’Africa, sono stati affrontati temi di primaria importanza. Come documenta anche il New York Times, la mossa dell’Occidente di bloccare le importazioni di petrolio e gas dalla Russia è un boomerang soprattutto per l’Europa, poiché Cina e India li acquistano a prezzi scontati aprendo alla Russia nuovi sbocchi ad Est. Escludendosi da un nuovo grande mercato internazionale che si sta formando nell’ottica di un mondo multipolare, l’Italia compromette i suoi stessi interessi nazionali. 

Tutto questo viene nascosto dal nostro mainstream politico-mediatico, il quale ci fa credere che tutto il mondo abbia condannato e isolato la Russia, mentre – come documenta l’importante Wilson Center di Washington – “i Paesi che hanno sanzionato la Russia per l’Ucraina rappresentano solo il 16% della popolazione mondiale”.  

Pangea Grandangolo è visibile anche in diretta TV su cellulare o computer nel sito 

https://www.byoblu.com/diretta-tv/

 

Dopo la prima trasmissione la puntata di Grandangolo è visibile, insieme alle precedenti, sul sito

 

 

GRANDANGOLO

BYOBLU

canale nazionale TV 262

canale 462 Tivùsat,  canale 816 Sky

STASERA ALLE 20:30

  • Posted in Italiano
  • Comments Off on Terrapiattismo geopolitico dell’Italia

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

First published on June 23, 2022

***

On the night of February 24, when Russian forces crossed the western and northern borders of Ukraine, the world’s attention was riveted on the fate of Kiev. Hardly anyone paid attention to the far south in the Black Sea, some 140 kms from Odessa, when Russian Navy attacked that night and captured the entire Ukrainian garrison on Snake Island, an obscure small clump of rock with little obvious value, just 46 acres of rock and grass. 

But yet another massive attempt by Ukrainian forces on June 20 early morning to land troops on Snake Island signals that the Russian occupation remains under stiff challenge still. The Russians say they spotted a Global Hawk RQ-4 strategic reconnaissance UAV of the US Air Force at high altitudes near Snake Island,  apparently feeding coordinates to the Ukrainian combat positions.

The MOD in Moscow issued a lengthy account (in English) on Snake Island during the daily briefing on Tuesday by Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the chief spokesman. The statement said:

  • “On June 20, at about 05.00 AM, the Kiev regime attempted to capture Snake Island.” 
  • “The plan of the operation composed by the Kiev regime was supposed to launch massive air and artillery attacks at Snake Island, to disembark troops and capture it.”
  • “The air attack involved more than 15 Ukrainian attack and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) adjusted by two Bayraktar-TB2 UAVs.” 
  • “Russian means detected a Global Hawk RQ-4 strategic reconnaissance UAV of the U.S. Air Force at high altitudes near Snake Island.” 
  • “Ukrainian UAVs were supported in air by S-300 air defense systems from their combat positions near Tuzla and Ochakov (in Odessa Region).”
  • “Missile and artillery attacks at Snake Island were launched by Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missiles, Uragan multiple rocket launchers and M777 155-mm howitzers from their combat positions to the west from Odessa and in Kubansky island.”
  • “Russian air defence means (Pantsir air defense missile and cannon system and Tor air defense missile system) have destroyed all the destruction means of the enemy launched at Snake Island.”
  • “The destroyed targets were: 13 UAVs, 4 Tochka-U missiles and 21 projectiles of Uragan multiple rocket launcher.”
  • “No Ukrainian destruction means have reached their targets in Snake Island.”
  • “The unsuccessful fire attack forced the enemy to abandon the landing to Snake Island.”

Control over Snake Island is of strategic importance. Located near the southern coast of Odessa, it is a necessary springboard for the expected Russian operation on that port city in a conceivable future. By the same token, the removal of the Russian control of Snake Island becomes important for Kiev. 

If the Ukrainian military regains control of the island, it can not only ensure the safety of the air and sea near Odessa, but can also be used for the supply of military equipment by NATO by sea. Although the Snake Island is only a fraction of a square kilometre in size, its importance for control of the sea lanes in western Black Sea is not in doubt. 

If Russians set up their long-range air-defence systems they will control the sea, land and air in the north-west part of the Black Sea and in the south of Ukraine. It would also give Russian troops the chance to break into Transnistria, Moldova’s breakaway territory under Russian control that lies next-door to Ukraine and not far from Odesa. The US is working feverishly to do “another Ukraine” against Russia in Moldavia which has a president and top officials with dual American citizenship who seek EU and NATO membership.

Snake Island is only 45km away from the coast of Romania, which is a member of NATO, where the alliance has deployed an estimated land force of upto 4,000 troops currently drawn from the US, Germany, France, UK, Poland, etc. Snake Island lies close to the mouth of the River Danube, which delineates Romania’s border with Ukraine. Military analysts have pointed out that Russian troops on Snake Island could be in a position to control traffic into the Danube delta, the gateway to south-eastern Europe. Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta is not far south.  

Clearly, the involvement of the US and UK in the planning and conduct of Ukraine’s repeated attempts to regain control of the Snake Island shows that they have given the Snake Island a vital and almost mythical status in the war. Any Russian deployment of S-400 missile system in Snake Island would  of course endanger NATO’s southern flank.  

Suffice to say, the NATO’s permanent presence in the Black Sea and future expansion toward the Caucasus and the Caspian and Central Asian regions will remain problematic so long as Russia is in control of Snake island. 

Snake Island epitomises the hopelessness of the Ukraine war. Russia cannot end its operation even after a successful completion of the Battle of Donbass. Kiev is unlikely to sue for peace. Kiev is seriously preparing for a counteroffensive once the heavy weapons arriving from the US are deployed. 

Kharkiv is only 40 kms from the Russian border and Ukrainian forces are in no mood to give up there. In the south, Kiev vows to retake Zoporozhizhia, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions which the Russians plan to integrate. The Ukrainian forces are well ensconced in Odessa. Clearly, the NATO is preparing for a big fight for Odessa. The ongoing battle for Snake Island is symptomatic of that. 

The two US weapon systems that could be game-changers in an island fight are Harpoon anti-ship missiles and High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). While Harpoons could help the Ukrainians cut off the Snake Island from seaborne resupply,  HIMARS could allow them to bombard the island at will.   

The Black Sea Fleet remains in control of the Black Sea and Russians apparently managed to ship a Tor air-defence system to Snake Island. But that may change once the US supply of truck-mounted launchers for Harpoon anti-ship missiles reach Ukraine. The Harpoon has a range of 150 kms or more. HIMARS can fire M30 rockets out to a distance of over 70 kms —more than enough to reach Snake Island.

To be sure, a long war lies ahead and it cannot really end without the collapse of the Ukrainian state and abject surrender. Most certainly, Ukrainians will renew their assault on Snake Island. It is evident that unlike eastern region, southern Ukraine is the priority in NATO’s planning.  

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Southern Ukraine is the Priority in NATO’s Planning. Snake Island in the Black Sea

All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

First published on March 8, 2021

***

“I have come to lead you to the other shore; into eternal darkness, into fire and into ice.” Inferno–Dante Alighieri

The problem with the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine, is not that it’s a vaccine. It’s that it’s not safe. That’s the issue: Safety.

This view is shared by a great many professionals who believe that these potentially-toxic concoctions pose a significant threat to the health and well-being of anyone who chooses to get inoculated.

Do you realize that the mRNA vaccine is a purely synthetic PEG-coated lipid nanoparticle that spreads throughout the body and brain creating conditions for debilitating ailments 3 or 4 years down the road? (More on this below)

Do you realize that these dubious vaccines have not been thoroughly tested, did not undergo critical animal trials, did not complete Phase 3 trials, and were waved through the regulatory process under the “Emergency Use Authorization (EUA)” provision?

What does it mean when we say: “The vaccines were waved through under the Emergency Use Authorization provision?”

It means that the vaccines were not required to meet the same rigorous standards or follow the same protocols as previous vaccines. It means that, by definition, these vaccines are not safe. It means that normal precautionary regulations were suspended in order to put these vaccines into service as fast as possible. Isn’t that worth mulling over before rolling up your sleeve?

There are a number of extremely promising treatments, therapies and medications for Covid, and many more are on their way. (See: Sharyl Attkisson: “Full Measure”, Vaccines and Treatments, You Tube)

But the mRNA vaccine is not among these promising medications. The mRNA vaccine is a grave threat to one’s health and safety. It should never have been “approved”.

And who is promoting these vaccines that do not stop the transmission of Covid, do not prevent Covid, and which will have no meaningful impact on the rapidly-declining fatality rate? Who is pushing these potentially-lethal injections?

Is it the reputable scientists, virologists, epidemiologists and other medical experts who don’t have a stake in the outcome and who base their judgements on the science alone, or is it the conflicted state bureaucrats, the public health toadies and the billionaire activists who control the media and whose shadowy and sinister motives are still not clear?

Most people know the answer to that question already. It’s obvious.

And why have the views of the naysayers, the contrarians and the critics been painstakingly scrubbed from the MSM and social media? If the efficacy and safety of these vaccines is so unassailable, then why must all public debate be prevented?

And yourself this: Has the Covid vaccine roll-out been the biggest and most extravagant Madison Avenue “product launch” in American history?

Indeed, it has. The media, Hollywood, the public health authorities, big pharma, global elites and the entire political establishment have joined the full-throated, public relations blitz that is aimed at cajoling every man, woman and child into doing something that could trigger an agonizing medical condition or dramatically shorten their lives.

Why are they doing this? Why have they quashed all debate and silenced their critics? Why are they taking advantage of public hysteria to intensify their mass-vaccination campaign? Why have they obfuscated the truth on so many issues related to Covid including masks, asymptomatic transmission, school closures, lockdowns etc? Is there even one part of the official Covid narrative that “rings true” or that can withstand the scrutiny of critical analysis?Does it all have to be lies? Can’t we at least mix some truth in with the vast mountain of flagrant fabrications and disinformation?

The truth is, we don’t need a vaccine. The case numbers and fatalities are already dropping precipitously around the world. The virus is on its way out. Here’s how Pfizer’s former Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy & Respiratory Disease, Dr. Michael Yeadon, summed it up some months ago:

“There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic… You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease. You also don’t set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been extensively tested on human subjects.”

He’s right, isn’t he? And, yet, even now– when the vast majority of people are fully aware that cases and deaths are falling like a stone– they’re still rushing-off to their local public health facility to get vaccinated. Explain that to me? Why would anyone willingly get vaccinated when the infection is already dying out and the number of susceptible hosts is rapidly decreasing? What sense does that make?

Do you realize that we have no data on the long-term adverse effects of these new mRNA vaccines? None. So, the question is: Why would a public health official put a vaccine into service without knowing what the long-term effects of that vaccine might be?

He wouldn’t, unless he was pressured into doing so, because that would be irresponsible and a violation of his oath to “Do no harm.”

Even so, these are the very same vaccines that well-known billionaire activists want to use on all 7 billion people on Planet Earth. Do these “do goodie” billionaires have any idea of the carnage and suffering their mass-vaccination campaign is likely to generate? Or is that the goal, a world with fewer people?

Let’s cut to the chase: What readers really want to know is how these vaccines will impact their health. “How is this going to affect me”, that’s the bottom line. But since we have no long-term data, (since there were no long-term trials) we have to depend on the analysis of professionals who have a sense of where the potential problems might arise. Check out this blurb from an article by Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, lung specialist and former head of the public health department, and Dr. Michael Yeadon, ex-Pfizer head of respiratory research. Here are some of their concerns:

“The formation of so-called “non-neutralizing antibodies” can lead to an exaggerated immune reaction, especially when the test person is confronted with the real, “wild” virus after vaccination.”

– The vaccinations are expected to produce antibodies against spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2. However, spike proteins also contain syncytin-homologous proteins, which are essential for the formation of the placenta in mammals such as humans. It must be ruled out that a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 could trigger an immune reaction against syncytin-1, as it may otherwise result in infertility of indefinite duration in vaccinated women.

The mRNA vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech contain polyethylene glycol (PEG). 70% of people develop antibodies against this substance. This means that many people can develop allergic, potentially fatal reactions to the vaccination.

– The much too short duration of the study does not allow a realistic estimation of the late effects. As in the narcolepsy cases after the swine flu vaccination, millions of healthy people would be exposed to an unacceptable risk if an emergency approval were to be granted and the possibility of observing the late effects of the vaccination were to follow.” (“That Was Quick”, Lockdown Skeptics)

Let’s summarize:

The new messenger RNA vaccines could make recipients more susceptible to serious illness or death. (The vaccine could pave the way for autoimmune disease or ADE Antibody-dependent Enhancement.)

Spike proteins can “trigger an immune reaction” that will “result in infertility.”

The new vaccines contain polyethylene glycol (PEG) which can be “potentially fatal.”

The trials were not long enough to determine whether the vaccines are safe or not. FDA approval does not mean “safe”. Quite the contrary. The FDA is “captured” in the same way the FAA is captured.

Naturally, the analysis of Yeadon and Wodarg has appeared nowhere in the MSM. (Also, Yeadon was recently removed by Twitter.) Experts in their field of learning are no longer allowed to candidly discuss their concerns in a public forum if their conclusions do not jibe with the official narrative. The push to censor opposing points of view is greater now than any time in our 245-year history. The people who now insist that you get vaccinated, are the very same people who are doing everything in the power to prevent you from knowing the truth about their vaccines.

And what is the truth?

The truth is that ‘universal vaccination’ factors quite large in the elitist restructuring agenda that has nothing to do with global pandemic and everything to do with social control. At its heart, Covid is a political phenomenon more than it is a public health emergency. One is merely a fig leaf for the other.

Have you ever heard of Prion disease?

The CDC describes Prion diseases as “a family of rare progressive neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans and animals. They are distinguished by long incubation periods, characteristic spongiform changes associated with neuronal loss, and a failure to induce inflammatory response.

The causative agents of TSEs are believed to be prions. The term “prions” refers to abnormal, pathogenic agents that are transmissible and are able to induce abnormal folding of specific normal cellular proteins called prion proteins that are found most abundantly in the brain….. The abnormal folding of the prion proteins leads to brain damage and the characteristic signs and symptoms of the disease. Prion diseases are usually rapidly progressive and always fatal.” (CDC)

Is this what the future holds for millions of recipients of the mRNA vaccine?

We think it is very likely.

In an earlier article, we posted an excerpt from an interview with Dr. Chris Shaw, Ph.D, Specialist in Neuroplasticity and Neuropathology. Shaw described this very condition that could emerge as a reaction to agents in the mRNA vaccine that find their way into the brain. Here’s what he said:

“The mRNA lipid-coated PEG-construct– by Moderna’s own study–does not stay localized but spreads throughout the body including the brain. Found in animal studies in bone marrow, brain, lymph nodes, heart, kidneys liver, lungs etc Doctors are saying that the vaccine does NOT cross the blood-brain barrier, but that is NOT true. …If it reaches the brain there will be an auto immune response that will cause inflammation What characterizes virtually all neuro-degenerative diseases is this misfolded protein that is characteristic to Lou Gerrigs disease, to Alzheimer’s, to Parkinsons to Huntington’s etc. They are different proteins, but they tend to form these sheets of misfolded proteins called Beta Sheets. Now you are asking cells in various parts of the body–including the brain– to make alot of these proteins and release them to the outside, and , are we sure that’s what’ it’s all doing? Are you getting clusters of misfolded proteins inside neurons? That would be a bad thing to do.. So, you’d like to know where it is, how much of it there is, and which groups of neuronal groups its targeted. .and those are the kinds of questions you like the companies to have solved long before they got authorization and discovered some years later that they have a problem.”

“This is a vast experiment that should have been done in the lab on animals and now it is being done on people ..The potential is that you are going to harm alot of people while you do this experiment.” (“NEUROSCIENTIST’S CONCERNS ABOUT COVID VACCINES”, Chris Shaw, Ph.D, Specialist in Neuroplasticity and Neuropathology)

Is this what we should expect in the future, a sharp uptick in neurological disorders like Lou Gehrig’s disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson?

Apparently, so. Check out this longer excerpt from a research paper by Dr. J. Bart Classen:

“Vaccines have been found to cause a host of chronic, late developing adverse events. Some adverse events like type 1 diabetes may not occur until 3-4 years after a vaccine is administered[1]…. Given that type 1 diabetes is only one of many immune mediated diseases potentially caused by vaccines, chronic late occurring adverse events are a serious public health issue....

RNA based vaccines offers special risks of inducing specific adverse events. One such potential adverse event is prion-based diseases caused by activation of intrinsic proteins to form prions. A wealth of knowledge has been published on a class of RNA binding proteins shown to participating in causing a number of neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s disease and ALS….

…In the current paper the concern is raised that the RNA based COVID vaccines have the potential to cause more disease than the epidemic of COVID-19. This paper focuses on a novel potential adverse event mechanism causing prion disease which could be even more common and debilitating than the viral infection the vaccine is designed to prevent. …….

The current analysis indicates … RNA based COVID-19 vaccine contains many of these RNA sequences that have …. have the potential to induce chronic degenerative neurological diseases....

Genetic diversity protects species from mass casualties caused by infectious agents. One individual may be killed by a virus while another may have no ill effects from the same virus. By placing the identical receptor, the spike protein, on cells of everyone in a population, the genetic diversity for at least one potential receptor disappears. Everyone in the population now becomes potentially susceptible to binding with the same infectious agent….

…The results indicate that the vaccine RNA has specific sequences that may induce TDP-43 and FUS to fold into their pathologic prion confirmations…The folding of TDP-43 and FUS into their pathologic prion confirmations is known to cause ALS,… Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological degenerative diseases. The enclosed finding as well as additional potential risks leads the author to believe that regulatory approval of the RNA based vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 was premature and that the vaccine may cause much more harm than benefit. (“Covid-19 RNA Based Vaccines and the Risk of Prion Disease”, J. Bart Classen, MD., Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.”)

Dr. Classen’s analysis is disturbing, but in no way, comprehensive. The new regime of mRNA vaccines fails on a great many levels which we will discuss in future articles. These “gene editing” vaccines are not medicine, they are strange and menacing hybrid cocktail that was created to achieve an elusive political objective of which we still know very little. If there was ever a time to stand back from the crowd, resist groupthink, and employ one’s own critical thinking skills to decide whether the risks of vaccination far outweigh the benefits; this is it. The choice is yours to make.

*

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from The Unz Review

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Vaccine Diabolus and the Impending Wave of Rare Neurodegenerative Disorders
  • Tags:

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

First published on June 24, 2022

***

The insightful book “The Burnout Society” authored by South Korean philosopher, Prof. Dr. Byung-Chul Han argues that our contemporary society is characterized by burnout, boredom, anxieties, hyperactivity, attention deficiency, depression, downward spiraling of mental health, suicidal tendencies, existential ennui and narcissism.

These personal and societal pathologies are caused by the constant feeding of our individual ego with exaggerated social media expectations and unnecessary imagined competitions caused by our incessant need to be affirmed, to be appreciated, to be applauded, to be acknowledged and thereby succumbing our psyche and ego to the tendency and propensity of comparing ourselves with social media personalities, celebrities and internet influencers. The book says that if we want to escape burnout and depression, we just have to accept who we really are, simply do what we can do naturally, and appreciate ourselves without comparing ourselves and our achievements with that of others.

 
In this age of social media, people think that to be happy means to be affirmed, to be liked, appreciated, applauded and approved constantly by others and by society. These social media markers and popularity rankings by which many people use to measure happiness are individually and socially pathological.
Happiness is never a creation of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or whatever platform one utilizes in today’s social media; no matter how these social media platforms are helpful in conveying our inter-connectedness and intercommunication in this day and age. Happiness is not even an absence of conflict and pain. Happiness is in facing our life with hope despite the daily endeavours, struggles, conflicts and all the problems that we face in our daily grind for existence.
 
From our capitalistic and corporatocratic society, we have been conditioned to think that happiness is something to be earned by our hard efforts and by our trying our utmost to prove our mettle and to show to others our successes and achievements. This utilitarian-cum-capitalistic and instrumentalist view of happiness has made us extreme workaholics and having a tattered self-image that we are not enough and we do not have intrinsic value until we have delivered something huge like those great achievers who are projected and featured by social media. However, the hard truth is this: we cannot chase happiness. Happiness is in facing life despite the cramped and crappy circumstances that we are living.
It is crucial for our consumerist society to take lessons from the words of the physically blind yet great woman philosopher Helen Keller: “From now on, let us cease chasing the merry-go-round ride of happiness and just be happy.”.
It is really a great tragedy in our so-called contemporary civilized society that extractive capitalism and exploitative consumerism have programmed and conditioned us to think that to be happy, one has to work like an abused donkey, accumulating loads and loads of banknotes and hoard them to no end. Toxic and abusive religion has likewise programmed our minds into believing that we have to earn our happiness by our hard efforts of pleasing the Divine and wait for our happiness in the Hereafter as the reward of our good works that are somehow used as our means to bribe Divinity so that we can enter into the Golden Portal of the Sweet-By-and-By.
 
The great Turkish Sufi sage of Sunni Islam Hazrat Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi has a better view than these abusive perspectives of achievement-based happiness and escapist concept of salvationism peddled by toxic and exploitative religions on us. Hazrat Maulana Rumi says that we cannot bribe our way to please the Supreme Consciousness since the Supreme has already loved each one of us from eon to eon, and this Cosmic Love is bestowed upon us solely through unmerited favor without religious bribery and sanctimonious transactional business of being good and of looking good so that the Supreme Entity can reward us. Hazrat Maulana Rumi says that we can never escape from this Divine Love and Grace; and it is this Grace from the Supreme Consciousness that will see us through and not our own merits which we thought that we can use to buy divine approval, forgiveness, love, affirmation and self-esteem. The Cosmic Consciousness loves and forgives us unconditionally and solely through unmerited favor and unconditional compassion.
In contrast to our capitalistic-consumeristic-utilitarian-instrumentalist society’s skewed view that happiness is in being always applauded and acknowledged by others and in the obsessive seeking for the approval and affirmation from others, the great Turkish Sufi thinker and mystic Hazrat Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi says that authentic happiness is in letting ourselves be, in being content and satisfied of who we truly are, of what we have, and of what we can realistically achieve without comparing ourselves with others and their accomplishments. In short, bonafide happiness is an existential choice: a free decision that we have to make and an autonomous volition that we have to face moment-by-moment in our lives. Genuine happiness is in simply choosing to be happy despite circumstances that life offers to us. Happiness is right before us in the “Here-and-Now” when we free ourselves from the consumeristic dictates of a hyper-materialistic society which is founded, constructed and fabricated by greedy capitalism and extractive corporatocracy.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

 
***
About the Author

Prof. Henry Francis B. Espiritu is Associate Professor-7 of Philosophy and Asian Studies at the University of the Philippines (UP), Cebu City, Philippines. He was former Academic Coordinator of the Political Science Program at UP Cebu from 2011-2014.

 
He was former Coordinator of Gender and Development (GAD) Office at UP Cebu from 2015-2019. His research interests include Theoretical and Applied Ethics, Islamic Studies particularly Sunni jurisprudence (Fiqh), Islamic feminist discourses, Islam in interfaith dialogue initiatives, Islamic environmentalism, Classical Sunni Islamic pedagogy, the writings of Imam Al-Ghazali on pluralism and tolerance, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent, Turkish Sufism, Central Asian Affairs, Ataturk Studies, Ottoman Studies, Muslim-Christian Dialogue, Middle Eastern Affairs, Peace Studies and Public Theology.
He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research and Globalization (CRG).
  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Burnout Societies, Narcissistic Netizens, Mental Health Crisis and the Bane of Social Media

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

“The color of the Statue of Liberty

Grows ever more deathly pale

As, loving freedom with bullets,

You shoot at yourself, America.”

– Yevgeny Yevtushenko, “The Freedom to Kill,” 1970.

On June 5, 1968, a few minutes after midnight, Robert Kennedy was shot and killed at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles while walking through a narrow serving area called “the pantry.” Kennedy had just won the California primary and was on his way to a room where print media reporters were waiting to hear him speak.

In early March, Lyndon B. Johnson had thrown open the race by announcing that he would not seek re-election because of the failure of his Vietnam policy. Kennedy emerged as a leading contender by energizing the youth wing of the party with his calls for sweeping social change.

Kennedy was in many ways a strange liberal icon because he grew up idolizing Herbert Hoover, was closest in his family to his father, Joseph, the millionaire business tycoon, began his career supporting Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist witch-hunt, called for victory against communism in Vietnam in the early 1960s.

Nevertheless, by the latter part of the 1960s, Kennedy had evolved into a crusader for the poor and dove on Vietnam who was trying to ride the wave of the protest movement into the White House.[1]

Biographers Lester and Irene David wrote that Bobby was the Kennedy who “felt deepest, cared the most, and fought the hardest for humanity—crying out against America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, championing the causes of blacks, Hispanics, and Mexican-Americans, and crusading against the suffering of children, the elderly and anyone else hurt or bypassed by social and economic progress.”[2]

After Kennedy’s death, the Democratic Party became a shadow of its former self, with six of the next nine presidents being Republicans. The Party in this period abandoned its core base—union laborers, minorities, and blue-collar workers—focusing instead on Wall Street.[3]

A picture containing text, newspaper Description automatically generated

Newspaper headline announcing Kennedy’s death. [Source: pri.org]

Official Version of Assassination

According to the official version, Kennedy was shot and killed by a lone gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian-born Jordanian citizen who was allegedly aghast by Kennedy’s recent decision to send 50 jet bombers to Israel to do harm to the Palestinians.

According to his mother, Sirhan had been traumatized as a child by the violence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His family home in East Jerusalem was destroyed by an Israeli bombing raid and he had witnessed the death of his older brother, who was killed by a Jordanian military vehicle that was swerving to escape Israeli gunfire.[4]

Professional football player Roosevelt Grier and 1960 Olympic gold medalist Rafer Johnson were among several men who subdued and disarmed Sirhan after a struggle.

Subsequently, he was arrested and convicted of the murder.

The prosecution during his trial—led by World War II hero Lynn “Buck” Compton who was subsequently appointed by Governor Ronald Reagan as Justice of the California Court of Appeals[5]—showed that Sirhan was seen at the Ambassador Hotel on June 3, two nights before the attack, to learn the building’s layout, and that he visited a gun range on June 4.

Alvin Clark, Sirhan’s garbage collector, testified that Sirhan had told him a month before the attack of his intention to shoot Kennedy—a fact seemingly confirmed by diaries that Sirhan kept which showed premeditation.

Sirhan initially confessed to the killing but later claimed to have no memory of it. After the events transpired, he had appeared calm, but not “in complete control of his mind.”

Sirhan’s death sentence was commuted to a life prison sentence and he was denied parole fifteen times, though recommended for release on August 27, 2021 after over fifty years behind bars.

RFK Jr. Believes Sirhan Is Innocent

In a 2018 interview with The Washington PostRobert F. Kennedy, Jr., said that he traveled to meet with Sirhan at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional facility in San Diego County, and, after a relatively lengthy conversation, believed that Sirhan did not kill his father and that a second gunman was involved.

Kennedy Jr.’s view is shared by his sister, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, and by Paul Schrade, regional director of the United Auto Workers (UAW) and one of Bobby’s closest advisers, who was shot the night that he was killed.

In 2016, Schrade testified in support of Sirhan’s parole, stating his belief that a second shooter killed Kennedy and that Sirhan was intended to be a distraction from the real gunman by an unknown conspiracy.

Kennedy Jr. has pointed out that Sirhan’s appointed lawyer at his original trial, Grant Cooper, was Johnny Rosselli’s personal lawyer. “Roselli,” he said, “was the mobster who ran the assassination program for the CIA against Castro. Cooper pressured Sirhan to plead guilty so that there was no trial.”

Kennedy believes the real assassin was Thane Eugene Cesar, an employee of Lockheed’s Burbank facility—which manufactured the CIA produced U-2 spy plane—and previously Hughes Aircraft who was moonlighting as a security guard for Ace Security Services.

After the shooting, Kennedy Sr. was photographed with Cesar’s clip-on tie next to him, which he had apparently yanked off.

Cesar had told police that he had a hold of Bobby’s right arm when Sirhan began firing at him, and then pulled his gun and grabbed the Senator and fell backwards. Later, however, Cesar changed his story and said that he was shoved by an unknown individual after Sirhan opened fire and drew his gun only after he scrambled to his feet.[6]

In one interview Cesar said he did not see Kennedy get shot and in another—given right after the shooting when doctors had not yet examined Kennedy or issued any statements—stated that he saw Kennedy get shot four times, in the head, chest and shoulder.[7]

Cesar considered the Kennedys “the biggest bunch of crooks that ever walked the earth” and worked for the presidential campaign of Alabama’s segregationist Governor, George C. Wallace.[8]

Before the killing, he had been seen in Las Vegas in the company of a Florida hit man. The man who saw him said Cesar was “owned by Howard Hughes” and was “as tough as they come.”[9]

Hughes was the owner of a major aerospace company and “godfather of Las Vegas” with deep connections to the Republican Party and CIA.[10]

Jim Yoder, who bought the alleged assassination weapons from Cesar after Kennedy’s death, claimed that Cesar worked in off-limits areas at Lockheed, to which only special personnel had access. These areas were under the control of the CIA.

RFK Jr. believes that Cesar was the one that shot his father in the back of the head after hiding in the pantry and waiting for his appearance in the pantry or, alternatively, that he held his father and shot him three times under the arm, while another assassin—a man dressed in a busboy outfit, fired the two shots to Kennedy’s head that killed him—with a gun that was disguised or small enough to remain hidden.[11]

Planning at one point to visit Cesar in the Philippines until he demanded a payment of $25,000, RFK Jr. stated: “With 77 people in the pantry, every eyewitness said Sirhan was always in front of my father at a 3-6 feet distance. Sirhan fired two shots toward my father before he was tackled. From under the dog pile, Sirhan emptied his 8-chamber revolver firing 6 more shots in the opposite direction 5 of them striking bystanders and one going wild.”

“Cesar was a bigot who hated the Kennedys for their advocacy of Civil Rights for blacks. By his own account, Cesar was directly behind my dad holding his right elbow with his own gun drawn when my dad fell backwards on top of him. Cesar repeatedly changed his story about exactly when he drew his weapon.”

“According to the Coroner, Dr. Thomas Noguchi, all 4 shots that struck my father were ‘contact’ shots fired from behind my dad with the barrel touching or nearly touching his body. As my dad fell, he reached back and tore off Cesar’s clip on tie.”

“Cesar sold his .22 to a co-worker [Yoder] weeks after the assassination, warning him that it had been used in a crime. Cesar lied to police claiming that he’d disposed of the gun months before the assassination.”

Kennedy Jr. concluded, “Police have never seriously investigated Cesar’s role in my father’s killing,” adding that the LAPD unit which investigated his dad’s assassination was “run by active CIA operatives” who “destroyed thousands of pieces of evidence.”[12]

A Lie Too Big to Fail

The case against Sirhan being the lone gunman can be summarized in six key points:

1. More Bullets Were Fired Than Were in Sirhan’s Gun

Sirhan’s gun had eight bullets in it. According to officials, three of Sirhan’s bullets hit Kennedy (a fourth went through his coat), and five bullets struck the other victims.

But one bullet was also lost in the ceiling space. And crime scene photos show investigators pointing to bullet holes circled in doorframes and a ceiling panel.

Investigators found twelve points of entry in the six victims, with three bullet holes photographed in the ceiling.[13] LAPD criminalist DeWayne Wolfer said “it’s unbelievable how many holes there are in the kitchen ceiling.”[14]

An audio tape made by Polish journalist Stanislaw Pruszynski recorded thirteen shots. Analysis of the tape found that it showed the gunshots to be coming from two separate directions.[15]

2. Kennedy’s Killer Shot Him from the Back, Not the Front

L.A. County Coroner Thomas Noguchi’s report—which mysteriously went missing from the LAPD’s final report—found that Kennedy had been hit by three bullets from the rear, including one in his head behind his right ear. This conclusion rules out Sirhan who was identified by all witnesses as having shot at Kennedy from the front.

3. Kennedy’s Killer Shot Him from Close Range—Sirhan Was Too Far Away

Noguchi, Wolfer and Pasadena criminalist William Harper, drawing on forensic and eyewitness evidence, all concluded that the shots which killed Kennedy came from close range—a point of near direct contact.[16] Sirhan never got anywhere near that close—he was at least three feet away.[17]

4. Two Guns and Two Shooters

Sirhan’s gun was never matched to the bullets that killed Kennedy. William Harper, who survived an assassination attempt on the eve of his scheduled testimony before a grand jury investigating the handling of firearms evidence, concluded that two .22 caliber guns were involved in the assassination.[18]

Evan Freed, a photographer who was standing near Kennedy when the shooting started, said that another man besides Sirhan—who looked like Sirhan but was wearing darker clothing—fired the first shot at Kennedy and that a man made a failed attempt to grab him afterwards and he ran out of the pantry.[19]

Other witnesses confirm the same story, observing a man with a gun under a newspaper and a woman with a polka-dotted dress running out of the room.[20]

Donald Schulman, a runner for Los Angeles TV station KNXT, reported on the air minutes after Kennedy’s assassination that, after Sirhan fired his gun, a security guard—referring to Cesar—fired back and struck Kennedy three times.

Schulman also stated that he spotted two revolvers other than Sirhan’s and that both had been fired—an observation confirmed by testimony and statements introduced at an official hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court.[21]

5. Karl Uecker

One of the most important witnesses was, Karl Uecker, a maitre d’ at the Ambassador Hotel, who was the first one to grab Sirhan during the shooting in an attempt to subdue him. He told filmmaker Ted Charach that Sirhan could not have been the killer. He stated:

“Sirhan at no time was firing from behind Senator Robert Kennedy. No! No! Not an inch from Kennedy’s head—I don’t believe that it was Sirhan’s gun firing back from an upward direction. I think I would have seen it. I was the closest one. In order for Sirhan to get that close to Senator Kennedy from behind he would have had to pass me and didn’t pass me at that point. I had him very tight, pushed against the steam table while Senator Kennedy staggered back and Mr. Schrade dropped to the floor first. So this does not fit with what Mr. Fitts [prosecuting attorney later promoted by Governor Reagan to California’s Superior Court] told the jury.”[22]

Uecker also said that he saw a guard—Thane Cesar—who brandished a gun which was odd. He testified that he had grabbed Sirhan after the second shot, not the fourth shot—which would further prove the existence of a second shooter because Kennedy was shot three times under the arm and twice in the head, and seven bullets were recovered from six victims.[23]

Investigator Lisa Pease wrote that, “if Uecker had grabbed Sirhan after the second shot, then someone else had to have shot Kennedy at least twice, as Kennedy had provably been shot four times from near-contact range.”[24]

6. Kennedy Was Killed from an Elevated Position

Not only was Kennedy shot from the back, but witnesses saw someone shooting at him from an elevated position twelve to sixteen inches above Kennedy’s head, with knee or body on a steam table.

This could not have been Sirhan who was identified by four credible witnesses, including Uecker, as shooting at Kennedy from the floor on a slightly upward trajectory, which made sense since Sirhan was four inches shorter than Kennedy.[25]

Uecker specified further that he pushed Sirhan up on a table after he grabbed him in a headlock; he was not on a table before.

Richard Lubic, a 31-year-old television producer and campaign aide, heard a voice—“Kennedy you son of a bitch”—and then heard two shots from what sounded like a starter pistol at a track meet.

The shots came from a man who had his knee on a small table or air conditioning vent and lifted himself up on his knee to obtain elevation while shooting. He had bare arms when firing; Sirhan was wearing long sleeves.[26]

Sirhan As “Magician’s Assistant”

Some witnesses thought Sirhan was firing a cap gun. The real assassins appear to have waited until Sirhan fired the first shot and people focused on him, and then moved quickly to get the job done.

Sirhan’s function was that of a “magician’s assistant.” He provided the distraction by firing blanks—which were designed to deceive the mind and eye.[27]

The fact that the shooter was elevated would have also been part of the plan, since people’s natural instinct in a crisis is to look around them and not upward.

The Girl with the Polka-Dot Dress

After the shooting, Sandra Serrano, a 20-year-old Pasadena City College student, observed a twenty-something “Hispanic-looking” man wearing a gold sweater and a dark-haired Caucasian girl with a “good figure” and “funny nose” wearing a white dress with black polka dots. The two were running down a hallway to a fire exit.

Serrano had seen the pair with Sirhan earlier in the night, while Vincent Di Pierro said he saw Sirhan and the girl in the polka-dot dress just before Kennedy was shot with wicked smiles.

As the girl was running to the fire exit, she turned to Serrano, laughing, and said. “We shot him! We shot him.” Astonished, Serrano asked “who did you shoot?” and she replied “Senator Kennedy!”

An elderly couple named Bernstein witnessed this exchange and told LAPD Sergeant Paul Sharaga, who put out an all-points bulletin on the pair.

At that point, however, a police radio blackout commenced which, according to Sharaga, lasted between fifteen and twenty minutes.[28]

Afterwards, Detective Inspector John Powers ordered a cancelation of the description of the two suspects, saying that “we don’t want to make a federal case out of it. We’ve got the suspect in custody.”[29] These comments suggest a police cover-up that was planned beforehand.

“Criminal Equivalent of a Potemkin Village”

Tim Tate and Brad Johnson, authors of the 2018 book The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Crime, Conspiracy and Cover-Up—A New Investigation, wrote that the LAPD:

“constructed the criminal equivalent of a Potemkin Village [Soviet model villages that masked underlying brutality of the Soviet system]—a Hollywood style set whose façade concealed the truth that evidence was overlooked, destroyed or suppressed, and witnesses were ignored or intimidated into silence. After which L.A. law enforcement locked the whole sorry saga away, hiding their misdeeds and incompetence behind impenetrable walls of official secrecy for two full decades.”[30]

As an example of police malfeasance, no effort was made to perform a ballistics test on Thane Cesar’s .22 caliber gun to see whether the bullets matched those that killed Kennedy.

In addition, a) bullets were planted in Sirhan’s car; b) the crime scene area was never properly roped off; c) hotel employees were allowed to mop up blood from the kitchen floor right after; and d) the LAPD burned more than 2,400 photographs from the crime scene and investigation in a medical waste incinerator before Sirhan’s trial.[31]

The LAPD task force set to investigate the killing—the “Special Unit Senator” (SUS)—was headed by 22-year LAPD veteran Lt. Manuel Pena, who reportedly killed eleven people in the line of duty—more than any other officer in the history of the department.[32]

In November 1967, Pena temporarily retired from the LAPD to work with USAID’s Office of Public Safety in South America, a CIA front headed by known CIA agent Byron Engle.[33]

One of his colleagues was Daniel Mitrione, an Indiana police officer who was kidnapped and killed by left-wing guerrillas in Uruguay in retaliation for his promotion of torture techniques among the U.S.-trained police.[34]

Charles A. O’Brien, California’s Chief Deputy Attorney General, told William Turner that USAID was being used as an “ultra-secret CIA unit” that was known to insiders as the “Department of Dirty Tricks” and that it was involved in teaching foreign intelligence agents the techniques of assassination.[35]

To help oversee the RFK investigation, Pena selected another CIA compatriot, Sgt. Enrique “Hank” Hernandez, a polygraph specialist who was subsequently promoted to lieutenant in recognition of his performance on the SUS.

