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The further the world comes into 2021, the more it begins to resemble 2014, at least in Syria, mixed in with a bit of 2015. ISIS is returning, the US is bracing to “fight it”. The “moderate opposition” is living its renaissance fighting against the Syrian Government and its Russian support.

The 2015 bit is the fact that Russia is present, and its activity has greatly increased in the first weeks of February.

In the ten days leading up to February 14th, Russia reportedly carried out more than 700 airstrikes on ISIS cells in Central Syria. This is an impressive number, but the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights claimed that as a result only 33 ISIS terrorists had been killed. According to the same report, the Syrian Arab Army had more significant losses – 56, but it is being targeted by almost every “moderate” and “radical” party on the battlefield.

The attempts to rebrand Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham as a “reformed group” that’s no longer affiliated with al-Qaeda also continues. The US has chosen its future ally.

In a clear disagreement, on February 13th, Russia targeted a secret HTS headquarters in Idlib and completely devastated it. It also continues to attempt and enforce the ceasefire agreement in Idlib, tracking every violation and punishing it. The agreement is largely ineffective due to Turkey’s non-implementation.

Moscow is not only on the giving end, but also on the receiving one.

On February 14th, an Orlan-10 drone was reportedly downed by militants over Greater Idlib. In Manbij, near the Turkish-occupied region of Afrin, the Turkish-backed “moderate opposition” opened fire on Russia’s military police. Russia was forced to deploy more troops and equipment to the region.

On February 13th, the Russian military sent a new batch of equipment and vehicles to its base at the Qamishli Airport.

In the area of speculation, Russian opposition media reported that Russia was extending the runway at the Hmeimim Air Base, to be able to host strategic long-range aircraft. It is a potential preparation for future chaos. Or an attempt to show parity with the United States’ continued flights of B-52 bombers over the Middle East in recent months.

The United States is not keeping still, while Russia is operating. In a rare event, it eliminated an ISIS commander in a drone strike. It also vacated one of its many positions in northeastern Syria.

This is only significant in the view that it likely will reposition, and support some of its new allies. The biggest players have began their movements in expectation of the coming storm.

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While breaking up is hard to do and not Russia’s choice, that’s perhaps where things are heading if hostile Western policies toward Moscow continue to escalate.

Last week, Sergey Lavrov said Russia is prepared to cut ties with EU countries if the bloc imposes sanctions that harm its economy and people.

“(A)nyone who is even slightly interested in the situation in Europe has long known that a break-off has been underway for many years now.”

“The EU has been consistently tearing down our relations.”

In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow prefers solidifying ties with the West.

But if the EU escalates unjustifiable sanctions war on Russia, “that causes damage to our infrastructure and our interests, then Russia should be ready in advance (to respond to) these hostile steps.”

On Monday, Lavrov elaborated on his days earlier remarks, saying the following:

“(A)nyone who is even slightly interested in the situation in Europe has long known that a break-off has been underway for many years now.”

The US and EU have been unravelling relations with Russia.

EU support for Obama/Biden’s 2014 coup in Ukraine was a key tipping point.

Fascist tyranny replaced democracy in Europe’s heartland.

Hostile relations took over from cooperative ties between Russia and the West, with Ukraine as well.

The latter nation shares a near-1,500 mile land and sea with Russia — the longest pro-Western frontier with the country.

The illegitimate regime running things in Kiev is at war on its own people.

It’s waging US-directed cold war on Russia, along with committing appalling human rights abuses – with full support and encouragement from Washington and key NATO countries.

Rick Rozoff earlier explained that Ukraine is “the decisive linchpin in plans by the US and its NATO allies to effect a military cordon sanitaire, severing Russia from Europe.”

It’s part of a sinister plot that risks eventual East/West confrontation.

Vladimir Putin earlier said “(t)he appearance on our borders of a powerful military bloc…will be considered by Russia as a direct threat to our country’s security,” adding:

Russian missiles will target Ukraine if it joins NATO or allows Washington’s (solely for offense) missile defense shield to be installed in the country.

On Monday, Lavrov explained that EU support for the Obama/Biden coup in Ukraine showed bloc complicity with their diabolical, anti-Russia agenda.

While events were unfolding in Ukraine at the time, then-President Victor Yanukovych agreed to an EU mediated resolution.

It stipulated return to Ukraine’s 2004 Constitution, along with holding elections before end of 2014, and formation of a “government of national trust.”

What Yanukovych agreed to in hopes of resolving differences with opposition elements and the West was breached straightaway by the EU and US, ousting him from office.

Lavrov accused the EU bloc of a humiliating betrayal.

It’s been “indifferent” toward lawless “attacks (on) Crimea(ns)” and Donbass residents since early 2014.

In cahoots with US dark forces, the EU supports “ultra-radicals and neo-Nazi” putchists in Kiev.

After they usurped power, they and the West “put all the blame on the Russian Federation,” said Lavrov.

By so doing, they “destroyed all mechanisms without exception that existed on the basis of an agreement on partnership and cooperation.”

From then to now, Russian relations with the US and EU have existed largely in name only.

Bending to Washington’s will, bloc countries partnered with its war on Russia by other means.

Relations between Moscow and the West are tenuous at best.

Lavrov called them “sporadic” on some issues of mutual concern — a frenemy relationship far removed from a normal one.

He stressed that Moscow is “ready to consider any issue, but occasional meetings do not necessarily mean we have relations.”

“We are willing to discuss these matters in cases where they are in Russia’s interests, as well.”

But it’s “impossible not to take into account the EU’s connivance in relation to gross violations of the rights of Russian-speakers, ethnic Russians, the Russian language and culture and the attacks on the Russian language and Russian culture, which we see in the Baltic states, Ukraine and a number of other countries.”

“(C)riminal cases are opened against Russian-speaking journalists just because they do their job.”

“I don’t think Russia is distancing from the EU, but rather, the EU is distancing itself from everything that is Russian, including the language, culture and, hence, Russia itself.

“We must be prepared for any turn of events. It’s up to the EU what to do next.”

“If it decides that, after all, relations must be restored and it reverses its actions designed to break them off, we will be ready for this, too.”

“The EU should not be confused with Europe. We are not leaving Europe.”

“We have many friends and like-minded people in Europe, and we will continue to expand mutually beneficial relations with them.”

Because of US intolerance toward nations free from its control and EU subservience to Washington’s interests — even when harming its own — there’s virtually no chance of improved bilateral ties.

Believing otherwise is foolhardy thinking.

Russian relations with the West are deteriorating, not improving.

Almost straightaway in office, rhetoric by Biden and hardliners surrounding him have been hostile toward Russia and other independent countries unwilling to bow to their will.

They have no allies in Washington and the West, enemies alone.

Breaking up may be hard to do, but hostile US-led actions toward Moscow with no end of them in prospect may make it inevitable.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image is from OneWorld

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US media provides little news of Europe.  What is provided is strictly “narrated.”  Consequently, Americans are unaware of what seems to be a spontaneous, leaderless, popular uprising against mandated lockdowns and masks.

There are large demonstrations in Germany, and they have spread to Vienna and to Copenhagen.  The people have more sense than the public authorities and reject the Covid mandates. 

In The Netherlands, the Hague Court has ruled that the Covid curfew has no legal basis and “is a far-reaching violation of the right to freedom of movement and privacy and limits, among other things, the right to freedom of assembly and demonstration.” See this.  

Klaus Madersbacher, proprietor of the antikrieg.com website, thinks that Germans are associating the fear-based campaign that is asserting new government controls over people’s lives and activities with an American hegemonic agenda. He believes that it is a revolutionary mass movement that should now become organized under leadership in order to achieve the independence of countries and their peoples.  

One wonders if insouciant Americans are capable of a revolutionary temperament or whether the only protests Americans will witness are the Establishment-funded Antifa and BLM riots that loot and burn private businesses.

Here is Madersbacher’s analysis of what he is witnessing.

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A New Revolutionary mass movement 

by Klaus Madersbacher

QUERDENKEN is a revolutionary mass movement directed against the US-controlled German regime, similar in essence to the revolution of the Iranian people in 1978 against the US-run dictatorship of the Shah in Iran. It should be emphasized that the Iranian revolution was a peaceful revolution in the course of which the Iranian security forces refused to fight against their own people. The same type of revolutionary movement seems to be emerging in countries under the dominance of the United States of America.

Instead of serving their own people, European regimes serve the interests of Washington, which seems driven to obtain supremacy over the world for material reasons and also as a way out of the economic crisis in which it finds itself.

The theater with and around the coronavirus is staged with the explicit intention of distraction and of creating fear and a climate of general insecurity that leads to control measures that enable hegemonic power, perhaps resulting in a “global reset” that serves the interest of the few at the expense of the many. 

It is against these measures that the Germans and neighboring nations are rising up in an unprecedented and unforeseen readiness to defend themselves as a people and a society.

I read the protests of the last several months as clear expressions that the German people are no longer willing to submit to puppet governments that fail to represent the interests of the people.

Germans and Europeans are used as support for Washington/NATO’s push against Russia and Asia, which is clearly against European interests. If spontaneous cooperation is achieved among European peoples, Washington’s aspirations are defeated, and representative governments will form in place of Washington’s puppet states.  

Since the ruling European governments are neither willing nor able to represent the interests of their peoples, they have lost the confidence of the people and forfeited the right to remain in power. Constitutionally prescribed steps can be followed as far as possible to remove them from office.

First steps /measures

As a first step, a revolutionary council should be elected consisting of two or three members per federal state. 

The revolutionary council will accept no guidance from the EU, Washington, or any agreements that limit the exercise of national sovereignty. 

Existing governmental and financial institutions will continue in operation, but the revolutionary council will reestablish all civil liberties, such as freedom of movement, freedom of income, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of travel. The institutional structure of government will then be thoughtfully reconstructed to be consistent with human rights and national wellbeing. 

The Covid control measures will be revoked.

The campaign of fear will be halted, and open public discussion by independent medical and scientific experts will be used to determine reasonable measures to protect the population from Covid.

Layoffs, terminations & repossessions resulting from Covid ordinances will be reversed.

Fines and penalties collected under Covid ordinances will be repaid, and court judgments against citizens under Covid ordinances will be reversed.

The Iranian Revolution against the Shah shows that revolutionary mass movements can be peaceful. To reconstruct the state to serve the people, a constitutional requirement is required that permits the passage of no law that cannot be proved in open discussion to serve the people over organized interests.  To protect the people’s interest, schooling will be used to support the ethos that honor, not material interests or service to ambition, is the basis for government service.

These idealistic aims will never be fully achieved, but their conscious cultivation can preserve the freedom of European peoples.

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

Featured image is from howstuffworks

Com a cerimónia tradicional do sino, teve lugar no Palazzo Chigi a transferência de poderes entre Giuseppe Conte e Mario Draghi. Ao esperamos para ver qual será o programa político do novo governo multipartidário, apoiado por quase todo o arco parlamentar, podemos prever as directrizes através dos currículos de alguns Ministros e do Presidente do Conselho. O facto de terem sido reconfirmados como Ministros da Defesa e dos Negócios Estrangeiros, Roberto Guerini (PD) e Luigi Di Maio (5 Stelle), indica que o governo Draghi irá reforçar ainda mais o “Atlanticismo”, ou seja, a adesão da Itália à NATO sob comando USA. São emblemáticos os últimos actos dos dois Ministros do governo anterior.

Guerini entrou a bordo do porta-aviões Cavour, navio almirante da Marinha militar que, de Taranto navegava para os Estados Unidos, onde irá adquirir a certificação para operar com a quinta geração de aviões de combate F-35B, da Lockheed Martin. Depois de reiterar que “a relação transatlântica com os Estados Unidos – uma grande nação com a qual o nosso país tem laços profundos – desempenha um papel essencial para a Itália”, o Ministro salientou que “a Itália tornar-se-á um dos poucos países do mundo, juntamente com os Estados Unidos, a Grã-Bretanha e o Japão, a exprimir uma capacidade de porta-aviões com aviões de caça de 5ª geração. Isto é principalmente graças ao grupo Leonardo, o maior fabricante italiano de armamento de guerra, que participa na construção do F-35. Di Maio, no seguimento da estratégia USA/NATO, foi para Riade onde assinou um memorando de entendimento de “diálogo estratégico” com a Arábia Saudita, a monarquia absoluta que o grupo Leonardo assiste na utilização dos caças Eurofighter Typhoon que bombardeiam o Iémen, fornecendo também drones para identificar alvos a atacar, e para os quais constrói navios de guerra, nos Estados Unidos, do tipo mais avançado.

O mesmo grupo Leonardo reaparece no currículo do físico Roberto Cingolani, colocado à frente do novo “super-Ministério” (solicitado por Grillo) da Transição Ecológica: Cingolani, especializado em nanotecnologia e robótica, a partir de 2019, é responsável pelo departamento de tecnologia e inovação do grupo Leonardo, “um actor global nas áreas do Aeroespacial, da Defesa e da Segurança”, cada vez mais integrado no gigantesco complexo militar-industrial dos EUA. Os 30% da participação do grupo são propriedade do Ministério do Desenvolvimento Económico, em cuja direcção foi colocado Giancarlo Giorgetti, número dois da Liga e braço direito de Matteo Salvini. Descrito como um “perito em contas”, ele irá gerir os 30 biliões de euros já atribuídos pelo seu Ministério para fins militares e os outros 25 exigidos pelo Fundo de Recuperação, para fazer passar as despesas militares italianas de 26 para 36 biliões anuais, tal como exigido pelos USA e pela NATO. Esta tarefa será também confiada ao recém-nomeado Ministro da Economia e Finanças, Daniele Franco, antigo Director-Geral do Banco de Itália, oficialmente uma instituição de direito público, em cujo capital participam 160 bancos e fundos de pensões.

No novo governo, os “técnicos” têm mais poder do que os “políticos”. Demonstra-o, antes de mais, o currículo de Mario Draghi: Director Executivo do Banco Mundial em Washington a Director do Tesouro em Roma, onde é o autor da privatização das principais empresas públicas italianas, de Vice Presidente do Banco Goldman Sachs americano (um dos maiores bancos de investimento do mundo) a governador do Banco de Itália e Presidente do Banco Central Europeu. Draghi é, ao mesmo tempo, um dos protagonistas do Grupo dos Trinta, uma poderosa organização internacional de financiadores, com sede em Washington, criada em 1978 pela Fundação Rockefeller.

Assim, com o Governo Draghi, o poder do complexo industrial militar e da alta finança é reforçado, com uma nova perda dos princípios de soberania e repúdio da guerra, consagrados pela Constituição. Se não for este caso, o Ministério da Transição Ecológica deve iniciar a sua actividade eliminando a maior ameaça que paira sobre o nosso ambiente de vida: as armas nucleares americanas instaladas em Itália.

Manlio Dinucci

 

Artigo original em italiano :

Governo Draghi, per chi suona la campanella

il manifesto, 16 de Fevereiro de 2021

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

Con la tradizionale cerimonia della campanella, è avvenuto a Palazzo Chigi il passaggio di consegne tra Giuseppe Conte e Mario Draghi. In attesa di verificare quale sarà il programma politico del nuovo governo multipartisan, sostenuto da quasi l’intero arco parlamentare, se ne possono prevedere le linee guida attraverso i curricula di alcuni ministri e del presidente del consiglio.