Hernandez had played a key role in the CIA’s “Unified Police Command,” a training operation for Latin American countries and received a medal from the Venezuelan government for his efforts in helping prevent Fidel Castro’s exportation of the Cuban revolution onto its soil.[36]

Source: survivorbb.rapeutation.com

Under Hernandez and Pena’s direction, SUS became what authors William Turner and Jonn Christian termed a “kind of Bermuda triangle” into which reports and major leads on the case—including any that pointed to CIA or FBI involvement—disappeared.”[37]

The SUS at one point requested that the FBI report “any attempts to write stories regarding the assassination which might tend to suggest a conspiratorial aspect.”[38]

The SUS did question the woman with the polka-dot dress, though the tape was made blank and witnesses who had seen her—most notably Sandra Serrano—were intimidated, coerced and smeared.[39]

When Paul Sharaga, the LAPD officer who put in the all-points bulletin, prepared a report, the SUS disposed of it, and it never again surfaced.[40]

The SUS further tried to have Coroner Noguchi commit perjury.

When he refused to comply, it questioned his competency and character and had him suspended—with his findings never seeing the light of day.[41]

Documents assembled by New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison that pointed to a connection with the JFK assassination were among those—perhaps not surprisingly—ignored.[42]

The LAPD took no action additionally when Roy Donald Murray, a prosperous cotton rancher in the northern California town of Earlimart who hated Kennedy and Cesar Chavez, was overheard by a local police officer in May 1968 boasting about pledging $2,000 to his mafia friends in Las Vegas for an assassination fund.[43]

The FBI also did not follow up on a report by Edward Hugh Pole, who served time with Jimmy Hoffa in the Lewisburg penitentiary and said that Hoffa had boasted to fellow prisoners that he had put a hit out on Bobby Kennedy—who had been the one during his stint as Attorney General to put him in jail.[44]

Show Trial

Lisa Pease referred to Sirhan’s trial as a “show trial.” Key witnesses were never asked to testify, ballistics tests were never ordered, and discrepancies in the LAPD’s story and shoddy investigation went unchallenged by Sirhan’s defense team.

Remarkably, Coroner Noguchi’s report, which detailed the existence of two shooters and specified that Sirhan could not have been the one to deliver the lethal shots, was not entered into evidence at the trial and Sirhan’s lawyer, Grant Cooper, cut short Noguchi’s testimony.

Cooper also cut short the testimony of LAPD criminalist DeWayne Wolfer, who was cited in later probes to have been negligent in his conduct, and who had been photographed pointing to bullet holes in the walls which he now said were not genuine.[45]

Cooper had had a felony indictment hanging over him during Sirhan’s trial, which was withdrawn once the death sentence was passed.[46]

William Pepper, who took over Sirhan’s case in 2010 after serving as the Martin Luther King family lawyer, said that “there can be no reasonable doubt that this conflict influenced, more precisely directed Cooper’s lamentable trial performance.”[47]

Secret Team

In her 2018 book A Lie Too Big to Fail, Lisa Pease suggests that the hit team included a 21-year-old bookstore clerk named Michael Wayne and the girl in the polka-dot dress, who collected press badges which enabled members of the team to go anywhere in the hotel.

Wayne later helped provide a diversion while the assassin(s) got away. Suspiciously, he was found with the business card of Duane Gilbert, a right-wing extremist and militant involved in a previous theft of dynamite.

Throughout the night, the hit teams communicated through radio—with different teams likely prepared for Kennedy in different rooms of the hotel.

One of the team members manned the southwest fire escape so the girl in the polka-dot dress could sneak Sirhan into the hotel that way. A man in a maroon coat stood next to the door all night holding a radio.[48]

When the woman in the polka-dot dress shouted “we shot him” as she and the assassin were making their escape, she may have been trying to alert her cohort at the back door.

Markings of a CIA Special-Op

The secret team appears to have been part of a highly sophisticated intelligence operation that required a large support team and compliance with the with LAPD, L.A. County’s Sheriff’s Department and District Attorney’s Office, state government, the media and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The operation additionally required control of Sirhan’s defense team, access to trained assassins, and access to a patsy that could be hypnotized—which only the CIA could provide.[49]

An Irish filmmaker, Shane O’Sullivan, identified two men photographed at the Ambassador Hotel on the night Kennedy was killed as Bulova Watch Company sales managers attending the company’s convention. O’Sullivan stated that Bulova was a “well-known CIA cover.” One of the men bore some resemblance to CIA agent George Joannides, chief of the CIA’s psychological warfare branch in Miami during the early 1960s who served later as a CIA liaison to the House Select Committee on Assassination.

CIA agent Bradley Ayers and diplomat Wayne Smith, who worked with him at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, identified CIA assassin David Sanchez Morales as the man in a photo taken at the Ambassador Hotel on the night of Kennedy’s killing—though others who knew Morales said it was not.[50]

O’Sullivan featured an interview with Morales’s former attorney Robert Walton, who quoted Morales as having said, “I was in Dallas when we got the son of a bitch and I was in Los Angeles when we got the little bastard.”[51]

Another important potential CIA connection emerges with the mysterious girl in the polka-dotted dress. Witnesses believe she may have been Patricia Elayn Neal, a high-school drop-out from Red Bluff, California.

In 1973, she married Jerry Capehart, a Korean War veteran who managed Hollywood musical star Rosemary Clooney as well as country singer Glenn Campbell and 1950s rock star Eddie Cochran, with whom he co-wrote some famous songs.

Capehart’s son, Ray, told researchers that his father told him he had at one time worked for the CIA—and that he had been involved in mind-control experimentation.[52]

Not coincidentally, Sirhan appears to have been subjected to mind-control experiments and programmed to be part of the assassination plot.

Real Life Manchurian Candidate?

In 2010, attorneys acting for Sirhan filed a motion in the United States District Court for the Central District of California which argued that he was “an involuntary participant” in the shooting in the Ambassador Hotel pantry because he had been “subjected to extensive and sophisticated hypno-programming and mind control”—which had turned him into a robot assassin—a real-life “Manchurian Candidate.”

The latter is a reference to a 1962 film made by John Frankenheimer in which an American soldier is programmed in captivity during the Korean War to assassinate a U.S. presidential candidate.[53]

The Manchurian Candidate film dovetailed with a CIA disinformation campaign that helped convince the public that the North Koreans and Chinese had brainwashed U.S. POWs during the Korean War.

This belief justified the CIA’s efforts to develop truth drugs and advance brainwashing techniques under Operations Artichoke, Bluebird and MK-ULTRA—and to hire hypnotists with the goal of programming people.[54]

One Bluebird memo asked: “Can we create by post-H control an action contrary to an individual’s basic moral principles? Could we seize a subject and in a space of an hour or two by post-H control have him crash an airplane, wreck a train, etc.? Can we alter a person’s personality?”[55]

The answers appear to be yes.

In May 2008, Sirhan was examined by Dr. Daniel Brown, a professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and expert on hypnosis, who revealed evidence of hypnotically induced altered personality states.

Brown observed Sirhan switch into a personality state that responds in robot-like fashion to certain cues and adopting the behavior of firing a gun at a firing range. While in this state, Sirhan showed a loss of executive control and complete amnesia.[56]

After the assassination, LAPD officers had noticed in Sirhan an eerie calm—as if he did not genuinely know what he had done. Two of the men who had overpowered him during the shooting observed in Sirhan a tranquil look, with his eyes appearing peaceful. When asked by an NBC reporter whether he had planned to kill Senator Kennedy, Sirhan replied “only in my mind. I did it, but I was not aware of it.”[57]

The girl in the polka-dotted dress may have played the role of the queen of diamonds in The Search for the Manchurian Candidate—she was there to trigger Sirhan’s trance.[58]

Dr. Eduard Simson-Kallas, a San Quentin psychologist who worked extensively with Sirhan in 1969, described Sirhan’s comments about Arab-Israeli politics relating to the assassination as “very repetitious” and “spoken like an actor playing a role, reading a script.”[59]

Simson-Kallas believed that Sirhan was indeed a Manchurian Candidate who was “prepared by someone, hypnotized by someone.”[60]

Sirhan revealingly had no memory of writing his diary in which he expressed outrage about Kennedy’s sending jet bombers to Israel two days before he learned about it by reading an article in the newspaper.[61]

There were also statements in the diary denouncing capitalism and pointing to Kennedy as a reactionary, when Sirhan was not known to espouse left-wing views or to even have an interest in politics.

Walter Crowe, Sirhan’s closest friend at Pasadena City College (PCC), had once tried to form a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) group at the college, but Sirhan was “apathetic” and would not participate.[62]

His diary—written under hypnosis—appears to be a key part of the conspiratorial plot whose aim was not only to have Kennedy killed but also to discredit left-wing views.

Before the assassination, Sirhan had disappeared for a three-month period after falling off a horse (he had wanted to be a jockey).[63]

He made frequent trips at the time to Corona—where there was a huge Naval Surface Warfare Center, implying work for the U.S. government.[64] Sirhan’s name appeared at the Corona Police Department firing range, where he was training for his special mission.[65]

Herb Elfman reported to police that Sirhan belonged to a secret hypnosis group and referred them to a local radio station employee, Steve Allison, who managed a radio show that interviewed Dr. William Joseph Bryant (1924-1977) of the American Institute of Hypnosis.

Bryant was a pioneer hypnotist who served as chief of all medical survival training for the U.S. Air Force, or brainwashing section in South Korea during the Korean War.

A consultant on The Manchurian Candidate film, he had a long history of hypno-programming with the CIA.

Within hours of Kennedy’s shooting, he told listeners to a Los Angeles radio station that the suspect had “probably acted under post-hypnotic suggestion.”[66]

Bryant’s possible connection to Sirhan is reflected in a reference that Sirhan made in his diaries to the Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, with whom Bryant had worked. Afterwards, Sirhan had no memory of ever writing about DeSalvo and did not appear to have any knowledge about him.[67]

Researcher Jonn Christian interviewed two prostitutes who claimed Bryant had confessed to them to programming Sirhan.[68]

In March 1977, Bryant was found dead at the age of 51 in the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas right after he was summoned to appear before the House Select Committee on Assassinations. He was said to have died of natural causes—as he was obese—though no autopsy was performed.[69]

Was CIA-Mob Liaison Robert Maheu the Mastermind?

Two different insider sources told author Lisa Pease that Robert Maheu was the mastermind of the assassination.

A lifelong Republican, Maheu was a top adviser to Howard Hughes. He had mob contacts through Johnny Roselli and ran assassination plots for the CIA. When the CIA leadership decided to recruit the Mafia to murder Fidel Castro, they turned to Maheu.[70]

His company, Robert Maheu Associates—the inspiration behind the Mission Impossible television series—fronted for CIA activities and provided a cover to CIA employees.

Maheu furthermore had friends in the LAPD and Sheriff’s Department, and had run CIA operations in conjunction with the LAPD.[71]

He knew Thane Cesar, who worked for Bel Air Patrol, which Maheu owned. Cesar was listed as a CIA contract agent in a CIA database.

John Meier, a top aide to Howard Hughes from 1966 to 1970, recounted a meeting between Maheu and Don Nixon, Richard’s brother, at the Desert Inn Country Club in Las Vegas on June 6, 1968.

Maheu was all smiles and Don Nixon walked in all smiles. They embraced each other and Don Nixon said “well that prick is dead,” and Maheu said, “well it looks like your brother is in now.”[72] Maheu then joked that they should now be calling Don Nixon “Mr. Vice President.”

This conversation does not prove Maheu was behind Kennedy’s killing, but provides a clear motive—one he shared with his former boss, Howard Hughes.

Hughes wrote to Maheu after the assassination that “the Kennedy family and their money influence have been a thorn that has been relentlessly shoved into my guts since the very beginning of my business activities … I hate to be quick on the draw, but I see here an opportunity that may not happen again in a lifetime. I don’t [sic] aspire to be President, but I do want political strength … And it seems to me that the very people we need have just fallen smack into our hands.”[73]

LBJ’s Suspicious Behavior

After Kennedy was shot, Lyndon B. Johnson—then a lame duck president who had announced he would not seek reelection because of the debacle in Vietnam—repeatedly phoned the Secret Service to ask if Kennedy had died, pacing the floor for hours, phone in hand, muttering “I’ve got to know. Is he dead? Is he dead.”

Johnson also instructed his aide Joseph Califano to call Larry Levinson, another aide, to get an update from the Secret Service. Levinson in turn asked Califano if this was something Johnson wished to have happen—which appears to have been the case.

According to Ted Van Dyk, an aide to Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, when Humphrey got the Commanding General of the U.S. Air Force to dispatch a plane for a top Boston brain surgeon who was to be flown immediately to Los Angeles to operate on Kennedy (who was then still alive), Johnson canceled the plane, claiming that Humphrey had no authority to send it.

Johnson had long hated Kennedy and would have been humiliated by his nomination for president. After Kennedy’s death, Johnson instructed his aide to develop a “draft Johnson movement.” He hoped to arrive as a surprise guest at the Democratic national convention to great acclaim as the man capable of saving the Democratic Party—but alas it was not to be.

A SAVAK Hit Job?

Author Robert Morrow, in his 1988 book The Senator Must Die, suggests that Kennedy’s assassin went under the pseudonym Ali Ahmand and worked for Iranian intelligence under the Shah of Iran who had also recruited Sirhan as part of the plot.[74]

According to Morrow, the Kennedys had become enemies of the Shah—who had been installed in power in a CIA-backed coup—when as a Senator, John F. Kennedy uncovered the Shah’s misuse of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) funds and launched an attack on him from the Senate floor.

Bobby Kennedy subsequently snubbed the Shah by bypassing Iran on a goodwill trip around the world, and Kennedy threatened to cut off all aid after his election as president before his father, Joseph, interceded.[75]

When JFK was assassinated, the Shah privately was delighted. In the 1968 election, he poured in millions of dollars in support of Nixon.[76]

Alex Goodaryi, the Shah’s liaison to the U.S. mafia, said that “the mob claimed with Nixon as president, the Shah would be in a position to eventually raise oil prices. Then, with U.S. backing, control the whole Middle East. However, if [Robert] Kennedy won, the Shah would be totally isolated from any further U.S. aid and military support and be subject to worldwide censure.”[77]

According to Morrow’s hypothesis, the Shah ordered Colonel Mansur Rafizadeh, the head of SAVAK, the Shah’s secret police that had been created by the CIA, to eliminate Kennedy, and Rafizadeh recruited Sirhan and the other main culprit, Ali Ahmand, aka Khalid Iqbal.[78]

Iqbal was pictured in a photo at the Ambassador Hotel next to Jesse Unruh, the Speaker of the California State Assembly who was then managing Kennedy’s presidential campaign, wearing a yellow sweater with a camera hanging from a strap around his neck.

Morrow believes that the camera was a disguised gun, and that Sirhan was there to provide a distraction that would enable Iqbal to carry out the killing and afterwards get away with the girl in the polka-dot dress who was his accomplice.[79]

Sirhan fired two shots at Kennedy, was tackled and drew attention, giving space to Iqbal to rapidly pull the lethal camera up behind Kennedy’s ear and shoot him four times behind the ear.

With the crowd turning on Sirhan and pandemonium breaking out, Iqbal then motioned to his accomplice and found his way through the crowd and down a corridor to an exit, after which they jumped into a shiny black car and sped down Wilshire Boulevard away from the hotel.[80]

Although Iqbal’s description matched some eyewitness accounts of the man accompanying the girl in the polka-dotted dress, proof for Morrow’s theory has not been established. Iqbal, whose real name was Khalid Iqbal Khewar, sued The Boston Globe for libel for publishing Morrow’s account and was awarded damages of $1.2 million after winning his case.[81]

Allard Lowenstein

Allard K. Lowenstein was the former Director of the National Student Association (NSA) and Democratic Congressman from Nassau County, New York, from 1969 to 1971, who had led the “Dump Johnson” movement because of Johnson’s support for the Vietnam War.[82]

Anguished by Kennedy’s death, he was able to review Noguchi’s autopsy report specifying that Kennedy had been hit from behind by bullets fired at point-blank range. Lowenstein also scrutinized the trial records, searching for testimony that placed Sirhan’s gun to the rear and within inches of Bobby, and finding that there was none.

Lowenstein followed up by interviewing eyewitnesses who pointed to Sirhan being several feet—rather than inches—removed from Bobby, and to him having been subdued after firing two shots. He found that their stories were consistent with their earlier testimony.

The official response to Lowenstein’s queries by the LAPD was one of stonewalling, and he realized that a propaganda campaign was being fabricated to deliver information that was the exact opposite of the facts.

In March 1980, Lowenstein was shot and killed in his office by a former protégé Dennis Sweeney, who claimed among other crazy things that he had received messages in his head broadcast by a CIA transmitter. After Sweeney shot Lowenstein, Sweeney calmly waited in Lowenstein’s office to be arrested. He was deemed insane and sentenced to a mental hospital.

At the time of the shooting, Lowenstein was on the verge of getting a commitment from President Jimmy Carter to reopen the investigation into the Sirhan case if Carter were re-elected to a second term that November. But as writer Robert Vaughn put it: “Al died, Carter lost to Reagan, and the official veil of silence over the RFK murder has remained intact.”[83]

Kamala Harris and the Continuing Government Cover-Up

In 2012, while serving as California’s Attorney General, Vice President Kamala Harris had Sirhan’s request for a retrial dismissed.

She argued that “overwhelming evidence” existed against Sirhan’s claims that he was hypno-programmed to fire a gun as a diversion.

Harris stated in federal court that “(Sirhan) cannot possibly show that no reasonable juror would have convicted him if a jury had considered his ‘new’ evidence and allegations, in light of the overwhelming evidence supporting the convictions and the available evidence thoroughly debunking Sirhan’s second-shooter and automaton theories.”

In fact, as this essay has displayed, there is overwhelming evidence supporting—not debunking—Sirhan’s second-shooter theory.

This evidence ranges from eyewitness accounts to the autopsy report to the fact that more bullets were fired than was the capacity for Sirhan’s gun.

There is also circumstantial evidence about the automaton theory which begs for further investigation.

Had Kennedy Lived…..

Harris’s stance is part of a 50+ year effort by government authorities to cover up the truth about Kennedy’s assassination and to protect the powerful persons who coordinated it.

Had Kennedy lived, American history would have turned out differently.

For one thing, the major riots outside the Party convention following the nomination of Hubert Humphrey –which divided and destroyed the Democratic Party—would never have taken place.[84]

Kennedy might then have replicated his brother’s defeat of Nixon in 1960, and as president ended the Vietnam War, expanded the War on Poverty and scuttled the War on Drugs.

Instead of imploding under the weight of Nixonian repression, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) might have evolved into an influential left-wing caucus in the Democratic Party or a new social democratic party equivalent to the Canadian New Democratic Party (NDP).

This was the nightmare scenario for American conservatives and the corrupt elements of “the deep state,” who in carrying out Kennedy’s assassination, destroyed the hope for a better America that he and his supporters represented.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of four books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019) and The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

  1. See Larry Tye, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon (New York: Random House, 2017); Lester David and Irene David, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Folk Hero (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1986); Edward R. Schmitt, President of the Other America: Robert Kennedy and the Politics of Poverty (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011). Kennedy to be sure had some neoliberal views, suggesting not long before his death that welfare had “destroyed self-respect and encouraged family disintegration.” 

  2. David and David, Bobby Kennedy, 4. 
  3. Lisa Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail: The Real History of the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2018). 
  4. Tim Tate and Brad Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Crime, Conspiracy and Cover-Up—A New Investigation (London: Thistle Books, 2018) ,101; Mel Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist: Sirhan Sirhan and the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy(Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2007), 49-73. 
  5. Compton served as an LAPD detective in the 1950s and was connected to the LAPD’s red squad. See Tom O’Neill, with Dan Piepenberg, Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2019), 233. 
  6. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 230. 
  7. William Turner and Jonn Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: The Conspiracy and Coverup (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993), 167, 168. 
  8. Cesar stated that he “never would have voted for Bobby Kennedy because he had the same ideas as John did, and I think John sold the country down the road. He gave it away to the commies … he literally gave it to the minority.” Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 231. In the 1980s, Cesar supported Ronald Reagan. 
  9. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail. According to researcher Alex Botus, Cesar was connected to the California mobster John Alessio. Robert Melanson, Who Killed Robert Kennedy?(Berkeley, CA: Odonian Press, 1993), 42. Cesar told journalist Dan Moldea about diamond purchases he had made for the Chicago mob between 1968 and 1974. 
  10. Robert Maheu and Richard Hack, Next to Hughes: Behind the Power and Tragic Downfall of Howard Hughes by His Closest Advisor (New York: HarperCollins, 1992). 
  11. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 483. 
  12. Chris Spargo, “Robert F Kennedy was assassinated by Thane Eugene Cesar, declares RFK Jr, who says it was the security guard who fatally shot his father from behind after planning the murder with Sirhan Sirhan,” Daily Mail, September 12, 2019, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7456521/Robert-F-Kennedy-assassinated-Thane-Eugene-Cesar-Sirhan-Sirhan-says-RFK-Jr.htm
  13. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 256; Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 138; Mikko Alanne, “Why the RFK Assassination Case Must Be Reopened,” The Huffington Post, April 4, 2012, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rfk-sirhan_b_1251410. Pease suggested that the number of bullets could be as high as 17. 
  14. Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 41. Two ceiling tiles were allegedly removed, including several outside of Sirhan’s range of fire. 
  15. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 191, 195, 196. Nina Rhodes-Hughes, a Kennedy fundraiser, stated that she heard 12-14 shots fired, though the FBI quoted her falsely as having heard eight shots, which she explicitly denied is what she told them. Some claim the sound of shots in Pruszynski’s audio tape may have been sounds of people fumbling or microphones bumping into things. Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 133, 
  16. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 86, 87; Philip Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up, 1968-1991 (New York: Shapolsky, 1991), 34, 35. 
  17. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 183. Wolfer interestingly later became president of Ace Security Services, the same company which Thane Cesar had worked for on the night of RFK’s assassination. 
  18. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail; Lisa Pease, “Sirhan Says ‘I Am Innocent,’” in The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X, James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, eds. (Los Angeles: Feral House, 2003), 532; Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 158. 
  19. William Klaber and Philip H. Melanson, Shadow Play: The Unsolved Murder of Robert F. Kennedy (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2018) 106, 107. Freed related that he was contacted by the FBI afterwards but that they “seemed to be avoiding asking me questions about the 2nd gunman.” According to most witnesses, the second shooter was taller than Sirhan, 
  20. Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play, 108, 109; Robert Blair Kaiser, “R.F.K. Must Die!”: Chasing the Mystery of the Robert Kennedy Assassination, rev ed. (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 2008), 73. 
  21. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail; Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, xxiv, 161, 165; Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play, 98. Schulman specified that the security guard behind Kennedy had fired his gun. He said Kennedy had been shot three times, but the FBI insisted to him that he had been shot twice which was wrong. Curiously, there is no record of him having been interviewed by the LAPD. 
  22. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 213. 
  23. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 213. [NOTE: Should 23, 24 and 25 be “Idem.”? They are identical to note 22.] 
  24. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 213. 
  25. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 213. 
  26. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 280. 
  27. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail. 
  28. Robert D. Morrow, The Senator Must Die (Santa Monica, CA: Roundtable Publishing, 1988), 203, 204, 211; Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 248, 249, 250; Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 183, 244. Strangely, the LAPD’s log omits reference to the girl in the polka-dot dress. One witness, Earnest Ruiz, thought he saw the man later come back into the pantry as Sirhan was being removed and was the first to yell “let’s kill the bastard.” An alternative scenario with the woman in the polka-dotted dress is presented in Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 154. 
  29. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 211. For a reporter’s quest for the truth about the woman in the polka-dot dress, see Fernando Faura, The Polka Dot File on the Robert F. Kennedy Killing: The Paris Peace Talks Connection (Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2016)
  30. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 360. 
  31. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 360; Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 142; The Assassinations, Pease and Di Eugenio, eds., 533. The LAPD also “lost” the records from Sirhan’s blood test and destroyed the doorframes from the crime scene that possessed the bullets. 
  32. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 64. LAPD chief of detectives Robert Houghton, in his book Special Unit Senator: The Investigation of the Assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (New York: Random House, 1970), boasted that Pena had commanded detective divisions, supervised a bank robbery squad, spoke French and Spanish and had connections with various intelligence agencies in several countries. 
  33. On the OPS, see Jeremy Kuzmarov, Modernizing Repression: Police Training and Nation Building in the American Century (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012). 
  34. See A.J. Langguth, Hidden Terrors: The Truth about U.S. Police Operations in Latin America (New York: Pantheon, 1979). Mitrione’s motto was “the right pain, in the right place, at the right time.” 
  35. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 65. FBI agent Roger LaJeunesse claimed that Pena had been carrying out CIA special assignments for at least ten years. This was confirmed by Pena’s brother, a high school teacher, who told television journalist Stan Bohrman a similar story about his CIA activities. 
  36. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 210. Hernandez had claimed to have administered a polygraph test to Venezuelan dictator Marco Jimenez who was replaced by CIA favorite Romulo Betancourt. Hernandez died in 1972 at age 40. At the time of his death, he had begun to express doubt about the Sirhan lone gunman theory. 
  37. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, xxiii. 
  38. Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 134, 135. 
  39. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 276; Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 213; Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, xxiv. 
  40. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 212. Scharaga subsequently was forced to leave the LAPD. 
  41. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 223. Thomas Noguchi, Coroner (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983). 
  42. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 211, 212, 213. The Garrison documents included one obtained from a raid on the right-wing National States Rights Party which had the initials of three people to be eliminated: JFK, MLK, RFK. 
  43. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 214, 216, 216, 217. 
  44. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 221, 222. 
  45. Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play, 91, 92, 93. 
  46. Klaber and Melanson, Shadow Play, 38, 235. Cooper’s strategy in the trial had been to try to avoid the death penalty by pursuing an insanity defense. Cooper stunningly admitted to onetime New York Congressman Allard Lowenstein that, “had he known during the trial” what he had since learned, “he would have conducted a different defense.” The felony was for possessing stolen transcripts of the grand jury proceedings in the Beverly Hills Friar’s Club card cheating case in which Johnny Roselli was one of the defendants. 
  47. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 346. Famed forensic pathologist Cyril Wecht stated that “any first-year law student would have done a better job than Sirhan’s counsel [Cooper].” 
  48. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail; The Assassinations, Pease and Di Eugenio, eds., 599. 
  49. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 487. Researcher Philip Melanson identified the LAPD as one of the police forces that indeed maintained a clandestine relationship with the CIA. Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination. Prosecutor Lynn “Buck” Compton and District Attorney Evelle Younger both had verifiable intelligence ties.
  50. Manny Chavez, a former U.S. Air Force Intelligence officer who served in Venezuela as a military attaché in 1957-59 while David Morales was assigned to the CIA Station there for a year, said that, after careful study, he was convinced that the person in the photo was not Morales as he knew him up until 1963. Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 169. 
  51. Smith said that, if Morales was there the night Kennedy was killed, he had to have something to do with it. Morales died of a “heart attack” before he was slated to testify before the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978. After Morales fell ill, it took the medics five hours to get him to a hospital and did not provide him any oxygen. His friend Ruben Carbajal told filmmaker Shane O’Sullivan that “the people who killed Morales were the same people he had worked for—the CIA—he knew too much.”Carbajal, however, does not believe that the man identified by Ayers and Smith as Morales was in fact Morales. 
  52. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 286, 287, 288, 291, 292. Neal died in February 2012 at age 63 from cirrhosis due to her alcoholism. She had dropped out of high school after becoming pregnant and marrying the father, her first husband, who was then shipped off to Vietnam, and may have worked at one time as a prostitute. She moved to Missouri with Capehart after their marriage in 1973 and divorced him after 11 years. Neal’s kids remembered that their mother had been haunted by something in her past and expressed fears about being followed. She maintained an obsession with a polka-dotted dress she kept stored away in her home. Capehart once told the kids that she was the famous girl in the polka-dotted dress, though expressed anger when she put the dress on and was going to wear it in public at a church service.See also Fernando Faura, The Polka Dot File: On the Robert F. Kennedy Killing(Walterville, OR: Trine Day, 2016). Faura, then a reporter for The Hollywood Reporter, interviewed John Fahey, who worked at a chemical company and had breakfast with the woman in the polka dot dress at the Ambassador hotel and spent the day with her. She told him of connections to Anna Chennault, the wife of Flying Tiger Clare Chennault and a confidante of Richard M. Nixon. Faura had been spied on and harassed by the LAPD, whihc falsified records regarding his involvement in the investigation.
  53. Frankenheimer ironically drove Robert Kennedy to the Ambassador Hotel on the night of his death in his Rolls-Royce after Kennedy stayed at his Malibu mansion. 
  54. See Jonathan Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: The CIA and Mind Control, rev ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991). 
  55. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 303. 
  56. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 235, 324. 
  57. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 194; The Assassinations, Pease and Di Eugenio, eds., 533. Two waiters observed Sirhan smiling. Earlier in the evening, a witness observed Sirhan staring at a teletype machine, as though transfixed. 
  58. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, xxix. 
  59. Melanson, Who Killed Robert Kennedy? 65. 
  60. Turner and Christian, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 199. 
  61. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 334. All the other candidates in the 1968 election supported military aid to Israel, marking Sirhan’s motive as generally suspect. 
  62. Melanson, Who Killed Robert Kennedy? 65. 
  63. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 330, 331. 
  64. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 409. 
  65. Ibid. Some researchers suspect that Sirhan was hypnotized at the Santa Anita racetrack where he worked as a jockey. Sirhan worked there with Thomas Bremer, whose brother Arthur shot presidential candidate George C. Wallace in 1972 in an attempted assassination that also benefited Richard M. Nixon’s election chances. 
  66. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 331; Melanson, The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination, 202. 
  67. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 332. 
  68. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 334. 
  69. Tate and Johnson, The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, 334; Philip Melanson, The Robert Kennedy Assassination: New Revelations on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up, 1968-1991 (New York: Shapolsky, 1991). 
  70. Maheu, Next to Hughes, 108-34. 
  71. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail. One of these operations was the manufacture of a pornographic film allegedly showing Indonesia’s socialist leader Sukarno in a compromising position with a female Russian agent. On Maheu’s CIA ties, see also Bayard Stockton. Flawed Patriot: The Rise and Fall of CIA Legend Bill Harvey, (Virginia: Potomac Books, 2006), 17
  72. Pease, A Lie Too Big to Fail, 493. 
  73. Maheu, Next to Hughes, 206-207. After Kennedy’s death, Maheu assisted Hughes in giving Hubert Humphrey a donation of $50,000. 
  74. Morrow, The Senator Must Die. [NOTE: Should there be page numbers here?] 
  75. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 176, 177. 
  76. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 178. 
  77. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 178. 
  78. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 178. 
  79. Morrow, The Senator Must Die, 186. 
  80. Sirhan expected to be arrested but accepted the reward of a sizeable check deposited into his bank account. He believed that he would be regarded as a hero in Jordan and the Arab World. 
  81. Ayton, The Forgotten Terrorist, 159, 160. 
  82. David and David, Bobby Kennedy, 280.
  83. Robert Vaughn, A Fortunate Life (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008), 258.
  84. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who spearheaded the repression of the protests, supported Kennedy. 

Featured image: Source: washingtonpost.com; collage courtesy of Steve Brown

  • Posted in English, NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on New Evidence Implicates CIA, LAPD, FBI and Mafia as Plotters in Elaborate “Hit” Plan to Prevent RFK From Ever Reaching White House
  • Tags:

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

This preprint paper, Serious Adverse Events of Special Interest Following mRNA Vaccination in Randomized Trials, was written by a team of highly credible authors and is now undergoing peer review. It points out that the vaccines carry more risk than benefit.

Big whoops. That’s not what the CDC and FDA have been saying. This is really embarrassing for them that now others are starting to discover what I’ve been saying for over a year now.

Don’t expect the mainstream media to cover this or ask any questions. That’s not the way it works.

Tennessee and Publix Super Markets get it

Woo hoo!

And this just in from Tennessee:

… but California is completely clueless. Instead of following “the science,” in California doctors will “follow the herd”

Once this paper is published, it then becomes “misinformation” according to the State of California (assuming they pass AB-2098 which seems likely). That means that any physician relying on this paper to counsel their patients could have their license to practice medicine taken away.

That’s how things work in California. It’s not about “follow the science” anymore. That is not a defense. As a doctor you must “follow the herd.” If you disagree with the masses, even if you are right, kiss your medical license good-bye!!

But there is a hidden feature of AB-2098 that nobody is talking about: it is IMPOSSIBLE for doctors to shift position on a topic like vaccine safety. Either 100% of the doctors are for it, or 100% will be against it. There can’t be a middle ground or you get your license revoked so everyone has to stick with the initial narrative. That means the vaccines will always be safe and effective in California even when they aren’t.

If that doesn’t enforce conformity, I don’t know what will.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Covid Vaccine: More Risks than Benefits. “Serious Adverse Events of Special Interest”

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

A British subject I was born; a British subject I will die”

John A Macdonald, primary founder of Confederation and Canada’s first Prime Minister. (Quoted in his last election campaign speech before his death in 1891.) [1]

LISTEN TO THE SHOW



Click to download the audio (MP3 format) 

Canada, like many other democratic countries, is held aloft among its citizenry as a source of pride. A beacon of freedom! A respecter of international law! Willing to carry its weight in repelling an evil force waging war and unspeakable terror on the world stage, as it supposedly did in World War I and World War II.

And typical Canadians will display their pride by waving the national flag, and turning up in massive numbers wearing the national maple leaf symbol, gathering for evening fireworks, and celebrating the anniversary marking their great nation’s creation  – July 1, 1867.

As has been documented on this program a number of times, the image many Canadians have about Canada upholding justice on the world stage, being a champion of human rights, upholding democracy and so forth is considerably out of step with the reality of our foreign policy. And this is a phenomenon that has haunted us really since the confederation.

As our 155th birthday is arriving in a few short days, it is compelling to think of how the nostalgic fog surrounding us on that occasion blinds us and shields us from seeing darker moments illuminating its very existence. Domestic racism against Blacks, Asians and Indigenous people come to mind of course. But foreign policy, where we are less sure of the facts, incidents of shocking news about wars, trade, and other engagements really underscore the powerful people who are utilizing the influence of public gatherings, media and other tools to works the minds and hearts of decent people.

With Canada Day in the headlights, the Global Research News Hour will profile a bit about the misguided direction the general public in Canada has been driven to embrace and begin to formulate how this condition is conceivably rooted in the fraudulent maneuver that was the signing of the British North America Act.

Our first guest, lawyer, activist and journalist Dimitri Lascaris returns to the show to talk about his reasons for not re-seeking the leadership of the Green Party of Canada, the hypocrisy underlying Canada’s position on Ukraine and several other causes, and the tendency on the part of media to increasingly portray dissident views to government policy as “dangerous,” “conspiracy theory,” and “disinformation.”

Our second guest, Matt Ehret, also returns to the show. He reveals the myth of Canadian National Policy, its origin not rooted in national origin and not permitted by the British Empire to be a sovereign nation. He will also talk about the entities who tasked the “Independent Canada” enterprise, how it would evolve over the course of the twentieth century and how independent Canadians could and should revisit the future of our country and seize a new vision for its place in our world.

Dimitri Lascaris is a lawyer, a journalist and an activist. From 2004 to 2016 he was a member of Canada’s leading class action law firm Siskinds LLP. He now works pro-bono legal cases. In 2020, he ran for the leadership of the Green Party of Canada and placed second with  45.5% of the membership.

Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer, and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review.  He is a contributing author with The Duran, Strategic Culture Foundation, and Fort Russ.  Matthew has also published the book “The Time has Come for Canada to Join the New Silk Road” and three volumes of the Untold History of Canada.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 361)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW



Click to download the audio (MP3 format) 

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

Other stations airing the show:

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

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

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. 

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

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

Notes:

  1. https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/british-subject-status

 

 

 

 

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

  • Russia continues to earn more than $100 million per day from gas exports to Europe.
  • Russian revenues from gas exports are believed to be equal to the revenue last year.
  • Moscow decided to cut deliveries to large customers in Germany and Italy last week.

Russia is to be earning more than $100 million every day from the gas it sells to Europe despite the slashed deliveries to major EU consumers in the past week, according to data from Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS) cited by Bloomberg.

Due to the rallying natural gas prices, Russian revenues from gas exports are believed to be equal to the revenue last year, when Moscow wasn’t limiting gas flows to Europe and wasn’t (yet) on a collision course with the EU.

“It’s shocking to see that, despite the 75% cut in daily supply by Gazprom to Europe, the daily receipts are still in line with where they were a year ago, and certainly higher than pre-Covid times,” Tom Marzec-Manser, head of gas analytics at ICIS, told Bloomberg.

Over the past week, Russia has significantly lowered supply to major European consumers, including the biggest customers, Germany and Italy, despite the fact that their buyers bowed to Putin’s demand to open accounts in rubles at Gazprombank for processing of the payments the way Russia wanted to. Moreover, the annual maintenance at Nord Stream is coming and will completely halt deliveries through the pipeline for two weeks in July, leaving Europe further scrambling to fill gas storage sites to adequate levels before the winter.

Despite the EU embargo on Russian seaborne oil, to take effect by the end of the year, and the drastically reduced pipeline gas supply, Russia continues to benefit from the high oil and gas prices. Despite Western sanctions designed to hurt Russia’s oil revenues and war chest, Moscow is still getting a lot of additional billions of U.S. dollars in oil and gas revenues.

In June alone, Russia expects to receive as much as $6.37 billion in additional oil and gas revenues in June, its finance ministry said earlier this month, as energy commodity prices have rallied since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Russia’s Revenues From Gas Exports Remain High Despite Supply Cuts To Europe
Two events – one in the West and one in the East – are emblematic of the changing international picture:
in Washington, the mission of Copasir (Parliamentary Committee for the Security of the Republic);
.
in St. Petersburg, the Russia-sponsored International Economic Forum, which journalist Daria Platonova, an expert on geopolitics, reports.
At the press conference in Washington, Copasir chairman Adolfo Urso said that none of the four intelligence reports examined by Copasir had anything to do with the Corriere della Sera dossier on the “Putinians of Italy.” Corriere deputy editor Fiorenza Sarzanini must therefore explain whether she made up the dossier or drafted it based on “information” received under the table from the secret services. 
 .
As a further contribution to the “Security of the Republic,” the Copasir chairman urged Italy’s admission to Five Eyes, the world’s most powerful espionage alliance between the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, because Italy is “a frontier and hinge land with respect to the Russian, Chinese projection, but also to the Islamic threat and the issues inherent I could say the survival of Africa.”
 .
At the same time, Italy boycotted the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, where, with a large participation of Africa as well, major issues were addressed.
 .
As the New York Times also documents, the West’s move to block oil and gas imports from Russia is a boomerang for Europe in particular, as China and India buy them at discount prices opening new outlets for Russia in the East. By excluding itself from a major new international market that is being formed in the view of a multipolar world, Italy compromises its own national interests. 
 .
All of this is hidden by our political-media mainstream, which makes us believe that the whole world has condemned and isolated Russia, while -as the prominent Wilson Center in Washington documents- “the countries that have sanctioned Russia over Ukraine represent only 16 percent of the world’s population.”  
 .

Manlio Dinucci is an award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. he is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on “The Putinians of Italy”: Geopolitics, “Security of The Republic”, “The Five Eyes” Espionage Alliance and the EU-Russia “Oil and Gas Boomerang”

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Much of the world was horrified in early May when Shireen Abu Akleh, a renowned Al Jazeera reporter, was shot in the head by Israeli troops while on assignment in Jenin in the Occupied West Bank.