Il fatto che alla Difesa e agli Esteri siano stati riconfermati Roberto Guerini (Pd) e Luigi Di Maio (5 Stelle) indica che il governo Draghi rafforzerà ulteriormente l’«atlantismo», ossia l’appartenenza dell’Italia alla Nato sotto comando Usa. Emblematici gli ultimi atti dei due ministri nel precedente governo.

Guerini si è recato sulla portaerei Cavour, nave ammiraglia della Marina militare, che da Taranto salpava per gli Stati uniti dove acquisirà la certificazione per operare con i caccia di 5a generazione F-35B della Lockheed Martin. Dopo aver ribadito che «il rapporto transatlantico con gli Stati uniti – una grande nazione con cui il nostro paese ha un legame profondo – riveste un ruolo essenziale per l’Italia», il ministro ha sottolineato che «l’Italia diventerà uno dei pochi paesi al mondo, insieme a Usa, Gran Bretagna e Giappone, a esprimere una capacità portaerei con velivoli da combattimento di 5ª generazione». Merito soprattutto del gruppo Leonardo, il maggiore produttore bellico italiano, che partecipa alla costruzione degli F-35.

Di Maio, sulla scia della strategia Usa/Nato, si è recato a Riad dove ha firmato un memorandum d’intesa di «dialogo strategico» con l’Arabia Saudita, la monarchia assoluta che il gruppo Leonardo assiste nell’uso dei caccia Eurofighter Typhoon che bombardano lo Yemen, fornendole anche droni per individuare gli obiettivi da attaccare, e per la quale costruisce negli Stati uniti navi da guerra del tipo più avanzato.

Lo stesso gruppo Leonardo ricompare nel curriculum del fisico Roberto Cingolani, messo alla guida del nuovo «superministero» (richiesto da Grillo) della Transizione ecologica: Cingolani, specializzato in nanotecnologia e robotica, dal 2019 è responsabile del dipartimento tecnologia e innovazione del gruppo Leonardo, «protagonista globale nell’Aerospazio, Difesa e Sicurezza», sempre più integrato nel gigantesco complesso militare-industriale Usa.

Il 30% dell’azionariato del gruppo è posseduto dal Ministero dello Sviluppo economico, alla cui direzione è stato posto Giancarlo Giorgetti, numero due della Lega e braccio destro di Matteo Salvini. Definito «esperto di conti», penserà lui a gestire i 30 miliardi di euro già stanziati dal suo Ministero a fini militari e gli altri 25 richiesti dal Recovery Fund, per portare la spesa militare italiana da 26 a 36 miliardi annui come richiesto da Usa e Nato.

Compito che sarà affidato anche al neoministro dell’Economia, Daniele Franco, già direttore generale della Banca d’Italia, ufficialmente istituto di diritto pubblico, al cui capitale partecipano 160 banche e fondi pensione.

Nel nuovo governo, i «tecnici» hanno più potere dei «politici». Lo dimostra anzitutto il curriculum di Mario Draghi: da direttore esecutivo della Banca Mondiale a Washington a direttore del Ministero del Tesoro a Roma dove è artefice delle privatizzazioni delle maggiori aziende pubbliche italiane, da vicepresidente della statunitense Goldman Sachs (una delle più grandi banche d’affari del mondo) a governatore della Banca d’Italia e a presidente della Banca Centrale Europea.

Draghi è anche uno dei protagonisti del Gruppo dei Trenta, potente organizzazione internazionale di finanzieri, con sede a Washington, creata nel 1978 dalla Fondazione Rockefeller.

Si rafforza quindi, col governo Draghi, il potere del complesso militare-industriale e dell’alta finanza, con una ulteriore perdita dei principi di sovranità e ripudio della guerra sanciti dalla Costituzione.

Se non è così, il Ministero della Transizione ecologica inizi la sua attività eliminando la maggiore minaccia che grava sul nostro ambiente di vita: le armi nucleari Usa installate in Italia.

Manlio Dinucci

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).

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In September 2021 the UN will hold a Food Systems Summit. The aim will be to reshape world agriculture and food production in the context of the Malthusian UN Agenda 2030 “sustainable agriculture” goals. The recent radical farm laws from the government of Narenda Modi in India are part of the same global agenda, and it’s all not good.

In Modi’s India, farmers have been in massive protest since three new farm laws were rushed through Parliament last September. The Modi reforms were motivated by a well-organized effort of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and its New Vision for Agriculture, part of Klaus Schwab’s Great Reset, the corporate side of the UN Agenda 2030.

Modi Shock Therapy

In September, 2020 in a rushed Parliamentary voice vote, rather than a duly-registered formal vote, and reportedly with no prior consultation with Indian farmer unions or organizations, the government of Prime Minister Narenda Modi passed three new laws radically deregulating India’s agriculture. That has sparked months of national farmer protest and nationwide strikes.The protests which are spreading across all India, demands repeal of the three laws.

In effect the laws end restrictions on large corporations’ buying land and stockpiling commodities to control farmer prices. They also allow large multinational businesses to bypass local or regional state markets where farmers’ produce is normally sold at guaranteed prices, and allows business to strike direct deals with farmers. This all will result in the ruin of an estimated tens millions of marginal or smallholder farmers and small middlemen in India’s fragile food chain.

The new Modi laws are measures the IMF and World Bank have been demanding since the early 1990s to bring Indian agriculture and farming into the corporate agribusiness model pioneered in the USA by the Rockefeller Foundation decades ago.Until now no Indian government has been willing to attack the farmers, the country’s largest population group, many of whom are on tiny plots or bare subsistence. Modi’s argument is that by changing the present system, Indian farmers could “double” income by 2022, an unproven,dubious claim. It allows corporations to buy farm land for the first time nationally so large companies, food processing firms, and exporters can invest in the farm sector.Against them a small farmer has no chance. Who’s behind the radical push? Here we find the WEF and the Gates Foundation’s radical globalized agriculture agenda.

WEF and the Corporativists

The laws are a direct result of several years’ effort of the World Economic Forum and its New Vision for Agriculture (NVA) initiative. For more than 12 years the WEF and its NVA has pushed a corporate model in Africa, Latin America and Asia. The “big target” has been India, where resistance to corporate takeover of agriculture has been fierce ever since the failed 1960’s Green Revolution of the Rockefeller Foundation. For the WEF Great Reset, better known as the UN Agenda 2030 for “sustainable agriculture,” India’s traditional farm and food system must be broken. Its smallholder family farmers must be forced to sell to large agribusiness conglomerates and regional or state-level protections for those farmers eliminated. It will be “sustainable,” not for the small farmers, but rather the giant agribusiness groups.

To advance that agenda the WEF created a powerful group of corporate and government interests called the NVA India Business Council. Its website at the homepage of the WEF states, “The NVA India Business Council serves as an informal, high-level leadership group to champion private sector collaboration and investment to drive sustainable agricultural growth in India.” An idea what they mean by “sustainable”is found in their membership.

The WEF’s NVA India Business Council in 2017 included Bayer CropScience, one of the world’s largest purveyors of agriculture pesticides and now, of Monsanto GMO seeds; Cargill India Pvt. of the giant US grain company; Dow AgroSciences, GMO seed and pesticide producer; GMO and agrichemical firm DuPont; grain cartel giant Louis Dreyfus Company; Wal-Mart India; India Mahindra & Mahindra (world’s largest tractor maker); Nestle India Ltd; PepsiCo India; Rabobank International; State Bank of India; Swiss Re Services, the world’s largest re-insurer; India Private Limited, a chemicals maker; and the Adani Group of Gautam Adani, the second richest man in India and major financier of Modi’s BJP party. Notice the absence of any Indian farmer organizations.

In addition to top Modi backer Guatam Adani on the WEF NVA India Business Council, MukeshAmbani, sits on the Board of Directors of Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum. Ambani, another top Modi backer, is Chairman and Managing Director of India’s largest conglomerate, Reliance Industries, and Asia’s second wealthiest person worth some $74 billion. Ambani is a strong advocate of the radical farm reform as Reliance stands to reap huge gains.

In December farmers in Punjab burned effigies of Prime Minister Modi, along with Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, and Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani, accusing them of being behind the new laws of Modi.

For anyone with even a slight idea of these corporate behemoths, it is clear that the interests and welfare of India’s estimated 650 million farmers are not the priority. Notably, IMF’s Chief Economist Gita Gopinath, an Indian now in USA, has endorsed the laws, and has said that India’s recently-enacted agriculture laws have the “potential” to increase farmers’ income.

On 26 November a nationwide general strike began that involved approximately 250 million people in support of the farmers. Transport unions representing over 14 million truck drivers have come out in support of the farmer unions. This is the biggest challenge to the BJP Modi regime to date. The fact the government refuses to back down suggests it will be a bitter battle.

For the Agenda 2030, or Great Reset to transform the global food and agricultural industries as Klaus Schwab prefers to call it, to succeed, it is highest priority that India, with the world’s largest population, be brought into the globalist web of corporate agribusiness control. Clearly the timing of the Modi deregulation has in mind the UN 2021 Food Systems Summit.

AGRA and the UN Food Systems Summit

Indication of the agenda in store for India’s farmers is the upcoming September UN Food Systems Summit. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in 2019 announced the UN will host Food Systems Summit in 2021 with the aim of maximizing the benefits of a “food systems approach” consistent with UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. He named Agnes Kalibata of Rwanda as his Special Envoy for the 2021 Food Systems Summit. The summit’s founding statement pushes “precision farming” such as GPS, Big Data and robotics, and GMO, as solutions.

Kalibata, former Minister of Agriculture in war-torn Rwanda, is also the President of AGRA, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. AGRA was created by the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations to introduce GMO patented seeds and related chemical pesticides into African agriculture. A key person Gates put in charge of the AGRA, Robert Horsch, spent 25 years as a senior Monsanto executive.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is also a “Contributing Partner” of the WEF.

After nearly 15 years and some $1 billion in funds from Gates, Rockefeller and other large donors, AGRA has failed to lift farmers into a better wellbeing. Farmers are forced by their governments to buy seeds from commercial suppliers, often tied to Monsanto and other GMO companies, as well as commercial fertilizer.

The result is debt and often bankruptcy. The farmers are forbidden to reuse the commercial seeds and are forced to abandon traditional seeds which they could reuse. AGRA’s focus on “market-oriented” means the global export market controlled by Cargill and other major grain cartel giants. In the 1990s, under pressure from Washington and agribusiness, the World Bank demanded African and other governments in developing countries end their agriculture subsidies. That, while the USA and EU agriculture remains heavily subsidized. The cheap subsidized EU and OECD imports drive local farmers bankrupt. That’s intended.

A 2020 report on AGRA, False Promises, concluded, “yield increases for key staple crops in the years before AGRA were just as low as during AGRA. Instead of halving hunger, the situation in the 13 focus countries has worsened since AGRA was launched. The number of people going hungry has increased by 30 percent during the AGRA years… affecting 130 million people in the 13 AGRA focus countries.”  Gates’ AGRA has made African food production more globalized and dependent than ever on the will of global multinationals whose aim is cheap inputs. It forces farmers into debt and demands specific “cash crops” like GMO corn or soya, be grown for export.

Gates Foundation’s confidential Agricultural Development Strategy 2008-2011 outlined its strategy:

“Smallholders with the potential to produce a surplus can create a market-oriented agricultural system… to exit poverty…The vision of success involves market-oriented farmers operating profitable farms…this will require some degree of land mobility and a lower percentage of total employment involved in direct agricultural production.” (emphasis added)

In 2008 Rajiv Shah was the Gates Foundation’s Director of Agricultural Development, and led the Foundation’s creation of the AGRA together with the Rockefeller Foundation. Today Shah is President of Rockefeller Foundation, Gates’ partner in AGRA, which foundation also financed the creation of GMO patented seeds back in the 1970s, the creation of CGIAR seed banks with the World Bank and India’s 1960’s failed Green Revolution.Rajiv Shah is also an Agenda Contributor at the World Economic Forum. Small world.

The fact that the President of AGRA is heading the September 2021 UN Food Systems Summit (note the use of “food systems”) exposes the seamless links between the UN, the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, the World Economic Forum and their web of global corporate mega companies.

India, with 1.4 billion people, perhaps half in agriculture, is the last bastion where global agribusiness has been unable to dominate the production of food.

The OECD has been globalized by industrial agribusiness since decades and the deterioration in food quality and nutrition confirms it. China has opened up and is a major player in the GMO world with Syngenta, as well as the world largest producer of glyphosate.

China industrial pork factory farms such as Smithfield Farms, where the recent African Swine Fever is believed to have originated, are on the way to wipe out small-scale farmers there.

The central role of the Gates-Rockefeller AGRA in the UN 2021 Food Systems Summit, the major role of the WEF in the world “food systems” reset, and the pressures in recent months on the Modi government to implement the same corporate agenda in India as in Africa, are all no accident. It sets the world up for catastrophic harvest failures and worse.

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. 

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

Featured image is from New Eastern Outlook

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***

Well, as usual, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has finally received authorization to proceed with the investigation of possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel-Palestine, to include both the Israel Defense Force (IDF) and also Hamas in Gaza.

On February 5^th ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that her office is now studying the decision made to confirm ICC’s jurisdiction and would be “guided strictly by its independent and impartial mandate” to investigate and prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC has already ruled in December 2019 that “war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip” but was waiting for confirmation that it had jurisdiction to proceed. Both the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and armed groups including Hamas were named as possible perpetrators.

The bad news is that Bensouda has been replaced as the United States is already intervening in support of its best friend and closest ally in the whole world and will inevitably do all sorts of stupid things that do not serve its own interests when the Israeli tail starts wagging the American dog. Count on it. That has apparently already included pressure exerted both by Washington and Jerusalem behind closed doors to make Bensouda go. She was replaced last Friday by British human rights lawyer Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, who is expected to be more accommodating to Israel and might even decide not to proceed with the investigation.

There has also been some speculation that the ICC was waiting for Donald Trump to be gone as Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had already more-or-less declared war on the ICC back in June 2020. The Trump White House had sanctioned key members of the court and had also blocked the travel to the U.S. by investigators associated with it. It threatened to arrest anyone who cooperated with the investigation. Washington also warned in the strongest terms that there would be “consequences” for any attempt by the court to investigate or punish Israel.

The Joe Biden White House clearly is on the same page on the issue, releasing the following State Department press statement on February 5^th, immediately after the ICC decision became public:

“Today, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a decision claiming jurisdiction in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, while expressly recognizing the serious legal and factual questions that surround its ability to do so. As we made clear when the Palestinians purported to join the Rome Statute in 2015, we do not believe the Palestinians qualify as a sovereign state, and therefore are not qualified to obtain membership as a state, or participate as a state in international organizations, entities, or conferences, including the ICC. We have serious concerns about the ICC’s attempts to exercise its jurisdiction over Israeli personnel. The United States has always taken the position that the court’s jurisdiction should be reserved for countries that consent to it, or that are referred by the UN Security Council.”