Not long before, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) President Liz Shuler had been photographed with Labor Party Chair Merav Michaeli, a strong supporter of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, along with Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). None of the three raised any outcry subsequently after Akleh was killed.

Shuler moreover sent a letter to the San Francisco Labor Council stating that its delegates could not discuss a boycott of Israel.

The AFL-CIO’s current support for Israel fits a long historical pattern. For decades now, it has allied with and sheltered the Histadrut, the Israeli trade union federation, and the Israeli state from any criticisms.

Handmaiden of the Israeli State

The Histadrut is the handmaiden of the Israeli state, and the Israeli state is a junior partner to American imperialism. The Histadrut has billed itself as a labor union and thus the defender of the Israeli working class but, if one examines it honestly, without the Histadrut, Israeli capitalism would have had a hard time getting off the ground.

The early founders of the Israeli state concur that without the Histadrut, there would likely have been no Israeli state. It does not have any semblance of independence because it is part of the state apparatus. While the Histadrut is in no way a labor union, the AFL-CIO pretends that it is.

In the March 2009 Electronic Intifada article “Histadrut: Israel’s racist ‘trade union,” Tony Greenstein pointed out that Golda Meir explained in 1928, “I was put on the Histadrut Executive Committee at a time when this big labor union wasn’t just a trade union organization. It was a great colonizing agency.” Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, contended that, without Histadrut, “I doubt whether we would have had a state.”

Golda Meir and David Ben-Gurion, Jerusalem, 1962 | Jewish Women's Archive
            David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir at the Knesset in Jerusalem in 1962. [Source: jwa.org]

Trade unions often function as a bridge between the needs of the bosses and those of the workers, but with a trade union such as the Histadrut, with its lack of any semblance of independence, it is virtually impossible to call this a trade union.

The fascists of both the Mussolini and Hitler stripes led states that were corporatist states, that is everyone who participated in the economy was “represented” by the state as opposed to having independent organizations that could pressure the government to bend to their needs.

The unions were not independent, they sat on the corporate boards. In the case of Italy, the unions were completely smashed and what remained was a representative, but in the case of Israel, the Histadrut is part of the capitalist class itself.

It helped to organize capitalism and helped to drive out the indigenous peoples, that is, they helped to colonize Palestine.

In a series of strikes that were either mixed, that is Palestinian and Jew, or were organized by Palestinian workers alone, the Histadrut sent in strikebreakers.

Therefore, if we examine the remarks of the two most influential persons in the Israeli project, that is Golda Meir and David Ben-Gurion, it is clear in an unabashed explanation that the Histadrut is an arm of the Israeli state, not only an organizer of industry, and is part of the settler colonial project and, unlike the sellout politics and class collaborationist politics of the AFL-CIO, the very purpose of the Histadrut was to get this project under way.

Histadrut was the owner of 25% of the capitalist industries which often employed strikebreakers so that any independent activity of the working class would be shut down. Thus, any well-respected capitalist nation wishes and needs to expand its economic and political influence in the rest of the world, but for the moment, the Israelis decided that the Middle East was its back door.

Imperialism thus became the driving force of the Israeli economy.

Tony Greenstein also argues that, “in 1958, the International Institute for Development, Cooperation and Labor Studies was established as a means of furthering Western interests in the Third World. Half of its graduates came from The Asian Institute for Labor Studies and Cooperation funded by the CIA through the AFL-CIO. It operated on behalf of the U.S. in African countries such as Zaire and Kenya.” It thus operated as an arm of Israeli and U.S. foreign policy.

Israel and Apartheid South Africa

Israel has often been described as an apartheid state because of its mistreatment of the Palestinians. It is not that well known, however, that Israel was actively committed to supporting the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Not seeing this as a morally repugnant nation, Israel armed the white South African regime, modeling its own policies on South African apartheid, suppressing the Palestinian people.

A group of men talking Description automatically generated with medium confidence
Menachem Begin, Moshe Dayan and Yitzhak Rabin visiting with South African Prime Minister B.J. Vorster (third from the left) in Jerusalem in 1976. [Source: africaisacountry.com]

Tony Greenstein wrote: “Iskoor steel company, 51 percent owned by Histadrut’s Koor Industries and 49 percent by the South African Steel Corporation, manufactured steel for South Africa’s armed forces. Partly finished steel was shipped from Israel to South Africa, enabling the apartheid state to escape tariffs.”

Greenstein continued: “Other Histadrut companies such as Tadiran and Soltam were equally complicit in supplying South Africa with weaponry. [It] also helped build the electronic wall between South Africa/Namibia and neighboring African states.”

In the early 1960s, the Histadrut was a conduit for CIA and Mossad in Africa and later cooperated with the AFL-CIO’s AIFLD program and the CIA to undermine rural cooperatives in El Salvador.

Mossad agent David Ben Uziel photographed while training South Sudanese rebels in 1969-71 (photo credit: FROM ‘ON A MOSSAD MISSION TO SOUTH SUDAN)
Mossad agent David Ben Uziel photographed training South Sudanese rebels in 1969-1971. [Source: jpost.com]

Suppressing Class Struggle and Discriminating Against Arabs

Histadrut is recognized by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions as the representative of all Israeli workers, even though its very nature is to discriminate against Arab workers. However, class struggle was anathema to the Histadrut generally.

In 1951, seamen who were on strike were drafted into the army with Histadrut support. This goes back as far as the 1920s when the Gdud Avodah workers went on strike and were starved into submission by Ben-Gurion.

The organization’s class collaborationism has not only undermined Arab workers, but it has undermined Jewish workers as well, with the inevitable outcome that we are witnessing now, that is with the utter racism that is being displayed by many of the Jewish working class.

This is how a capitalist arrives at implanting a colonial settler state. The Jewish working class, at the beginning of this project, believed that it was setting up a socialist society; the Jewish capitalists thought differently and used this desire for liberation as a battering ram against Palestinians who are the indigenous peoples.

All the evidence points to the criminality of people such as Ben-Gurion who explicitly said that class struggle meant struggle against Arab labor.

Ben-Gurion argued that “the role of the working class was a national one, to construct the Jewish state: “Socialism was never an aim in itself but a tool for the advancement of national objectives.” It was Ben-Gurion who “coined the slogan from class to nation…both perspectives saw the role of labor as a nationalist role.”

This perspective was one that was very much supported by fascist governments such as Mussolini’s Italy.

The Histadrut founded Haganah, the Zionist terrorist group, in the 1920s and Mapai, which became the Israeli Labor Party, in the 1930s. Greenstein wrote that Ben-Gurion was “Histadrut’s first secretary-general, became in 1935 chairman of the Jewish Agency, the Zionist government-in-waiting, and in 1948 prime minister of the State of Israel.”

Israeli Government Press Office photo David Ben-Gurion addresses Histadrut members at the cornerstone-laying ceremony for the Histadrut building in Jerusalem in September 1924.
         David Ben-Gurion addresses Histadrut members in 1924. [Source: atlantajewishtimes.com]

Ben-Gurion made it clear that there was no reason to respect Palestinian rights and that it was also clear that the Palestinians, understandably, would not give up their land without a fight.

He stated that “we do not recognize the right of the [Palestinian] Arabs to rule the country, since Palestine is still undeveloped and awaits its builders.”

And so the Labor Party was created and, it too pretends that it is somehow championing the cause of labor.

The list of Israeli crimes has been documented in thousands of books, but it is the pretend nature of its support for workers, that is, it is a labor union of some sort, which allows the AFL-CIO to pretend as well.

The list of crimes of the Israeli state and its partner the Histadrut is much more extensive, but having limited space, the focus of this article is on the relationship between the AFL-CIO and the Histadrut and the Israeli state.

On the Side of the Oppressor

So why is the AFL coming down on the side of the oppressor?

The history of the AFL has been one of racism and sexism and elitism from the very jump. It historically worked and continues to work with management, protecting white male workers, and thus they have been able to win contracts more effectively for the aristocracy of labor, but in the process, it has sold out everyone else. Therefore, they are no stranger to organizations such as the Histadrut and will thus lend a hand to the bosses.

After the killing of Palestinian-American reporter Shireen Abu Akleh, the San Francisco Labor Council tried to entertain a resolution over Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

National AFL-CIO Western Region Field Director Fernando Losada said: “Expressions of solidarity [are] always good, But in terms of setting international policy, that is the purview of the national AFL-CIO through our organizational processes. There’s an existing policy in solidarity with working people in the Holy Land. It does not include BDS.”

According to The Intercept, AFL-CIO leadership cited a procedural rule to tell the San Francisco Labor Council it could not even debate a resolution on BDS.

                                            [Source: theintercept.com]

I am of the opinion, and it is the opinion of others in the Labor Education Project on AFL-CIO International Operations (LEPAIO), that the AFL-CIO is complicit in the murder of Shireen and so many others since Shuler and Weingarten met with the leader of the Israeli Labor Party and Shuler sent a letter to the San Francisco Labor Council stating that delegates could not discuss a boycott of Israel.

Shireen Abu Akleh
                             Shireen Abu Akleh [Source: aljazeera.com]

Let us not forget that the Interior Minister of Israel is a member of the Labor Party who supported the murder of the journalist, and the Labor Party supports the apartheid state and Liz Shuler supports the State of Israel.

Thus, instead of being in solidarity with the Palestinians, U.S. labor has taken the side of the oppressor.

Every time members of any union have attempted to defend the rights of the Palestinians, the AFL-CIO has stepped in to defend the Israeli state and has either sidelined Palestinian rights or has forcefully defended the actions of the Israelis and have prevented any dissent among its members.

This is clearly demonstrated in a manual written by the Jewish Labor Committee in 2008 for pro-Israel lobby groups. It blatantly advises:

“Please DO NOT discuss with union members, representatives of the press or others, guesstimates of the value of State of Israel Bonds held by unions. ‘Divest from Israel’ activists have used such information in their arguments and have quoted figures found in Jewish newspapers and/or provided by Jewish communal representatives.”

Randi Weingarten, the President of the AFT, is a member of this organization.

Since the 1950s, the U.S. labor movement has continued to invest in Israeli bonds using their pension funds. The American labor unions collectively hold millions in Israeli bonds. The AFT alone reported to the DOL that the union has invested $200,000 in State of Israel bonds. Richard Trumka, the former head of the AFL-CIO, absolutely opposed support for BDS.

Richard L. Trumka                                Richard L. Trumka [Source: obamawhitehouse.archives.org]

Change Gonna Come?

But now, things are decidedly changing, that is, there is more of an awareness among American workers that the situation in Israel is untenable and they will no longer support the repression of the Palestinians.

More recently (2010), members of the Connecticut AFL-CIO successfully got the state labor federation to dump its $25,000 in Israeli bonds and, five years later, the Connecticut federation passed a resolution calling on the national AFL-CIO to support BDS. (This vote was later annulled by Trumka.)

Pickets Challenge Labor to Find Solidarity with Palestinians | Labor Notes
Fifty activists picketed an awards dinner in June 2011, telling then-New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes that his support for investments in Israel betrays basic principles of labor solidarity. [Source: labornotes.org]

But just recently, major unions and labor federations in Oregon passed unprecedented resolutions calling for divestment from an Israeli company over its human rights abuses.

In Oregon, the AFL-CIO and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), collectively representing more than 300,000 workers in the state, passed a resolution calling for the state to divest from the fund that owns Israeli spyware firm NSO.

Hindus for Human Rights on Twitter: "Oregon's state pension fund @OregonTreasury invests in the NSO Group, whose spyware has been used by authoritarian regimes in India, Israel, and around the world to
                                                       [Source: twitter.com]

And finally, in my union, the Professional Staff Congress, the International Committee, along with the Academic Freedom Committee and the Anti-Racism Committee, passed a resolution on Palestine (May 2021) which passed almost unanimously at the Delegate Assembly.

Almost immediately afterwards, the Zionists in the union went on the attack and the resolution has all but been suppressed. The Zionists, as we can see, hold tremendous sway in the unions.

American workers are far ahead of our “leaders” and, with a different leadership, we could make headway fighting for the democratic rights of oppressed peoples; but if we don’t break, not only on this issue, but similar ones such as a women’s right to choose, Black rights, etc., we will be moving closer and closer to a fascist society.

The economy is breaking down and right before our eyes, the society is disintegrating. Workers need a new leadership. Victory can only be won with a conscious, organized working class that is willing to build a movement that will knock down the barriers that capitalism sets up to divide us and that means we must start by dumping our “leaders” and replacing them with a socialist leadership, since they are the main obstacle standing in the way of this effort.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

________________________________________________________________

CovertAction Magazine, CovertAction Quarterly and CovertAction Information Bulletin are projects of CovertAction Institute, Inc., a not-for-profit organization incorporated in the State of New York.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on AFL-CIO Complicit in Murder of Palestinian Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

A nonprofit group is suing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in an effort to obtain documents relating to the FDA’s approval of Moderna’s Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine after the agency told the group there was “no compelling need” to expedite the release of the documents.

Dallas, Texas-based Defending the Republic on June 7 filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.

This is the same court that previously ordered the release of the FDA’s documents pertaining to the approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, rejecting the FDA’s proposed release schedule that would have meant those documents would be made public over a period of 75 years.

The FDA granted full approval of Spikevax on Jan. 31. Just a few days later, on Feb. 3, Defending the Republic filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the FDA, “seeking the expedited production of records relating to the FDA’s approval of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.”

According to the lawsuit, Defending the Republic:

“… is a public interest group committed to the rule of law and the principles on which this country was founded.

“It defends victims of unlawful governmental actions, informs Americans on matters of public concern, and works tirelessly on behalf of those who are subject to unlawful government actions and mandates.”

The lawsuit notes the organization previously filed an amicus brief relating to the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for private businesses.

Two FDA rejections led to Defending the Republic’s lawsuit

According to Defending the Republic’s lawsuit:

“On February 3, 2022, Defending the Republic made a FOIA request for all documents, data, and records submitted by Moderna to the FDA concerning the approval of Spikevax. Defending the Republic asked for expedited processing for this request.

“The request was made consistent with, and in furtherance of, Defending the Republic’s mission to ensure public access to essential information relating to COVID-19.”

The original FOIA request made the following request:

“Please provide all data and information submitted by Moderna relating to the FDA review and approval of Spikevax.

“This includes, but is not limited to, all safety and effectiveness data and information; all data and information in the biological product file; and all ingredients.”

The FDA on Feb. 9 refused this initial request for expedited production of the Spikevax records, arguing the group had not demonstrated “urgency” or a “compelling need” for the swift release of the documents.

Sarah Kotler, director of the FDA’s Division of Freedom of Information, wrote:

“I have determined that your request for expedited processing does not meet the criteria under the FOIA.

“You have not demonstrated a compelling need that involves an imminent threat to the life or physical safety of an individual. Neither have you demonstrated that there exists an urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged Federal Government activity.

“Therefore, I am denying your request for expedited processing. The responding agency office will process your request in the order in which it was received.”

Defending the Republic appealed the decision, stating in its lawsuit:

“The public deserved to know the requested information when making life-altering decisions including whether and when to vaccinate, and which vaccine—if any—to take, considering facts such as vaccine mandates affecting millions of Americans and the waning effectiveness of the Moderna vaccine.”

The Feb. 9 appeal also claimed:

“It is without question that the public and the medical community have an urgent and compelling interest in analyzing the data and information underlying the FDA’s approval of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. There is no debate that COVID-19 has touched every single American life.

“The FDA promises ‘Spikevax meets the FDA’s rigorous standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality required for approval.’

“The American people deserve to know whether that statement is true, especially since there are legitimate issues with Spikevax. And Americans deserve to have that information now, not years down the road.”

In their appeal, Defending the Republic also described evidence about the “waning protection” of the COVID-19 vaccines and their “decreased effectiveness” against certain variants, such as Omicron.

The group also addressed the “serious risks of myocarditis and pericarditis,” acknowledged by the FDA, and “insufficient” data regarding “vaccine-associated risks in pregnancy.”

However, the FDA on June 6 again denied Defending the Republic’s appeal, claiming:

“After conducting a thorough review of your appeal, we have determined that you have not demonstrated a compelling need for expedited processing.

“Therefore, we have decided to uphold the FDA’s decision to deny the request for expedited processing.

“You have not demonstrated that there is an “urgent need for the requested information and that [it] has a particular value that will be lost if not obtained and disseminated quickly.”

The FDA claimed it is already providing a sufficient amount of information about the Spikevax vaccine, stating:

“Since approval of the product, the following records are available on FDA’s website — Spikevax information approval package and reviews, advisory committee documents and a host of related information, including Frequently Asked Questions for Spikevax, information sheets for healthcare providers, regulatory information, and media materials.

“The website even includes translations of certain information in multiple languages, including Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Tagalog.”

According to the FDA, Defending the Republic had “not shown that receiving data and information not already posted to the FDA webpage regarding this approved product has particular urgency,” nor had it “demonstrated that these records have a particular value that would be lost if not obtained and disseminated quickly.”

As a result, the FDA determined that Defending the Republic’s request “does not satisfy the ‘urgency to inform the public’ standard.”

The group’s FOIA request was placed “in the complex queue” by the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, with a response to be expected from the FDA “within approximately 18-24 months.”

Rejections lead to lawsuit

In response, Defending the Republic sued the FDA, asking the court to “order expedited briefing and proceedings in this matter” and to “order the FDA [to] produce all documents responsive to Defending the Republic’s FOIA request on an expedited schedule,” in addition to attorney fees and any other relief the court may deem appropriate.

In the lawsuit, Defending the Republic said “COVID-19 and the approval of COVID-19 vaccines is a matter of current exigency to the American public.”

The lawsuit cites Public Health & Medical Professionals for Transparency v. Food & Drug Administration — the case that led to the release of the Pfizer vaccine documents by the FDA — in justifying its lawsuit against the agency:

“The information requested — just like the data the FDA reviewed to approve Comirnaty — is information the American people need to know now. It is an urgent matter of public health.

“The FDA declined the appeal, leaving Defending the Republic with no choice but to file this action seeking a court order requiring the FDA produce the requested records on an expedited schedule — just as those who obtained a court order for the expedited production of records relating to the FDA approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.”

The lawsuit also refers to various judicial precedents and legal statutes which the group argues support its claim.

In reference to its FOIA request, Defending the Republic said federal statute states, “FOIA allows for the ‘expedited processing of request for records’ where there is shown to be a ‘compelling need.’”

In turn, the term “compelling need,” according to federal statute, means “with respect to a request made by a person primarily engaged in disseminating information, urgency to inform the public concerning actual or alleged Federal Government activity.”

Defending the Republic claims “a closer inspection of the Spikevax approval reveal there may be glaring issues in the approval process,” including insufficient data related to the vaccine’s risks for pregnant women.

The organization further argued the FOIA request should be expedited in light of federal and local vaccine mandates.

Plaintiffs’ attorney: FDA wants to control what the public sees and doesn’t see

Travis Miller, one of the lawyers representing Defending the Republic, told The Defender:

“The FDA has the audacity to claim there is no ‘compelling need’ for the expedited processing of the data underlying the FDA’s approval of Moderna’s Spikevax COVID-19 vaccine.

“In doing so, the FDA ignored our arguments that a Fort Worth federal court had already found there to be a compelling need for the expedited production of the Comirnaty records. The FDA just pretended that the court order to produce the Comirnaty records didn’t exist.”

According to Miller, by denying Defending the Republic’s FOIA request, the FDA is seeking to obfuscate data related to the Spikevax vaccine and its own actions:

“They don’t want outside experts or the common man looking through this data for themselves.

“The FDA would rather control what the public sees — and doesn’t see — by repackaging data or otherwise hiding information that might just cast doubt on FDA actions.”

When asked whether the FDA might have been influenced by Moderna in issuing its denials, Miller said, “We’ve seen no response from Moderna. But it’s possible that Moderna attempts to intervene in this lawsuit,” adding that Pfizer had done something similar previously.

“Pfizer moved to intervene in the Comirnaty FOIA lawsuit ‘for the limited purpose of helping FDA and the court ensure expeditious production,’” Miller said.

Ultimately, Miller hopes the court will decide in favor of a release schedule for the Spikevax documents that would be similar to that of the Pfizer documents, stating:

“We hope that the production timeline will be similar to the timeline issued in the Comirnaty FOIA case.

“That court ordered 12,000 pages to be produced in January 2022, and then rolling production of 55,000 pages every 30 days beginning March 1, 2022 until production was complete.”

If and when the FDA provides the Spikevax documents, Defending the Republic intends to make them available to the public, just as Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, a group of doctors and public health professionals that filed the lawsuit against the FDA concerning the Pfizer vaccine documents, has publicized those documents on its website.

As stated in Defending the Republic’s lawsuit, it will “publicly disseminate” any information that is revealed about the Spikevax vaccine as a result of its FOIA request.

According to the lawsuit:

“Any delayed response to the FOIA request would compromise and otherwise inhibit Defending the Republic’s recognized interest to inform the public of the Moderna vaccine. It would also compromise the significant recognized interest of the American public, including parents, physicians, independent experts, and policy makers, in reviewing and analyzing the Moderna data for themselves.

“Millions of Americans would be subject to vaccine requirements for vaccines they are prevented from fully understanding. Stale information will not serve Defending the Republic or the American public.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on The Moderna Spikevax Covid-19 Vaccine. Nonprofit Sues FDA to Obtain Documents Related to Approval

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Stop using the China ‘Threat’ to Throw More Money at the Pentagon

Uncle Sam: Ukraine Lost, Stop the Dying

June 24th, 2022 by Walt Zlotow

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

*

 After 116 days of war, several things have become clear.
 
Ukraine has largely been defeated by Russia. That isn’t guesswork.
.
Ukraine is outgunned in artillery 20 to 1; 40 to 1 in artillery shells.
.
Russia puts up 300 air sorties daily; Ukraine about 3.
.
Ukraine now admits they’re losing upwards of 200 fighters daily.
.
Russia has gobbled up a fifth of Ukraine in the Donbas where Russian speaking Ukrainians endured 8 years of shelling by Ukraine ultranationalists. Ukraine’s economy has shrunk over 50%, turning Ukraine into failed state status. It’s over President Zelensky.
 .
But the delusional Ukraine president still pounds his chest for Uncle Sam and NATO to save his bacon by expanding the war into US/NATO versus the Russian Bear. He does this even though we told him before the war started, we’d neither shed one drop of US blood nor give him weaponry like fighter jets, which could trigger WWIII.
 .
Another reality we need to admit? None of the economic sanctions we’ve implemented on Russia nor any of the $54 billion we’ve squandered on weaponry for Ukraine will turn the tide. Russia may be bleeding profusely from their criminal war…but Ukraine is bleeding out.
 .
Though not widely publicized, the US knows this. Even US Joint Chiefs Chair Mark Milley has alluded to the above, and President Biden has toned down his initial bellicose rhetoric supporting a Ukraine victory and regime charge in Russia.
We in the peace community don’t view warfare as good v. evil, democracy v. autocracy. Provocations which lead up to war must be examined and understood. With few exceptions, military conflict requires skilled diplomacy leading to war ending negotiated settlement. Had the US and NATO owned up to their 8 years of provocative actions against Russia in Ukraine, this war could have been ended quickly if not avoided altogether.
 .
Knowing the inevitable, the US needs to tell Zelensky no more aid, and then only economic, till he agrees to negotiations with Russia to end the war. Any resolution likely means neither Crimea nor the Donbas will return to Ukrainian rule; the price for Ukraine declaring war on its own people there in 2014.
 ‘
There are no good guys in this conflict. Just dead guys. It’s long past time for the US and NATO to orchestrate its end. Every day of delay gets more Ukrainians killed for nothing.
.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Uncle Sam: Ukraine Lost, Stop the Dying

Covid 19 – eine Waffe der 4. industriellen Revolution?

June 24th, 2022 by Prof. Claudia von Werlhof

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Covid 19 ist keine Krankheit, sondern eine Waffe, mit der die erneute Auslösung der sogenannten „Vorerkrankungen“ der je betroffenen Person mittels einer unbekannten Technik sowie oft eine Beschädigung der Lunge, des Gehirns oder eines anderen Organs erfolgen. Wie diese Waffe beschaffen ist, in den Körper kommt, ob sie dort bleibt, ob und wie sie wieder entfernt werden kann, und was ihre eigentliche, womöglich längerfristige Aufgabe ist, ist unbekannt.

Die Tatsache, dass das neue Corona-Virus nicht nachgewiesen wurde, sollte also nicht weiter dazu verleiten anz8unehmen, es gäbe mit der sog. Covid 19 „Erkrankung“ kein Problem.

Covid fühlt sich so an als ob:

Ein Programm in deinem Körper abgespult wird.

  1. Es beginnt z.B. mit einer Art Mind Control und zwar der Zerstörung der psychischen Kraft zusammen mit der physischen und der Durchsetzung einer selbstmordnahen Gleichgültigkeit dem Leben, auch dem eigenen, gegenüber. Es geschieht eine extreme Schwächung auf allen Ebenen und das Eintreten des Gegenteils jeder Lebensfreude, ein elendes Gefühl des Endes, das sich in dir ausbreitet. Das dauert die ersten 4 Tage, ca. Frage: Hat das etwa mit einer Lungenschwächung zu tun, die u.U. auch ohne Vorerkrankung der Lunge stattfindet? (Zusammenhang Lunge und Trauer)
  2. Innerhalb des Körpers wird der Reihe nach an Schwachstellen angedockt, als ob ein Software- Programm abläuft, das alle Organe, Körperteile, ja die Knochen betreffen kann und das ganze Leben, bis hinunter zur Geburt streift, und natürlich bei jedem anders ist. Das verursacht Fieber und zum Teil große und langanhaltende Schmerzen. Es weckt sog. Vorerkrankungen, von denen wir nicht immer etwas wissen. Sie werden zum Teil wieder aktiviert, als hätte es keine Heilung gegeben und als hätte es die Heilerinnerung des Leibes nicht gegeben. Die Weisheit des Leibes wird ausgeschaltet. Alle alten Krankheiten, Verletzungen und sogar unbekannte Traumata können wieder auftauchen. Dieser Prozess dauert ca. 4 Tage, wobei die meisten Beschwerden dann abklingen und nur die hartnäckigsten übrigbleiben.

Inwieweit die Lunge oder das Gehirn ein besonderes Angriffsziel sind, und in welchen Formen, ist zu fragen. Da die Älteren automatisch mehr „Vorerkrankungen“ haben, sind sie gefährdeter – „vulnerabler“ – und könnten damit eher auch im Krankenhaus landen. Kinder dagegen bekommen Covid selten, weil sie meist noch keine nennenswerten Vorerkrankungen haben, oder weisen eben solche Effekte auf, die zusätzlich produziert werden.

In der Klinik sterben die an sich selbst Erkrankten dann „an und mit Corona“, d.h. also an und mit den durch die Covid-Waffe unter anderen ausgelösten Vorerkrankungen, nebst der Art der dortigen Behandlung, insbesondere der Lunge. So erklärt sich die neue Sprache, die darum herum verwendet wird.

Es sind daher gerade die diversen Formen der Lungen- und anderer Organerkrankungen zu untersuchen, die nicht unbedingt mit Vorerkrankungen zu tun haben. Vaskuläre Erkrankungen, Sauerstoffmangel usw. Bisher werden diese in den Kliniken aber auf die gleiche Weise behandelt bis zur Intubation und dem Erstickungstod. Warum? (WHO-Patent)

  1. Am 5. Tag ist auf diese Weise wohl kaum jemand bereits „negativ“ und kann sich freitesten, falls er wirklich von Covid angegriffen wurde und nicht nur eine Grippe hatte. Es muss im Gegenteil damit gerechnet werden, dass das Programm im Körper, also eine Art programmierte Nanomaschine, weiterhin da ist und erneut eingesetzt werden kann. Diese Maschine muß eine Kombination aus Nano-, KI- und eventueller Bio- sowie EM-Technik sein, jedenfalls ein Spitzenprodukt der 4. industriellen Revolution im Bereich der Mikrotechnologien, die den anerkannten Zweck haben, den Menschen und seinen Körper zu verändern. Es ist ein 1. Schritt zum Transhumanismus.
  2. Hierbei geht es also nicht (nur) um Spike-Proteine oder eine Vergiftung, etwa auch mit Schlangengift. Sondern es handelt sich um einen technologischen Angriff mit einer „Bio“-Waffe in dem Sinne, dass sie u.a. die Biologie des Körpers angreift, als sei er maschinelle Hard- und Software (Psyche), und in seine je spezifischen Komponenten zerlegt, also mortifiziert, dort, wo es schon mal ein Problem/Verletzung/Wunde/Krankheit gegeben hat, bei Älteren also mehr. Die Mobilisierung von Vorerkrankungen verdeckt dann auch die Gemeinsamkeiten sowie zusätzlichen Effekte/Zerstörungen, die sich u.a. in „Long Covid“ äußern.

D.h., Covid ist insofern keine eigene Krankheit, als sie die durchgemachten Krankheiten des Jeweiligen zwangsweise wieder hervorholt, als hätte es keine Heilungen gegeben. Der Körper wird also gezwungen, sich noch einmal mit alten Erkrankungen auseinanderzusetzen, als hätte er das nicht schon erfolgreich getan. Sein Heilgedächtnis wird dabei entfernt und erst einmal gelöscht.

Aber Covid bewirkt eventuell neue Erkrankungen darüber hinaus und sogar auf Dauer, hat also noch andere „Aufgaben“ zu erfüllen bzw. solche, um die es eigentlich geht.

Ohne ein gutes Immunsystem kann der Körper diesen überfallsartigen Angriff nicht bewältigen. Daher ist es zentral, sofort die richtigen Mittel einzunehmen, wenn die Symptome einsetzen. Die Frage bleibt, was mit dem Fremdkörper in den Covid-Patienten auf die Dauer passiert, und ob er „ausleitbar“ ist, oder ob er von außen später wieder „angeworfen“ werden kann, z.B. bei 5G Einschaltung (EM).

Covid ist eine Verhöhnung sondergleichen. Denn jeder „erkrankt“ zunächst an seinen eigenen Krankheiten. Er ist dadurch an allem selbst „schuld“. Welch eine Moral! Das verdeckt die eigentlichen Schäden/Veränderungen, die mit dieser Waffe eingeleitet werden (sollen).

  1. Ein Beweis, dass es so ist, ist derzeit seitens der Betroffenen nicht möglich. Daher gilt es zunächst Erfahrungen zu sammeln und zu sichten, die ja bei jedem anders sind. Da das neue Corona Virus nicht bewiesen- „isoliert“ -wurde, denken die meisten, es gäbe auch keine Krankheit bzw. nur „leichte“ Verläufe. Das Gegenteil ist der Fall.
  2. Was auch zu geschehen hätte, ist ein Vergleich mit Impf-Wirkungen und -substanzen. Ist Covid bereits eine Vorform der Impfung oder etwas anderes?

Die Impfung beginnt oft mit einer Euphorie danach… Geimpfte sind zu befragen. Inwiefern ist es das Gegenteil zu Covid oder ähnelt sich? Vergleich der angewandten Technik. Vergleich der resultierenden Erkrankungen. Bei der Impfung sind es neue, bei Covid oft erst einmal alte.

  1. Es sind die Resultate der ersten irreversiblen globalen Menschenversuche mit Produkten der 4. industriellen Revolution im Bereich alchemistischer Mikrotechnologien, die mortifizieren und neu zusammensetzen zum Kranken, Toten oder Transhumanen….

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Claudia von Werlhof is Prof. Emerita of Political Science and Women’s Studies at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. She is the author of many books and has worked hard to make Rosalie Bertell’s important book Planet Earth: The Latest Weapon of War on Geoengineering available in German, Spanish, Italian, French and English again. Claudia was the founder of the Planetary Movement for Mother Earth (PMME) in 2010.

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

Featured image is from Zero Hedge

The Ultimate War Crime: America’s “Global War on Terrorism”

June 24th, 2022 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

This text was first published on March 8, 2015 at the outset of Obama’s second term.

The Islamic State is not only protected by the US and its allies, it is trained and financed by US-NATO, with the support of Israel and Washington’s Persian Gulf allies.  

Al Qaeda Affiliated Entities are “Intelligence Assets. Instruments of US Intelligence. The Global War on Terrorism is a fabrication used to justify a war of conquest. The Jihadist terrorists are “Made in America”. They are instruments of US intelligence, yet they are presented to public opinion as “enemies of America”.

Introduction

The Obama administration has embarked upon the ultimate war crime, a Worldwide military adventure, “a long war”, which threatens the future of humanity. 

The Pentagon’s global military design is one of world conquest. 

This military deployment of US-NATO forces is occurring in several regions of the world simultaneously, resulting in millions of civilian deaths and countless atrocities. More recently, U.S. and NATO ground forces have been deployed in Eastern Europe including Ukraine on Russia’s immediate doorstep. 

Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theatre operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

In turn, Israel in liaison with the US, is threatening Iran with nuclear weapons. And the U.S. and its allies are threatening China and North Korea under President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia”. 

Under a global military agenda, the actions undertaken by the Western military alliance (U.S.-NATO-Israel) in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, Ukraine, Syria and Iraq are coordinated at the highest levels of the military hierarchy.  

In turn, military undertakings are closely coordinated with a process of economic warfare which consists not only in imposing sanctions on sovereign countries but also in deliberate acts of destabilization of financial and currencies markets, with a view to undermining the enemies’ national economies.

The Criminalization of War

What is at stake is a global criminal undertaking in defiance of international law. In the words of the late William Rockler:

The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok.” (William Rockler, Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor)

We will recall that the architect of Nuremberg, Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg Prosecutor Robert Jackson said with some hesitation:

We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”

Does this historical statement apply to President Barack Obama and his European political cohorts?
In defiance of Nuremberg, the Obama administration has invoked the conduct of “humanitarian wars” and counter-terrorism operations, with a view to installing “democracy”in  targeted countries.

America and the Western World are allegedly threatened by the Islamic State  bogeyman. And the International community is called upon take a stance.

War becomes peace. Realities are turned upside down. By actively co-opting the United Nations, the US administration has also invoked “self defence” as a justification to wage war against this illusive “outside enemy” of the Western World.

These lies and fabrications are part of of war propaganda. Under no circumstances can Obama’s war be upheld as a “solution”, as a means to implementing peace. War is the ultimate crime, “The Crime against Peace” as defined under Nuremberg.

The US-NATO led war applied Worlwide is a criminal undertaking under the disguise of counter-terrorism. It violates the Nuremberg Charter, the US constitution and the UN charter. According to former chief Nuremberg prosector Benjamin Ferencz, in relation to the 2003 invasion of Iraq:

“a prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity — that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation.”

Ferenz was referring to “Crimes against Peace and War” (Nuremberg Principle VI): which states the following:

“The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law:

(a) Crimes against peace:
(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).
(b) War crimes:
Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory; murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the Seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
(c) Crimes against humanity:
Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhumane acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial, or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime.”

“(i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;

(ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i).”

It should be noted that Nuremberg Principle III relates directly to president Obama and the heads of State and heads of government of the US-NATO led coalition:

 “a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law.”

Moreover, the evidence amply confirms that the United States of America is a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” and that the campaign against the Islamic State is a smokescreen used by the US and its allies to justify in the eyes of public opinion its global war of conquest.

Under Nuremberg the “Global War on Terrorism” is a criminal undertaking.  

The Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War

Following in the footsteps of Nuremberg, the objective of the December 2005 Kuala Lumpur initiative led by Tun Mahathir Mohamad was to criminalize war and eventually abolish war.

Let us recall the fundamental principles contained in the Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War under the helm of Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, the fourth and longest serving prime minister of Malaysia.

“Killings in war are as criminal as the killings within societies in times of peace. 

Since killings in peace time are subject to the domestic law of crime, killings in war must likewise be subject to the international law of crimes.

This should be so irrespective of whether these killings in war are authorized or permitted by domestic law.” (See full text of the Kuala Lumpur Initiative below)

Since the adoption of the KL Initiative to Criminalize war in December 2005, the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) has passed two important  judgements:

against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, et al for war crimes in Iraq,

and against the State of Israel on charges of genocide against the people of Palestine.

More than ever the Kuala Lumpur Initiative launched almost ten years ago in December 2005 by Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad should be widely understood and applied.

What is at stake is the universal recognition of the value of human life, solidarity and understanding between nationalities, ethnic groups and religions, as well as respect for national sovereignty. These are preconditions for World peace. As outline in the Kuala Lumpur declaration: “peace is the essential condition for the survival and well-being of the human race”.

In contrast tothese broad principles which define human values, the US military and financial establishment and its allies are intent upon destroying and destabilizing sovereign countries as part of an imperial agenda, through acts of war and economic plunder, the end result of which is the transformation of sovereign nations into open economic territories, under the jurisdiction of US approved proxy regimes.

To no avail, since 2008, President Obama has followed in the footsteps of George W. Bush. Together with America’s NATO allies, his administration has not only supported terrorist organizations, it has covertly supported terrorist insurgencies and has waged an extensive bombing campaign against Libya (2011), Syria and Iraq (2014-), drone attacks and targeted assassinations against Pakistan (2004-) among other military-intelligence operations.

Under the Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War which was adopted under the helm of Tun Mahathir,

“All national leaders who initiate aggression must be subjected to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.”

Let us be crystal clear: Consistent with Nuremberg, the above statement applies to president Barack Obama and the heads of State and heads of government of NATO countries which endorsed the extensive carpet bombing operations directed against Libya, Syria and Iraq, resulting in the death of countless civilians.

Under Nuremberg and Kuala Lumpur, Barack Obama, France’s president Francois Hollande, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron et al are war criminals.

War Propaganda and the Demonization of Muslims: A Criminal Undertaking under International Law

An extensive propaganda campaign has been launched with a view to upholding US-NATO-Israel military actions in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Palestine as humanitarian endeavours, as part of a crusade against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

This agenda has been embraced at the political level by America’s European allies. A broad political consensus prevails which upholds war as a peace-making undertaking, as a solution, as a means to implementing “democracy” and the “free market”.

The Pentagon, NATO and Israel are the protagonists of war and war crimes. Al Qaeda and the Islamic State are presented at the “outside enemy” which threatens the Western World.

In turn,  a hate campaign has been launched against Muslim countries as well as Muslim communities within Western countries. This recent wave of Islamophobia is intended to create divisions within Western societies.

In a bitter irony, while the West has initiated a Worldwide demonization campaign against Muslims, the millions of victims of US-NATO led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya,   are predominately Muslims. Moreover, in both Syria, Iraq and Palestine the Christian communities have also been targeted, the cultural heritage of Muslims and Christians in Mesopotamia has been decimated by US sponsored terrorists.

The crimes and atrocities committed by the Western military alliance in Fallujah, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo are beyond description.  These crimes have been amply documented in the 2012 Judgment of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld,  et al

The intent of Obama’s campaign is to beat the drums of war, to justify in the eyes of public opinion, America’s wars in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

The Global War on Terrorism: The Political Consensus

Sustained by media disinformation, the Global War on Terrorism is now part of a far-reaching political consensus in Western countries. It has also been used by Western governments to justify and implement “anti-terrorist” legislation within their respective countries.