State Department Spokesman Ned Price provided additional commentary on the press release, saying “We will continue to uphold President Biden’s strong commitment to Israel and its security, including opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.” Neither the U.S. nor Israel is a signatory to the Rome Statute that created the ICC. The argument Washington is using is essentially a legal one, at least at this point, that Palestine is not a “sovereign state” and that the ICC does not have jurisdiction over any county that is not a signatory. Both are, of course, debatable. Israel has also taken steps to prevent any investigation by the court on its soil, to include the occupied territories and it is not clear if Egypt will allow ICC investigators to enter Gaza from Sinai.

The initial issue that turned Washington against the court in 2018 was the concern that it would begin inquiries into possible U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan since 2003, where both avoidable deaths and torture have been well documented. The U.S. used at the time the argument that it was not a signatory to the ICC but, as Prosecutor Bensouda observed, one does not have to be a signatory to be investigated as the court was specifically set up by the Rome Statute in 2002 to inquire into atrocities where there had been no accountability, either because the local government had no ability to do so or chose not to investigate itself.

So, it is all a bit of a non-starter since Israel and friends are non-signatories and will not cooperate while the United States will be using all its resources to stop the process stillborn. But that is not exactly the way it might play out. If the court holds the Israeli government accountable for war and human rights crimes those countries in Europe and elsewhere that are signatories to the ICC might consider themselves obliged to honor arrest warrants naming senior Israeli government officials whenever they are traveling. Israel is predictably reported to be already seeking to make arrangements whereby it will be warned by “friends” in foreign chanceries whenever such warrants are issued.

And then there is the matter of Israel’s approval rating vis-à-vis the rest of the world, which is already low, hovering down at the bottom of the list together with the United States. To be sure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands all that and has reacted sharply to the ICC decision to proceed. He said:

“When the ICC investigates Israel for fake war crimes, this is pure anti-Semitism. The court established to prevent atrocities like the Nazi Holocaust against the Jewish people is now targeting the one state of the Jewish people. First, it outrageously claims that when Jews live in our homeland, this is a war crime. Second, it claims that when democratic Israel defend itself against terrorists who murder our children, rocket our cities, we’re committing another war crime. Yet the ICC refuses to investigate brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria who commit horrific atrocities almost daily. As Prime Minister of Israel, I assure you, we will fight this perversion of justice with all our might.”

Israel’s security cabinet subsequently endorsed Netanyahu’s criticisms, describing the “outrageous” decision as one that “exposes the court as a political body, standing in one line with international organizations driven by antisemitic principles.” The Netanyahu government’s response is, of course, typical boilerplate that seeks to cast the Jewish state as a perpetual victim surrounded by a sea of anti-Semites. The only thing Netanyahu’s statement left out is the claim that Iran will have a nuclear weapon in weeks, but the Biden Administration’s Secretary of State Tony Blinken has already said that for him. The drum roll includes “fake war crimes,” “Nazi Holocaust,” “pure anti-Semitism,” “defend itself against terrorists who murder our children,” and “brutal dictatorships like Iran and Syria who commit horrific atrocities almost daily.” The reality is quite the reverse with the Israelis committing real war crimes by attacking its neighbors almost daily to include frequently killing Palestinian children. The horrific atrocities are being committed by the Israeli Army and the armed monstrous settlers against helpless Palestinians on both the West Bank and in Gaza. One might add the theft of Arab land, the destruction of their houses and livelihoods, and the lack of any due process for those who live and die under the brutal occupation. The numbers tell the tale. According to United Nations records, 3,601 Palestinians have been killed and over 100,000 injured by Israel between 2010 and 2019, versus 203 Israelis killed and 4,700 injured in the same time period.

And now, when there at last might be some real accountability for Israel’s crimes, the United States, under Netanyahu’s thumb, is yet again on the wrong side of the argument.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

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

He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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***

One of the top national security think tanks backing the Biden administration, the Center for a New American Security, has been taking money from every major defense contractor while pumping out a steady stream of research supporting those companies’ interests. It’s yet another sign that Biden’s promised “return to normal” has, unfortunately, arrived.

The promise of a “return to normal” under Joe Biden always meant two possibilities. It could mean a hard break from the obscene, in-your-face corruption and self-dealing that defined Donald Trump’s presidency. Or it could mean going back to the kind of run-of-the-mill, revolving-door Washington corruption that Trump had pledged to clean up, but ended up wallowing in.

According to a new report by the Revolving Door Project, titled “The Military-Industrial-Think Tank Complex: Conflict of Interest at the Center for a New American Security,” it looks to be the latter option that is so far prevailing in the Biden years. Released yesterday, the report charges top Democratic foreign policy think tank the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) of “at best, a serious deficiency of accountability,” and at worst, “a systematically corrupt arrangement” that sees it promote its corporate sponsors’ interests while passing it off as a public good.

The report recounts several examples of this arrangement. In 2009, for instance, CNAS published a report maintaining that the controversial use of private military contractors was essential and “here to stay” in wars like Afghanistan, all while taking money from several different firms providing those very services. One of these firms, DynCorp, was on the receiving end of $2.8 billion of the state department’s Afghanistan operations funding from 2002 to 2013, or 69 percent of the total sum.

In another case, a 2018 CNAS report charged that the Air Force’s plans to buy a hundred B-21 bombers did “not go far enough,” pushing the military to add fifty to seventy-five more jets at an extra cost of $32.8-49.2 billion. Those profits would have gone to the bomber’s maker, Northrop Grumman, an arms manufacturer that also happened to direct more than half of its total think tank donations during the 2014–19 period to CNAS.

A year before that, CNAS had charged the UAE embassy in the United States $250,000 for a report advocating looser rules for exporting US drones (“I think it will help push the debate in the right direction,” the ambassador wrote in a thank you e-mail), before publishing a separate paper calling on Trump to loosen those restrictions. The UAE ended up signing a nearly $200 million deal for the drones with General Atomics, whose billionaire chairman and CEO, Neal Blue, is both a generous donor to CNAS and sits on its board of advisors.

In these and other examples, the report states, the center failed to disclose the conflicts of interest in their reports, despite noting the existence of a policy on such conflicts in their tax filings. It also repeatedly violated the “very clear line” CNAS cofounder Kurt Campbell — then about to serve in Barack Obama’s state department, and now serving on Biden’s national security council — testified about in his 2009 confirmation hearing: that the CNAS doesn’t write about specific products its donors make, but rather stays limited to big picture foreign policy ideas.

The center’s reliance on the corporate sector, particularly military contractors, is extensive, having taken donations from all “big five” such firms in the last decade, along with twenty-four others. According to a Center for International Policy report released last year, CNAS got more defense contractor money than any of the top fifty US think tanks it analyzed. That’s in addition to contributions from NATO, the governments of the United States and eleven other allied countries, and corporate titans spanning fossil fuel, financial, tech, and other sectors, all of whom have given generously to CNAS over the years.

As the report points out, CNAS’s own cofounder — Michèle Flournoy, tipped to be Biden’s defense secretary before her own extensive conflicts of interest derailed her — pointed out the issues with a corporate funding model in a 2014 speech.

“Every funder has intent. They’re giving you money for a reason,” she said. “There are some organizations that call themselves ‘think tanks’ that actually accept money from corporations to do very specific work that tends to advocate the programs those companies produce, and I think that sort of … makes the waters more murky.”

“The scale and scope of conflicts of interest that appear in CNAS’s work and the influence that its donors may be exerting on policy further highlights serious concerns about political corruption,” wrote Brett Heinz, coauthor of the report.

Of course, CNAS is far from unique. A whole host of think tanks, including those in the foreign policy sphere like the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Atlantic Council, regularly overlap their advocacy work with the interests of their well-heeled benefactors. But few have as much influence on the workings of the US government, with at least thirteen of the center’s alumni ending up in the Biden administration to date. As the foreign policy equivalent of the Center for American Progress, this is, after all, why CNAS exists: to serve as the future Democratic administration’s foreign policy team in waiting.

Washington, it seems, is finally back in the guiding hands of the experts who were always meant to be running the show. This also means that, true to Biden’s promise, the city has reverted back to the same, unremarkably money-driven state that Trump first used to take power four years ago.

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Branko Marcetic is a Jacobin staff writer and the author of Yesterday’s Man: The Case Against Joe Biden. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Featured image: A U.S. Air Force loadmaster assigned to the 746th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron performs a preflight inspection on a C-130 Hercules at Baghdad International Airport, Iraq, Dec. 9, 2019. The 746th EAS maintains a constant presence in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, supporting U.S. and Coalition aircraft in various operations in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Bethany E. La Ville)

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***

Scientists on a World Health Organisation (WHO) mission to Wuhan to look at the origins of the coronavirus outbreak have accused Western media of “twisting” quotes to fit an anti-China narrative.

The US government and many media outlets have queried WHO findings that do not corroborate theories promoted by Washington, such as the virus escaping from a Chinese laboratory.

In a statement on Friday US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Washington had “deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the Covid-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them.”

But British zoologist Peter Daszak, who was part of the WHO mission in China said that claims China had refused to hand over data were untrue.

“This was not my experience on the WHO mission. As lead of the animal/environment working group I found trust and openness with my China counterparts. We did get access to critical new data throughout. We did increase our understanding of likely spillover pathways,” he said.

“New data included environment and animal carcass testing, names of suppliers to Huanan market, analyses of excess mortality in Hubei, range of Covid-like symptoms for months prior, sequence data linked to early cases and site visits with unvetted live Q&A etc. All in report coming soon,” the expert explained.

In a swipe at reporting of the mission’s work, he tweeted:

“It’s disappointing to spend time w/ journalists explaining key findings of our exhausting month-long work in China, to see our colleagues selectively misquoted to fit a narrative that was prescribed before the work began. Shame on you @nytimes.”

Danish mission member Thea Koelsen Fischer said that scientists’ quotes were being “intendedly twisted, casting shadows over important scientific work.”

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman reminded the US that the WHO “is an authoritative multilateral international organisation in the field of health, not a funfair where one can come and go at will.”

China called for the US to “hold itself to the highest standards” of openness and transparency saying “the whole world will be looking.”

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***

Last week’s second impeachment trial of former President Trump should serve as a warning that something is very wrong in US politics. Far from a measured, well-investigated, rock-solid case against the former president, America was again abused with day after day of character assassination, innuendo, false claims, and even falsified “evidence.”

The trial wasn’t intended to win a conviction of Trump for “incitement” because the Democrats already knew that the votes were not there. So, just as with the last impeachment trial, the goal was to fling as much dirt at Donald Trump as they could while the cameras were rolling. Their hatred of Donald Trump is so deep and visceral that probably a psychologist would have been more beneficial to them than yet another impeachment trial.

It would be incorrect to say that the House managers’ case fell apart, because they had no case to begin with. They never had a case because they made no effort to develop a case. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court saw from the beginning that this was no legitimate impeachment trial and informed Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that he would not preside. Without the Chief Justice, there was no Constitutional impeachment trial. So they put on a show trial instead.

As Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley kept asking, why didn’t the House schedule a single hearing to investigate what really happened up to and on the day of the Capitol melee on January 6th? They had weeks to do so. Professor Turley believes they might even have been able to make a decent case if they had tried.

Why did they not call witnesses? Were there no rioters who could be called to explain under oath how Trump’s speech had inspired them to enter the Capitol building to overturn the election?

Were they afraid that under cross-examination we might have found out more about Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows’ claim that Trump offered to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops in Washington before January 6th but that his offer was rebuked? What about reports that Capitol Hill Police were left without back-up and unprepared for what happened? House and Senate leadership is responsible for security at the Capitol and they obviously failed. Why?

The House and Senate Democrats (and a few Republicans) did not succeed in their ultimate goal: preventing Trump from ever running again for political office. But that doesn’t mean they are giving up. They are not about to give citizen Trump a moment of peace. They are intent on continuing their witch hunt but it looks less and less like any desire for justice. It looks like fear. They are afraid if he is allowed to run again he may be elected. So they cannot allow that vote to happen.

And they accuse Trump of undermining democracy.

There were a number of reasons to impeach and convict President Trump while he was in office. Bombing Syria on bogus grounds without authorization was one of them. But Democrats love war as much as Republicans so they weren’t about to uphold their Constitutional obligations.

Impeachment 2.0 may be over, but those blinded by hatred for Trump are not about to give up. They are irrational and obsessed. They are also dangerous.

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***

More than 500 scientists and economists implored world leaders last week to stop treating as emissions-free the burning of wood from forests to make energy and heat, and to end subsidies now driving the explosive demand for wood pellets. Both actions, they write, are causing escalating deforestation in the Southeast US, Western Canada and Eastern Europe.

The letter was received Feb. 11 by US President Joseph Biden and European Union President Ursula Von der Leyen, as well as Charles Michel, president of the European Council, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The document is expected to soon be sent to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“We the undersigned scientists and economists commend each of you for the ambitious goals you have announced… to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050,” the two-page letter begins. “Forest preservation and restoration should be key tools for achieving this goal and simultaneously helping to address our global biodiversity crisis.

However, “We urge you not to undermine both climate goals and the world’s biodiversity by shifting from burning fossil fuels to burning trees to generate energy.”

In the EU alone, nearly 60% of renewable energy already comes from forest biomass, amounting to millions of metric tons of wood pellets burned annually. The United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Denmark are among the leading consumers of biomass for energy and heat, while Japan and South Korea are now converting coal-fired power plants to burn wood pellets.

Under the EU’s second Renewable Energy Directive (REDII) — tolerated by the United Nations under the Paris Climate Agreement — emissions from burning forest biomass are not counted at all. This significant carbon accounting loophole underreports emissions data at a time when global temperatures are rising fast, causing accelerating drought, devastating storms, destructive wildfires and sea-level rise nearly everywhere on earth.

Rather than being a carbon neutral climate solution, the scientists write, cutting forests and burning wood pellets is more polluting than coal, and “emits more carbon up smokestacks than using fossil fuels,” while sacrificing the carbon-sequestration capacity of growing trees which is lost to produce wood pellets.

“Overall, for each kilowatt hour of heat or electricity produced, [burning] wood initially is likely to add two to three times as much carbon to the air as using fossil fuels,” says the letter, refuting the policy and industry claims of biomass zero emissions.

For its part, the biomass industry claims it uses forest management to selectively log trees from forests and tree plantations, avoiding clearcutting and preserving carbon stocks. It also claims that replanted trees quickly reabsorb the carbon released from burned wood pellets. Both assertions are undermined by NGO-observed clearcutting and accumulating science showing mature forests absorb and hold far more carbon than seedlings and young trees.

In 2017 demand for industrial wood pellets exceeded 14 million tons. By 2027, demand is expected to more than double to over 36 million tons. The biggest increases in biomass burning by 2027 are expected in Europe, Japan and South Korea, with newly targeted source forests in Brazil, Mozambique and Australia. Image courtesy of Environmental Paper Network.