Image: “War is Peace We Can Believe In”. President Barack Obama and his European cohorts herald War as a Peace-making endeavor

The fact that the “Global War on Terrorism” is endorsed by the so-called “international community” and rubber-stamped by the United Nations Security Council does not, however,  provide it legitimacy under international law. Despite these endorsements, it nonetheless constitutes a diabolical criminal undertaking, which is fundamentally based on a Lie.

When the Lie becomes the Truth and War becomes Peace, there is no turning backwards.

The legitimacy of the Global War on Terrorism is sustained by media disinformation and war propaganda. In this regard, the various actions intended to deliberately mislead public opinion, obfuscate the atrocities of America’s led wars and justify war on humanitarian grounds, are categorized as criminal acts of war propaganda, under Nuremberg. In this regard, David Walsh in an April 2003 article, recounts the circumstances surrounding the prosecution of one of Nazi Germany’s most prominent propagandist:

Hans Fritzsche was named head of the German Press Division in 1938 … The Nuremberg prosecutor detailed the propaganda campaigns taken up by the German media, under Fritzsche’s immediate supervision,…

“Fritzsche incited atrocities and encouraged a ruthless occupation policy. The results of propaganda as a weapon of the Nazi conspirators reaches into every aspect of this conspiracy, including the atrocities and ruthless exploitation in occupied countries. It is likely that many ordinary Germans would never have participated in or tolerated the atrocities committed throughout Europe, had they not been conditioned and goaded by the constant Nazi propaganda. The callousness and zeal of the people who actually committed the atrocities was in large part due to the constant and corrosive propaganda of Fritzsche and his official associates.”

Nuremberg also applies to military indoctrination and  “internal propaganda” within the various US and NATO war colleges and academies which glorify war.

Moreover, under Nuremberg, the granting of a peace prize to war criminals, including Barack Obama and Tony Blair is criminal, in that it upholds the legitimacy of the war criminals in high office.

The Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War acknowledges the criminal nature of war propaganda as defined under Nuremberg and calls upon the mainstream media to:

“actively oppose war and the incitement to war and consciously promote the peaceful settlement of international disputes. Entertainment media [Hollywoods] must cease to glorify war and violence and should instead cultivate the ethos of peace.”

Beyond doubt, the “Global War on Terrorism” is a fabrication. It is part of a conspiracy to mislead the public into accepting war as a humanitarian undertaking. The United States of America is the “Number One” State Sponsor of Terrorism responsible for extensive war crimes.

Without war propaganda, war criminals in high office would not have a leg to stand on.  Their legitamcy in the eyes of public opinion would collapse like a deck of cards.

The Big Lie: The Global War on Terrorism, Obama’s Crusade against the Islamic State (ISIS)

originalAmerica’s “global war on terrorism” is a hegemonic project, carried out under a fake counter-terrrorism mandate which consists in going after an illusive “Jihadist” Enemy which  “threatens Western civilization”.

The Global War on Terrorism is a Lie. The alleged enemy of the West is fabricated. Counter-terrorism is invoked as a pretext to wage an all out war of conquest.

We will argue that the U.S. airstrikes initiated in August 2014 directed against Iraq and Syria under the pretext of going after the Islamic State (ISIS)  are part of a scenario of military conquest and escalation extending from North Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean to Central and South Asia.

Since August 2014, the US Air Force with the support of a coalition of more than twenty countries has relentlessly waged an intensified air campaign against Syria and Iraq allegedly targeting  the Islamic State brigades.

According to Defense News, over 16,000 airstrikes were carried out from August 2014 to mid January 2015.  Sixty percent of the air strikes were conducted by the US Air Force using advanced jet fighter and bombing capabilities  (Aaron Mehta, “A-10 Performing 11 Percent of Anti-ISIS Sorties”. Defense News, January 19, 2015.)

The airstrikes have been casually described by the media as part of  a “soft” counter-terrorism operation, rather than an act of all out war directed against Syria and Iraq.

Aerial view of jet aircraft, carrying cylindrical fuel tanks and ordnance, overflying desert

This large scale air campaign which has resulted in countless civilian casualties has been routinely misreported by the mainstream media. According to  Max Boot, senior fellow in national security at the Council on Foreign Relations. ”Obama’s strategy in Syria and Iraq is not working… [ because] the U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS has been remarkably restrained”.  (Newsweek, February 17, 2015, emphasis added).

Americans are led to believe that the Islamic State constitutes a formidable force confronting the US military and threatening Western Civilization. The thrust of media reporting is that the US Air Force has failed and that “Obama should get his act together” in effectively confronting this  ”Outside Enemy” of America.

According to CFR Max Boot, military escalation is the answer: what is required is for the president “to dispatch more aircraft, military advisers, and special operations forces, while loosening the restrictions under which they operate.” (Ibid)

What kind of aircraft are involved in the air campaign? The F-16 Fighting Falcon,( above right),  The F-15E Strike Eagle (image below) , The A-10 Warthog, not to mention Lockheed Martin’s F-22 Raptor stealth tactical fighter aircraft.

Why has the US Air Force not been able to wipe out the Islamic State, which at the outset was largely equipped with conventional small arms not to mention state of the art Toyota pickup trucks?

F-15E Strike Eagle.jpgFrom the very outset, this air campaign has NOT been directed against ISIS.  The evidence confirms that the Islamic State is not the target. Quite the opposite.

The air raids are intended to destroy the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria.

The USAF-15E Strike Eagle

We call on our readers to carefully reflect on the following image, which describes the Islamic State convoy of pickup trucks entering Iraq and crossing a 200 km span of open desert which separates the two countries.

This convoy entered Iraq in June 2014.

What would have been required from a military standpoint to wipe out a ISIS convoy with no effective anti-aircraft capabilities?

Without an understanding of military issues, common sense prevails.

If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June. 

The answer is pretty obvious, yet not a single mainstream media has acknowledged it.

During the 1991 Gulf War, retreating Iraqi ground forces were decimated under Operation “Desert Storm” at a time when smart bombs had not been fully developed, at least by today’s standards.

The  Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map right). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, F16) it would have been  –from a military standpoint–  ”a piece of cake”, a rapid and expedient surgical operation, which would have decimated the Islamic State convoys in a matter of hours.

Instead what we have witnessed is an ongoing drawn out six months of relentless  air raids and bombings, and the terrorist enemy is apparently still intact.

(In comparison, the NATO bombing raids of Yugoslavia in 1999 lasted about three months (March 24-June 10, 1999).

And we are led to believe that the Islamic State cannot be defeated by a powerful US led military coalition of more than 20 countries.

The air campaign was not intended to decimate the Islamic State.

The counter-terrorism mandate is a fiction. America is the Number One “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.   

The Islamic State is not only protected by the US and its allies, it is trained and financed by US-NATO, with the support of Israel and Washington’s Persian Gulf allies. 

Al Qaeda Afiliated Entities are “Intelligence Assets. Instruments of US Intelligence

The Global War on Terrorism is a fabrication used to justify a war of conquest. The Jihadist terrorists are “Made in America”. They are instruments of US intelligence, yet they are presented to public opinion as “enemies of America”.

The Islamic State (IS) militia, which is currently the alleged target of  a US-NATO bombing campaign under a “counter-terrorism” mandate, continues to be supported covertly by the US.  Washington and its allies continue to provide military aid to the Islamic State.

US and allied bombings are not targeting the ISIL, they are bombing the economic infrastructure of Iraq and Syria including factories and oil refineries.

The IS caliphate project is part of a longstanding US foreign policy agenda to carve up Iraq and Syria into separate territories: A Sunni Islamist Caliphate, an Arab Shia Republic, a Republic of Kurdistan.

These various affiliated Al Qaeda entities in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa  and Asia are CIA sponsored “intelligence assets”. They are used by Washington to wreck havoc,  create internal conflicts and destabilize sovereign countries.

Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al Shabab in Somalia, the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) (supported by NATO in 2011),  Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM),  Jemaah Islamiah (JI) in Indonesia,  among other Al Qaeda affiliated groups are supported covertly by Western intelligence.

The US is also supporting Al Qaeda affiliated terrorist organizations in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region of China. The underlying objective is to trigger political instability in Western China.

Chinese jihadists are reported to have received “terrorist training” from the Islamic State “in order to conduct attacks in China”. The declared objective of these Chinese-based jihadist entities (which serves the interests of the US)  is to establish a Islamic caliphate extending into Western China.  (Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).

Flashback to 1979: The History of Al Qaeda

 The US has supported Al Qaeda and its affiliated organizations for more than thirty years: since the heyday of the Soviet Afghan war.

CIA training camps were set up in Pakistan,  in liaison with Pakistan’s Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI). In the ten year period from 1982 to 1992, some 35,000 jihadists from 43 Islamic countries were recruited by the CIA to fight in the Afghan jihad.

“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the Jihad.”

Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman and founder of Al Qaeda was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihadist war against Afghanistan . He was 22 years old and was indoctrinated in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp. Al Qaeda was a creation of US intelligence, which was put together with the support of Pakistani and Saudi intelligence:

“[I]t was the government of the United States which supported Pakistani dictator General Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged.” (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), RAWA Statement on the Terrorist Attacks In the US, Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RAW109A.html , 16 September 2001)

Since the Carter Administration, Washington has supported the Islamic terror network 

Ronald Reagan called the terrorists “freedom fighters”. The US supplied weapons to the Islamic brigades.  It was all for “a good cause”: fighting the Soviet Union and regime change, leading to the demise of a secular government in Afghanistan.

Ronald Reagan meets Afghan Mujahideen Commanders at the White House in 1985 (Reagan Archives)

isi and cia directors in mujahideen camp1987 Sleeping With the Devil: How U.S. and Saudi Backing of Al Qaeda Led to 9/11
Front row, from left: Major Gen. Hamid Gul, director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), Director of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Willian WebsterDeputy Director for Operations Clair George; an ISI colonel; and senior CIA official, Milt Bearden at a Mujahideen training camp in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan in 1987. (source RAWA)

Religious schools were generously funded by the US. Jihadist textbooks  were  published by the University of Nebraska. According to the Washington Post (2002 report):

… the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books…

afgh-Textbook jihad

Picture above is translated as follows: “Jihad – Often many different wars and conflicts arise among people, which cause material damages and loss of human life. If these wars and disputes occur among people for the sake of community, nation, territory, or even because of verbal differences, and for the sake of progress…”

This page is from a third-grade language arts textbook dating from the mujahidin period. A copy of the book was purchased new in Kabul in May 2000.

According to the  Council on Foreign Relations  in the wake of the US 2001 invasion,”New madrassas sprouted, funded and supported by Saudi Arabia and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, where students were encouraged to join the Afghan resistance.

 The CIA led war on Afghanistan largely contributed to destroying secular education. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrassas) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000 [in 2001].  (Michel Chossudovsky, 9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001, Global Research, September 09, 2010)

Washington’s Agenda: Destabilize Secular Institutions. Install an Islamic State in Afghanistan. The Role of the Wahhabi Missions

US military intervention in Afghanistan in the 1980s was supported by the Wahhabi missionaries out of Saudi Arabia, who trained the Taliban (‘graduates”) in the CIA sponsored madrassas (schools) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Wahhabi doctrine would not have spread in the way it did without the support of US intelligence.

Saudi Arabia worked closely with Washington in recruiting the Mujahideen (holy warriors) to fight against the Soviet Union. The Saudi monarchy enlisted the support of the religious authorities. Confirmed by the Afghan Project (http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/afintro.htm ), which has collected hundreds of CIA and State Department documents, cables and memoranda, the CIA developed from the late 1970s, ties with a number of Islamic organizations. The objective was to use “Islamic fundamentalist” doctrine to unseat secular governments and install an Islamic proxy State.

Saudi Arabia and the Bush Family links to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: The State Sponsors of Terrorism

George W. Bush and the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

The late Saudi King Abdullah was known to have supported and financed Al Qaeda in liaison with the Washington. Saudi intelligence played a key role in this regard.

The House of Saud provided and continues to provide financial aid to the terrorists. And so does the bin Laden family. According to The Washington based CATO Institute (November 2001) Saudi Arabia is a “prime sponsor of terrorism”.

The U.S. government has warned that it will treat regimes that harbor or assist terrorist organizations the same way that it treats the organizations themselves. Yet if Washington is serious about that policy, it ought to regard Saudi Arabia as a State sponsor of international terrorism. Indeed, that country should have been included for years on the U.S. State Department’s annual list of governments guilty of sponsoring terrorism.

Image right: George W. Bush and the late King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

The Insidious Relationship between the Bush and bin Laden Families

Now let us turn our attention to the relationship between the Bush and bin Laden families.

The Bushes and bin Ladens are long-time friends. This relationship goes back to George H. W. Bush, who served as head of the CIA in the Ford administration, before becoming Vice President under the Reagan administration and President of the United States (1989-1993).

George W. Bush Junior had business dealings in the oil industry dating back to the late 1970s, at the time when his father Bush Senior was head of the CIA

The Bush-bin Laden Relationship: Flash Forward to September 10, 2001

Despite his family ties and links to the Royal Saudi household, Osama bin Laden was officially considered  ”a disgrace” to members of the bin Laden family, who reluctantly provided him with “pocket money”, which was used to develop Al Qaeda (The Base).  He was referred to as a “Black Sheep”.

Its all part of a “good guys project” of going after Osama,  the “Black Sheep”,  and waging the “Global War on Terrorism”.

There is nothing wrong, therefore, in socializing and doing business with family members of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, including the late Salem bin Laden and Shafiq bin Laden of the Carlyle Group.

Flash Forward to September 10, 2001. The Bush-bin Laden Relationship prevails. Confirmed by the Washington Post, “fellow investors” of the Carlyle Group Osama’s brother Shafiq bin Laden and former President H.G.W. Bush met at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel on September 10, 2001, one day before 9/11,

It didn’t help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden [Shafiq bin Laden]. Former president Bush [senior, see image below], a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference the previous day. (Greg Schneider, Pairing the Powerful With the Rich, Washington Post, March 16, 2003)

Lest we forget, Osama bin Laden was the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks, yet his brother Shafiq bin Laden was meeting up with the presidents’s dad, former president George H. W. Bush on September 10, 2001.

A day later, on the evening of September 11, 2001, president George W. Bush pronounced a historic speech in which he defined the relationship between “terrorists’ and “state sponsors of terrorism”:

The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.

Needless to say Osama’s brother Shafiq and members of the bin Laden family were flown out of Washington in government planes in the immediate wake of 9/11.

Al Qaeda and The Islamic State

U.S. sponsored Al Qaeda terror brigades (covertly supported by Western intelligence since the 1980s) have been deployed in Mali, Niger, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Somalia and Yemen. Al Qaeda affiliated organizations have also been deployed in several Asian countries including China and Indonesia.

“The Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT) builds upon the history of CIA supported terrorism since the heyday of the Soviet-Afghan war. What has unfolded is a vast network of Al Qaeda affiliated entities supported covertly by US intelligence, extending from Central Asia the Middle East into South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.


Libya 2011

We will recall that the alleged  “pro-democracy” rebels in Libya (2011) were led by Al Qaeda paramilitary brigades integrated by NATO Special forces.  The “Liberation” of  Tripoli was carried out by “former” members of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). The jihadists and NATO worked hand in glove. These “former” Al Qaeda affiliated brigades were the backbone of the “pro-democracy” rebellion against Moahamar Gaddafi.

The commander of the assault on Tripoli was Abdel Hakim Belhadj, (also known as Abu Abdullah al-Sadeq, Hakim al-Hasidi), who was recruited by the CIA in Afghanistan in the 1980s. He had been entrusted, with NATO’s approval, (according to CNN) of:

“one of the most powerful rebel brigades in Tripoli [which] took charge of successful rebel efforts … to storm Gadhafi’s Bab al-Azziziyah compound, further bolstering his prominent position in rebel ranks.  …

“[Belhadj] was a well-known figure in the jihadist movement. He fought the Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan and helped found [with the support of the CIA, M.Ch.] the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group there.” (CNN, August 11, 2011)

But Belhadj, according to CNN has repented. He is no longer a terrorist (i.e. a “bad guy”) “but a powerful voice against Al Qaeda’s terrorism”.

“In 2009, Sadeeq [BelHadj] and other senior LIFG leaders formally repudiated al Qaeda style terrorism and disbanded their campaign to overthrow the Libyan regime.

The breakthrough was the result of a two-year dialogue with the regime brokered by Benotman [a former LIFG commander now in the employ of  the London based Quilliam Foundation with a mandate in conflict resolution. CNN interviewed leading figures of the LIFG in Abu Salim prison in Tripoli in September 2009, shortly before the group’s leaders were released. Although they were then behind prison bars, the leaders’ disavowal of violence appeared genuine. (Ibid)

Guess What? Confirmed by media reports, the illustrious pro-democracy former LIFG leader Abdelhakim Belhadj (alias Sadeeq), who worked in close liaison with US-NATO in 2011 has now (February 2015) joined the leadership of the Islamic State in Libya, thereby facilitating the extension of the Islamic State project into the Maghreb, on behalf of his US-NATO sponsors:

If Belhadj has gone over to Islamic State, it will represent a major boost to Islamic State’s efforts to co-opt and bring in Libya’s existing jihadist forces under their banner, which now reportedly includes as many as 3,000 fighters. Belhadj’s forces play a significant role in the Islamist “Libyan Dawn” coalition (which includes the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda’s Ansar al-Sharia), which currently holds Tripoli, and which claims to be the rightful government in opposition to the U.N. recognized government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni. (Washington Times , March 3, 2015)

Mali 2013

Similarly, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an entity involved in terrorist attacks in 2013 in Mali traces origins back to the CIA sponsored al Qaeda insurgency in Afghanistan. AQIm also has ties to the LIFG. According to the Washington based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)

“Most of AQIM’s major leaders are believed to have trained in Afghanistan during the 1979-1989 war against the Soviets as part of a group of North African volunteers known as “Afghan Arabs” that returned to the region and radicalized Islamist movements in the years that followed.  (Council on Foreign Relations, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, cfr.org, undated)

What the CFR report fails to mention is that the leaders of AQIM were trained as part of the CIA initiative launched in 1979 under the Carter administration.


The State Sponsors of Terrorism: US, NATO, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel

With regard to  The Islamic State (ISIS) which is now in the limelight, it is categorized as enemy Number One of America, it was originally an Al Qaeda affiliated entity created by US intelligence with the support of Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), Ri’āsat Al-Istikhbārāt Al-’Āmah ( رئاسة الاستخبارات العامة‎).

In relation to the Syrian insurgency, the Islamic State  fighters together with the Al Qaeda affiliated jihadist forces of the Al Nusrah Front are the foot soldiers of the Western military alliance. They are covertly supported by US-NATO-Israel. Their  mandate is to wage a terrorist insurgency against the government of Bashar al-Assad. The atrocities committed by Islamic State fighters in Iraq are similar to those committed in Syria. Their unspoken mandate is to wreck havoc and destruction in Syria and Iraq, acting on behalf of their US sponsors.

China unlikely to join Obama's anti-ISIS coalition: Report

The ISIS brigades were involved in the US-NATO supported insurgency in Syria directed against the government of  Bashar al Assad.  NATO and the Turkish High Command were responsible for the recruitment of ISIL and Al Nusrah mercenaries from the outset of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, this initiative consisted in:

“a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria. (DEBKAfile, NATO to give rebels anti-tank weapons, August 14, 2011.)

There are Western Special Forces and Western intelligence operatives within the ranks of the ISIL. British Special Forces and MI6 have been involved in training jihadist rebels in Syria.

Western military specialists on contract to the Pentagon have trained the ISIS and Al Nusrah terrorists in the use of chemical weapons.

“The United States and some European allies are using defense contractors to train Syrian rebels on how to secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria, a senior U.S. official and several senior diplomats told CNN Sunday. ( CNN Report, December 9, 2012)

According to the State Department Bureau of Counter-terrorism, Jabhat al Nusrah, the main rebel force in Syria is a terrorist organization, an affiliate of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).

The State Department has issued a “prohibition against knowingly providing, or attempting or conspiring to provide, material support or resources to, or engaging in transactions with, al-Nusrah Front, and the freezing of all property and interests in property of the organization that are in the United States, or come within the United States or the control of U.S. persons.” (emphasis added). It is understood  that US State Department Counter-terrorism policy also applies to “state sponsors of terrorism”.

Al Nusrah is financed by Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Israel in close consultation with NATO and the Pentagon.

The Obama administration has openly confirmed its support for the Syrian rebels with most of this aid channeled to Al Nusrah.

US Senator John McCain is reported to have met up with jihadist terrorist leaders in Syria. (see picture right)

The Role of Israel: State Sponsor of  Al Nusrah and the Islamic State (ISIS)

While theoretically committed to the US-led war on terrorism, the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu quite openly supports al Qaeda.  The Al Nusrah and ISIS  terror brigades operate out of the occupied Golan Heights. 

Jihadist fighters have met Israeli IDF officers as well as Prime Minister Netanyahu. The IDF top brass acknowledges that “global jihad elements inside Syria” [ISIL and Al Nusrah] are supported by State of Israel.

Inline images 1

image. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon next to a wounded mercenary, Israeli military field hospital at the occupied Golan Heights’ border with Syria, 18 February 2014″.

The ISIS’s practice of beheadings is part of the US sponsored terrorist training programs implemented in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Recruited by America’s ally, a large number of ISIS mercenaries are convicted criminals released from Saudi prisons on condition they join the ISILSaudi death row inmates were recruited to join the terror brigades. 

The Islamic State is routinely funded by the US, invariably through indirect sources. According to a recent (January 28, 2015) report by Pakistan’s Express Tribune (affiliated to the International Herald Tribune and the NYT)

Yousaf al Salafi – allegedly the Pakistan commander of Islamic State (IS) or Daish – has confessed during investigations that he has been receiving funds through the United States.

Law enforcing agencies on January 22 claimed that they arrested al Salafi, along with his two companions, during a joint raid in Lahore. However, sources revealed that al Salafi was actually arrested sometimes in December last year and it was only disclosed on January 22.

“During the investigations, Yousaf al Salafi revealed that he was getting funding – routed through America – to run the organisation in Pakistan and recruit young people to fight in Syria,” a source privy to the investigations revealed to Daily Express on the condition of anonymity.

While the stated objective of the Obama administration is to go after the ISIS terrorists, recent reports confirm that US and allied forces are delivering weapons to the Islamic State.

According to the Head of the Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli, US apache helicopters shot down by Iraqi forces were delivering weapons to the Islamic State (ISIS) rebels:

Last week, Head of the Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee Hakem al-Zameli announced that the helicopters of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition were dropping weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL terrorists in the Southern parts of Tikrit.

He underscored that he had documents and photos showing that the US Apache helicopters airdropped foodstuff and weapons for the ISIL.

On Friday the Iraqi security forces regained control of al-Baghdadi district from the ISIL terrorists.

“Iraqi security forces seized control of al-Shohadaa neighborhood and 13 Daesh (ISIL) militants were killed in the clashes,” Lt. Saoud al-Ibeidi said.

“The Iraqi Parliament’s National Security and Defense Committee has access to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while they were carrying weapons for the ISIL,” al-Zameli said, according to a Monday report of the Arabic-language information center of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.

He said the Iraqi parliament has asked London for explanations in this regard.

The senior Iraqi legislator further unveiled that the government in Baghdad is receiving daily reports from people and security forces in al-Anbar province on numerous flights by the US-led coalition planes that airdrop weapons and supplies for ISIL in terrorist-held areas.

The Iraqi lawmaker further noted the cause of such western aids to the terrorist group, and explained that the US prefers a chaotic situation in Anbar Province which is near the cities of Karbala and Baghdad as it does not want the ISIL crisis to come to an end.

Earlier today, a senior Iraqi provincial official lashed out at the western countries and their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, revealing that US and Israeli-made weapons have been discovered from the areas purged of ISIL terrorists.

We have discovered weapons made in the US, European countries and Israel from the areas liberated from ISIL’s control in Al-Baqdadi region,” the Al-Ahad news website quoted Head of Al-Anbar Provincial Council Khalaf Tarmouz as saying.

He noted that the weapons made by the European countries and Israel were discovered from the terrorists in the Eastern parts of the city of Ramadi.

Al-Zameli had also disclosed in January that the anti-ISIL coalition’s planes have dropped weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL in Salahuddin, Al-Anbar and Diyala provinces.

Al-Zameli underlined that the coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq.

“There are proofs and evidence for the US-led coalition’s military aid to ISIL terrorists through air (dropped cargoes),” he told FNA in January.

He noted that the members of his committee have already proved that the US planes have dropped advanced weaponry, including anti-aircraft weapons, for the ISIL, and that it has set up an investigation committee to probe into the matter.

“The US drops weapons for the ISIL on the excuse of not knowing about the whereabouts of the ISIL positions and it is trying to distort the reality with its allegations.

He noted that the committee had collected the data and the evidence provided by eyewitnesses, including Iraqi army officers and the popular forces, and said, “These documents are given to the investigation committee … and the necessary measures will be taken to protect the Iraqi airspace.”

Also in January, another senior Iraqi legislator reiterated that the US-led coalition is the main cause of ISIL’s survival in Iraq.

“The international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the ISIL and helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons,” Jome Divan, who is member of the al-Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament, said.

He said the coalition’s support for the ISIL is now evident to everyone, and continued, “The coalition has not targeted ISIL’s main positions in Iraq.”

In late December, Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense Commission MP disclosed that a US plane supplied the ISIL terrorist organization with arms and ammunition in Salahuddin province.

MP Majid al-Gharawi stated that the available information pointed out that US planes are supplying ISIL organization, not only in Salahuddin province, but also other provinces, Iraq TradeLink reported.

He added that the US and the international coalition are “not serious in fighting against the ISIL organization, because they have the technological power to determine the presence of ISIL gunmen and destroy them in one month”.

Gharawi added that “the US is trying to expand the time of the war against the ISIL to get guarantees from the Iraqi government to have its bases in Mosul and Anbar provinces.”

Salahuddin security commission also disclosed that “unknown planes threw arms and ammunition to the ISIL gunmen Southeast of Tikrit city”.

Also in Late December, a senior Iraqi lawmaker raised doubts about the seriousness of the anti-ISIL coalition led by the US, and said that the terrorist group still received aids dropped by unidentified aircraft.

“The international coalition is not serious about air strikes on ISIL terrorists and is even seeking to take out the popular (voluntary) forces from the battlefield against the Takfiris so that the problem with ISIL remains unsolved in the near future,” Nahlah al-Hababi told FNA.

“The ISIL terrorists are still receiving aids from unidentified fighter jets in Iraq and Syria,” she added.

Hababi said that the coalition’s precise airstrikes are launched only in those areas where the Kurdish Pishmarga forces are present, while military strikes in other regions are not so much precise.

In late December, the US-led coalition dropped aids to the Takfiri militants in an area North of Baghdad.

Field sources in Iraq told al-Manar that the international coalition airplanes dropped aids to the terrorist militants in Balad, an area which lies in Salahuddin province North of Baghdad.  (Fars News, February 28, 2015, emphasis added)

Obama’s diabolical crusade against the Islamic State is a Big Lie. While the avowed objective is to “go after” the Islamic state, the evidence confirms unequivocally that the US-NATO military alliance with the support of Israel is protecting the Islamic State.

Concluding Remarks

More than 60 percent of the reserves of crude oil lie in Muslim countries. The Worldwide hate campaign directed against Muslims has a geopolitical and economic dimension. It is part of the Battle for Oil. It consists in demonizing the inhabitants of the countries to which these oil reserves belong.  Had these countries been inhabited by Buddhists, US foreign policy would have demonized the Buddhists.

America’s ultimate objective through acts of war and regime change is to take possession, namely to “steal those oil reserves”.

Muslims are accused of supporting terrorism, when the evidence amply confirms that the various terrorist organizations affiliated to Al Qaeda are owned and protected by the CIA, MI6, Mossad, et al.

Osama bin Laden was recruited by the CIA. In intelligence parlance, Al Qaeda is referred to as an “intelligence assets”, which serves US foreign policy interests.

And lest we forget, as documented above, US officials in high office have over the years established direct contacts with the terrorists. not to mention the insidious relationship between the Bush and Bin Laden families.

What has to be achieved:

Without war propaganda and media disinformation, war criminals in high office do not have leg to stand on.

Without the mainstream media’s lies and fabrications, the legitimacy of the “Global War on Terrorism” would collapse like a deck of cards.
The Criminalization of War is our ultimate goal as formulated by the Kuala Lumpur Initiative to Criminalize War  under the helm Tun Mahathir Mohamad.

War is a criminal undertaking under Nuremberg. It is the ultimate “Crime against the Peace”.

Pursuant to the two judgments of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, the priority of the Kuala Lumpur process is to undermine war propaganda, reveal the media lies, reverse the tide of disinformation and wage a consistent campaign against the corporate media’s half truths, half lies, innuendos and apologies.

Bear in mind, war propaganda is also considered a criminal act under Nuremberg. And legal action against the corporate media should therefore also be contemplated.

The Truth is a powerful instrument.

Counter-propaganda in the form of a mass campaign nationally and internationally constitutes a means of upholding the Truth and breaking the legitimacy of the warmongers in high office.

Peace and a World without war  is our ultimate objective.

Indict political leaders for war crimes.

Dismantle the multibillion dollar national intelligence apparatus, which also supports media disinformation.

Uphold 9/11 Truth. Reveal the falsehoods behind 9/11 which are used to demonize Muslims and justify the extended Middle East/Central Asian war under the banner of the “Global War on Terrorism” (GWOT).

Expose how a profit-driven war serves the vested interests of the banks, the defense contractors, the oil giants, the media giants and the biotech conglomerates.

Reorganize the system of international justice which protects the war criminals. Implement the prosecution of war criminals in high office.

Close down the weapons assembly plants and implement the foreclosure of major weapons producers.

Close down all US military bases in the US and around the world.

Develop an antiwar movement within the armed forces and establish bridges between the armed forces and the civilian antiwar movement.

Dismantle the US-sponsored military adventure and its corporate sponsors. Bring home the troops.  Forcefully pressure governments of both NATO and non-NATO countries to withdraw from the US-led global military agenda.  Call for the Dismantling of NATO.

Develop a consistent antiwar movement in Israel. Inform the citizens of Israel of the likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israeli attack on Iran.

Target the pro-war lobby groups including the pro-Israeli groups in the US.

Dismantle the homeland security state. Repeal the legitimacy of Obama’s extrajudicial assassinations. Repeal the drone wars directed against civilians.

Undermine the “militarization of law enforcement”.

Reverse the gamut of anti-terrorist legislation in Western countries which is intended to repeal fundamental civil rights.

These are no easy tasks. They require an understanding of the power structure, of hegemonic relations between the military, intelligence, the state structures and corporate powers which are promoting this destructive agenda.

They require a degree of commitment, solidarity and organization at the political and social levels. They require the formation of an effective and all encompassing grassroots structure of networking (nationally and internationally) which confronts the war criminals in high office and their corporate lobbies and sponsors.

Ultimately these power relations must be undermined with a view to changing the course of World history.

As outline in the 2005 Kuala Lumpur declaration under the helm of Tun Mahathir Mohamad: “peace is the essential condition for the survival and well-being of the human race”.

The criminalization of war is the avenue to reaching World peace.

This text was first presented at the Kuala Lumpur International Conference on  The New World Order, A Recipe for War or Peace, Perdana Global Peace Foundation, Putrajaya Convention Centre, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 9  March 2015


Text of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration to Criminalize War

15 December 2005

THE Kuala Lumpur Global Peace Forum of concerned peoples from all five continents

UNITED in the belief that peace is the essential condition for the survival and well-being of the human race,

DETERMINED to promote peace and save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,

OUTRAGED over the frequent resort to war in the settlement of disputes between nations,

DISTURBED that militarists are preparing for more wars,

TROUBLED that use of armed force increases insecurity for all,

TERRIFIED that the possession of nuclear weapons and the imminent risk of nuclear war will lead to the annihilation of life on earth.

From Left to Right: Francis A.Boyle, Helen Caldicott,  Denis J. Halliday, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Hans-Christof Von Sponeck, Michel Chossudovsky, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

To achieve peace we now declare that:

  1. Wars increasingly involve the killing of innocent people and are, therefore, abhorrent and criminal.
  2. Killings in war are as criminal as the killings within societies in times of peace.
  3. Since killings in peace time are subject to the domestic law of crime, killings in war must likewise be subject to the international law of crimes. This should be so irrespective of whether these killings in war are authorized or permitted by domestic law.
  4. All commercial, financial, industrial and scientific activities that aid and abet war should be criminalised.
  5. All national leaders who initiate aggression must be subjected to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
  6. All nations must strengthen the resolve to accept the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and institute methods to settle international disputes by peaceful means and to renounce war.
  7. Armed force shall not be used except when authorised by a Resolution passed by two-thirds majority of the total membership of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
  8. All legislators and all members of Government must affirm their belief in peace and pledge to strive for peace.
  9. Political parties all over the world must include peace as one of their principal objectives.
  10. Non-Governmental Organisations committed to the promotion of peace should be set up in all nations.
  11. Public servants and professionals, in particular in the medical, legal, educational and scientific fields, must promote peace and campaign actively against war.
  12. The media must actively oppose war and the incitement to war and consciously promote the peaceful settlement of international disputes.
  13. Entertainment media must cease to glorify war and violence and should instead cultivate the ethos of peace.
  14. All religious leaders must condemn war and promote peace.

To these ends the Forum resolves to establish a permanent Secretariat in Kuala Lumpur to –

IMPLEMENT this Initiative.

OPPOSE policies and programmes that incite war.

SEEK the cooperation of NGOs worldwide to achieve the goals of this Initiative.

Signed by:

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad,  Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, Prof. Francis A. Boyle, Dr. Helen Caldicott, Matthias Chang, Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, Prof Shad Saleem Faruqi, Denis J. Halliday, Dato’ Mukhriz Mahathir, Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, Dato’ Michael O.K. Yeoh, Hans-Christof Von Sponeck

  • Posted in Archives, English
  • Comments Off on The Ultimate War Crime: America’s “Global War on Terrorism”

Ukraine is a total mess.  A mess of epic proportions.

And sponsored by the “Free World,” which, in 2022, hardly resembles anything having to do with freedom or any semblance of western tradition.

Let’s absorb the headlines of the past week alone.

Ukraine has banned the main opposition party in the country and seized its assets, while claiming that it is a Russian-influenced entity.

As a buffer state between the West and Russia, Ukraine unsurprisingly has a significant percentage of the population (around 50% on average, give or take) that insists upon cordial relations with Russia. In banning their chief opposition, the Zelensky government has just disenfranchised around half the country.

 

The Ukrainian government is currently involved in what amounts to an ethnic cleansing operation against anything Russian. This week, they decided that Russian books and music are now outlawed in the country. This comes despite Russian being the native language of around a third of Ukraine’s population.

Far from condemning this behavior, or insisting that Kiev hits the brakes on the fascist behavior, the West continues to embrace the Ukrainian regime as the Current Thing.

Weapons and money continue to flow into the country, and high-ranking western officials, including famous celebrities, continue to align themselves with the troubled government there.

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Hollywood celebrity Ben Stiller and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland have visited Ukraine, which we are told is in a day to day fight for its very survival. None were wearing protective gear in an apparent war zone.

Twitter avatar for @lilygrutcherFuat @lilygrutcher

Another video of Boris Johnson’s June 17 visit to Ukraine.

Twitter avatar for @aginntAaron Ginn @aginnt

Ukraine is a very dangerous war zone… oh look, there is Ben Stiller!

Image

[Check out my sponsor, Swan Bitcoin, which gives The Dossier readers $10 in free Bitcoin just for signing up]

On Tuesday, the Ruble reached a 7 year high compared to the dollar, and it’s now the best performing currency of 2022.

Russia, by all accounts, is accomplishing its primary military objectives in Ukraine. And this is being achieved despite over $100 billion dollars in western money allocated to the war effort, and a relentless campaign to supply Kiev with heavy weapons.

A desperate Europe, facing the prospect of a dark winter, has been forced to abandon its solar and wind ESG scams, while restarting reliable energy production. Russian energy companies, meanwhile, continue to see record numbers.

Twitter avatar for @TheInsiderPaperInsider Paper @TheInsiderPaper

NEW: Europe goes back to coal power generation as Russia cuts gas supplies

A failed military. A failed sanctions regime. Two continents in disarray.

Who knows, maybe it’s finally time to think about ending this humanitarian catastrophe, and bringing the parties together for a lasting peace.

  • Posted in English, Mobile, NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on Ukraine is a Mess: Celeb Visits, Banned Books, Ethnic Cleansing, A Broken War Effort, Sponsored by the “Free World”

There has been a bit of a stir lately concerning the posting at the beginning of this month of a pre-print (not yet peer reviewed) article entitled “Serious Adverse Events of Special Interest Following mRNA Vaccination in Randomized Trials”.

Words like “bombshell study” have been used to describe the findings. That sounds pretty significant, and certainly got my attention. With BMJ Senior Editor Dr. Peter Doshi as the senior author, could be! Dr. Doshi has a well earned reputation for telling inconvenient truths. So, let’s take a look.

Here are the headline results from the abstract:

  1. Pfizer and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were associated with an increased risk of serious adverse events of special interest, with an absolute risk increase of 10.1 and 15.1 per 10,000 vaccinated over placebo baselines of 17.6 and 42.2 (95% CI -0.4 to 20.6 and -3.6 to 33.8), respectively.
  2. Combined, the mRNA vaccines were associated with an absolute risk increase of serious adverse events of special interest of 12.5 per 10,000 (95% CI 2.1 to 22.9).
  3. The excess risk of serious adverse events of special interest surpassed the risk reduction for COVID-19 hospitalization relative to the placebo group in both Pfizer and Moderna trials (2.3 and 6.4 per 10,000 participants, respectively).

And the abstract discussion section:

“The excess risk of serious adverse events found in our study points to the need for formal harm-benefit analyses, particularly those that are stratified according to risk of serious COVID-19 outcomes such as hospitalization or death.”

The headlines look pretty serious at first glance. But the discussion section should alert us that the authors are being cautious. The authors are not signaling “pants on fire” findings.

What is really going on here? To understand this, a good place to start is this wonderfully clear and accurate summary of the initial Pfizer trial results from the Canadian COVID Care Alliance (posting which is apparently the sin that got me kicked off of Twitter and Linked-In last December, resulting in my becoming disconnected from about 600,000 followers).

You can also find a PDF summary of this analysis and findings here.

The bottom line is that the Pfizer Phase 3 trial which was used by NIAID, FDA and CDC to justify the emergency use authorization is pretty much a junk clinical trial which was inappropriately halted long before it even got close to meeting the intended follow up period, did not provide a sufficiently long follow up analysis of vaccination-associated adverse events, and in which the control group was intentionally eliminated. This resulted in basically erasing any opportunity to ever get to the bottom of what the major true risks of the Pfizer mRNA inoculations were. In terms of more minor risks, the study was not powered (not big enough) to evaluate those.

Into the breach, an intrepid group of (mostly) senior academic researchers have stepped forward. The expression “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” comes to mind, in that it has become extremely risky for any academic to question the approved vaccine narrative. But bravely this decidedly un-foolish group has stepped forward.

To my reading, the approach that they have taken with this analysis and report has been to make a good faith effort to perform the analysis of the Phase 3 clinical trials (those are supposed to be the “big, final” clinical trials prior to licensure of a product) which should have been performed by Moderna and Pfizer. Basically, the analysis that the FDA should have done themselves, and also should have forced Moderna and Pfizer to do. If White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows had not put pressure on the FDA, perhaps it would have done the right thing. But it apparently caved and did not do it’s job, and here we are.