The scientists offered four mandates: end subsidies and other incentives that promote biomass for energy and heat; in the EU, stop treating biomass as carbon neutral under REDII, which falsely overstates emission reductions; in Japan, stop subsidizing power plants to burn wood; and in the US, stop treating biomass as carbon neutral as the Biden administration establishes new climate rules and incentives to curb global warming.

“Government subsidies for burning wood create a double climate problem because this false solution is replacing real carbon reductions,” says the letter. “Companies are shifting fossil energy use to wood, which increases warming, as a substitute for shifting to solar and wind, which would truly decrease warming.”

Last week’s lobbying effort is the latest on behalf of US, European and Canadian scientists and economists to highlight robust science demonstrating the negative environmental impacts of biomass-for-energy to world leaders, whose national bioenergy policies have helped create a multibillion industry in wood-pellet production.

A similar letter signed by nearly 800 scientists in 2018 lobbied the EU to alter its biomass policies, to no avail.

The Drax power station in the UK, one of the world’s largest users of woody biomass to make energy. The uncounted carbon from wood pellets burned at Drax flows into the atmosphere, adding to climate change. Photo credit: DECCgovuk on VisualHunt / CC BY-ND.

“Better audience this time”

Tim Searchinger, a senior research scholar at Princeton University and forest biomass expert, helped draft the new letter. He told Mongabay he‘s more hopeful this document will produce positive results.

“We sense there is a growing recognition in Europe of the [biomass emissions] problem, [even as] there is increasing evidence of large, additional wood harvests since 2015 due to bioenergy,” Searchinger said. “So we think the letter may have a better audience this time. In the US, our hope and expectation is that leaders like [incoming Environmental Protection Agency Administrator] Michael Regan and [National Climate Adviser] Gina McCarthy will make sure that we get this issue right.

“But we know that not every newcomer to the [Biden] administration feels this way, so it’s useful that they be aware of the weight of the scientific evidence.”

The letter warns of the adverse climate and biodiversity impacts of biomass burning: “Your decisions going forward are of great consequence for the world’s forests because if the world supplied just an additional 2% of its energy from wood, it would need to double its commercial wood harvests.”

In North Carolina, for example, Enviva, one of the leading US biomass producers is already harvesting some 60,000 acres of woodland annually to produce 2.5 million tons of wood pellets for export, according to calculations by the Dogwood Alliance, a forest preservation NGO based in the state.

“The burning of wood will increase warming for decades to centuries. That is true even when the wood replaces coal, oil or natural gas,” noted two of the letter signees, Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, former chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; and Peter Raven, US National Medal of Science winner.

EU to reassess biomass carbon neutrality designation?

Even as the scientific consensus against forest biomass hardens, EU public opinion is beginning to turn against this form of bioenergy, with more than 40,000 Europeans signing onto a petition against burning forests to produce electricity. Importantly, Franz Timmermans, vice president of the EU Commission, told the Dutch press recently that the European Union will re-evaluate its policies on biomass under REDII as early as June.

In a response to questions from Mongabay, a spokesperson for the European Commission elaborated, without specifically addressing the policy shifts requested in last week’s letter:

“More sustainable bioenergy is needed to achieve the 2030 climate and energy targets and long-term climate neutrality,” said the spokesperson. “It is important to ensure, however, that the supply and demand will not be bigger than needed for this objective and that bioenergy is produced and used in a sustainable manner, while negative environmental impacts are effectively avoided and minimized. Also… in the EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy, the use of whole trees and food and feed crops for energy production — whether produced in the EU or imported — should be minimized.”

Speaking to Mongabay, Phil Duffy, a letter signee and president of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, was critical of the current EU position:

“There is absolutely no reason why wood in any form needs to be burned to produce electricity. Wind, solar and nuclear are very low-carbon energy sources and are enormously abundant. Producing energy from these sources, while simultaneously expanding forests and other natural reservoirs to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, is not just carbon neutral but carbon negative. This is the only approach which has a remote chance of avoiding unacceptable climate outcomes.”

Bill Moomaw, professor emeritus at Tufts University and a leading biomass expert, helped draft the biomass letter from scientists. He too is critical of the EU response, and found it too vague to be hopeful, so far. “What do they mean by sustainable?” he asked. “How much will they minimize taking whole trees?”

Moomaw concluded:

“We have to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions as rapidly as possible in the entire energy sector, including bioenergy. And we have to increase the uptake of carbon dioxide by our existing forests. The only way to do this is to let them grow. Planting new trees will contribute very little carbon sequestration in the narrow timeframe we have to slow the rate of global warming.”

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Justin Catanoso is a regular contributor to Mongabay and a professor journalism at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Follow him on Twitter @jcatanoso

Featured image: A loaded logging truck pulls into the Enviva biomass wood pellet plant in Northampton, North Carolina. Image courtesy of the Dogwood Alliance / NRDC.

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***

Robert Mugabe: Why are your men trying to kill me?

Lt. General Peter Walls: If they were my men you would be dead.

-Exchange between Mugabe, leader of the ZANU-PF political party and Walls, the head of the Rhodesian Armed Forces on March 17th, 1980.

The build up to the first universal elections in the history of Rhodesia, the country which after the elections would be reconstituted as Zimbabwe, was a tumultuous period. After the failure of internal settlement, the negotiations and hard bartering at the Lancaster House Conference, had, it was hoped, finally set the country onto the path of peace and national reconciliation. But tensions remained high during the campaign period.

There were rumours of a coup by the Rhodesian Army should Robert Mugabe win and a pledge by some White soldiers to continue the fight along the lines that the French O.A.S. had embarked once Algeria was lost. The Black political parties of ZANU and ZIPRA were accused of intimidating Black voters, and Mugabe threatened a civil war if he was disqualified by Lord Soames, the British Governor-General. Mugabe himself had survived two assassination attempts in Fort Victoria and Salisbury. The campaign was punctuated by episodes of violence, one of which involved the commission of a ‘False Flag’ operation by the Selous Scouts Special Forces unit.

On the night of Thursday, February 14th, 1980, the Black township of Harare was rocked by an explosion in a Renault 12TL Sedan parked near St. Mary’s Anglican Church. The occupants, two young Black men were fatally injured. Then a few hours later, two bombs exploded. One was at a Presbyterian church and the other at a non-denominational church. Another bomb would be found the following morning near the entrance of the city’s Catholic cathedral. The bomb had been placed in a briefcase containing papers referring to ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front), the political party led by Robert Mugabe.

Residents of Salisbury, the capital city soon to be renamed after the township, woke up to read an advertisement in the local paper which warned that Mugabe would close all churches if he was elected.

There was a link between the explosions and the advert. The bombs which damaged the Presbyterian church and the non-denominational one had been set by a timer, as police would discover, by the now deceased occupants of the bomb-wrecked Renault. The advert also appeared to have been timed to coincide with the previous night’s explosions, just as the undetonated bomb-in-a-brief case near the Catholic church was designed not to explode to implicate a political party because of the literature contained inside of it.

Police and agents of ZANU-PF were quick to put together the pieces of the jigsaw once the identities of the men who were blown up in the car were discovered. They were Lieutenant Edward Piringondo and Corporal Morgan Moyo, both members of the Selous Scouts, a Special Forces unit of the Rhodesian Security Forces, which had gained a reputation as the most effective fighting outfit against the Black African guerrillas during the 2nd Chimurenga or ‘Bush War’.

Formed in 1973 as a tracking unit, the Scouts quickly germinated into a multi-racial outfit tasked with waging unconventional warfare. Its members employed infiltration, abduction, torture, sabotage and blackmail. Many of the missions they undertook relied on deception, and such deception was used to either kill a large number of the insurgent enemy or to kill specific civilian targets in order to blame the Black African insurgents. They were also a key component in the waging by the White minority government of chemical warfare against their Black opponents.