Herein lies the rub. The FDA not only did not do its job, but neither FDA nor Moderna nor Pfizer will release the primary data, which means that no-one else can do it either. As the authors of this recent analysis note in their discussion:

A systematic review and meta-analysis using individual participant data should be undertaken to address questions of harm-benefit in various demographic subgroups. Full transparency of the COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial data is needed to properly evaluate these questions. Unfortunately, well over a year after widespread use of COVID-19 vaccines, participant level data remain inaccessible.

Doshi and colleagues have repeatedly called for full disclosure in two prior publications, to no avail. So unless the data are included in the court mandated data release, the analysis which they perform in the current pre-print report may be as good as we are going to get. For further on this, please see

Tanveer S, Rowhani-Farid A, Hong K, Jefferson T, Doshi P. Transparency of COVID-19 vaccine trials: decisions without data. BMJ Evid Based Med [Internet]. 2021 Aug 9

Doshi P, Godlee F, Abbasi K. Covid-19 vaccines and treatments: we must have raw data, now. BMJ [Internet]. 2022 Jan 19;376:o102.

As Dr. Doshi and colleagues appropriately note,

“In 2013, the US and European industry trade organisations endorsed a joint statement on clinical trial data sharing, making a series of commitments that ‘recognise the importance of sharing clinical trial data in the interest of patients, healthcare and the economy”6 In 2015, the US Institute of Medicine similarly endorsed benefits of sharing clinical trial data, emphasising that ‘verification and replication of investigators’ claims’ were essential to the scientific process, and noting the numerous benefits to stakeholders ‘including payers of healthcare as well as patients, their physicians and researchers.’”

But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Pfizer and Moderna and the FDA clearly have no intention of heeding the pleas of the Senior Editor of the British Medical Journal, unless forced to do so by the US courts, and even then they will drag their heels for as long as possible. I can’t imagine why <sarcasm>.

The approach that Dr. Doshi and colleagues have taken is to rigorously cobble together a data set which is as close as possible to what might be the original by combing through the individual companies (“sponsors”) academic publications, as well as FDA and Health Canada websites for whatever tables or listings of adverse events could be gleaned from public presentations, and then assembled them to form the closest approximation to the “real” primary data that they could, and then analyzed those data sets.

In addition to journal publications, we searched the websites of the FDA (for advisory committee meeting materials) and Health Canada (for sections of the dossier submitted by sponsors to the regulator). For the FDA website, we considered presentations by both the FDA and the sponsors. Within each of these sources, we searched for SAE results tables that presented information by specific SAE type; we chose the most recent SAE table corresponding to the FDA’s requirement for a safety median follow-up time of at least 1 month after dose 2.

SAE is an abbreviation for serious adverse event. Note the last line – two months after the second dose. We know from the Cell paper last January that both the synthetic mRNA that is not really mRNA lasts for at least 60 days, as does the spike protein produced from that mRNA, so the “drug” is still present for at least two months after dose 2. Probably would be much better if the FDA insisted that the follow up for SAE were longer than one month. But they were in a rush because Trump’s Chief of Staff was telling them to get it done. So there it is. Cause and effect.

Getting back to the paper, to perform their analyses on the adverse event data which they were able to glean, Doshi and colleagues applied a list of “adverse events of special interest” (AESI) which had been compiled by CEPI and the Brighton Collaboration, and then approved by WHO. This list had been compiled before the trial started. Now in retrospect, we have Pfizer’s extensive table of potential AESI which appears to have been compiled AFTER the emergency use authorization was enacted, and the authors could have used that. But Doshi et al are being real Boy Scouts, and chose to only evaluate the AESI list which existed prior to the trial data becoming available for their analyses, in their apparent attempt to retrospectively do what should have been done originally.

The problem with this is that they do not actually have access to the patient level data, so they have had to make some assumptions about those primary data, particularly in terms of their numeric/statistical distribution.

“Another limitation is our lack of access to individual participant data, which forced us to use a conservative adjustment to the standard errors. The 95% CI calculated are therefore only approximate because we do not know which patients had multiple events. Furthermore, despite our attempt to remove efficacy endpoints from our analysis (i.e., SAEs labeled as COVID-19, COVID-19 pneumonia, and “SARS-CoV-2 test positive”), it was not possible to identify and remove SAEs that occurred in patients with serious complications of COVID-19 (e.g., acute respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, and acute kidney injury), which are common.”

In other words, they did the best that they could, but had to include some assumptions.

Here is the key data table which resulted from all of this hard work:

Notice the risk ratio columns, and in particular, the 95% confidence interval (abbreviated as CI). A risk ratio where the control group and the experimental group are equivalent would be 1.0. Greater than 1.0 (in this case) would mean that there was more risk of adverse events to those receiving vaccine. But there is a statistical range around that number (when randomly testing, and setting the statistical test threshold that 95 out of 100 times the result will fall within that range). So, if the confidence interval spans less than one to greater than one, you cannot conclude that there is a statistical difference between results for control and vaccine treated. As is the case with many of these tests. Now they are all pretty skewed to very close to 1 and greater than 1. So that suggests that if the number of patients tested had been larger, they might well all reach statistical significance. But this is actually a modest sample size for a Phase 3 vaccine trial. Again, the FDA let the sponsors get away with this, but these are the data which are available. And there is no way we can ever get back to that point in time, because almost everyone has either been vaccinated or infected at the present.

In vaccine research, for purposes of estimating study sample size, we apply the rule of three. If you want to reliably detect an adverse event that occurs at the rate of once every thousand patients, you should test 3,000 patients in your vaccinated group. So in the case of Pfizer trial, it is powered to detect adverse events that occur about once in (18,800/3) = 6,266 patients. Moderna, (15,185/3) = 5,061 patients. Adverse events occurring less frequently than that would generally not be detected at a statistically significant level. Correcting for frequency of adverse events randomly occurring in the control group, and normalizing to event # per 10,000 patients gets you to the data summarized in the table.

Also note that, for the Serious Adverse Events of Special Interest, to get to what their estimates indicate would be statistical significance, they had to combine the data from the Pfizer and the Moderna clinical trials. Something that would never be done in a “real world” setting, as the two products are different, involve different delivery formulations, and are administered at very different doses of mRNA.

From the above, you can appreciate that this analysis is pretty much as good as can be had, given the what the authors have had to work with. But now you can also appreciate why they (appropriately) concisely reported their findings (“All we want are the facts, ma’am”), and then drew an appropriately cautious conclusion:

“The excess risk of serious adverse events found in our study points to the need for formal harm-benefit analyses, particularly those that are stratified according to risk of serious COVID-19 outcomes such as hospitalization or death.”

This was a heroic collaborative effort to try to get back to a point in the clinical research history of these mRNA vaccines when critical decisions were made which would quite literally impact on the course of history. The decisions at that time were rushed, the usefulness of the two studies destroyed (intentionally?) by stopping the studies prematurely and then vaccinating the control group, and what data were gathered have been largely hidden from those who wish to do independent analyses. The authors of the current analysis re-do attempt have done their best. But, as Dr. Doshi and colleagues have repeatedly requested, the proper analysis cannot be performed unless the original data sets are released.

 

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Pfizer and Moderna Vaccines Analysis Re-do: “Serious adverse events of special interest”: Dr. Malone

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Left amidst the ruins of the Azov battalion’s headquarters in Mariupol were the business cards from the German embassy. One was of an attaché named Michael Faul, a Canadian colonel named Colonel Brian Irwin and the French Embassy staff member in Kyiv, First Secretary Christophe Boursin.

MICHAEL FAUL: According to the following information, Faul now works in the UK: “Michael Faul works at German Embassy London and Consulate General Edinburgh, which is a Federal company with an estimated 766 employees.” So he has been relocated or has always been working there, probably for MI6, the UK Secret Service. Last Update: 3/10/2022 5:43 PM (move March 3 to UK), EMAIL: m***@london.diplo.de.

COLONEL BRIAN IRWIN: This is very interesting; the following is known about him:

Colonel Robert Brian Irwin
Ontario, Canada
Decorations for Meritorious Service – Military Division
Meritorious Service Cross
Issued: October 16, 2019
Invested on: May 27, 2021
Rank: Colonel

As Canada’s Defense Attaché to Ukraine from August 2016 to July 2019, Colonel Irwin proved instrumental in achieving Canada’s foreign policy goals. He quickly became an influential and important member of the [Canadian] mission [in Ukraine], where he advised successive commanders of the joint task force, promoted security sector reform and actively contributed to military cooperation between the two nations. Known for his professionalism and diplomacy, he has had an undeniable influence on the operations of the Canadian Forces in Ukraine.

The likely authenticity of the documents is enhanced by the fact that in 2018, Irwin had been photographed shaking hands with a member of the Azov Battalion, indicating Canadian government support for the neo-Nazi outfit.

Image

Brian irwin shakes hands with member of Azov battalion during his sting as Canadian Defense attache in Ukraine. [Source: twitter.com]

The third business card found was of the assistant first secretary at the Embassy of France in Kyiv, Ukraine, Christophe Boursin. There are no pictures of him, but he may still be in Kyiv.

Along with the business cards found in Azov Battalion headquarters were Nazi insignia, making clear the Battalion’s admiration for Adolf Hitler and the original German Nazis.

Azov Headquarters in Mariupol. [Source Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

Azov HQ, Mariupol, business card. [Source Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

The documents were discovered on my second visit to Mariupol. My last visit, some two weeks ago, was a more emotional trip, as heavy shelling, rockets and fighting around the Azov steel factory were happening The port was partly freed and one could hear shelling from there as well.

The crews of many ships were held hostage by Azov. The remaining residents of the city were walking around, with “the gruesome experience of war in their eyes,” searching for clean water and waiting in line for food, which was distributed by the Russian army in cooperation with the Donetsk People’s Republic.

So I went back two weeks later and a lot has happened since then. The Azov neo-Nazi militia had surrendered and the remaining soldiers have been captured and transported to prison by buses. They will receive, hopefully, a fair trial, in the DPR or Russia. Same as what happened to the jihadists in Syria they were transported from Eastern Aleppo and Ghouta to Idlib, which until now is (unfortunately) for a large part still a stronghold of Al-Qaeda or Hayat-Tahrir-as-Sham.

Hitler painting, Azov HQ, Mariupol. [Source Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

The Port of Mariupol

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, from which we received an update, the port was now liberated and demined:

“Specialists of the Black Sea Fleet and Engineer Troops have completed demining the territory of the Mariupol port. More than 12,000 explosive objects and weapons abandoned by Ukrainian radicals were found and neutralized. The approach channels and internal water areas were freed from sunken ships and other navigational obstacles, as well as the port was demilitarized. In total, more than 1.5 million square meters of water area, 18 berths and 32 vessels were inspected. In total, the specialists of the detachment of the International Mine Action Center have destroyed more than thousand explosive objects since the beginning of their work.”

Western media has claimed that where the Russians were, they left a trail of death and destruction; however, from what I have experienced so far in Volnovakha and Mariupol, the trail is mostly from the Ukrainian army and militia.

Arriving for the second time in Mariupol, DPR. [Source Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

Some public facilities in the cities were working again. The city square was cleaned, we even had a quick look in the zoo, where the animals were still alive. The Western media again are giving opposite stories.

Also, I visited the second largest steel factory in Mariupol, the Steel factory Illich, Mariupol’s second largest factory retaken by the 36th Russian Brigade. The steel factory was nearly totally destroyed and I believe it cannot be rebuilt, but as Dennis Pushilin (the leader of the DPR) told us on the square of Mariupol: “Every building will be rebuilt or newly built,” so one never knows.

In front of the Illich Steel Factory, Mariupol. [Source Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

The plant produced a wide range of hot-rolled and cold-rolled steel, including for shipbuilding, oil pipeline, drilling gas pipeline and water pipelines. The company is the only company in Ukraine to produce galvanized steel and liquefied gas tanks.

The company’s products were certified by international classification societies; such as Lloyd’s Register (UK, Germany), U.S. Bureau of Naval Personnel and by the Marine Register of Navigation (Russia), as well also by the German Certification Center TTSU. The company exported the products to more than 50 countries around the world.

In April, the Russian army captured the second largest steel factory in Mariupol. What they found was a major wreck and in the storage were (as can be seen in the photo gallery) self-made moving cars with machine guns on them. This form of warfare became popular in the Syria and Iraq wars, introduced by jihadists sponsored by the West.

The Ukrainian army made their military quarters in the factory, like in the Azov Steel factory, and sent the workers home or held them hostage and used them as human shields, as happened everywhere in Ukraine, especially in Mariupol, where many supporters of the Azov regiment could be found.

In the basements of the Illich factory were symbols of this Nazi ideology, symbols that are banned in the West, but are now ignored by Western governments and even all European Union (EU) heads of government. “SLAVA UKRAINE” which literally means: HEIL (HEIL means glory) UKRAINE.” Where have we heard this slogan before?

Inside the Illich Steel factory, a huge crater, Mariupol. [Source Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

Swastika inside the factory, where Ukrainian Azov were hiding, Illich Steel factory, Mariupol. [Source Photo courtesy of Sonja van den Ende]

The most shocking part of the day though was the visit to one of the former headquarters of the Azov battalion. It wasn’t only an office, but it was also a housing and a training facility. Even young children were trained there with guns and rifles.

As from the material which was left behind, you could clearly see the Nazi ideology, Hitler paintings, SS stickers, books and booklets with swastikas and brochures and manuals from NATO, filled with instructions—along with the business cards of the NATO advisers and western government officials.

This made clear the western complicity in the crimes of the Ukrainians and injustice of the war more broadly.

French Weapons Used to Kill Civilians in Donetsk: Zelensky Vows to Turn Region into Ruin (CAM editors supplement)

Donbass Insider reported on June 7 that French Caesar guns opened fire on civilian areas in the Donbass and Donetsk.

This exemplifies the deadly consequences of western weapons shipments to Ukraine; these weapons are being used to kill and maim civilians. The same report noted that “the terror bombardments started again about 10 days ago on Donetsk and the cities of Donbass,” and that Ukrainians are now “firing every day on the cities of Donbass, especially on Donetsk, Gorlovka, Makeevka and Yaccinovataya. Yesterday (June 6) alone, 7 people were killed and 16 wounded and the killing continues.”

The report continued: “some of the shells had been fired by American M777 howitzers,” which had been supplied as part of the Biden administration’s weapons pipeline.

Armée ukrainienne - artillerie - Donbass

French Caesar guns used to kill civilians in Donbass. [Source: donbass-insider.com]

The shells, it was specified, do little material damage when they land on the streets or in the open, but are devastating when they hit a building, having the real capacity by their armor-piercing nature to penetrate structures better, with the devastation one can imagine.

The author of the report stated that he had never heard of such munitions being used on civilian areas of the Donbass in the past; thus what we are seeing is a new and more deadly phase of the conflict there. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself, in a very recent statement, said that Donbass would be a ruin and that it would be “deserted,” inferring that people will be killed before the conclusion of this war.

The western media blames the Russians for all the devastation when clearly Ukraine is at the forefront of itwith help from its friends in the West.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Sonja is a freelance journalist from the Netherlands who has written about Syria, the Middle East, and Russia among other topics. Sonja can be reached at: [email protected].

Featured image is from Sonja Van den Ende

Ukraine’s Future

June 24th, 2022 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Ukraine as a country might not have a future. Ukraine is a new country only three decades old. Historically, Ukraine has been a part of Poland, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. It might be on the verge of being divided between Poland and Russia. 

Most of the Donbass and much of the Black Sea coast has been liberated by Russian forces and the forces of the two Donbass republics. (see map below) Clearly the Ukrainian forces have lost the war in Donbass.

Clearly Zelensky, a Jew who somehow heads a neo-Nazi state, lies when he claims Ukraine had no intention of reconquering the breakaway Donbass republics.

What other purpose did the 150,000 Ukrainian army and Nazi militias arrayed on the shrunken Donbass borders have?

How can the Russian forces be destroying the Ukrainian army in Donbass if the army wasn’t there? A question like this is too straightforward for the Western “presstitutes”.

What happens after Russia’s victory in Donbass?

Will Washington permit its puppet government to agree to Russia’s demand that Ukraine demilitarize and take a neutral status like Austria, or will Washington and NATO raise and equip a million-man army in Western Ukraine and attempt to take back the Donbass and Crimea?

Such an attempt would likely result in the destruction of Kiev and Lvov. The Ukrainian government would exist only in exile. As a number of NATO countries have made themselves combatants in the conflict, they are legitimate Russian targets. Clearly, a widening of the conflict is easily possible.

Ukraine could lose its standing as a country in another way. According to John Helmer, Russian intelligence reports Polish interest in reclaiming Western Ukraine. The idea seems to be that Polish troops in the guise of peacekeepers would occupy Western Ukraine in order to keep the Russians out and simply stay while the remains of Ukraine transition back into a Polish province.

Of course, it is up to Russia. It is possible that the Kremlin will realize that its limited operation cannot achieve its aim of a demilitarized and neutral Ukraine and that the West will keep the war going unless Russia takes all of Ukraine and installs a Russian puppet in place of the American one.

It seems a formidable task to train and equip a new Ukrainian army. According to Ukrainian commanders, few of the weapons supplied by the West reach the combat zones. The weapons seem to be sold into the black market by Ukrainian officials, who are using every opportunity to line their pockets before the ship goes down, or destroyed on arrival by Russian precision missiles.

I think that the most definitive statement that can be made is that Russia has made it clear that Ukraine will be neutralized. The longer Washington and NATO try to block this outcome, the more likely the war will widen. Washington and the militarily weak countries that comprise NATO have no prospect of confronting the Russian military in conventional war. The danger to the world of Washington’s effort to prevail over Russia is clear.

The threat of nuclear war along with the high inflation and diminished energy supplies imposed on Europe by the ill considered sanctions could lead to the breakup both of NATO and the EU. It would be poetic justice if the sanctions end up shattering Washington’s empire.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned economist and award winning author. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan administration.

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Gustavo Petro’s victory in Sunday’s Colombian Presidential election, marking the first time Bogotá has elected a left-wing head of state, was not the only far-reaching geopolitical event to recently take place involving Latin America.

A week prior to the former guerrilla fighter’s electoral success, President Nicolás Maduro of neighbouring Venezuela paid an official two day visit to Iran where he signed an official 20-year cooperation agreement with Iranian head of state Ayatollah Khameini – a deal intended to counter the wide-ranging US sanctions targeting both Caracas and Tehran.

With one of Petro’s Presidential aims being to develop further relations with Venezuela however, his incoming Presidency has undoubtedly already been placed in the sights of the regime change lobby, wary that friendly relations between Bogota, Caracas and Tehran, will undermine US-NATO hegemony from South America all the way to the Middle East.

Indeed, CIA involvement in fomenting regime change in Latin America has a history stretching back more than half a century.

In 1970, at the height of Cold War tensions between East and West, the election of Socialist candidate Salvador Allende in Chile, and his subsequent nationalisation of Santiago’s lucrative copper mining industry and telecommunications sector, would quickly draw the ire of Washington.

With corporate interests at stake, and fearing that socialism would take root on its doorstep, a plan was hatched by the White House to remove Allende’s Left-wing government.

On September 11th 1973, a bloody CIA-backed coup was launched in Chile, which would see the death of Allende, officially by suicide but with foul play highly suspected, and the seizing of power by the US-backed General Augusto Pinochet, whose 17-year long reign would see the extrajudicial killing of more than 3,000 left-wing activists, and the further forced exiling of 200,000 more.

The instalment of Pinochet’s leadership would subsequently lead to the CIA launching Operation Condor, a Cold War initiative intended to halt the spread of Communism in South America via the covert backing of right-wing political movements in the region.

Like Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil had also come under the rule of military dictatorships, Argentina following in 1976, with each receiving the full support of the United States.

Despite the end of the Cold War following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991 however, this US interference in Latin America would continue unabated,  most recently seen in 2020 when Operation Gideon, a failed Bay of Pigs-style coup attempt involving US mercenaries and most likely sanctioned covertly by the White House, was launched in order to remove the Venezuelan leadership of Nicolás Maduro – a long-time target of the regime change lobby since he was elected as President of the oil-rich nation following the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013.

Coming just a year after another failed coup attempt in the Latin American country, involving US-backed ‘Interim President’ Juan Guaidó, the motivation for Maduro to further develop relations with Iran, following Tehran’s May 2020 export of almost two million barrels on Iranian oil to Venezuela in order to counter US sanctions, should be clear.

Like Venezuela, the Islamic Republic has also been a long-time opponent of the US-NATO hegemony, when following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the anti-American Ayatollah Khomeini would come to power, overthrowing the Western-backed Shah Pahlavi, who had himself been installed in a 1953 CIA and MI6 orchestrated coup launched in response to then-Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh’s decision to nationalise his country’s vast oil reserves.

With striking similarities between both Venezuela and Iran in terms of nationalisation of natural resources, opposition to US Imperialism, and being subject to Western sanctions, it would only seem natural that both countries would seek to develop diplomatic relations, it would also only seem natural that with the election of Gustavo Petro in Colombia, and his campaign promise to normalise relations with Venezuela, that Bogotá may soon also experience the same regime-change attempts that have previously befell both Caracas and Tehran.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

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.

Featured image is from Twitter

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

In a stunning development, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week admitted — despite assurances to the contrary — the agency never analyzed the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) for safety signals for COVID-19 vaccines.

The admission was revealed in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

In September 2021, I published an article in The Defender in which I used the CDC’s published methodology to analyze VAERS for safety signals from COVID-19 vaccines.

The signals were loud and clear, leading me to wonder “why is nobody listening?”

Instead, I should have asked, “Is anybody even looking for them?”

After that article was published, I urged CHD’s legal team to submit a FOIA request to the CDC about its VAERS monitoring activities.

Since CDC officials stated publicly that “COVID-19 vaccine safety monitoring is the most robust in U.S. history,” I had assumed that at the very least, CDC officials were monitoring VAERS using the methods they described in a briefing document posted on the CDC website in January 2021 (and updated in February 2022, with minor changes).

I was wrong.

The lynchpin of their safety monitoring was to mine VAERS data for safety signals by calculating what are known as proportional reporting ratios (PRR’s).

This is a method of comparing the proportion of different types of adverse events reported for a new vaccine to the proportion of those events reported for an older, established vaccine.

If the new vaccine shows a significantly higher reporting rate of a particular adverse event relative to the old one, it counts as a safety signal that should then trigger a more thorough investigation.

The briefing document states, “CDC will perform PRR data mining on a weekly basis or as needed.”

proportional reporting ratio prr

And yet, in the agency’s response to the FOIA request, it wrote that “no PRRs were conducted by CDC. Furthermore, data mining is outside of the agency’s purview.”

The agency suggested contacting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which was supposed to perform a different type of data mining, according to the briefing document.

CDC officials repeatedly claimed they have not seen safety signals in VAERS.

signal assessment

For example, on April 27, 2021, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky stated the CDC did not see any signals related to heart inflammation.

But a PRR calculation I did using the number of myo/pericarditis reports listed in the first table produced by the CDC obtained via the FOIA request reveals clear and unambiguous safety signals relative to the comparator vaccines mentioned in the briefing document (i.e., flu vaccines, FLUAD and Shingrix).

The table is dated April 2, 2021, almost four weeks before she made those remarks.

In fact, among the 15 adverse events for adults included in that week’s tabulations, PRRs I calculated also show loud-and-clear safety signals for acute myocardial infarction, anaphylaxis, appendicitis, Bell’s palsy, coagulopathy, multisystem inflammatory syndrome in adults (MIS-A), stroke and death.

The actual monitoring the CDC did diverges from the one promised in the briefing document in other ways.

For example, the CDC never created tables of the top 25 adverse events reported in the previous week, tables comparing different vaccine manufacturers, or tables of auto-immune diseases.

And it only began monitoring in early April 2021, even though reports from COVID-19 vaccines had been flooding VAERS since mid-December of the previous year.

To be clear, VAERS is not the only database the CDC uses to monitor COVID-19 vaccine safety.

For example, the CDC sponsored several studies of COVID-19 safety using the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), which is comprised of millions of medical records from HMO’s across several states.

Those studies do not raise many safety concerns. However, they make many questionable methodological choices.

To give one example, a major safety study based on VSD data published in September 2021, in “JAMA,” compares adverse event rates that occur within 1-21 days of vaccination to the rate of occurrence from 22 to 42 days after vaccination.

It makes no comparison between vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals, or before vaccination versus after in the same individuals.

Moreover, the VSD is far from infallible, having failed initially to detect the increase in myocarditis rates.

In contrast, although calculating PRR’s is a blunt pharmacovigilance tool and far from perfect, it nevertheless has the advantage of being straightforward and difficult to manipulate with statistical sleight of hand.

PRRs are one of the oldest, most basic and most well-established tools of pharmacovigilance. The calculations are so straightforward that the CDC automated it several years ago, so it could have been done at the press of a button.

It simply beggars belief that the CDC failed to do this simple calculation. Even now, a paper published by CDC staff in March on the safety of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines remains purely descriptive with no PRR calculation.

Meanwhile, a study published by a researcher not affiliated with the CDC in February in “Frontiers in Public Health” analyzes VAERS and EudraVigilance data using a method similar to PRRs, revealing clear and concerning safety signals.

And while it is true that VAERS is not the only database the CDC can use to monitor COVID-19 vaccine safety, it is of critical importance because it can reveal signals much faster than any other method — if anybody cares to look for them.

It remains to be seen if the FDA was properly monitoring VAERS. That will be the subject of a future FOIA request.

But even if it was, it doesn’t change the fact that the CDC completely failed in its promise to monitor VAERS for safety signals.

  • Posted in English, NO READ MORE LINK
  • Comments Off on CDC Admits It Never Monitored VAERS for COVID Vaccine Safety Signals

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

“In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught.”—Hunter S. Thompson

The burden of proof has been reversed.

No longer are we presumed innocent. Now we’re presumed guilty unless we can prove our innocence beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Rarely, are we even given the opportunity to do so.

Although the Constitution requires the government to provide solid proof of criminal activity before it can deprive a citizen of life or liberty, the government has turned that fundamental assurance of due process on its head.

Each and every one of us is now seen as a potential suspect, terrorist and lawbreaker in the eyes of the government.

Consider all the ways in which “we the people” are now treated as criminals, found guilty of violating the police state’s abundance of laws, and preemptively stripped of basic due process rights.

Red flag gun confiscation laws: Gun control legislation, especially in the form of red flag gun laws, allow the police to remove guns from people “suspected” of being threats. These laws, growing in popularity as a legislative means by which to seize guns from individuals viewed as a danger to themselves or others, will put a target on the back of every American whether or not they own a weapon.

Disinformation eradication campaigns. In recent years, the government has used the phrase “domestic terrorist” interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.” The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association. In the government’s latest assault on those who criticize the government—whether that criticism manifests itself in word, deed or thought—the Biden Administration has likened those who share “false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information” to terrorists. This latest government salvo against consumers and spreaders of “mis- dis- and mal-information” widens the net to potentially include anyone who is exposed to ideas that run counter to the official government narrative. In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly. In this way, government and corporate censors claiming to protect us from dangerous, disinformation campaigns are, in fact, laying the groundwork now to preempt any “dangerous” ideas that might challenge the power elite’s stranglehold over our lives.

Government watch lists. The FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies have increasingly invested in corporate surveillance technologies that can mine constitutionally protected speech on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram in order to identify potential extremists and predict who might engage in future acts of anti-government behavior. Where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.

In fact, all you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use certain trigger words (like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, limp or stutter, drive a car, stay at a hotel, attend a political rally, express yourself on social media, appear mentally ill, serve in the military, disagree with a law enforcement official, call in sick to work, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, appear confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or smell bad, be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane), stare at a police officer, question government authority, or appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom.

Thought crimes. For years now, the government has used all of the weapons in its vast arsenal—surveillance, threat assessments, fusion centers, pre-crime programs, hate crime laws, militarized police, lockdowns, martial law, etc.—to target potential enemies of the state based on their ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that might be deemed suspicious or dangerous. It’s not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how you think that is being tracked and targeted. There’s a whole spectrum of behaviors ranging from thought crimes and hate speech to whistleblowing that qualifies for persecution (and prosecution) by the Deep State. It’s a slippery slope from censoring so-called illegitimate ideas to silencing truth.

Security checkpoints and fusion centers. By treating an entire populace as suspect, the government has justified wide-ranging security checkpoints that subject travelers to scans, searches, pat downs and other indignities by the TSA and VIPR raids on so-called “soft” targets like shopping malls and bus depots by black-clad, Darth Vader look-alikes. Fusion centers, which represent the combined surveillance efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement, track the citizenry’s movements, record their conversations, and catalogue their transactions.

Surveillance, precrime programs. Facial recognition software aims to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. Coupled with surveillance cameras that blanket the country, facial recognition technology allows the government and its corporate partners to warrantlessly identify and track someone’s movements in real-time, whether or not they have committed a crime. Rapid advances in behavioral surveillance are not only making it possible for individuals to be monitored and tracked based on their patterns of movement or behavior, including gait recognition (the way one walks), but have given rise to whole industries that revolve around predicting one’s behavior based on data and surveillance patterns and are also shaping the behaviors of whole populations. With the increase in precrime programs, threat assessments, AI algorithms and surveillance programs such as SpotShotter, which attempt to calculate where illegal activity might occur by triangulating sounds and images, the burden of proof has been turned on its head by a surveillance state that renders us all suspects and overcriminalization which renders us all lawbreakers.

Mail surveillance. Just about every branch of the government—from the Postal Service to the Treasury Department and every agency in between—now has its own surveillance sector, authorized to spy on the American people. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service, which has been photographing the exterior of every piece of paper mail for the past 20 years, is also spying on Americans’ texts, emails and social media posts. Headed up by the Postal Service’s law enforcement division, the Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP) is reportedly using facial recognition technology, combined with fake online identities, to ferret out potential troublemakers with “inflammatory” posts. The agency claims the online surveillance, which falls outside its conventional job scope of processing and delivering paper mail, is necessary to help postal workers avoid “potentially volatile situations.”

Threat assessments and AI algorithms. The government has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state. Before long, every household in America will be flagged as a threat and assigned a threat score. It’s just a matter of time before you find yourself wrongly accused, investigated and confronted by police based on a data-driven algorithm or risk assessment culled together by a computer program run by artificial intelligence.

No-knock raids. No-knock, no-announce SWAT team raids are what passes for court-sanctioned policing in America today, and it could happen to any one of us. Nationwide, SWAT teams routinely invade homes, break down doors, kill family pets (they always shoot the dogs first), damage furnishings, terrorize families, and wound or kill those unlucky enough to be present during a raid. No longer reserved exclusively for deadly situations, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for relatively routine police matters such as serving a search warrant, with some SWAT teams being sent out as much as five times a day. Police carry out tens of thousands of no-knock raids every year nationwide.

Militarized police. America is overrun with militarized cops—vigilantes with a badge—who have almost absolute discretion to decide who is a threat, what constitutes resistance, and how harshly they can deal with the citizens they were appointed to “serve and protect.” It doesn’t matter where you live—big city or small town—it’s the same scenario being played out over and over again in which government agents, trained to act as judge, jury and executioner in their interactions with the public, ride roughshod over the rights of the citizenry. This is how we have gone from a nation of laws—where the least among us had just as much right to be treated with dignity and respect as the next person (in principle, at least)—to a nation of law enforcers (revenue collectors with weapons) who treat “we the people” like suspects and criminals.

Constitution-free zones. Merely living within 100 miles inland of the border around the United States is now enough to make you a suspect, paving the way for Border Patrol agents to search people’s homes, intimately probe their bodies, and rifle through their belongings, all without a warrant. Nearly 66% of Americans (2/3 of the U.S. population, 197.4 million people) now live within that 100-mile-deep, Constitution-free zone.

Asset forfeiture schemes. Americans no longer have a right to private property. If government agents can invade your home, break down your doors, kill your dog, damage your furnishings and terrorize your family, your property is no longer private and secure—it belongs to the government. Hard-working Americans are having their bank accounts, homes, cars electronics and cash seized by police under the assumption that they have been associated with some criminal scheme. As libertarian Harry Browne observed, “Asset forfeiture is a mockery of the Bill of Rights. There is no presumption of innocence, no need to prove you guilty (or even charge you with a crime), no right to a jury trial, no right to confront your accuser, no right to a court-appointed attorney (even if the government has just stolen all your money), and no right to compensation for the property that’s been taken.”

Vehicle kill switches. Sold to the public as a safety measure aimed at keeping drunk drivers off the roads, “vehicle kill switches” could quickly become a convenient tool in the hands of government agents to put the government in the driver’s seat while rendering null and void the Constitution’s requirements of privacy and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures. As such, it presumes every driver potentially guilty of breaking some law that would require the government to intervene and take over operation of the vehicle or shut it off altogether. The message: we cannot be trusted to obey the law or navigate the world on our end.

Bodily integrity. The government’s presumptions about our so-called guilt or innocence have extended down to our very cellular level. The debate over bodily integrity covers broad territory, ranging from forced vaccinations, forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws and forced breath-alcohol tests to forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, and forced inclusion in biometric databases: these are just a few ways in which Americans continue to be reminded that we have no real privacy, no real presumption of innocence, and no real control over what happens to our bodies during an encounter with government officials. The groundwork being laid with these mandates is a prologue to what will become the police state’s conquest of a new, relatively uncharted, frontier: inner space, specifically, the inner workings (genetic, biological, biometric, mental, emotional) of the human race. “Guilt by association” has taken on new connotations in the technological age. Yet the debate over genetic privacy—and when one’s DNA becomes a public commodity outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on warrantless searches and seizures—is really only beginning. Get ready, folks, because the government has embarked on a diabolical campaign to create a nation of suspects predicated on a massive national DNA database.

Limitations on our right to move about freely. We think we have the freedom to go where we want and move about freely, but at every turn, we’re hemmed in by laws, fines and penalties that regulate and restrict our autonomy, and surveillance cameras that monitor our movements. For instance, license plate readers are mass surveillance tools that can photograph over 1,800 license tag numbers per minute, take a picture of every passing license tag number and store the tag number and the date, time, and location of the picture in a searchable database, then share the data with law enforcement, fusion centers and private companies to track the movements of persons in their cars. With tens of thousands of these license plate readers now in operation throughout the country, police can track vehicles and run the plates through law enforcement databases for abducted children, stolen cars, missing people and wanted fugitives. Of course, the technology is not infallible: there have been numerous incidents in which police have mistakenly relied on license plate data to capture suspects only to end up detaining innocent people at gunpoint.

The war on cash and the introduction of digital currency. Digital currency provides the government and its corporate partners with a mode of commerce that can easily be monitored, tracked, tabulated, mined for data, hacked, hijacked and confiscated when convenient. This push for a digital currency dovetails with the government’s war on cash, which it has been subtly waging for some time now. In recent years, just the mere possession of significant amounts of cash could implicate you in suspicious activity and label you a criminal. The rationale (by police) is that cash is the currency for illegal transactions given that it’s harder to track, can be used to pay illegal immigrants, and denies the government its share of the “take,” so doing away with paper money will help law enforcement fight crime and help the government realize more revenue. A cashless society—easily monitored, controlled, manipulated, weaponized and locked down—plays right into the hands of the government (and its corporate partners).

The Security-Industrial Complex. Every crisis—manufactured or otherwise—since the nation’s early beginnings has become a make-work opportunity for the government to expand its reach and its power at taxpayer expense while limiting our freedoms at every turn. What this has amounted to is a war on the American people, fought on American soil, funded with taxpayer dollars, and waged with a single-minded determination to use national crises, manufactured or otherwise, in order to transform the American homeland into a battlefield. As a result, the American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, denied due process, and killed.

These programs push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.

The ramifications of empowering the government to sidestep fundamental due process safeguards are so chilling and so far-reaching as to put a target on the back of anyone who happens to be in the same place where a crime takes place.

The groundwork has been laid for a new kind of government where it won’t matter if you’re innocent or guilty, whether you’re a threat to the nation, or even if you’re a citizen. What will matter is what the government—or whoever happens to be calling the shots at the time—thinks. And if the powers-that-be think you’re a threat to the nation and should be locked up, then you’ll be locked up with no access to the protections our Constitution provides.

In effect, you will disappear.

As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, our freedoms are already being made to disappear.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

They are regular contributors to Global Research.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Everybody’s Guilty: To the Police State, We’re All Criminals Until We Prove Otherwise
  • Tags: ,

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Expansion of Public Sector in Nicaragua Has Improved Quality of Life for Everyone

In 2018, 48% of U.S.-based churches had their own food-distribution ministry or supported efforts run by other churches or organizations such as food pantries or food banks.

These faith-based ministries, unlike government programs, provide immediate help to hungry people with no requirements. And more than two million people volunteer at a food pantry, soup kitchen, emergency shelter or after-school programs in the U.S., working more than 100 million volunteer hours a year—according to Hunger in America 2014, a study conducted by Feeding America.

This wave of charity recognizes a serious problem in the United States: Despite being a wealthy nation, food insecurity remains high.

People in the U.S. Are Not Food Secure

In the U.S., the average percentage of households with food insecurity stayed between 10% and 15% from 1995 until 2020, when the numbers shot up. Despite volunteer and government food aid, hunger grew 9% from 2019 to 2020, when 38 million people were hungry.

According to recent research by the Census Bureau from the week before Christmas 2021, 81 million people experienced food insecurity, and 45 million reported not having enough food. Families with children have suffered most: The rate of hunger has been 41% to 83% higher for households with children than adult-only households.

In 2020, one in seven (14.8%) households with children could not buy enough food for their families. The prevalence of food insecurity was much higher in some states than others, ranging from 5.7% in New Hampshire to 15.3% in Mississippi from 2018 to 2021.

Twice as many Black households experience hunger than white households. During the pandemic, 19% to 29% of Black homes with children have reported not having enough to eat; 16% to 25% of Latino homes and 7% to 14% of white homes reported the same. Black families go hungry at 2 to 3 times the rate of white families.

Some 43% of Black households with children have experienced food insecurity during the pandemic—the highest rate in recorded history. Children get sick more often if they are not consuming enough nutritious food, and hunger impedes learning.

Thus, one in four people in our nation, the richest nation on Earth, did not have adequate access to sufficient nutritious food needed for a healthy life.

In the face of this pervasive food insecurity, families turn to a variety of sources for help.

More than 42 million people rely on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. During the Covid pandemic, the USDA increased the purchasing power of the plan—by 21% —for the first time since 1975. There were also emergency allotments that increased the value of food stamps people received. This part will likely end soon.

In 2019, 35 million people relied on food charity, another sign that millions of people do not earn a living wage.

Undocumented immigrants are more dependent on food pantries because they are excluded from government programs. Church-related food programs make a big difference for these people’s lives, especially for their children.

One in eight families have reduced their food spending to pay for health care. And Black families are twice as likely to be unable to afford health care. Impoverishment in the United States includes food insecurity, lack of decent housing, lack of health care, poorly paid employment or no employment, and poor quality public education.

Approximately 80% of households receiving food stamps had at least one worker, indicating that millions of people do not earn a living wage.

In 2019, unemployment of Black individuals was double the rate of whites and Blacks were much more likely to only earn minimum wage or less.

In 2020, the average Black family had $1,500 for emergency spending, while white families had $7,500. Only 10% of Latino families had savings to last six months, while 36% of whites did.

In January 2020, at least 580,466 Americans were without a home, and 30% of those were children. Marginalized racial groups are more likely to be without homes as a result of segregation and discrimination in housing and employment as well as in many other areas of life. Hunger is not universal among unhoused people; however, it is much more frequent than among the housed population.

Vehicle residency is one of the fastest-growing forms of homelessness,” said Sara Rankin, Professor of Law and Director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project at the Seattle University School of Law.

U.S. foreign policy has had a major effect on hunger and nutrition in developing nations for many years. U.S. agricultural policies aggressively promote creating markets for our farmers by promoting international reliance on U.S. food exports.

U.S.-Related International Food Insecurity

U.S. loan policies are never aimed at the food security of the population of developing nations; instead, they promote production and export of products such as bananas, sugar and coffee to the point that many developing nations are producing and exporting the same things. Thus, the international price stays artificially low, and the countries benefit little from these exports.

Small and medium-scale farmers plant the food that local people eat, like corn, beans, rice, vegetables and fruits, and they also raise farm animals in a more healthful way than large corporations. But U.S. policies have contributed to placing that land into the hands of large landowners and corporations.

The U.S. influences national policies of developing nations such that it is very difficult for small and medium-scale farmers to get loans or any other kinds of government support.

The U.S. subsidizes its own farmers to the point that products like corn and rice are actually sold below what would be the real price.

In this way, we put small and medium-scale corn and rice producers out of business in developing nations—they simply cannot compete with the large-scale subsidized farmers. So, most end up having to sell their land, leading to more large export-based farms—many now owned by U.S. corporations.

This whole process also leads to more migration out of these countries.

Dependency on food imports from the U.S. also undermines the international goals formulated at the 1974 UN World Food Conference to encourage food self-reliance and security from hunger.

Image

Source: twitter.com

An Example of Food Sovereignty for the United States and Other Nations

The small nation of Nicaragua in Central America has worked on ending poverty for the last fifteen years. One of the most important strategies has been to develop food security, and today they have reached approximately 90% food security.

This means that small and medium-scale farmers are producing 90% of the food that Nicaraguans eat: corn, beans, rice, plantains, vegetables, fruits, chicken, fish, pork, beef, honey, sugar, etc. Their population is much more food secure in times of crisis, whether it be a climate-related crisis or a political crisis. There are no factory farms of cattle, pigs or chicken. There are large and corporate producers of export crops like sugarcane; but even coffee production for export is held more in the hands of small and medium-scale producers.

Along with this, they now have almost 100% electricity coverage, more than 90% of people have potable water in their homes, and there is good universal health care and education including technical and university education. The government subsidizes transportation, electricity and water for their more vulnerable population.

Since petroleum prices skyrocketed in March 2022, the government is covering all the increases in electricity, gas and gasoline. Since 2007, amazingly, they have increased renewable energy from 20% to almost 80% and are in third place worldwide.

They had a major land reform in the 1980s that put land into the hands of nearly a million people. During three governments by and for the wealthy from 1990 to early 2007, much of that land returned to the hands of the wealthy. But government policies have helped nearly 600,000 families legalize their property. The government also makes technical assistance, training and low-interest loans available to micro and small-scale farm families.

It is interesting to note that, during the years of the Somoza-family dictatorship, supported by the U.S. from the 1930s to 1979, there was much concentration of land in a few hands. That impacted what was grown and how. In the western Pacific area, there were so many pesticides used for production of cotton that, even today, pesticides are found in the breast milk of women from this area.

Somoza Dynasty

Anastasio Somoza Garcia with his sons, future dictators Anastasio Somoza Debayle and Luis Somoza Debayle. [Source: latinamericanstudies.org]

Because of current Nicaragua policies that benefit the people instead of U.S. corporations, the U.S. has been doing many things to destabilize Nicaragua politically, and even directed and financed a coup attempt in 2018.

Although it didn’t fly, it cost the economy billions of dollars, and the U.S. continues to try to destroy the excellent example Nicaragua is giving to the world. Just visit Nicaragua and you will see that another world is possible and that we could be employing similar policies in our country.

Corporate Profits Limit Food Security and Health in the United States

Monoculture production of grains on a corporate scale is not good for the land and requires enormous amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. Whereas sustainable farming practices control weeds, insects and other pests with ecosystem management, farmers who monocrop are dependent on pesticides. Pesticides are linked to multiple health problems, including neurological and hormonal disorders, birth defects, cancer and other diseases.

qqxsgmethyl-iodide

Source: pesticidereform.org

Production of cattle, pigs and chickens on a corporate scale is terrible for the environment and there are many cases of water sources being polluted.

Corporate-raised animal products such as beef have lower levels of important nutrients and are higher in LDL (the “bad”) cholesterol. Grass-fed cows eating in a field produce milk and meat higher in omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality fats, and precursors for Vitamins A and E.

The volume of animal waste produced on factory farms is much greater than that of human waste. Household waste is processed in sewer systems, while animal waste is often stored in lagoons and applied, untreated, as fertilizer to farm fields.  That excrement stored in lagoons has pathogens such as E.coli, residues of antibiotics, animal blood, bedding waste, cleaning solutions and other chemicals. Manure pit gases with hydrogen sulfide, ammonia and methane fill the air, along with dust and irritants.

Factory farming is especially threatening to ground water supplies. Bacteria, viruses and nitrates can enter the supply and the community can be exposed to disease and nitrate poisoning. Nitrate poisoning is dangerous to infants and fetuses and can lead to birth defects and miscarriages. It has also been associated with esophageal and stomach cancers.

There is substantial overuse of antibiotics on factory farms—80% of antibiotics sold in the world today are for corporate farming. Antibiotic overuse leads to the evolution of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Then with mutations, these bacteria can jump to humans, causing pandemics. Pandemics are also associated with viral mutations promoted by the large number of animals in very small spaces. In recent years, we have seen an increase of zoonotic diseases; these are infectious diseases caused by a pathogen such as a bacterium, virus, parasite or prion that has jumped from an animal to a human. Examples are salmonellosis, Ebola, influenzas, and bird and swine flu.

In the United States, along with food charity, it is essential for us to become involved in changing food production policies that support more small and medium-scale farmers who can be encouraged to use sustainable practices through loan policies, for example.

We also need an agrarian reform plan and laws to limit how big a farm can be so that we prioritize the health of our population instead of prioritizing the profits of corporations. And, of course, we need good jobs that pay a living wage so that everyone can enjoy good nutrition—and we must recognize this as a human right.

One last point as food for thought. The U.S. has already sent $13.6 billion in arms to Ukraine and it appears on the verge of sending $33 billion more in arms. To end world hunger would only cost $45 billion. Why do our lawmakers so easily spend billions on war but do not even consider spending money on peace?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Nan McCurdy works for the United Methodist Church in the state of Puebla, Mexico with Give Ye Them to Eat (GYTTE), a ministry with impoverished rural people that works in community-based health, sustainable agriculture, and community development specializing in appropriate technologies. Nan is also the editor of the weekly on Nicaragua, NicaNotes. Nan can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image: Workers at Houston food bank. [Source: time.com]

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Food Insecurity Increases in the U.S. While It Declines in Nicaragua, Whose Socialist Government Has Defied U.S. Regime Change Designs
  • Tags: , ,

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Geopolitics is a game on a fixed chessboard in which not only the main players change, but also colours of the pieces, and the rules themselves are fluid.  Although basic mechanisms remain unchanged, and some scenarios come back years or even centuries later to remind us that Game of Thrones is invariably played in front of our eyes, usually too distracted to notice its outlines.  Once again, British agents appear in Eastern Europe and the Central Asia persuading the natives to wage war against Russia in order for Britain to regain its dominant position, initially in Europe, and ultimately also in the Middle East.  The Great Game continues.

Distribution of roles

Only people who cannot recognise changes in international politics may still think that the Ukrainian game is being played by (only) Russia and the United States.  Not at all.  Of course, the American hegemon still keeps general control over the entire geopolitics of the Western hemisphere, but its choking economy forces the division of tasks.  The reality is that if the US does not focus on the Chinese question, it will not only lose its (already broken) primacy of the World’s first economy, but also will be dethroned as the most important centre of global capital, which is already considering whether to change the side supported.

As Wall Street once (partially) replaced The City, today the possibility of shifting the main burden of global finance to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing is still on a table.  Since China is already the World’s main industrial centre – concentrating elements of major capital decisions could save the consumptive form of Capitalism known as Fordism, dominating since the end of World War 2.  And all of this while America and the UK are already implementing a great transformation of capitalism under the pretext of COVID-19 and the Climate Crisis.

Americans must turn to face these challenges, focus on the Far East and the Pacific, otherwise they can get an almost lethal kick in their… back.

The Empire strikes back

Howbeit Washington dominated and paralysed Europe for so many decades not to leave it without the enlightened Anglo-Saxon leadership now.  History and geopolitics have come full circle, when we are witnessing a bizarre, but absolutely serious attempt to rebuild the British Empire.

Not Americans but Britons are main Russia opponents in Ukraine.  In fact  Westminster has taken full control over the foreign policy (including energy security) of Poland and the Baltic States.

British presence is more than visible ion the historical battlefield of the Great Game, i.e. Central Asia.  Each week brings further evidence of increasing British involvement in the conflict with Russia.  Another Boris Johnson’s visit to Kiev (just after the European leaders) is recognised in the UK as a proposal that cannot be rejected by Volodymyr Zelensky: let the Ukrainians not even think about any scenario other than entering the bloc organised under British dominance with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia (and probably Moldova and Romania).  The second level of the same plan would be UkroPolin, a Polish-Ukrainian state hybrid, promoted in the Polish and Ukrainian politics especially by politicians openly controlled by the British Embassy.  And, of course, the final act of the operation would probably be to throw this whole alliance against Russia.

New colonies of the old Empire

England increases its own assets in Ukraine.  When Kiev was preparing to attack Russia, the Britons trained at least 22,000 Ukrainian soldiers (Operation Orbital).  Now  Prime Minister B. Johnson has promised to train another 10,000, probably in Poland.  Since February, Westminster has transferred £1.3 billion to Kiev, supplied thousands of NLAW anti-tank missiles, rocket launchers and artillery systems, including NATO M109.  Even the stupid final of the Eurovision Song Contest, which is expected to be hosted by Ukraine next year will be organised in… the United Kingdom.  Indeed, maybe Ukraine will be emerged with Poland into the UkroPolin, but only to turn them both into British colonies.

War propaganda in the UK may not be as primitive as in Poland or Lithuania, but almost as intense, although at least there are some independent voices tolerated as well from the Left (George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain, Chris Williamson’s Corbynists from The Resistance Movement), as from the Right (popular conservative writer and blogger Peter Hitchens).  Censorship, however, is reaching universities, and the mainstream media passionately haunt any public criticism of resurgent Imperialism.

British-Russian War?

Nevertheless, the pro-Kiev wave in the UK seems to decrease, and ordinary English and Scottish families ask i.a. for delays in paying out the so-called “Thank you” for hosting Ukrainian immigrants to their homes (many English and Scottish families still wait for promised £350 a month).  It does not matter much, because “the oldest European (Liberal) democracy” is not democratic, nor pro-free speech anymore, and the political and financial establishment almost straight declares that the UK itself is at war with Russia.

The Great Game is back.  Today it is played not only in diplomacy, on battlefields and within fights of intelligence agencies, but also in a virtual dimension.  Techniques are changeable, but domination is always the case.  Only one empire can survive, and when it cannot do so, it prefers to split itself up to prevent an end to Anglo-Saxon hegemony.  How Sir William Harcourt once said to the young Winston Churchill: “Nothing ever happens...”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Konrad Rękas is a renowned geopolitical analyst and a regular contributor to Global Research.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Great Game 2.0: The Defunct British Empire “Strikes Back” in Ukraine and Eastern Europe

Lebanon: Social, Economic and Financial Collapse

June 23rd, 2022 by Dr. Ghassan Melhem

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

 

 

 

 

***

Lebanon has slipped into social, economic and financial collapse after years of systemic political corruption.  Beirut has the opportunity to be resurrected from the ashes by a new parliament, financial reforms and the opportunity to retrieve energy resources from a large off-shore gas field yet undeveloped. 

Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Dr. Ghassan Melhem to gain insight into the issues and the people who may effect a positive change for Lebanon.  Dr. Melhem is a lecturer and researcher in Political Sciences and International Relations at the Lebanese University.

Steven Sahiounie (SS):  Lebanon has elected a new parliament. In your opinion, will this Parliament be able to accomplish the most important tasks to help Lebanon recover from near collapse?

Dr. Ghassan Melhem (GM):  The crisis which Lebanon is suffering seems to be complicated; it’s a national one par excellence. It’s not only a financial, economic, and social crisis, but it is political as well; a regime and existence crisis. Therefore, tackling this problem might be a difficult task in terms of how to start going out of its darkness and abyss.

Nevertheless, the future parliament would have to find effective solutions for what the country is floundering through by enacting legislation concerning the financial, economic, social, and administrative reforms and other steps, procedures, measures, and arrangements, such as passing the law of the independence of the judiciary, the general budget law, and reviewing the Capitol Control Law, as well as how to restructure banks, plan for financial and economic advancement, and bring about structural and administrative and privatization reform, in addition to addressing many thorny and pending issues and files with the aim of reaching the development of a national plan, which serves as a road map for the national salvation of Lebanon.

SS:  The Parliament is now tasked with forming a government, and most importantly appointing a Prime Minister. In your opinion, can this be accomplished, and who might be the next Prime Minister of Lebanon?

GM:  It should be noted that the formation map of the new parliament in terms of political positioning and alignment appears different in terms of the pattern of political power distribution within parliament between political parties and parliamentary blocs, which, of course, may reflect on the development or change in the political equations and balances in the country. The political components, or the political forces rather, in the language of political reality, are now divided into three key axes or blocs, as follows: firstly, the axis or the bloc of pro-resistance political forces and their allies and friends; secondly, the axis or the bloc of anti-resistance and pro-US and pro-Saudi political forces; thirdly and finally, the group of forces, organizations, and new or emerging persons. Accordingly, it seems that a remarkable change has occurred in the Lebanese political scene, and consequently, in the course of the Lebanese political process and life. From this angle, the calculations, considerations, and readings may differ when approaching the national, political and constitutional, expected or assumed entitlements, including the process of forming the government, and before that the process of choosing the political person who will be entrusted with this task to form the government, then the process of electing the President on October 31, 2022. It was decided to invite the representatives and the parliamentary blocs to conduct binding parliamentary consultations by the Presidency of the Republic next Thursday, June 23, 2022. In this regard, information and data indicate that caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, the most likely candidate, may be re-assigned. However, the task of forming a government remains, to date, stumbled and impossible in light of that the political solution in the country has come to a dead-end in the short run, which presupposes keeping the caretaker government in charge of managing the country and the people affairs; noting that the possibility that the presidency becomes vacant with the end of President Michel Aoun’s tenure without electing the next president is valid and exists, where the powers of the President, according to the Constitution, will be transferred to the Council of Ministers to avoid the potential vacuum, so that the House of Representatives can, naturally, elect a new President.

SS:  President Michel Aoun’s term in office will expire in the upcoming months. In your opinion, who might be the next President of Lebanon?

GM:  The term of the current President of the Lebanese Republic, General Michel Aoun, it is about to end, with over four months only remaining. At this point, the presidential election battle may have begun. There are many names being circulated in the corridors, backrooms, parlors, and in the political, diplomatic, and media councils. These names include former MP and Minister Suleiman Frangieh, head of the Marada Movement, son of martyr minister Tony Frangieh and grandson of the late President Suleiman Frangieh, an ally to Syria and the resistance in political and strategic choices or bets. Given the current facts, he may be the most prominent and fortunate candidate so far. Among the names on the table is also the army commander, General Joseph Aoun, whose election requires an amendment to the constitution, and it is assumed that an agreement or a political understanding has been reached about it beforehand. On the other hand, the chances of Representative Gebran Bassil, the son-in-law of President General Michel Aoun and the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement and head of the Strong Lebanon bloc, seem to be limited and weak, while the chances of Dr. Samir Geagea, head of the Lebanese Forces Party, remain nil. The stock of the names nominated or proposed to assume the presidency of the Republic remains open to all possibilities in the coming and remaining period along with the continuation of the state of political confusion in light of the ongoing political labor in the country, as in the region that may be heading towards calm, easing and downgrading the levels of tension and escalation, waiting for the green light of launching the process of political understandings and the convening of political settlements. Thus, a new political era begins in the region, based on a set of new or emerging regional arrangements whose precursors, indicators, and features have begun to gradually and successively become evident, and which will, in turn, affect the political and social reality and future in this country, which may lead to the possibility, contrary to expectations and estimates, that a moderate, open and balanced political figure reaches the Presidency of the Republic.

SS:  Riad Salameh has been accused of systemic corruption as head of the Central Bank of Lebanon. In your opinion, will he be removed, and will the IMF plan for monetary recovery be implemented?

GM:  This question is of two parts. As for the first, concerning the fate of the Governor of the Banque du Liban, Riad Salameh, there are several observations about his performance and behavior, not only in the recent period but throughout the past era that extended for many years, even for the past three decades. Naturally, he takes the responsibility for the failure of the monetary policy and the deterioration of the exchange rate of the national currency, the Lebanese pound, against the US dollar.

The accusations and the files of financial corruption against him in many Western and foreign courts and judicial institutions are also noteworthy. Accordingly, keeping the governor in office has become an impossibility, sooner or later. Hereby, dismissing the governor, meaning his removal, or his abdication is an issue on the table and to be discussed from now on. It’s just a matter of time. The decision to change the governor of the Central Bank has become expected and likely, that is, until the atmosphere and circumstances are ripe for choosing a replacement or successor for him in this position with considerations and other relevant accounts. The decision-making process in this regard and in this direction may be postponed for some time – perhaps until a new President is elected, ffof the country- but the initiative to take this step may no longer be far away or out of the question, not even unacceptable or impossible. As for the second part, concerning the International Monetary Fund’s plan, it may be noted that the Lebanese government’s heading for the International Monetary Fund is not necessarily the only or best and optimal option for the Lebanese state. This observation must be contemplated and overthought. That means not to rush out and apply the International Monetary Fund plan, taking this option alone, because this type of irresponsible political performance is suspicious, and condemned.

It is unreasonable and unacceptable to accept such a policy which may be useless, unhelpful and unconstructive, perhaps more than that, on the basis that it is not permissible to resort and rely again on repeating previous experiences by adopting the same financial, economic, and social policies that, in reality, led to emptying and hollowing out of the national economy, by hitting the productive sectors and giving priority to mercantile and rentier accounts, in reference to the networks and groups of capitalist and bourgeois interests of banking and real estate rents at the expense of economic growth and sustainable economic and social development. Therefore, deciding on this par excellence national issue, which is a pivotal and fateful issue, is assumed by everyone, especially by the political authority, the media, public opinion, and other political actors to take the national and historical responsibility, now and in the future, and not to falter, slacken, or collude, but rather to seek how to ensure supplying the demands and requirements of the public interest and the supreme national interest.

SS:  Israel has started drilling for off-shore energy resources in waters disputed by Lebanon. This has caused great tension between the Lebanese officials and Hezbollah. In your opinion, how will the situation develop?

GM:  Delineating the maritime borders of the Lebanese state in the south with occupied Palestine is not a new or recent issue, and so the issue of delineating the land borders before it; that is, to deal with the problem of the sticking points in more than one place or station along these southern land borders from Ras Al-Naqoura in the west to Shebaa Farms in the east. Nevertheless, it has been brought up and raised in the media and in front of public opinion again in recent times with the escalation of the debate and the intensification of the confrontation between Lebanon and the Israeli enemy over energy (oil and gas) exploration and extraction in the disputed region.

Here, we are talking about the exclusive economic zone in particular, and not the territorial waters, of Lebanon and occupied Palestine, because this distinction and differentiation between them have legal effects in terms of subordination to national sovereignty, yet there is no room here to delve into this legal matter in detail. Anyway, the recent escalation between the Lebanese and Israeli sides was preceded by several rounds of indirect negotiations mediated by the United States and under the auspices of the United Nations. All of them failed, or let’s say they were unsuccessful.

Then negotiations were renewed with the visit of the American mediator, Amos Hochstein, to Beirut earlier this week, meeting senior Lebanese officials and Lebanese statesmen, led by the President, as well as the Speaker of Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Army Commander, and other political and non-political figures. This issue has turned into a political dispute, and the latter may, in turn, turn into a legal conflict, and perhaps an armed military conflict, although the war option or possibility between the Lebanese and Israeli sides might be unlikely, at least for now, waiting for the developments in the next few hours or days when the American mediator returns to Beirut again from the Israeli entity, where he is supposed to meet with senior leaders and political, military and security officials of the enemy entity to discuss how to resume and complete negotiations with the aim of reaching a political settlement about the issue of delineating the maritime border outstanding between the Lebanese and Israeli sides.

In this context, it should be noted that the failure of negotiations, and consequently the fall of this option, is not in anyone’s interest, especially Lebanon, in light of the difficult circumstances or conditions it is experiencing. At that time, the alternative would be resorting to the option of international arbitration, which will take several years to resolve this dispute, which contradicts Lebanon’s interest in trying to benefit from this card to get out of this crisis. Meanwhile, remarkable was the unification of the official Lebanese position and the army leadership’s support for the political authority decision, as well as the positions of the resistance leadership, which emphasized the commitment to the state’s reference and legitimacy, not to bid or be stubborn, escalate, or incite, of course, as well as the commitment and pledge of the resistance leadership to protect Lebanon, its rights and wealth are under the roof of the sovereignty and legitimacy of the Lebanese state.

This leads to a conclusion from scientific observation point of view, to the effect that the course of the file may go in the right direction, in terms of reaching a just and balanced political and diplomatic solution between the two conflicting parties, provided that Lebanon realizes at all official, political, diplomatic, military, security and media and popular levels how to take advantage of the changing and volatile circumstances and atmosphere first; including Israel’s need, along with the entire West, from Europe to America, to consume energy resources from the eastern Mediterranean basin, especially after the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the exacerbation of its impacts and its political, financial, economic and strategic repercussions, and how to take advantage of strength factors; political, popular and military ones, including the army’s stance and the resistance weaponry and strength.

Lebanon has the right, the argument, the evidence, and the proof, and it is in dire need of seizing this opportunity. Things remain subject to developments on the line of diplomatic negotiations, the facts on the ground, and the political positions of the concerned parties in the near future.

What is more important than the issue of demarcating the maritime borders with occupied Palestine from the south for Lebanon – despite the importance and gravity of this issue, of course – is what is beyond it as well, as Lebanon stands at a dangerous crossroads, where there are many questions or inquiries that need to be answered.

That means resolving options and bets, taking stances and decisions, on how Lebanon would kick off energy resources exploration and drilling operations, then how to extract and consume them, including, of course, international guarantees, both political and legal, to lift the siege and sanctions on Lebanon and end pressures, threats and restrictions on foreign companies in general and Western ones (or European) in particular, to enable the latter to carry out drilling, prospecting, extracting and supplying energy resources from Lebanon to the West and elsewhere, and allow it to do so in light of the needs and requirements, on one hand; on the other, there’s Lebanon’s location and stance within the framework of the map of energy fields and potential or assumed pipelines drawn in the region, and across it to several regions of the world in the West and East, as well as international and regional competition between many international and regional powers in this regard. Still more to say…

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above or below. Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

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

Featured image is from MD

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Lebanon: Social, Economic and Financial Collapse
  • Tags:

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

For decades, Taiwan, a place mere 160 km from China’s mainland, has intermittently been the point of contention between the Asian giant and the political West, particularly the United States, a country nearly 11,000 km away from the island. Since 1949, Taiwan has been self-governing and although it does have attributes of a sovereign state, the United Nations, nearly the whole world, along with the entire political West, including the US itself, recognize the island as an inalienable part of China. Beijing has been extremely tolerant over the decades, even offering numerous benefits to the island’s mostly Han Chinese population.

Taiwan has enjoyed a massive economic boom as a result of its relationship with mainland China, making it one of the wealthiest areas in the Asia-Pacific region. Beijing never insisted on completely (re)integrating the island into its system of governance, offering instead a status not dissimilar to the one Hong Kong (or Macao) has within the People’s Republic of China. The idea is to make the (re)integration as painless as possible, with no disruptions to the everyday lives of the residents of Taiwan. China certainly has the military capacity to (re)take the island by force, but for Beijing, this is the absolute last resort, one it’s seeking to avoid.

However, the ever belligerent US has other plans. Seeing the “benefits” of the Ukrainian crisis, Washington DC seems to be determined to push for yet another world-changing conflict, but this time, it would involve China. Such a conflict wouldn’t just have potentially severe security consequences, but would also ravage the global economy. However, US political elites don’t even want to consider an off-ramp solution which would defuse the volatile situation.

During the early stages of the (First) Cold War, the US, its allies and regional client states had a decidedly anti-Beijing stance. At the time, Beijing was unable to launch a large-scale operation to (re)take the island, as it had established peace in the country only in 1949, over a decade after the Japanese invasion and later the civil war between the communist and nationalist forces. By the 1970s, there was a thaw in US-China relations, with the Nixon administration seeking to establish closer ties to counter the then unrivaled and ever-growing might of the USSR. The government in Beijing was finally recognized as the only legal one, effectively freezing the Taiwan issue, as the US itself officially started adhering to the “One China” policy ever since.

After the end of the (First) Cold War, the US changed its stance. Since the early 1990s, Taiwan became a point of contention once again. With a relatively short strategic pause during the early 2000s, as the US was busy pillaging and destroying the world elsewhere, in particular the Middle East, Taiwan became increasingly important during the late 2010s. US Navy warships (re)started their more frequent transit through the Taiwan Strait, sailing from the East to the South China Sea several times a year, averaging at least one trip per month as of 2020. So far, in 2022, it has conducted at least five transits, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The US insists this is in line with international law.

“The Taiwan Strait is an international waterway where freedom of navigation and overflight are guaranteed under international law,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price said in an e-mail. “The United States will continue to fly, sail and operate wherever international law allows, and that includes transiting through the Taiwan Strait.”

While it is true that sailing through the Taiwan Strait technically doesn’t violate international law, it does create unnecessary tensions, as the waterway isn’t of crucial strategic importance to the US, but it certainly is to China. In addition to US Navy incursions in China’s sphere of influence, both in the East and the South China Sea, Washington DC is also actively arming the government in Taipei. This presents a direct and clear danger to Chinese troops just across the Strait. And while the People’s Liberation Army vastly outmatches the island’s forces, US arms deliveries to Taipei are directly undermining China’s efforts to resolve the Taiwan issue peacefully.

The US strategic goal is to limit and undermine China’s power and influence in the region. With Taiwan in the firm grip of the political West, particularly the US, China’s power projection remains largely confined to coastal areas, while Washington DC gets to keep its so far unmatched control over most of the Asia-Pacific region. China, which has been building one of the largest and most powerful navies in the world, is becoming more assertive and determined to push the belligerent power in decline away from its shores. 

Seeing what’s going on around the world, such as in Ukraine in recent years, but especially in the last 4 months, China is fully aware of the malignant US influence, which is now effectively sacrificing one client state after another to keep its geopolitical near-peer rivals busy, while trying to resolve numerous internal issues and prevent, or at least slow down its unrelenting decline.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on US aims to Trap China in a Perpetual Taiwan Conflict

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles

***

In a historic victory for farmworkers and the environment on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit sided with Center for Food Safety (CFS) and its represented farmworker and conservation clients by overturning the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision that the toxic pesticide glyphosate is safe for humans and imperiled wildlife. Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto-Bayer’s flagship Roundup weedkiller, the most widely used pesticide in the world.

The 54-page opinion held the Trump administration’s 2020 interim registration of glyphosate to be unlawful because “EPA did not adequately consider whether glyphosate causes cancer and shirked its duties under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).” Represented by Center for Food Safety, the petitioners in the lawsuit included the Rural Coalition, Farmworker Association of Florida, Organización en California de Lideres Campesinas, and Beyond Pesticides. A consolidated case is led by Natural Resources Defense Council and includes Pesticide Action Network.

“Today’s decision gives voice to those who suffer from glyphosate’s cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma,”said Amy van Saun, senior attorney with Center for Food Safety and lead counsel in the case. “EPA’s ‘no cancer’ risk conclusion did not stand up to scrutiny. Today is a major victory for farmworkers and others exposed to glyphosate. Imperiled wildlife also won today, as the court agreed that EPA needed to ensure the safety of endangered species before greenlighting glyphosate.”

“We welcome and applaud the court on this significant decision,” said Jeannie Economos, Pesticide Safety and Environmental Health Project Coordinator at the Farmworker Association of Florida, a plaintiff in the case. While it comes too late for many farmworkers and landscapers who suffer after glyphosate exposure, we are grateful for the court’s ruling, and hope that now EPA will act quickly to protect future workers from illness and disease resulting from this toxic pesticide.”

As to its cancer conclusion, the court concluded that EPA flouted its own Cancer Guidelines and ignored the criticisms of its own experts. EPA’s “not likely to cause cancer” conclusion was inconsistent with the evidence before it, in the form of both epidemiological studies (real-world cancer cases) and lab animal studies. In addition to its lack of conclusion as to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma risk (the cancer most tied to glyphosate), the court also concluded that EPA’s general “no cancer” decision was divorced from its own Guidelines and experts when EPA selectively discounted evidence that glyphosate causes tumors in animals. At various points the Court criticized EPA’s “disregard of tumor results;” its use of “bare assertions” that “fail to account coherently for the evidence;” making conclusions that do not “withstand scrutiny under the agency’s own framework,” and “failing to abide by” its cancer guidelines. In sum the court noted EPA’s “inconsistent reasoning” made its decision on cancer “arbitrary,” and struck it down.

“We are grateful that the court decided in our favor,” said John Zippert, chairperson of the Rural Coalition, a plaintiff in the case. “We need to halt glyphosate’s devastating impact on the farmworkers and farmers who suffer the deepest consequences of exposure. This decision will hopefully hasten the transition to farming and gardening methods and practices that increase resilience, protecting our children, our planet, and all those who feed us.”

“EPA’s failure to act on the science, as detailed in the litigation, has real-world adverse health consequences for farmworkers, the public, and ecosystems,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides, a plaintiff in the case.”Because of this lawsuit, the agency’s obstruction of the regulatory process will not be allowed to stand, and EPA should start shifting food production to available alternative non- and less-toxic practices and materials that meet its statutory duty.”

The court went on to conclude that EPA’s decision also violated the Endangered Species Act. As the court noted, EPA itself elsewhere had admitted that “glyphosate ‘may affect’ all listed species experiencing glyphosate exposure—that is 1,795 endangered or threatened species” yet had unlawfully ignored the ESA for this decision.

As to remedy, the court struck down, or vacated the human health assessment. The court also required that EPA redo and/or finish all remaining glyphosate determinations by an October 2022 deadline, or within four months. This includes a redone ecological toxicity assessment, a redone costs analysis of impacts to farmers from pesticide harms, as well as all Endangered Species analysis and mitigation.

Background

In an “interim registration review” decision for glyphosate issued in January 2020, EPA finalized its human health and ecological risk assessments and adopted “mitigation measures” in the form of label changes. EPA unlawfully concluded there is no cancer risk from glyphosate, despite major gaps in its review, including coming to “no conclusion” as to non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the most well-known cancer linked to glyphosate. EPA also failed to do any assessment of how much glyphosate gets into a user’s bloodstream after skin contact, a major route of occupational exposure.

Critically, EPA failed to test any of the glyphosate product formulations, which contain ingredients beyond just the active ingredient (glyphosate) and can increase the harmful effects of pesticide exposure. Finally, because EPA continued to the use of glyphosate with minor, unsubstantiated label changes, it needed to consider the impacts to imperiled species and do more to protect them from glyphosate.

CFS and allies originally filed the lawsuit in 2020, incorporating volumes of evidence showing how EPA ignored glyphosate’s health risks, including cancer risks, to farmworkers and farmers exposed during spraying. Petitioners also challenged EPA’s decision based on risks to the environment and imperiled species, such as the Monarch butterfly.

In response to CFS and allies’ lawsuit, in May 2021 EPA effectively admitted grave errors in its interim registration and asked the court for permission to re-do the agency’s faulty ecological, cost-benefit, and Endangered Species Act assessments. However, the agency stated that Roundup should nonetheless stay on the market in the interim—without any deadline for a new decision.

In July 2021, Bayer announced it will end the sales of its glyphosate-based herbicides (including Roundup) in the U.S. residential lawn and garden market in 2023 in order to “manage litigation risk and not because of any safety concerns.” In California, jury trials continue to be held. Last year, courts affirmed a judgment against Monsanto for cancer from Roundup in Hardeman v. Monsanto—one of the first in a series of high-profile consumer lawsuits filed against Monsanto-Bayer—and in the third appeal of such a claim in Pilliod v. Monsanto.

While EPA has repeatedly declared that glyphosate does not cause cancer, the world’s foremost cancer authorities with the World Health Organization declared glyphosate to be ‘probably carcinogenic to humans‘ in 2015. And as the record in the case showed, EPA’s own Office of Research and Development concluded that glyphosate is either a likely carcinogen or at least there is evidence suggesting that it causes cancer, particularly increases the risk of NHL.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on US Appeals Court Forces EPA to Reassess Glyphosate on Health and Environmental Impact

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

  • UK MILITARY: ‘They sent me a warning’
  • MI5 and MI6: ‘Deliberately undermined me’
  • MIKE POMPEO’S THREAT: ‘A quite deliberate message’
  • THE GUARDIAN: ‘A tool of the British establishment’
  • UK PRESS: ‘We have a supine media in this country’
  • KEIR STARMER: ‘I should have been more aware of his past’
  • ARMS TO SAUDI ARABIA: ‘Extraordinary levels of lobbying from Labour MPs’

“I had my first speech outside Number 10 as prime minister all planned out,” Jeremy Corbyn tells me. “I was going to announce homelessness in Britain ends now, next week no-one will be sleeping rough.” 

He is sitting on a sofa at the offices of his Peace & Justice Project in Finsbury Park, deep in his north London constituency. “Not bad for a first policy, huh?” he asks, flashing his trademark wry grin.

As it happened, the 2019 general election led to a landslide victory for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives. More than 2,000 people still sleep rough across the UK every night.

When we last met, things looked rather different.

It was October 2018 and I was interviewing him for La Jornada, an independent newspaper in Mexico, at his offices in Westminster. This was the year after the shock election result of 2017, when his Labour Party had achieved the biggest electoral swing in its favour since 1945.

“The media assault on Corbyn during his tenure as Labour leader from 2015-20 will be recorded as perhaps the most intense political assassination in modern British history.”

It looked, then, like he had a good chance of becoming the next British prime minister.

Corbyn says he remembers the interview. “It’s one of the only positive write-ups you got as leader,” I venture. “The only one!” he shoots back, laughing, before adding, “Actually, truth be told, I got another okay one from the Morning Star.”

It’s funny, but it’s not a joke. The media assault on Corbyn during his tenure as Labour leader from 2015-20 will be recorded as perhaps the most intense political assassination in modern British history.

The campaign to make sure he never made it into No 10 came from the usual suspects on the right such as the Sun and the Telegraph, but self-styled left publications like the Guardianand New Statesman were key to it as well.

The campaign also included, crucially, large parts of his own party. The reality is that barely a single element of the British establishment didn’t mobilise to see off the threat he posed.

Corbyn launched the Peace & Justice Project in early 2021 to maintain the significant momentum garnered by the British left during his time as Labour leader. Within a year of his premiership, Labour’s membership had risen to 600,000, making it the largest party in Western Europe.

His new project’s office is set in a space for people from across the local community. Football coaches, entrepreneurs, politicians, all rub alongside each other at the communal desks. It’s very Corbyn. “Bringing people together, that’s what we do,” he says as he walks through.

Corbyn, now 73, was often portrayed as a scruffy and irascibledinosaur by the press, but today he has on a crisp white shirt and a tidy olive green suit. From the moment we meet, he barely stops cracking jokes. The last two years out of the Westminster fire pit have done him good. He is ready to tell his side of the story.

‘A warning to me’

The month before the 2019 election, I decided to go through the newspaper clippings from Corbyn’s four years as Labour leader to try to locate all the hit pieces on him that emanated from the British military and intelligence establishment. What I found shocked me.

Some 34 major national stories attacking Corbyn as a “threat” to British security had come from elements within the national security state. Laid out in chronological order it looked like a campaign – and this was only what they were doing in public. It was likely the tip of the iceberg.

One example came a week after Corbyn was elected Labour leader in 2015. The Sunday Times carried a story quoting a “senior serving general” who warned that the armed forces would take “direct action” to stop a Corbyn government. The anonymous general added: “There would be mass resignations at all levels and you would face the very real prospect of an event which would effectively be a mutiny.”

“I thought it was a sort of shot across the bows, a warning to me.”

Corbyn tells me: “When that story came out shortly after I was elected leader in 2015 from apparently a serving military officer, we obviously challenged it straight away and they said it was a rogue element and they didn’t speak for anybody else. But I thought it was a sort of shot across the bows, a warning to me.”

The warning, Corbyn says, was directed at his international policies “based on peace, based on human rights, based on democracy, based on fair trade, rather than the very pro-American defence and foreign policy” of the British establishment.

He adds: “I knew this was going to lead to attacks, and it certainly did. It also served as a warning to a lot of our supporters just what we were up against in challenging the foreign policy establishment and the up-until-then cosy agreement between those front-benchers in parliament to support the same foreign policy. So…was I shocked? Yes. Was I surprised? No.”

‘Deliberately undermining me’

MI5 and MI6 were also involved in this apparent campaign. In September 2018, two anonymous senior government sources told the Sunday Times that Corbyn had been “summoned” for a “‘facts of life’ talk on terror” by then MI5 chief Andrew Parker. MI5 was likely involved in the leak as the article noted what the agency’s boss wanted to brief Corbyn on.

The reporters also based the story on a “security source” who “acknowledged that some of the Labour leader’s public statements on terrorism have been ‘troubling’ to the security services”.

Then, two months later, the Daily Telegraphlearnt” from an unspecified source that Corbyn had “recently met” with Alex Younger, then head of MI6, during which “the importance of the agency’s work and the severity of the threats facing Britain were made clear to him.” The imputation was again that Corbyn was naive to the threats facing the UK.

It was likely MI6 was involved in the leak as a “Whitehall official” divulged “the feeling” within the agency “that the time had come for Mr Corbyn to become acquainted with the workings of the intelligence establishment.”

“It was all then leaked out as a way to be deliberately undermining of me.”

“They were obviously private meetings,” Corbyn tells me. “We obviously prepared for them and went there. We absolutely did not inform or leak about the meeting at all to anybody. I instructed my office that this meeting had to be treated as completely confidential. And it was. It was leaked by them and it was leaked in a way to undermine: that somehow or other I’d been summoned and given a dressing down. That was not the nature of the meeting at all.”

He adds:

“The meeting was a discussion in which they discussed various parts of the world and various issues, none of which was new to me, none of which was a surprise to me. It was about the role of ISIS [Islamic State], it was about the war in Syria, it was about post-Iraq war, Afghanistan…They were well aware of my views on those conflicts and very well aware of what I’d said.”

He continues:

“They acknowledged I had a different view from themselves and the government, and the meetings were…pretty frank. Were they aggressive? No. It was an intelligent discussion. Obviously it was all recorded. Obviously it was all then leaked out as a way to be deliberately undermining of me.”

Andrew Parker, head of MI5 from 2013-20, speaks in London in October 2017. (Photo: Stefan Rousseau/Getty Images)

.

‘A deliberate message’

It wasn’t just the British state that was bearing down on Corbyn. In June 2019, then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited the UK and was recorded saying privately: “It could be that Mr Corbyn manages to run the gauntlet and get elected. It’s possible. You should know, we won’t wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best. It’s too risky and too important and too hard once it’s already happened.”

Compared to the extensive coverage of alleged Russian interference in the Brexit referendum, Pompeo’s remarks barely registered in the British media. I ask Corbyn why he thinks that is.

“We have a supine media in this country,” he tells me. “The British self-confidence of saying we’ve got the best media in the world, the best broadcasting in the world, the best democracy in the world. It’s nonsense, utter, complete nonsense. We have a media that’s supine, that self-censors, that accepts D-Notices, doesn’t challenge them, and the vast majority of the mainstream media haven’t lifted so much as a little finger in support or defence of Julian Assange.”

“Many of the so-called investigative reporters in the British media are just pathetic.”

He adds: “And so the idea that we’ve got this brave British media that is always exposing the truth is utter nonsense. Even the liberal supposedly left-leaning papers like the Guardian, where are they on all of this? Nowhere. Where were they kicking off about Pompeo’s remarks? Nowhere. We obviously kicked off about it, protested…We were just told it was a private briefing…It wasn’t. It was a quite deliberate message.”

Pompeo was Trump’s CIA director from 2017-18 and this is not lost on Corbyn who brings up the CIA-backed coup which overthrew president Salvador Allende and Chilean democracy in 1973. “I’ve lived to see Allende elected, I’ve lived to see Allende killed, I’ve lived to see the coup in Chile,” he says. These were formative events in Corbyn’s political development.

“He wasn’t alone, though, Pompeo, in these remarks,” Corbyn continues.

“Benjamin Netanyahu also weighed in on this and said that I must not become prime minister. Sorry, who is Benjamin Netanyahu to decide who the British prime minister should be? It’s not for me to decide who the Israeli prime minister should be…so who is he to make that kind of comment? Again, the British media just lapped it up…Frankly, many of the so-called investigative reporters in the British media are just pathetic.”

In November 2019, the month before the election, the Daily Telegraph had published an “exclusive” interview with Netanyahu in which he told them “Israel may halt its intelligence co-operation with the UK if Jeremy Corbyn becomes prime minister”.

Then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo addresses reporters in New York City in May 2018. (Photo: US State Department)

‘A tool of the British Establishment’

The Guardian has long been viewed as the voice of the liberal-left in Britain, so it surprised many during the Corbyn leadership to see it act as one of the main media vehicles through which the campaign to bring him down was fought.

The paper was a key part of the “anti-semitism crisis” that engulfed Corbyn’s leadership. From 2016-19, the Guardianpublished 1,215 stories mentioning Labour and anti-semitism, an average of around one per day, according to a search on Factiva, the database of newspaper articles.

In the same period, the Guardian published just 194 articles mentioning the Conservative Party’s much more serious problem with Islamophobia. A YouGov poll in 2019, for example, found that nearly half of the Tory party membership would prefer not to have a Muslim prime minister.

The Guardian’s coverage of anti-semitism in Labour was suspiciously extensive, compared to the known extent of the problem in the party, and its focus on Corbyn personally suggested that the issue was being used politically.

The late Jewish anthropologist David Graeber commentedafter the 2019 election: “As for the Guardian, we will never forget that during the ‘Labour antisemitism controversy’, they beat even the Daily Mail to include the largest percentage of false statements, pretty much every one, mysteriously, an accidental error to Labour’s disadvantage”.

“I have absolutely no illusions in the Guardian, none whatsoever,” Corbyn tells me. “My mum brought me up to read the Guardian. She said, ‘It’s a good paper you can trust’. You can’t. After their treatment of me, I do not trust the Guardian.”

“I have absolutely no illusions in the Guardian, none whatsoever.”

He continues: “There are good people who work in the Guardian, there are some brilliant writers in the Guardian, but as a paper, it’s a tool of the British establishment. It’s a mainstream establishment paper. So, as long as everybody on the left gets it clear: when you buy the Guardian, you’re buying an establishment paper”.

Corbyn says he had visited the Guardian offices during the 2015 leadership campaign to meet with its journalists. One was a meeting of all staff, another was with the core editorial team.

“The meeting with the entirety of the staff was fine,” he says. “A lot of young people were there, it was interesting, it was funny, it was zany, very pleasant, I was very well-received. And they said, ‘OK, what’s your pitch to the leader of the Labour Party?’ And I set out anti-austerity and social justice…Some of the questions were quite tough. Fine, it’s okay. It was very respectful, it was a very nice meeting. We then had a meeting with the editorial team.”

He pauses. “Bit different,” he adds, raising his eyebrows. “It was like I was being warned; like I was being warned by this team of actually incredibly self-important people”.

He continues: “So was I surprised? No. And I’ve had to live with the behaviour of the Guardian ever since. But the Guardian is in a unique position because it is the paper most read by Labour Party members, is the most important in forming opinion on the centre and left in British politics. And they are very well aware of that, which is why I think an analysis of the Guardian’s treatment of the time that I was leader of the party needs to be made because they and the BBC had more unsourced reporting of anti-semitic criticisms surrounding me than any other paper, including the Mail, The Telegraph and the Sun.”

‘What is his crime?’

Another ignominious part of the Guardian’s recent history has been its treatment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, a one-time collaborator with the paper. As Assange was arbitrarily detained by the UK in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, the Guardian became a major media vehicle through which the information war against him was fought by his various enemies.

One apparent mini-campaign trying to link Assange to Russia ran for six months until November 2018 and culminated in a front-page splash, based on anonymous sources, claiming that Assange had three secret meetings in the embassy with Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

It is now widely-accepted the Manafort story was false and the Guardian no longer refers to it in articles on the subject, although the paper has never retracted it.

“Nelson Mandela was put into maximum security, life imprisonment after the Rivonia treason trial of 1964,” Corbyn tells me when I ask about Assange. “All through the sixties and the seventies into much later on, eighties even, Nelson Mandela was a lonely figure supported by a few people around Africa and around the world. He was not a popular, iconic figure at all. He became so later on, he became the iconic figure in the fight against apartheid.

“And when he was released and came to the British parliament, there were some amazing speeches from people who had apparently been incredibly active in the apartheid movement. But somehow or other I’d missed their participation in all the anti-apartheid activities I’d been to.” He smiles then adds with his characteristic irony, “You know how it goes, that’s alright.”

“Julian Assange, what’s his crime?” Corbyn asks, then adds again with emphasis, “What is his crime?”

“One day I did interviews for about 15 broadcast media all over the world. Where were the British? None.”

Answering his own question, he continues: “Assange managed to collect information on what the US was doing, US foreign policy was doing, its illegal activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and much else. In the great traditions of a journalist who never reveals their sources, very important, and he was pursued because of this and as we know, eventually sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, but was unable to get out of it.”

He adds: “We then discover that all that time in the Ecuadorian embassy…there was the surveillance of him by apparently an independent security company, but in reality it was working for the Americans.”

In early 2021, El Pais revealed that the Spanish company running security for the Ecuadorian embassy in London had been sharing audio and video recordings of Assange’s private meetings with the CIA. These included privileged conversations with his lawyers.

Later in the year, new revelations showed a Guardian reporter had known the company meant to be protecting Assange was actually spying on him. Instead of alerting Assange, the Guardian journalist requested transcripts of his illicitly-recorded private conversations.

Assange “was initially welcomed by the Guardian,” Corbyn says, adding the paper “published all of his stuff and then dropped him and have continued to drop him.”

Corbyn said he’s been on many demonstrations outside the courts in Britain in recent months to raise awareness of Assange’s extradition case. “There’s huge numbers of media there from all over the world,” he says.

“One day I did interviews for about 15 broadcast media all over the world. Where were the British? None. Not one, apart from social media. So what is it about the British media that they cannot bring themselves to the biggest story about freedom-to-know in the world today on their very doorstep, they could walk from their offices to the High Court and get the story.” He adds: “It says everything about the supine nature of the mainstream media in Britain.”

Julian Assange has now been in Belmarsh maximum security prison in London for nearly 1,200 days. “He’s not convicted of anything,” Corbyn says. “There is no unspent conviction that he’s got to serve time in prison for. And Belmarsh –  I’ve been to see prisoners in the past – is a horrible, horrible place and he’s there with all the dangers to his health that goes with that.”

On Friday, Home Secretary Priti Patel approved Assange’s extradition to the US to face life in prison there on espionage charges.

Jeremy Corbyn speaks to supporters of Julian Assange outside court before an extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court in London in April 2022. (Photo: Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images)

‘I’d never met him before’

One figure who had a role in the long and winding Assange case is Corbyn’s successor as Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer.

Starmer was head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) from 2008-13, when it handled Assange’s proposed extradition to Sweden to face questioning about sexual assault allegations.

The CPS has admitted destroying key emails relating to the Assange case, mostly covering the period when Starmer was director. A CPS lawyer working under Starmer also advised the Swedish authorities not to visit London in 2010 or 2011 to interview Assange. An interview in the UK at that time could have prevented the long-running embassy standoff.

Starmer quit as Corbyn’s shadow immigration minister in the ‘chicken coup’ of 2016 against Corbyn’s leadership. In his resignation letter Starmer cited the “need for a much louder voice on the critical issues” and aired “reservations” about Corbyn’s leadership.

After the coup was defeated and Corbyn was reelected in a landslide, Starmer was not only appointed to the shadow cabinet, but bagged one of its most senior positions.

Corbyn tells me: “I appointed Keir Starmer to the shadow Brexit position…because of his legal knowledge and skills and the importance of saying to the Parliamentary Labour Party, ‘Look, I understand the makeup of the PLP. This is why I’ve appointed this broad and diverse shadow cabinet.’ Did it make it easy to manage? No. Were there lots of debates in the shadow cabinet? You bet there were. I didn’t stop those debates, I encouraged those debates”.

He adds, “But I have to say, as we developed this very difficult position over Brexit, where we had a 60-40 split of party supporters voting remain to leave, we had the view that we had to somehow or other bring people together. I tried to unite people around the social and economic message saying, ‘If you’re poor and up against it, however you voted, you need a Labour government that’s going to redistribute wealth and power.’”

Corbyn admits he didn’t know much about his newly-appointed shadow Brexit minister at that point.

“Was I close to Keir Starmer? No, I’d never met him before he became a member of parliament. Obviously knew who he was, he was a neighbouring MP. Had we had much contact? No, not really. And our conversations when he was in the shadow cabinet were largely about the minutiae of Brexit, the various agreements and the many meetings that we had in Brussels with officials there…So beyond that, apart from occasional chats about Arsenal football club, that was about it.”

Corbyn continues: “Was I aware of everything about his past? No, not really. Should I have been? Yeah. But then there are so many things one could and should be aware of that one isn’t.”

Corbyn adds: “I noticed it when he stood for election for leader of the party he was very clear that he accepted the 2019 manifesto and its contents and put forward his ten points there. Those seem to have been parked now, shall we say.”

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks in the House of Commons in April 2020. (Photo: Jessica Taylor/UK Parliament)

Targeting the Left

Starmer’s now-infamous 10 pledges promised his leadership of Labour would effectively be a continuation of Corbynism without Corbyn. He promised he would support a tax increase for the top 5% of earners; nationalise rail, mail, energy and water; and unite the party.

But the hallmark of Starmer’s leadership so far has actually been its effort to attack the left. Corbyn, as the symbol of the left’s resurgence, was directly targeted. In October 2020, he was suspended by the Labour Party ostensibly because of his response to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) report on anti-semitism in the party.

Corbyn’s statement said anti-semitism was “absolutely abhorrent” and “one anti-semite is one too many” in the party. He added: “The scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media.”

For anyone following the events of the five previous years, this was a statement of obvious fact. The point was also important to assuage the real fears in the Jewish community about the scale of anti-semitism in the Labour Party. But Starmer did not see it the same way.

“The response to the EHRC report which I gave, which I thought was reasonable and balanced, was met with the immediate suspension of my membership, which the media were told about before I was,” Corbyn tells me.

“First I heard about it was when a journalist stopped me in the street as I was leaving the Brickworks Community Centre just near here, which I’m a trustee of, and I was told my membership had been suspended and I thought the journalist who said it was joking, was winding me up. I said, ‘what?’’ He said, ‘No, you’ve been suspended.’ And I said, ‘Nah, nah, what you talking about?’”

“The scale of the problem was dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents.”

Corbyn pauses. “It was true. Anyway, I obviously appealed against that and won that appeal, unanimously, reinstated, unanimously, endorsed by [Labour’s National Executive Committee], unanimously, and then my membership of the parliamentary party was suspended. And there’s been no process taken against me by the parliamentary party.”

The lack of due process clearly upsets Corbyn, who takes parliamentary and party political procedure very seriously. “It makes my constituents very angry. They say, ‘Look, Jeremy, we voted for you as our Labour MP, so why? We’ve got confidence in you, we have no problem with you. We don’t think you’ve done anything wrong and we welcome your work as our local MP.’ And I’m very proud to represent the people of this community.”

Corbyn now sits as an independent MP for his constituency of Islington North, which he has represented for 39 years.

He has not publicly spoken out against his treatment before. “Was I angry about it? Yeah, of course. But I have always, in politics, tried to keep off the personal attack,” he says. “It’s very tempting but…politicians having a go at each other, calling each other names doesn’t get anybody anywhere. It don’t put bread on the table. And so it’s important that we campaign on political points and political principles.”

Corbyn is unusually candid in our conversation and only clams up and reverts to a stock answer when I ask if he will stand as an independent if Labour don’t restore the whip back to him. “I am focused on getting the whip back at the present time,” he says simply.

‘The biggest rebellion ever’: Saudi Arabia

While the British media has been fixated on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this year, it has largely ignored the war being waged on Yemen by Saudi Arabia, which began in 2015, and has created the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. Millions of children are on the brink of starvation.

The Saudi war machine receives critical support from the British, in the form of billions of pounds of arms, but also wide-ranging logistical support. The UK has since 1964 had 10 senior soldiers embedded in the Saudi armed forces, while three UK personnel sit permanently inside the Saudi Air Operations Centre.

Support for the Wahhabi dictatorship in Riyadh has long been a bipartisan staple of British foreign policy. I ask Corbyn why there is this cross-party consensus on such a clearly indefensible policy?

“Saudi Arabia and Britain have a very close economic, political and military relationship,” Corbyn tells me. “It’s not new. It goes right back to the establishment of Saudi Arabia, which was a British invention in the beginning.”

He adds: “You need to read the history of the whole of the Middle East to realise the malevolent influence of British colonial policies within the whole region. That is well documented, but needs to be better understood…one of my passions is to improve history teaching in the totality of our education system, to understand the brutality of colonialism and imperialism.”

Saudi Arabia is the recipient of around 40% of all Britain’s arms exports. The major contractor is UK firm BAE Systems, which has sold weaponry worth at least £17.6bn to the Saudis since it began its war on Yemen. The UK-supported Saudi air campaign in Yemen has routinely involved war crimes, including the bombing of schools and hospitals.

But Corbyn’s Labour threatened to upset this cosy UK-Saudi ‘special relationship’ for the first time.

“I met with the most extraordinary levels of lobbying and opposition from Labour MPs.”

“I pushed that we as a party make a declaration that we would cease all arms trade to Saudi Arabia,” Corbyn tells me, adding that he also “intervened to make sure that the Saudi delegation would not be welcomed as observers to the Labour Party conference. There was a big pushback against that by a lot of people, and I said, ‘No, whilst they are bombing Yemen and we are opposed to arms sales to Saudi Arabia, that stands.’”

Corbyn says he then put forward a parliamentary motion to suspend arms sales to Saudi Arabia. “I met with the most extraordinary levels of lobbying and opposition from Labour MPs who said ‘it’s damaging jobs, it’s damaging major British companies, British Aerospace and others, and you cannot go ahead with this, this will cause consternation and damage within our communities and constituencies’.

“I said, ‘Look, I fully understand the employment implications over a long period on this, but if we’re serious about human rights, and we are – and you all are, apparently – then this has to be the policy: we suspend arms sales and we protect those jobs in order to convert those industries into something else’”.

In October 2016, Corbyn brought this vote to the House of Commons calling for the cessation of UK support for the Saudi war machine. One hundred Labour MPs either voted against or abstained.

“It was the biggest rebellion ever against my time as leader of the party,” Corbyn says. “I was appalled, saddened, disappointed by that. And it just shows how deep the pressure of the arms trade is…the motor force of foreign policy is often driven by the interests of those that export arms.”

He adds:

“Look at who funds the think tanks. Look at who sets up the seminars. Look at who places the articles in papers saying, ‘There’s a big tension building up here’…We all understand that. How do you resolve these tensions, do you throw arms at it? Do you start another war somewhere…knowing full well all that money spent on those arms by any one country is money not spent on schools, not spent on hospitals, not spent on housing, not spent on feeding people.”

The three most influential foreign policy think-tanks in Britain – RUSI, Chatham House, and IISS – are all funded by an array of the world’s largest arms companies.

“The power of the arms lobby is absolutely massive in this country,” Corbyn says, before asking, “why don’t we wind down the rhetoric, wind up the peace, and start supporting peace initiatives and peace processes? All wars end in a conference. All wars end in some kind of agreement. Why don’t we cut out the middle phase, and go to the end?”

Medical teams carry body bags containing corpses of the 70 people killed in a Saudi air strike on a prison in Saada, northwest Yemen, on January 25, 2022. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

Labour Friends of Israel

Another break with the bipartisan consensus in UK foreign policy under Corbyn was his position on Israel.

Israel is a serial violator of international human rights law, and is judged to be practising apartheid against the Palestinians by both the US and UK’s top human rights groups, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Leading Israeli group B’Tselem has also reached the same conclusion.

As with Saudi Arabia, British support for Israel is extensive and multi-faceted, and includes aiding its combat operationsagainst Palestinians. But both Corbyn’s election manifestos called for stopping British arms going to Israel that are used to violate the human rights of Palestinian civilians.

“You were the first pro-Palestinian leader of a major party for a long time, which was controversial,” I tell him.

“I think probably the first one,” Corbyn shoots back.

I had thought maybe Michael Foot, the last leftwing leader of Labour from 1980-83, had been in favour of Palestinian human rights.

“I don’t recall Michael Foot ever saying very much about it,” Corbyn clarifies, continuing: “My view is that I support the Palestinian people — and to end the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. And what we had in our manifestos was full recognition of an independent state of Palestine.”

But Corbyn’s position – which is the same as the British government’s declared stance – caused a huge backlash from groups in Britain lobbying on Israel’s behalf. One of them was Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a parliamentary group which says it “campaigns for a negotiated two-state solution for two peoples”.

I ask Corbyn if it’s becoming of a nominally progressive political party to have a lobby group within it representing an apartheid state?

“Should the party have taken more robust action against the Labour Friends of Israel for its behaviour? Yes.”

“I’m not opposed to there being friends of particular countries or places all around the world within the party, I think that’s a fair part of the mosaic of democratic politics,” he says. “What I am concerned about is the funding that goes with it — and the apparently very generous funding that Labour Friends of Israel gets from, I presume, the Israeli government.”

LFI does not disclose its funders, but a 2017 undercover documentary by Al-Jazeera showed it is very close to the Israeli embassy in London.

In one piece of undercover footage taken at the Labour conference in 2016, then LFI chairperson and Labour MP Joan Ryan is seen talking to Shai Masot, an Israeli diplomat from the embassy. She asks him, “What happened with the names we put into the [Israeli] embassy, Shai?”

Masot replies: “Just now we’ve got the money, it’s more than one million pounds, it’s a lot of money.”

In another conversation, this time filmed outside a London pub, Michael Rubin, then parliamentary officer for LFI, admits that LFI and the Israeli embassy “work really closely together, but a lot of it is behind the scenes”. He adds that “the [Israeli] embassy helps us quite a lot. When bad stories come out about Israel, the embassy sends us information so that we can counter it.”

Currently, 75 Labour MPs – well over a third of the total – are “supporters” or “officers” of LFI, including Keir Starmer and nearly all his senior shadow ministers. Another 38 Labour Lords are also signed up. Last month, shadow health secretary Wes Streeting was in Israel with LFI.

I ask Corbyn why Labour took no action when the Al-Jazeera revelations were broadcast.

“We did actually protest about the contents of the revelations by the Al Jazeera documentary,” Corbyn tells me. “Should the party have taken more robust action against the Labour Friends of Israel for its behaviour? Yes. Remember, this was a time when many of the senior bureaucracy of the Labour Party were actively undermining me”.

He continues: “Did we underestimate this before I became leader? Yes, we did.”

Israel’s ambassador to Britain, Tzipi Hotovely, speaks at Labour Friends of Israel’s annual lunch in November 2021. (Photo: LFI)

Anti-semitism crisis

How much does Corbyn think the anti-semitism crisis which engulfed him was a result of his pro-Palestinian political position?

“Very largely that is the case,” he tells me. “I have spent my life fighting racism in any form, in any place whatsoever. My parents spent their formative years fighting the rise of Nazism in Britain, and that is what I’ve been brought up doing. And when in the 1970s the National Front were on the march in Britain, I was one of the organisers of the big Wood Green demonstration to try to stop the National Front marching through.”

“And somehow or other I was accused of being anti-semitic,” Corbyn continues. “The allegations against me were foul, dishonest and utterly disgusting and appalling from people who should know better and do know better. People that have known me for 40 years, never once complained about anything I’d ever said or done in terms of anti-racism, until I became leader of the Labour Party. Interesting coincidence of timing. Disgusting allegations which obviously we sought to rebut at all times.

“And I’ll be forever grateful for the support given by Jewish socialists, the many Jewish members of the Labour Party all over the country, and of course the local Jewish community in my constituency.”

On the accusations against him, he adds: “It was personal, it was vile, it was disgusting, and it remains so.”

What happened to Corbyn was an extreme example of a tried-and-tested tactic used by pro-Israel groups across the world: the attempt to smear critics of Israeli policy as anti-semitic. US Senator Bernie Sanders, novelist Sally Rooney, and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream company are all recent cases.

“The tactic is to say that somebody is intrinsically anti-semitic and it sticks and then the media parrot it and repeat it the whole time,” Corbyn says.

“Then the abuse appears on social media, the abusive letters appear, the abusive phone calls appear, and all of that. And it’s very horrible and very nasty and is designed to be very isolating and designed to also take up all of your energies in rebutting these vile allegations, which obviously we did. But it tends to distract away from the fundamental message about peace, about justice, about social justice, about economy and all of that.”

The Conservative strategy for the 2019 election seemed to be to stop Labour gaining any momentum with their policies by bogging them down in anti-semitism accusations, while obsessively pushing the “Get Brexit Done” message. It worked.

Corbyn was always presented by the media as a radical outlier in the British parliament, at odds with its traditions and history. In a sense that is true – his policies as leader put peace and justice above establishment interests – but Corbyn is also a very traditional English radical.

He believes passionately in the parliamentary system and is a stickler for its various mechanisms – committees, early day motions, parliamentary questions. He is prone to go off on long tangents about the minutiae of parliamentary procedure, and his surprise when it doesn’t always work the way it should even smacks of a certain naivety. In this regard, he is similar to his hero Salvador Allende.

But Corbyn is above all a deeply-committed constituency MP. On the way out I ask him if he’s going to the final Arsenal game of the season on the weekend. “I am,” he says, suddenly looking very serious. “I’m going early to meet the stadium manager because some of the people who live in flats next to where the away fan buses park are complaining that the exhaust is upsetting them. We’re going to try to see if we can sort it out.”

Surrounded by the political circus, he is getting on with what he does best: representing his community. But with the left gaining from France to Colombia, it may be that the final act of Corbyn’s unlikely climb to the summit of British politics is yet to be written.

At one point, I make the mistake of saying he was a historic problem for the British establishment. “Why are you speaking in the past tense?”, he cut in quickly. I think it was a joke, but maybe not.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on “Political Assassination”: Jeremy Corbyn on the Establishment’s Campaign to Stop Him Becoming British Prime Minister

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

After a visit to Russia by the two leading officials of the African Union (AU), an announcement has been made that President Vladimir Putin is ready to hold another gathering to work towards key issues facing both geopolitical regions.

The last Africa-Russia Summit was held in Sochi during 2019 prior to the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and its subsequent impact on the world economy.

Today there is the Russian special military operations in Ukraine which has provoked the United States and their allies within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to engage in a failed attempt to isolate Moscow on a global scale. The current administration of President Joe Biden has placed the plight of people in Ukraine above many other burning humanitarian and political crises.

Inflation is a major concern of working people and the oppressed while the Democratic administration and Congress are attempting to shift the focus of the public to the atrocities committed by the former government of President Donald J. Trump. Whether the January 6 Congressional hearings will be sufficient political capital to stave off a potential defeat of the Democrats in the midterm elections remains to be seen.

As far as the AU member-states are concerned, there has been no enthusiasm for the efforts of the Biden administration to build support for the arming of the Ukrainian military and the imposition of sanctions against Russia. Many African states abstained from the United Nations resolutions attacking the Russian Federation while on a grassroots level, there have been expressions of solidarity for the position of Moscow.

Senegalese President Macky Sall and AU Commission Chair Moussa Faki Mahamat held talks in Sochi on June 3 with President Putin. African states are facing monumental crises related to economic development, climate change and food deficits. The sanctions imposed by Washington and the EU have had a disastrous impact on the importation of agricultural products.

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has repeatedly stated that there needs to be a negotiated settlement to end the fighting in Ukraine. This view conflicts with Washington and Brussels which have continued to engage in vitriolic propaganda and psychological warfare campaigns against the Russian government. Efforts by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Molly Phee, to influence journalists operating on the continent failed miserably when media workers raised critical questions regarding the contradictions within Washington’s foreign policy.

One source on the upcoming summit scheduled to be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the headquarters of the AU, says of the current situation that: “A coordination council has been established under the aegis of the Secretariat of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum (RAPF). According to Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s Foreign Minister, ‘Concrete proposals for consolidating Russian-African cooperation are being worked out by three councils (co-ordinating, public and scientific ones) reporting to the Partnership Forum Secretariat. They represent ministries, agencies, business and public organizations engaged in the development of relations with the African continent.’ Moscow is poised to build relations of strategic partnership with pan-African organizations and regional integration associations, Lavrov added. Lavrov said that the two most important goals of the summit will be to sign off on a ‘memorandum of understanding between the government of the Russian Federation and the African Union on basic principles of relations and co-operation’ and a ‘memorandum of understanding between the Eurasian Economic Commission and the African Union on economic co-operation.’” (https://www.intellinews.com/russia-preparing-for-second-africa-summit-to-build-closer-ties-as-it-pivots-away-from-the-west-247188/)

The holding of such a meeting between Russia and the AU during this period of heightened international tensions represents a repudiation of the U.S. foreign policy in Eastern Europe as well as on the African continent. There is much discontent over the failure of the U.S. to build relationships with the AU states based upon mutual interests.

Since the founding of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2008 and the creation of Operation Barkhane and the G5 Sahel groups by the French government, the overall security atmosphere in Africa has deteriorated. Armed opposition groups which claim to be allied with al-Qaeda and ISIS, both of which have their origins within U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, are carrying out attacks on civilians and military personnel at an increasing rate in Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon, among other states.

As a result, some states such as Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) have reached out to the Russian military services firm known as the Wagner Group. France threatened to withdraw all of its military assistance to Mali if Wagner continued to advise the government in Bamako. In turn, the military regime in Mali demanded that the French armed forces and diplomatic personnel leave the country.

BRICS Convenes Virtual Summit Hosted by China

The Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) grouping was scheduled to open its 14th Summit on June 23. This organization founded in 2006, brings together governments which represent billions of people from South America to Africa and Asia.

Not even one of the states involved in the BRICS alliance have condemned Russia for its intervention in Ukraine. As emphasized in the June 3 talks between the AU and the Russian government in Sochi, the summit will further work towards building economic networks which are not dominated by Washington, London and Brussels.

People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping will lay out additional plans for the establishment of ambitious proposals for a Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Africa is in dire need of infrastructural development projects related to healthcare, education, transportation and sustainable energy. Although the U.S. and its NATO allies have escalated their military presence in Africa, China and Russia are seeking relationships which improve the well-being of people within society.

Of primary concern to the White House, State Department and Pentagon are the ideas raised in April by President Xi related to a new Global Security Initiative (GSI). An article published by one mainstream U.S.-based news agency says of the role of Beijing: “Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to seek support from BRICS for his vision of an alternative world order, which he introduced at a forum in April as his signature Global Security Initiative. The main premise of the GSI posits that seeking ‘absolute security’ is counterproductive. It opposes the building of ‘national security on the basis of insecurity in other countries.’ GSI may have a backer in Putin, who was in Beijing weeks before he launched the Ukraine invasion on Feb. 24. At the time, China and Russia signed a 5,000-word ‘no limits’ partnership aimed at challenging ‘global hegemony’ without explicitly naming the U.S.” (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/22/vladimir-putin-to-address-brics-russia-invasion-of-ukraine.html)

No one should be surprised that the BRICS states are discussing these issues in light of the crisis in Ukraine. The proxy war between the two largest nuclear powers in the world requires the intervention of other blocs. Biden’s strategy in Ukraine has resulted in the deaths and injuries of untold numbers of people. $55 billion has been pledged to continue the war as the U.S.-backed Ukrainian military is suffering tremendous losses in lives and equipment transported by the NATO states.

Many leading African scholars view the BRICS Summit along with the Forum on China-Africa Relations (FOCAC), which has been in existence since 2000, as avenues for the continent and its people to foster social and economic development. Prof. Ahmadu Aly Mbaye, an economist on the faculty of Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, Senegal, noted that: “The BRICS can present new alternatives to financing African economies and [facilitate] better integration of Africa into the world economy,’ as African countries ‘felt excluded from the international system, ‘Mbaye said, noting that the continent has been the least funded amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Mbaye stressed the importance of infrastructure in a country’s development. However, many African countries have limited access to international financing to build quality infrastructure, as international rating agencies ‘overestimate the level of risk in African countries,’ he said.” (http://brics2022.mfa.gov.cn/eng/tpzx/202206/t20220618_10705956.html)

A central focus of the Biden administration’s foreign policy has been aimed at alienating AU states from Moscow and Beijing. However, despite the horrendous humanitarian crises taking place from Eastern Europe to East Africa and South Asia, in the short term it appears as if the aggressive imperialist approach by NATO at the aegis of the U.S., has not gained any significant political traction. The fact that these international gatherings of a substantive nature are occurring portends much for the future of Washington’s waning influence internationally.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Biden Foreign Policy has Alienated Africa: Russia-Africa Summit to Reconvene in Ethiopia

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The U.S. Government spends on its military, annually, in not just its ‘Defense’ Department, but all of its departments taken together, around $1.5 trillion dollars.  (Much of that money is hidden in the Treasury Department and others, in order to convey to the public the false idea that ‘only’ around 800 billion dollars annually is now being spent for the U.S. military.)
 .
On 25 April 2022, the Stockholm Internal Peace Research Foundation (SIPRI) headlined “World military expenditure passes $2 trillion for first time”, and reported that, “US military spending amounted to $801 billion in 2021, a drop of 1.4 per cent from 2020. The US military burden decreased slightly from 3.7 per cent of GDP in 2020 to 3.5 per cent in 2021.” However, they did not include the full U.S. figure, but only the portions of it that are being paid out by the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department. Consequently, a more realistic global total would have been around $2.8 trillion, which is around twice the approximately $1.5T U.S. annual military expenditure. All of the world’s other 172 calculated countries, together, had spent an amount approximately equivalent to that.
 .
Prior to the creation by U.S. President Harry S. Truman of the U.S. ‘Defense’ Department, on 18 September 1947, replacing the U.S. War Department that had been created on 7 August 1789 by America’s Founders (shortly after the U.S. Constitution had become effective on 4 March 1789), the U.S. was a democracy — however flawed, but a real one, nevertheless.
.
The U.S. actually began its transformation into a dictatorship (serving the owners of the military corporations and of their extraction-corporate dependencies such as Chevron) when, on 25 July 1945, Truman decided that if the U.S. wouldn’t conquer the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union would conquer the U.S., and, so, he started the Cold War, on that date, determined that his top priority as the U.S. President, would be to place the U.S. Government onto a virtually permanent war-footing, even though World War II against imperialistic fascisms (the “Axis” powers) was just about to end at that time, and would clearly be a victory for the U.S. allies — mainly, the Soviet Union, and the UK empire.
.
Truman, very much unlike his immediate predecessor, FDR, who had been a passionately committed anti-imperialist, had previously been on the fence about empires; but, going forward after that date, he would be totally committed to making the entire world into the first-ever single global empire, which would be in control over the entire planet by the U.S. Government and shared only by its ‘allies’ (vassal nations).
.
That was Truman’s American dream, and it contrasted starkly against FDR’s dream of a future United Nations that would possess a global monopoly on all strategic weaponry and serve as a democratic global federal republic of all nations, each of which nation would have its own legal system for internal affairs, but all of which nations would be subject to the sole authority of the United Nations regarding all international matters. Truman despised FDR and got rid of FDR’s entire Cabinet and close advisors, within less than two years. Truman enormously admired General Dwight Eisenhower, whose advice to him had clinched in Truman’s mind on 25 July 1945 that Winston Churchill was right that if the U.S. would not conquer the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union would conquer the United States.
.
(Eisenhower, at the very end of his own Presidency, warned Americans against the military-industrial complex that Truman and he himself had jointly created. He was one of history’s slickest liars, and wanted history to remember him as having been a man of peace. He was actually just as much of an imperialist as Truman had been.) And that decision, by Truman, on that date, is what placed the U.S. Government inexorably onto the path toward future rule by a military-industrial complex that would rape the U.S. Constitution — undo the most important achievement of America’s Founders.
The U.S. Constitution had been written by people who loathed the very concept of “standing armies” — any permanent-war government. They had rebelled against an empire, and condemned all empires. This is the reason why they did everything within their power to design a Government that would prohibit any such thing here. And their Government, designed in this way, served the nation well throughout the years from 1789-1947, after which their Constitution gradually became practically abandoned.
 .
A document dated 21 January 1946 from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and titled “STATEMENT OF EFFECT OF ATOMIC WEAPONS ON NATIONAL SECURITY AND MILITARY ORGANIZATION”, opened with a “Memorandum by the Chief of Staff, U.S. Army,” which itself opened:
“Upon reading the Joint Strategic Survey Committee’s statement on the above subject (J.C.S. 1477/5), I obtained a somewhat unfavorable over-all impression. While most of the specific statements made seem reasonable, the over-all tone seems to depreciate the importance of of the development of atomic weapons and to insist unnecessarily strongly that the conventional armed services will not be eliminated. While I agree entirely, so far as the immediate future is concerned, with the latter concept, I have not felt that there is strong public demand at the present that the services be in fact eliminated. The general tone of the statement might therefore be misconstrued by Congress and the public, and be looked upon as an indication of reactionism on the part of the military and an unwillingness under any circumstances to reduce the size of the military establishment.”
That was at a time when the widespread American assumption was that there would have no standing army in this country. Within less than two years of FDR’s death on 12 April 1945, such a permanent-war U.S. Government became officially created. FDR’s plan for a U.N. that would internationally outlaw all empires became replaced by Truman’s plan for an America that would itself become what Hitler, himself, had only aspired to create: the world’s very first all-encompassing global empire. Truman’s dream is today’s American dream, in today’s Washington DC; and here was how the Nobel Peace-Prize-winning U.S. President, Barack Obama (the other of history’s slickest liars), stated it to graduating West Point cadets, on 28 May 2014:
 .
The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come. … Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums. … It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world.
It’s endlessly onward and upward, for the U.S. All other nations are “dispensable.” And that objective is backed-up now, by half of the world’s military expenditures.
 .
This is how it happened. It happened by deceit, at every step of the way.
 .
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s next book (soon to be published) will be AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change. It’s 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.
  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on How did America become Ruled by its Military-industrial complex?

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Hollywood, like the US press, has not been spared the influential hand of government.  Under the mask of various projects, the defence establishment has sought to influence the narrative of Freedom Land’s pursuits, buying a stake in the way exploits are marketed or, when needed, buried.

The extent of such collaboration, manipulation and interference can be gathered in National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood (2017). 

Matthew Alford and Tom Secker argue that a number of operations mounted by the Pentagon, the CIA and the FBI were designed to further “violent, American-centric solutions to international problems based on twisted readings of history.”

 The US Air Force has its own Entertainment Liaison Office in Hollywood, run by director Lieutenant Colonel Glen Roberts.  “Our job,” he explained in 2016,

“is to project and protect the image of the US Air Force and its Airmen in the entertainment space.”

Propaganda is not a word he knows, even though he is its most ardent practitioner.  He describes the involvement of his office across scripted or unscripted television, movies, documentaries, reality TV, award and game shows, sporting events and video games.  Its purpose:

“to present the Air Force and its people in a credible, realistic way” and provide the entertainment industry with “access to Airmen, bases and equipment if they meet certain standards set by the Department of Defense.”

No more blatant has this link between celluloid, entertainment and the military industrial complex been evident than in the promotion of Top Gun.  When it hit the cinemas in 1986, the US military received a wash of service academy applications, though finding exact recruitment figures linked to the film has not been easy.  (This has not stopped publications such as Military History Now confidently asserting that interest in US Navy flight training rose 500% that year.)

 The film was, after all, nothing else than a relentless, eye-goggling advertisement (well, at least 100 minutes) for the US military, a sequence of swerves, testosterone jerks and puerile masculinity.  “It was probably the most realistic flying move that I’d seen, and it just left a mark on me,” Air Force Chief of Staff General Charles Brown told a gathering at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. last August.  “I was out of pilot training, and I was already going to fighters, so it was one of those where you kind of go ‘that’s pretty realistic.’”

 Top Gun also served as something of a palette cleanser for US power, bruised by its failings in Indochina and hobbled by the “Vietnam Syndrome”.  In the words of Roger Stahl, a communications academic based at the University of Georgia,

“The original Top Gun arrived just in time to clean up this image and clear the way for a more palatable high-tech vision of imperialism and ultimately the Persian Gulf War.”

 With Top Gun: Maverick, the collaboration between the Pentagon and the film’s producers is unerring and nakedly evident.  While Cruise plays the role of a rule breaking pilot who lives up to his name, his production is distinctly obedient to the dictates of the US Navy.

 It’s also worth noting that Cruise has had trouble using the facilities of other defence ministries to shoot his films given his ties to the Church of Scientology.  There has been no such trouble with the Pentagon.  Both, it seems, have mutual fantasies to promote.

 Documents obtained under Freedom of Information show that the movie only proceeded with the proviso of extensive defence involvement.  The production agreement between the Department of Defense (DoD) and Paramount Pictures is explicit in outlining the role.  The US Marine Corps expressly guaranteed providing 20 Marines from Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Miramar, California “to appear as an official funeral detail for the filming sequence” along with access to MCAS Miramar “to enable actors the opportunity to experience flight simulator training.  All aspects of familiarization and training will be captured by second production unit.”

 In return for such access to equipment and facilities, along with necessary technical support and personnel, the DoD openly mentions assigning “a senior staff, post-command Officer to review with public affairs the script’s thematics and weave in key talking points relevant to the aviation community”.

 Clause 19 of the agreement reiterates the importance of the Pentagon’s role in the production process.  A “viewing of the roughly edited, but final version of the production (the ‘rough cut’)” was to be provided to the DoD, relevant project officers, and the DoD Director of Entertainment Media “at a stage of editing when changes can be accommodated”.  This would enable the “DoD to confirm that the tone of the military sequences substantially conforms to the agreed script treatment, or narrative description”.  Any material deemed compromising would result in its removal.

 The USAF has gone into an enthusiastic recruitment drive, hoping to inject some verve into the numbers.  In of itself, this is unremarkable, given a shortage of pilots that was already being pointed out in March 2018.  That month, Congress was warned about a shortfall of 10 percent equating to 2,100 of the 21,000 pilots required to pursue the National Defence Strategy.  Shortages were also being noted by the US Navy.

 Recruitment stalls have mushroomed across movie halls.  Navy spokesperson Commander Dave Benham is hopeful. “We think Top Gun: Maverick will certainly raise awareness and should positively contribute to individual decisions to serve in the Navy.”  With the film running throughout the country, the Navy’s recruitment goals for the 2022 financial year of 40,000 enlistees and 3,800 officers in both active and reserve components may be that much easier.

 Patriotic publications have also delighted in the recruitment pap of the new film, seeing it as eminently more suitable and chest-beating than advertising gimmicks such as the 2-minute video featuring Corporal Emma Malonelord.  Released last year, it features an individual who operates the US Patriotic Missile Air Defence system.  From the outset, we are told about a “little girl raised by two moms” in California.  “Although I had a fairly typical childhood, took ballet, played violin, I also marched for equality.  I like to think I’ve been defending freedom from an early age.”

 The video is also pap of a different type.  It shows that those freedom loving types in defence can also be musical, balletic products of lesbian unions and peaceful protest.  “Emma’s reason for joining up is selfish,” states a sneering piece in The Federalist.  “There is zero in the video to inspire any kind of bravery, sacrifice, duty, honor, integrity, excellence, teamwork, or respect.”  Senator Ted Cruz was blunter in his assessment.  “Holy crap.  Perhaps a woke, emasculated military is not the best idea”.

 Best leave it to the likes of Cruise the patriot scientologist, lubricated with tips and much assistance from the Pentagon, to give their version of service in the US military.  Even if it is deceptive, controlled tripe.

***

 Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He currently lectures at RMIT University.  Email: [email protected]

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on “Top Gun, Maverick”: Hollywood and the Pentagon Recruitment Drive

Yesterday, I reviewed the claims of Google engineer Blake Lemoine, who is convinced an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot program called LaMDA has achieved sentience, or self aware consciousness.1

Mere days before Lemoine set the internet on fire with discussions about the possibility or impossibility of AI singularity, another AI expert made the news with the prediction that virtual children could one day become commonplace. Come to think of it, it’s almost as if the news were rolled out by an AI running a predictive programming algorithm. The Daily Mail reports:2

“Virtual children that play with you, cuddle you, and even look like you will be commonplace in 50 years, and could help to combat overpopulation, an artificial intelligence expert has claimed.

These computer-generated offspring will only exist in the immersive digital world known as the ‘metaverse,’ which is accessed using virtual reality technology such as a headset to make a user feel as if they’re face-to-face with the child. They will cost next to nothing to bring up, as they will require minimal resources, according to Catriona Campbell, one of the UK’s leading authorities on AI and emerging technologies.

In her new book, ‘AI by Design: A Plan For Living With Artificial Intelligence,’ she argues that concerns about overpopulation will prompt society to embrace digital children.

‘Virtual children may seem like a giant leap from where we are now, but within 50 years technology will have advanced to such an extent that babies which exist in the metaverse are indistinct from those in the real world,’ she writes. ‘As the metaverse evolves, I can see virtual children becoming an accepted and fully embraced part of society in much of the developed world’ …

Ms Campbell believes that people will one day be able to use high-tech gloves that are able to deliver tactile feedback to replicate physical sensations. This would allow someone to cuddle, feed and play with their digital offspring as though it were a real child.”

It wouldn’t be exactly true to life, however, as parents would have the ability to choose the rate at which their digital offspring grows up. So, those who enjoy the baby stage, for example, could keep the child in perpetual babyhood, forgoing all the experiences that go along with maturing through the teen years into adulthood.

Baby X

There’s already a proof of concept for this idea. “Baby X”3 is a digital experiment created by a New Zealand-based company called Soul Machines, several years ago. The idea behind it was to facilitate acceptance of AI by humanizing it. Soul Machines explains it this way:4

“By combining models of physiology, cognition and emotion with advanced lifelike CGI, we set out to create a new form of biologically inspired AI. BabyX was our first developmental prototype designed as both a stand-alone research project and as an expandable base to feed into commercial computer agents.

She enables us to explore human cooperation with machines and the foundations for creating a digital consciousness. BabyX was designed for research and ‘she’ allows Soul Machines to not only explore the models of human behavior but also to create autonomous digital beings.

BabyX provides a foundation from which we learn, experiment and continue to develop the world’s first end-to-end solution for dynamically creating, teaching, managing and deploying Digital People.”

The Transhumanist Agenda

By now, many have started realizing that climate change, overpopulation, transhumanism and the digitization of human life are all part and parcel of The Great Reset agenda, which will not be complete until humanity is enslaved to the unelected few who will run the world through algorithms and AI.

According to the technocratic cabal that has set the course for mankind over the last several decades, overpopulation is responsible for climate change,5 so to save the planet, we have to reduce and manage the population size. One way of doing this is to transition into a digital environment, the metaverse, where no actual physical resources are being used up.

On the extreme end of the transhumanist spectrum, you have people who believe we will eventually be able to upload our minds into a computer or synthetic avatar.6 We still don’t know if this is possible, and it seems highly unlikely, considering there’s more to a human than their physical brain and neuronal network. Your “mind” and “soul,” your actual “being,” is not localized in your brain tissue.

Transhumanism doesn’t acknowledge the reality of nonlocal mind or soul, however, choosing instead to view the human being as nothing more than a physical platform7 that can be altered and augmented in any number of ways, equipped with a reproducible neural network that allows for thinking and intelligence given the correct electrical impulses and neural connections.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab wants to create a world in which humans are connected to the cloud, able to access the internet through their brains. This is what the Fourth Industrial Revolution8is all about — the merger of man and machine. This is how we know, without a doubt, that transhumanism is part of The Great Reset.

Of course, being connected to the cloud also means that your brain would be accessible to people who might like to tinker with your thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behavior,9 and that too is part of the plan. They absolutely want to be able to control your thoughts, emotions, beliefs and behaviors, from the inside.10

Transhumanism also involves the selective breeding of physical bodies, using artificial wombs rather than human beings. Already, Chinese scientists have used CRISPR technology to create the first gene-edited babies (born in 2018).11,12 They’ve also developed an AI nanny robot to care for embryos grown inside an artificial womb. As reported by Futurism:13

“The system could theoretically allow parents to grow a baby in a lab, thereby eliminating the need for a human to carry a child. The researchers go so far as to say that this system would be safer than traditional childbearing.”

To most normal people, a future of designer babies grown in artificial wombs, brain-to-cloud connectivity and uploading your mind to a computer sounds more like a purposeless nightmare than the utopia transhumanists try to portray it as. Schwab, however, speaks as though we have no choice in the matter. “The future is built by us,” he told the WEF insiders at the 2022 meeting in Davos.14 End of discussion.

The Rise of Anti-Humanism

Part of why Great Reset adherents seem so dissociated from human life is because they are. Most normal people believe humans are sovereign beings who are free by divine authority. Technocracy, on the other hand, views humans as a natural resource, no different from an oil deposit or livestock, and they are to be used as such.

Humans may be more or less efficient than a robot, for example, depending on the job at hand, and efficiency trumps humanity. To minimize problems within this human resource management system, there needs to be maximum compliance with minimal effort, and this is where social engineering through media propaganda (brainwashing), censorship and AI comes in.

For the most part, once fully implemented, the control system will be fully automated, with direct connection to your brain. Beliefs may be switched from one day to the next with a simple software update, automatically downloaded and installed from the cloud. That’s their dream, and our nightmare.

They Want to Track Your Carbon Footprint

Many still have a hard time wrapping their heads around the extent to which the technocratic, transhumanist cabal intends to control the global population. In short, they intend to control every single aspect of everything you do on a daily basis. Not only do they not want you to exercise free will, they don’t even believe free will exists.15

They intend to control what resources you can use, where you can travel, your health and medical decisions, what you think and what you eat. Look closely, and you will find that all of these plans have already been announced and implementation is in the works.

So, they intend to micromanage your life through digital surveillance, facial and voice recognition, through carbon credit scores and social credit scores, through digital identities and/or vaccine passports, through climate change countermeasures and biosecurity measures, through AI assistants, online censorship and social engineering.

They intend to control what resources you can use, where you can travel, your health and medical decisions, what you think and what you eat. Look closely, and you will find that all of these plans have already been announced and implementation is in the works.

For example, in August 2021, The Hill published an op-ed by libertarian analyst Kristin Tate, warning a social credit system is coming to America.16Two years earlier, in 2019, Futurism17 wrote about how the U.S. already has a social credit system that is very similar to China’s, we just haven’t realized it yet, because it was built by Silicon Valley rather than the government.

The plans for individual carbon footprint trackers were announced18 at this year’s Davos meeting for WEF members and invited VIPs. The trackers are being developed by the Chinese Alibaba Group,19 which makes sense, considering the Chinese have already implemented a social credit system20 and individual carbon tracking will be an added facet of that.

In a June 3, 2022, article, RAIR (Rise Align Ignite Reclaim) commented on the WEF’s plans for global control:

“After a quietly held WEF and United Nations General Assembly summit in Switzerland on ‘sustainability,’ they released several shocking videos21 showcasing a glimpse into life after The Great Reset.

From people without possessions, pumped full of pills, eating laboratory-created meat in hyper-technical, digitally networked ‘smart cities’ and clothing. They created short, bizarre, feel-good videos highlighting how people will help them redesign the world.

The videos range from cows that no longer burp methane thanks to tablets, starfish created in test tubes to fight climate change, drones for reforestation in Africa, enzymes from human blood to stabilize concrete, and poor hygiene to save the environment.

The WEF also promoted new mRNA vaccinations against various diseases. In addition, they celebrated 24-hour surveillance, digital IDs for clothing, and artificial food and coffee.”

They Want to Control Your Diet

The technocratic cabal also intends to radically transform the food system, and are now busily working on ways to eliminate meat from our diet22 and convince us to replace it with synthetic lab creations and fake meat, which by the way is loaded with the worst kind of fat imaginable — industrial seed oils.

To this end, the WEF has partnered with the EAT Forum, which will set the political agenda for global food production. The EAT Forum was cofounded by the Wellcome Trust, which in turn was established with the financial help of GlaxoSmithKline.

EAT collaborates with nearly 40 city governments across Africa, Europe, Asia, North and South America and Australia, and maintains close relationships with imitation meat companies such as Impossible Foods, which was cofunded by Google, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.23 (Gates has also been gobbling up farmland, becoming one of the largest private land owners in the U.S.24)

EAT has developed a “Planetary Health Diet” that is designed to be applied to the global population and entails cutting meat and dairy intake by up to 90%, replacing it largely with foods made in laboratories, along with cereals and oil.25 Not surprisingly, Gates is on record urging Western nations to stop eating real meat altogether.26

Bugs — It’s What’s for Dinner

Forcing a transition to fake meats is bad enough, but it gets worse. Perhaps you’ve seen the odd article here and there over the past few years suggesting we should consider eating bugs and weeds and drink “reclaimed” sewage?27 Well, those were part of the predictive programming to prime the pump, so to speak. Now we’re entering the real indoctrination phase.

Four primary schools in Wales, U.K., recently conducted a real-world trial to see how children would take to eating mealworms, crickets, beetles and other insects, while simultaneously being indoctrinated to think they’re becoming “ethical citizens” who are saving the planet by ditching meat. According to RAIR, which reported the novel lunch experiment:28

“… the unelected self-anointed global elitists at the WEF have fought for years for westerners to eat bugs … ‘Would you give edible insects a try to help save the planet?’ …

Two years ago, the European Union (EU) classified insects as ‘novel foods.’ In other words: the preparations for insect food have been underway for a long time. As a result, edible insects are increasingly sold across the EU.

The UK Food Safety Authority (FSA) will provisionally allow trade in edible insects in supermarkets and retailers starting in June [2022], with full approval expected next year. Evaluation is currently underway for crickets for human consumption; mealworms are also expected to be submitted soon.”

Being able to see the globalists’ plan as clearly as we can see it now, we have an obligation to future generations to resist, denounce and refuse any and all implementations of the technocratic agenda. We can win, for the simple fact that there are more of us than there are of them, but we have to be vocal about it — we need to join forces and present a united front. We need to peacefully resist and say “No thank you” to everything they try roll out.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on “Virtual Children” to Help Combat Overpopulation ??. The Baby X Digital Experiment

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

It is not any easy comparison, juxtaposing a killing war with a “health treaty”. That’s at the outset. And that’s the type of confusion we are constantly being fed by the mainstream. But behind the mainstream is the World Economic Forum (WEF), the dark elite, the instrument for the financial complex – BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, in particular, and other big ones, like Chase, City Bank and Bank America, Fidelity, to name just a few more.

They intend with all their financial power to take full control over Mother Earth. With this “rule based” role of assumed supremacy, they have no scruples. Klaus Schwab’s closest adviser has repeatedly said, out of arrogance, or out of sheer stupidity, is immaterial, that We, the People, are “useless eaters”. In other words, we can be done away with – neutralized – and the world would be a better place.

Can you imagine such statements coming openly out of the WEF, from a top WEF adviser?

Could it be that the real “useless eaters” are Hariri, Schwab, Gates et al?

The full eugenics agenda. That’s what’s being played out. Every vaxx-death at any time, for the last 18 months, and there is no end in sight.

To enhance this agenda of planned death, the Biden Administration initiated last December 2021 a new role for the World Health Organization (WHO), namely to become the Supreme Chief ruling over health and especially pandemic issues – ABOVE AND BEYOND individual member countries’ Constitutions (194 WHO members). In other words, abrogating their national sovereignty.

This is currently being debated at WHO in Geneva. A first attempt has been blocked a couple of weeks ago by a group of 47 African countries. But knowing the money and the sheer “rule-based” brutal force behind those who want to implement this Pandemic Treaty, the game is by no means over.

People Must Know

People, you must know, and you MUST Wake Up and realize, these are not accidental vaxx-deaths, they are not the result of medical malpractice, they are outright murder, outright genocide, perpetrated by the eugenists, and we know who are the most notorious eugenists. They make no secret of it. Those along with the multi-multi-billionaires, who want us to eat insects and bugs in the future to save the planet.

The Climate Agenda

Have you ever wondered, how come that those billionaires that come to the Annual WEF event in Davos by private jet – and I mean by the hundreds, literally clogging the Zurich airport – are giving a flying sh*t about THEIR climate agenda? Actually, spitting in the very face of those, of Us, the People, who have fallen for it, THEIR climate agenda, and are taking it seriously?

Ukraine

Now comes the war, the planned and well-provoked Ukraine war, the deviation maneuver, so people don’t look at what’s going on behind the scenes, namely the gradual enhancement of the Reset Agenda, equaling the mass genocide agenda, through constant nonstop vaxxes, that are no vaccines – they even admit it – but are said to be experimental” mRNA injections. And the simultaneous digitization of everything, including your money your brain, called the 4th Industrial Revolution by Klaus Schwab.

This war in Ukraine is the result of a long-term and long-time western, i.e., Washington / NATO provocation on Russia, by threatening to make the fascist Ukraine (yes, clearly fascist under the current leadership and with the criminal Nazi-Azov Battalions, more than tolerated by the Zelenskyy regime). These Nazi-Azov Battalions have been fighting against and killing their “own Ukrainian” compatriots in the Donbas region, at least 14,000, of which two thirds are women and children, between the Maidan Coup in February 2014 until the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022.

How many more pro-Russian Donbas Ukrainians they have killed since the beginning of the war is not clear. But for sure hundreds, maybe thousands more. The bulk of the urban housing, industrial and infrastructure destruction in the Donbas – and even beyond – has been caused by the Ukrainian own military, but is being blamed by the western media on Russia.

There are more vital provocations by Washington / Pentagon / NATO. Only a few weeks ago the Pentagon has finally admitted having funded and built 46 war-grade bio-labs in Ukraine. There is no need to explain what they are researching and eventually are capable of producing: Viruses much-much deadlier than corona. For example, Ebola, HIV, Plague and more – could all be manufactured by these labs. These viruses all have a mortality rate of about 50% or higher. They are obviously a national security risk for Russia.

Imagine, Russia building such labs in Mexico or Central America!

Compare this virus mortality to corona of an average 0.07%, and affecting mostly the elderly and of people with co-morbidities.

Back to the war. Russia has always been very careful in targeting areas with least risks for human casualties. Of course, avoiding human deaths is not possible in war. And of course, that is not what the western media are reporting. To the contrary, whether destroyed by Russia or the Ukrainian’s own army, it’s all blamed on Russia.

War is never a solution. Never – Ever. This is just meant to explain the Russian reaction, not to justify it.

War Casualties 

It is at this point difficult or impossible to precisely account for the war casualties, deaths and injured. Overall estimates range from 45,000 to 60,000 people killed.

Compare this to the mass killing by the vaxx-agenda, by the forced and 24/7 propagated lie-campaign, and vaxx-blackmailing – you will lose your job if not vaxxed – this is a tyrannical dictate throughout Europa and the US. These 18 months of vaxx-crime – it began in mid-to-late December 2020 – has caused way more deaths not only than covid, than the war. Estimates are in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands – and if true and real counting would be possible, the vaxx-death toll might be in the millions.

This does not account for the associated deaths through secondary causes of the imposed covid plandemic, like untold and massive bankruptcies around the world, unemployment, poverty – extreme poverty leading to famine and – death.

This after only 18 months.

According to scientists, especially Dr. Mike Yeadon, former Pfizer Vice-President and Pfizer’s Chief Scientist, the real death toll will show up within 2 or 3 years after the deadly vaxx-injections had been administered.

Not all vaxxes are the same, there are different lots in circulation, trials of sorts, to determine which ones are the deadliest. Then, there are also placebo lots for politicians and for those who have sold their soul to the devil, the glamorous and famous ones, who heavily propagate for vaxxing, even pretend of having fallen ill to covid.

The lies are so ludicrous, but people believe it, fall for it, and may be running to the next vaxx-station – gimme-gimme-gimme – when the next propagated infection upswing starts sometime this coming fall – as already announced by several politicians. Among others, the President of Switzerland, at the end of a recent interview on a totally different subject, mentioned in a side-line the “likelihood of a new outbreak” later this year. – How does he know?

Now add to this multiple vaxx-craze, a real killing-spree, booster after booster after booster – no end in sight – what The Expose so eloquently explained, that the FDA “approves” Covid “vaccines” for 6-month-old babies, despite the fact that covid “vaccinations” in England alone have caused 179,000 deaths within 60 days of administering the deadly vaxx-shot.

It is your guess, what these poison injections will do to 6-months-old toddlers, and to kids of even older ages.

The Expose reported figure alone is a multiple of the war deaths so far. And that’s only for England, with about 60 million people. Extrapolating this figure for all of Europe and over the full time of “vaccination”, we reach easily in excess of 2 million deaths. We are talking in Europe alone about figures that are way beyond the Ukraine war deaths.

Again, there is never a justification for any one person being killed, and I mean not accidentally, but wanton killing, as is the case with heavily coerced vaxx-drives which are part of the Great Reset, of UN Agenda 2030, as well as the related Klaus Schwab’s cum Yuval Noah Harari’s 4th Industrial Revolution – digitize everything, even the human brain – so the survivors after Agenda 2030, will own nothing but will be happy — all the result of 5G-electronic manipulation through graphene oxide that had been injected as “vaccination” into some of the vaxxed peoples’ bodies.

As pointed out before, not all vaxx-batches are the same. Different lots work on different body-organs, all with the objective to kill, maim, or to produce infertility.

As reported on 22 June by Children’s Health defense (CHD), researchers have found that the Pfizer covid “vaccine” reduces sperm quality — including sperm concentration and total motility count (the total number of moving sperm in a sample). This, according to a study published June 17 in the journal Andrology. See this 

Other fertility reduction “vaccines” have been administered to tens of thousands of young women in child-bearing age in Africa, India and other Asian countries by a Bill Gates initiative, long before the “plandemic”.

Are these – all the above killer-vaxxes and fertility reduction shots – war-like crimes on humanity?

Add to this the potential crime on humanity of all times – the “Pandemic Treaty”, mentioned above. Only we the People can stop it. Most countries have already been sold to the idea – especially western countries – or will no doubt be attempted by coercion to submit to the WHO health rule – which, if approved by a simple majority, will become law in 2024.
And WHO will become WHT = World Health Tyranny.

Add to this, that WHO was created by the Rockefeller Group in 1948 and was then integrated into the UN system; a sheer question of money. That’s how WHO, has become a so-called UN agency which it isn’t really. WHO is funded by 70% to 80% from private sources, including from a key donor, the Bill Gates Foundation; as well as, GAVI, the Vaccination Alliance, created by Bill Gates, with headquarters next door to WHO; and by other mostly pharma-corporations through their philanthropical “trustfunds”.

What this means: Who rules over health and disease decides over life and death.

It could not be a more typical genocidal agenda.

We, the People, must not let this happen. And we won’t.

Resistance is growing every day.

We, the people have to take over – it may mean creating alternative, locally-based economic systems, away from the global financial institutions, away from the digitized ever-more tyrannizing world.

 We can do it.

And – as I have said often before – we shall overcome!
We have to make this one sticking thought in our mind and soul – and we, indeed, will overcome.


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)

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

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Ukraine’s War vs. WHO’s Pandemic Treaty. “Who Rules over Health and Disease decides over Life and Death”.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Fifteen years of siege, blockade and repeated military operations has created a perpetual state of fear, worry, sadness and grief among Gaza’s children. This is the assessment of Save The Children International. In “Trapped”, a 32-page report issued a week ago, the organisation reported that, since 2018, “the psychosocial well being of children, young people and their caregivers has declined dramatically to alarming levels”.

The number of children who said they felt fearful increased from 50 to 84 per cent, nervous from 55 to 80 per cent, sad or depressed from 62 to 77 per cent, and grieving from 55 to 78 per cent and “more than half of Gaza’s children have contemplated suicide and three out of five are self-harming”.

Children account for 47 per cent of Gaza’s population of two million, “with over 800,000 having never known life without the blockade”.

While many of Gaza’s two million Palestinians had hoped that their situation would improve after Israel withdrew its troops and colonists from the strip in 2005, this did not happen as Israel maintained and even tightened its air, land and sea control. Conditions went from bad to worse in 2007 when Hamas took over and expelled the Palestinian Authority security services.

Since then, Save the Children lists five violent Israeli attacks experienced by Gaza’s children along with COVID and Israel’s “life-limiting land, air and sea blockade”.

While focusing on Gaza’s children, the organisation only gave a passing reference to their “caregivers”: parents, grandparents and extended family. As I have been closely acquainted with Gaza for many years, I will add my observations. Adults suffer the same anxieties, terrors, depression and pressures harming and depressing children. All Gazans live in a never-ending climate of fear. Constant overflights by Israeli spy and armed drones and balloons and threats by armed troops deployed along the border fence are constant reminders of Israel’s vindictive presence. In the aftermath of Israeli military offensives against Gaza, the percentage of Gazan residents afflicted with PTSD — Post Traumatic Stress Disorder — rises to 99 per cent, according to the late Ayad Sarraj, founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme.

Gazans also suffer from daily electricity cuts and a shortage of potable water while Israel restricts the import of cement and other building materials to reconstruct the 1,700 homes, businesses, manufacturing plants and public buildings partially destroyed or destroyed and the 22,000 units damaged in Israel’s devastating May 2021 offensive against Gaza which killed at least 161, wounded 2,200 and displaced 113,000.

More than a year after this assault, only 20 per cent of the levelled homes have been rebuilt and 70 per cent of partially damaged homes have been repaired. No efforts have been made to reconstruct the four high rise buildings Israel brought down. While Egypt and Qatar pledged $1 billion for reconstruction the process has been slow, and thousands of Gazans continue to live with families or in temporary rented accommodation. Conditions are often crowded.

In addition to the wreckage inflicted by the 2021 Israeli onslaught, there are 1,300 severely damaged housing units and 70,000 with some damage from Israel’s 2014 attack which remain without funding.

Deprivation of housing plus uncertainty over cuts in electricity and water supplies adds to the suffering of Gazan families. Children, in particular, feel unsafe in a constantly threatening environment which can create frictions within families living in a place regarded as “an open prison”.

This aspect was addressed by Human Rights Watch (HRW) in another report on the closure anniversary. Israel’s policy, adopted in 2007, “has devastated the economy in Gaza, contributed to fragmentation of the Palestinian people, and forms part of [the] Israeli authorities’ crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians”.

Israel’s policy of refusing Palestinians the right to travel from the Erez terminal in northern Gaza through Israel to the occupied West Bank or Jordan severely restricts Palestinian movement within Palestine or abroad. Israel also bans the operations of a seaport and airport in Gaza and restricts the entry and exit of goods into Gaza.

HRW writes: Israel “blocks most Gaza residents from going to the West Bank, preventing professionals, artists, athletes, students and others from pursuing opportunities within Palestine and from traveling abroad via Israel, restricting their rights to work and an education”.

Also among those prevented from traveling to the West Bank are medical staff seeking training on equipment and devices, educators attending seminars, sportsmen and women, painters and poets.

Palestinians must apply for permits to make the 104 kilometre journey from Gaza to the West Bank and may have to wait weeks if not months to receive a reply, if a reply is forthcoming.

Before 2006, Gazans were granted temporary permits but since they they have been denied legal residency in the West Bank. HRW has garnered evidence that “suggests the main motivation is to control Palestinian demography across the West Bank … land Israel seeks to retain, in contrast to the Gaza Strip”.

To compound Gaza’s isolation. Egypt has restricted Palestinian exit and entry at its crossing at the divided town of Rafah at the southern end of the strip. Restrictions have been eased somewhat in recent months.

Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at HRW, said that instead of emerging from COVID along with the rest of the world, Gazans “remain under what amounts to a 15-year-old lockdown.”

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Children of Gaza: What it is Like to Live in a Never-ending Climate of Fear

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

In the streets of my memory, I find Baghdad choked in dust and smoke, while western tourists descend to exploit the city’s tragedy
A mural inspired by the anti-government demonstrations that took place two years ago in Baghdad’s Tahrir square on on 14 January, 2020 (AFP)
I woke up in tears a few days ago, my blue shirt soaked in someone else’s blood. I knew that because I wasn’t in pain. A child wept aloud outside in the alley. “Tell the kid to take the candy,” a US soldier snapped when I peeked through the door. The child’s father, fettered, bled to death on the curb.

That was me hallucinating a few years ago in Baghdad. Tonight, a candle sits on a table in my rented Virginia apartment. Its flame performs a death dance to the blues of a Tom Waits song rising from the coffin of deceased years: “The bats are in the belfry / The dew is on the moor / Where are the arms that held me / And pledged her love before?”

The men inside seem perplexed, sitting quietly in plastic chairs, immersed in grief as if in a funeral not for the dead, but for the living

In Baghdad, my mother rebuked me when she climbed the stairs and plunged into the thicket of smoke clouding the second story of our residence. Waits was no good for me, she would say, nor were Cuban cigars.

But she knew the reason behind my solitude was to mourn Baghdad, an ailing metropolis I wished not to meet at times, choosing instead to hide in my study like a hermit. I would be content in the company of a vintage Badr Shakir al-Sayyab book, whose pages the late poet traversed with a crutch on his way to the gates of hell: “Open it, and feed my body to the fire!”

My mother is gone now. She left our world days before I jumped on a plane headed for Washington, DC, to study at Georgetown University. Al-Sayyab is dead too, and I hear voices tonight. I hear the voices of pain that Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish heard howling at him like a siren from afar: “Come, come to me!”

Deafening silence

I heed, blindly. I know the beaten roads of memory like many Iraqis do – a rusted metal door always left ajar for us, squeaking in the deafening silence of exile. I step onto its threshold, my eyes wide open to see in the dark. Someone sobs in a dim corner inside. “I am in the right place,” I tell myself. I make my way to the edges of Baghdad from afar.

An Iraqi man outside a rundown house with a dead child's portrait in Baghdad in November 2020 (Nabil Salih)
An Iraqi man outside a rundown house with a dead child’s portrait in Baghdad in November 2020 (Nabil Salih)

I see a scorched horizon cloaked in a starless night, not a sound but a distant wailing. A shepherd chuckles in the midst of a herd of sheep dying of thirst and hunger. “Why are you laughing?” I ask in astonishment. “Go and ask them,” he growls, discarding my question.

Elegant westerners and diaspora Arabs, armed with cameras and sunscreen tubes, descending from the ornate balconies of western academia to investigate the field for stardom, disembark from tourist buses en masse.

“The fire burns, but they ask me: ‘Are you Sunni or Shia?’” the shepherd tells me, before falling in a swoon, laughing and crying hysterically. “Shocking!” one visitor exclaims in bewilderment.

“Let’s go to Sadr City, I hear it’s a shithole,” another snaps emphatically. “Yes, that’s why I chose aid! Let’s fix a few lives now,” the former says, rubbing his hands in excitement.

Another white tourist turns to look at me and says: “Are you a fixer? We need someone to show us the big stories. We pay but don’t expect a byline.”

I leave the demagogues revelling in the scene, ecstatic, drooling about the promise of their booty, and make my way into the city streets in the dark.

Death all around

I find Baghdad desolate, choked in dust and smoke, its skin lacerated with an overgrowth of barbed-wire fences. The soldiers manning its walls drowse in a siesta, unbothered by the screams coming from the dim alleys behind them.

Someone is dying. Someone is always dying in Iraq. Two hundred and sixty is the number of those killed so far this year, says Iraq Body Count. Those who miss the bullets leap in the Euphrates, along with their emaciated children. Any there is better than here.

I see the palm trees thirsty, many decapitated and dead. No bougainvillea dangles over fences, like necklaces caressing dewy necks of Baghdadi women in early spring. No kids play barefoot on the streets. The then where they once knew laughter has been stabbed to death by the hands of time – repeatedly.

Baghdad still feels like a crime scene. As I make my way among its ruins, the words of al-Sayyab echo inside my head: “Is this my city?” These ruins with “Long Live Life!” painted on the walls in the blood of its murdered?

A boy walks past a destroyed house in the war-ravaged village of Habash, some 180 kilometres north of Iraq's capital Baghdad, on 25 April, 2022.
A boy walks past a destroyed house in the war-ravaged village of Habash, some 180 kilometres north of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, on 25 April 2022 (AFP)

Dreading what I might see where I grew up, I decide to avoid the streets of my childhood and visit the downtown area instead.

I remember the famous teahouses of al-Rashid Street. The sound of stirring in a glass of cardamom tea was music to my ears. A dice always rolls on an aging backgammon board. Eternal Umm Kulthum heartbreaks are always put on repeat, undulating tunes that slip from the salons to the sidewalks outside, where sad-eyed ladies amble and dodge a line (“they said there’s no flour in the market, where’s this cake coming from?”) from a mischievous student.

But the cafes are noiseless. The men inside seem perplexed, sitting quietly in plastic chairs, immersed in grief as if in a funeral not for the dead, but for the living. On one muted TV screen, celebratory headlines accompany enemies’ torn limbs, assailing the psyches of bewildered clientele. A report then heralds the imminent death of the Tigris and the Euphrates.

The men look on. No dice shall roll tonight.

Lifetime of limbo

The only sign of light in the city centre comes from a police patrol on al-Mutanabbi Street. I stand in a corner and watch where a mob of tourists have swarmed. Social media influencers, on a two-day escapade from Dubai, pose for the camera in the “homeland”: “How beautiful Baghdad is!” one says, before returning to the Babylon Hotel on Abu Nawas Street in a Cadillac SUV.

The mayor stands nearby, giving one interview after another, boasting of a renaissance that entails hanging kitsch posters of Iraqi artist Kadhim Haider’s paintings on power poles and sweating over it on social media.

No word on the traditional shanasheel houses collapsing in the nearby wretched alleyways of Jadid Hasan Pasha and al-Hayder Khana. The child beggars and the godforsaken porters who crisscross traffic threads in daytime are also sentenced to a lifetime in the cellar of limbo.

They, too, have their scrutinising gazes fixed on the wrecked humans wallowing in seas of misery

I leave in haste, passing an elderly man diving to his waist in a dumpster outside the telecommunications tower that bears the imprint of late architect Rifat al-Chadirji. The building was almost toppled by liberatory rockets in 2003, before Chadirji died and a former British ambassador expressed his condolences on social media as if war(s) never happened.

As I walk, I remember the labyrinthine alleyways, or darabin, of Bab al-Sheikh and Qanbar Ali. In previous visits, old women who crouch on their doorsteps would welcome me like their offspring. They would show me directions and pray for me long after I disappeared into the next alley, where children would chase after me in glee, blow me kisses and hug me for showing them their portraits on my camera.

I decide to go there. But I find Bab al-Sheikh deserted. In Qanbar Ali, blood and sewage stagnate in the gutters. Walls tremble. An old man, crouching in a dark corner, awaits the last US air raid to level the alley. From the windows, I see children hang themselves of hunger in damp living rooms. There is no breaking news on live TV.

Smouldering past

A hole widens in my chest. I suffocate. I meander my way to the Tigris in hopes of fresh air. But even there, in the gardens of Abu Nawas Street, women count the floating corpses passing by, and weep in silence.

This is it – “this is the storm we call progress”, the ghost of Walter Benjaminwhispers in my ears. The catastrophe perched on Iraq’s chest still piles wreckage upon wreckage over a smouldering past, and the storm propels us into the arms of a future born with an incurable birth defect.

A rocket flies across the Tigris and slams into a building inside the fortified Green Zone on the opposite, western bank, disrupting my thoughts. But everything seems normal there.

Diaspora Iraqi scholars, dressed in fine suits, pose for the camera next to their favourite politicians. Afterwards, they doze off in the fine al-Rashid Hotel, whose windows offer no view of the city’s godforsaken alleys, nor the grieving women sobbing on the river bank.

As I walk the streets of Baghdad, I see the menacing faces of Saddam Hussein’s many imitators painted and plastered on the same walls that once carried the dictator’s. They, too, have their scrutinising gazes fixed on the wrecked humans wallowing in seas of misery, looking over their shoulders for the trigger-men of the new, this-time-Iran-backed fedayeen.

Amnesiac audience

Like a fugitive, I flee the streets of memory, chased by the rabid dogs of my trauma. My footsteps race my breath. Behind me, Baghdad is engulfed by monstrous dust storms. In the dark, I almost stumble on a new corpse of a man who looks familiar. I look closely; it’s the shepherd. The soldiers manning the city walls are still asleep.

Next to his corpse sits a small radio announcing the evening news: “Former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki cuts the ribbon at the opening of the Baghdad book fair.” I make my way out of the rusted door, and slam it shut.

In my Virginia apartment, I look for a source of distraction. Nothing more banal and distracting than US TV channels, I tell myself. But Iraqi poet Sinan Antoon knew before me, “surfing the channels is like rummaging in old garbage”.

I soon find former US President George W Bush’s face on every station, preaching on war and peace in Ukraine to an amnesiac audience. He slips and mentions Iraq. He jokes about it, and the audience laughs.

I suppress a stream of vicious slurs, and sleep with the echo of their laughter in my head.

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).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Visit and follow us on InstagramTwitter and Facebook. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on June 22 that BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) is preparing to create an international reserve currency. Following the launch of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Western countries swiftly sanctioned about half of Russian FX reserves. BRICS countries, but especially China, took notice of the speed and stealth at which sanctions were imposed, thus projecting the necessity of a BRICS reserve currency.

“The Russian Financial Messaging System is open for connection with the banks of the BRICS countries. The Russian MIR payment system is expanding its presence. We are exploring the possibility of creating an international reserve currency based on the basket of BRICS currencies,” the Russian president said in a video message to BRICS forum participants. 

“Businessmen of our countries are forced to develop their business under difficult conditions where Western partners neglect the basic principles of market economy, free trade, as well as the inviolability of private property,” Putin added.

Effectively, the barrage of Western sanctions has forced Russia to seek new markets and strengthen ties with other countries to economically survive. In this way though, it has also forced a rapid reshaping of the global economic system as the US dollar no longer reigns full supremacy and huge markets continue to emerge in Asia and Africa.

Moscow is actively redirecting the export of its hydrocarbon products from European countries to Asia, but especially China and India. According to China’s Central Customs Administration, Russian-Chinese commodity exchanges increased by nearly a third in the first five months of 2022, reaching a sum of about $66 billion. The sharp growth in commodity trading has been linked by experts to an increase in energy prices, which account for about 70% of Russia’s exports to China.

Such a strategy will allow Russia to minimise losses caused by Western sanctions this year. Experts also believe Russia can increase purchases of a range of components, spare parts and other products from Beijing, circumventing US and EU restrictions.

From January to May this year, commodity trading between Russia and China increased by 28.9% compared to the corresponding period last year, reaching $65.81 billion. During that period, Chinese exports to Russia rose 7.2% to reach $24.56 billion, while Moscow increased exports of its products to Beijing by 45.5% to $41.25 billion.

Although the EU and the US have decided to stop Russian oil imports, China shows great interest in buying energy from Moscow. This is an especially important market as demand for fuel in China in the post-COVID-19 period continues to grow.

China and India are crucial for Russia to minimise as much as possible the losses caused by sanctions, primarily because of the oil embargo. In addition to energy, Moscow is actively delivering metals, wood, fertilizers, chemicals, food products and diamonds to China. 

Due to the imposition of sanctions and the departure of many Western companies from the Russian market, a fairly large volume of parallel imports of European and US products from China and India are also expected. As explained by Moscow, under the conditions of external restrictions, such a measure will help secure the domestic market with the requested products and stabilise their prices.

It should be noted that in 2021, the volume of inter-trade between Moscow and Beijing increased by 36% to a record $147.1 billion. At the same time, experts are confident a new record could be set in 2022. It is predicted that Russian-Chinese commodity exchanges could reach $185 billion. 

According to OPEC forecasts, by 2030 a quarter of the world’s oil demand will be made up by only China and India. Given this and the growth of parallel imports to Russia, it is not ruled out that the two countries’ commodity exchanges will reach $200 billion by the end of 2022.

Within the context of Western sanctions and increased trade between BRICS, a BRICS reserve currency is all the more imperative. Sergey Storchak, chief banker of Russian bank VEB.RF, said on June 20: “If the voices of emerging markets are not being heard in the coming years, we need to think very seriously about setting up a parallel regional system, or maybe a global system.”

Although there has been ongoing discussions within BRICS for years to accelerate payments in national currencies, it appears that Putin’s announcement, and the way a deDollarization has been forced upon Russia, a counter BRICS system is on the cusp of becoming a reality. As Moscow’s trade with India and China accelerates, these mega countries and economies cannot risk being locked out of a Western-dominated global system, and thus an establishment of a BRICS alternative serves their interests best. 

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on Russia Announced Preparations for the Creation of International Reserve Currency under BRICS Auspices (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)