Lt. Piringondo, an early African recruit, was a 27-year-old veteran of ‘pseudo-operations’, many of which involved infiltrating guerrilla bases. One such mission was carried out in November 1979 prior to ‘Operation Murex’, an attack on a ZIPRA brigade in the Kabanga Mission area of southern Zambia.

For this and other audacious assignments, Piringondo had won the Rhodesian Silver Cross (SRC), the country’s second-highest military decoration for conspicuous gallantry. He had also been nominated for the Grand Cross of Valour which, had the Scouts not been disbanded, would have made him Rhodesia’s most decorated soldier.

Piringondo was thus the sort of man on which the Scouts could call upon to perform a mission which was designed to implicate the military wing of Mugabe’s Marxist-orientated party and paint Mugabe as anti-religion and anti-religious freedom.

But it was a mission too far for Piringondo and his accomplice in arms, Moyo, both of whom Mugabe would state with some relish had been “caught and destroyed in their devilish trap”.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site, Adeyinka Makinde.

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London. He has a keen interest in history and geopolitics. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Lt. Edward Piringondo, a decorated member of the Selous Scouts (left), and clipping of the Monday, February 18th edition of the Hartford Courant (Source: Adeyinka Makinde)

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***

The U.S. National Security Council Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Gonzalez stated that President Joe Biden pledges to lift the limit on remittances to Cuba and resume direct flights between the two countries.

One of Biden’s campaign promises was to transform Donald Trump’s foreign policy towards Cuba, which only made families’ lives more difficult amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

He stated his intention to resume diplomatic dialogue with Havana and restaff the U.S. Embassy in Cuba, which was virtually dismantled by the Trump administration to please Florida’s anti-Cuban lobby in the U.S. Congress.

Although Biden’s speech has been positive, no actions have been taken so far, and most of the issues only remain “under review” status.

Top story: @EmbaCubaUS: 'More than 200 people go in cars and bicycles through the main streets and avenues of #Miami as part of the caravan against #Bloqueo a #Cuba. #NoMasBloqueo #UnBlockCuba #PuentesDeAmor ' pic.twitter.com/OOgouuW3HZ, see more https://t.co/wsEDM6k6p5

— editor13x (@editor13x) January 31, 2021

Biden’s policies must face obstacles like Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who is ascending to the powerful chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. However, Obama pushed forward his Cuba policy despite not having control in either house of Congress, something that Biden already has.

Over the last month, progressive leaders and organizations have called for the lifting of the economic blockade and removing Cuba from the list of “States Sponsors of Terrorism.”

“Our nation’s embargo on Cuba is an artifact from the 1960s. To continue this outdated, harmful policy of isolation would be a failure of American leadership,” said Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and introduced a bill to repeal the sanctions early this month.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said he welcomes dialogue with Washington, but without preconditions.

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Featured image: Cuban Art Factory in Havana, Cuba, Feb. 15, 2021. | Photo: Twitter/ @cubaniatravel

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Western countries, including Canada, are using experimental mRNA injections in nursing homes, on the most vulnerable of people.

Nobody can give informed consent because the injections are experimental. How do we know that the injections are experimental? There are at least two on-going clinical trials:

One is,

“A Study to Evaluate Efficacy, Safety, and Immunogenicity of mRNA-1273 Vaccine in Adults Aged 18 years and Older to Prevent COVID-19” (1).

The estimated study completion date is October 27, 2022.

Another study is titled,

“Study to describe the Safety, tolerability, Immunogenicity, and Efficacy of RNA Vaccine Candidates Against COVID-19 in Healthy Individuals” (2).

The estimated study completion date is January 31, 2023.

We do have a narrow window to observe the immediate adverse impacts of the vaccines. So far, CDC data alone indicates that there have been 653 deaths and 12,044 other injuries following COVID vaccine injections (3). (Many countries are not included in this data.)

Nobody knows the medium and long term adverse vaccine-related events, so this precludes informed consent.

Since informed consent is impossible, and experimental vaccines are being administered to humans, Western governments are in violation of the Nuremberg Codes, established after the Second World War to prevent human experimentation and subsequent evils.

Everyone who has studied what is really happening in the Middle East (and beyond) knows that the “Nazis” never left. Now the “Nazis” (Western governments) are showing their true colors and killing their own people again.

It isn’t just vulnerable people in Long term Care Homes either. Provincial (health) (sic) measures, reports Dr. Stephen Malthouse, “have been shown to create 12:1 more deaths than the virus. (4)”

Western governments are deliberately causing human suffering and death on a global scale beneath “humanitarian” and now “public health” pretenses. These are Crimes Against Humanity.

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Mark Taliano is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) and the author of Voices from Syria, Global Research Publishers, 2017. Visit the author’s website at https://www.marktaliano.net where this article was originally published.

Notes

(1) ClinicalTrials.gov, “A Study to Evaluate Efficacy, Safety, and Immunogenicity of mRNA-1273 Vaccine in Adults Aged 18 Years and Older to Prevent COVID-19.” NIH U.S. National Library of Medicine, 14 July, 2020. (A Study to Evaluate Efficacy, Safety, and Immunogenicity of mRNA-1273 Vaccine in Adults Aged 18 Years and Older to Prevent COVID-19 – Full Text View – ClinicalTrials.gov) Accessed 15 February, 2021.

(2) (Study to Describe the Safety, Tolerability, Immunogenicity, and Efficacy of RNA Vaccine Candidates Against COVID-19 in Healthy Individuals – Full Text View – ClinicalTrials.gov) Accessed 15 February, 2021.

(3) Children’s Health Defense Team, “653 Deaths + 12,044 Other Injuries Reported Following COVID Vaccine, Latest CDC Data Show.” the Defender, 12 February, 2021. (653 Deaths + 12,044 Other Injuries Reported Following COVID Vaccine, Latest CDC Data Show • Children’s Health Defense) Accessed 15 February, 2021.

(4) Stephen Malthouse, MD, “Letter by Dr. Stephen Malthouse, MD to Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C Provincial Health Officer.” www.marktaliano.net, 15 October, 2020. ( Letter by Dr. Stephen Malthouse, MD to Dr. Bonnie Henry, B.C Provincial Health Officer – Mark Taliano) Accessed, 15 February, 2021.

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***

General Atomics is to bring a company-owned SkyGuardian drone to the UK in the summer to undertake “a series of operational capability demonstrations” for the UK and other NATO members. The RAF’s soon to be acquired Protector drone is a version of the SkyGuardian with a range of UK modifications. The aircraft is being shipped into the UK rather than flying in (possibly due to the controversy around a previous flight to the UK) and will be based at RAF Waddington.

Similar demonstration flights, planned by the company to fly over San Diego last year, did not go ahead apparently after objections on safety grounds from airspace regulators.  The flights took place instead well away from populated areas in the desert between Palmdale, California, and Yuma, Arizona.

RAF Waddington, on the edge of Lincoln, is surrounded by houses, a school and local businesses.  Recent public polling carried out for UK Drone Watch found that 67% of the public were worried about the safety implication of large drones flying in the UK, with 70% agreeing that such flights should be kept to segregated airspace.

The company says flights of the aircraft are planned to showcase its maritime capability and the drone will also participate in the UK’s Joint Warrior Exercise planned for May and late September over Scotland and the North Sea.  A press release also reported that:

SkyGuardian flights will further develop GA-ASI’s revolutionary Detect and Avoid capability, which will enable Protector to fly in unsegregated UK airspace. It will also assist RAF Waddington, the future home of the RAF Protector fleet, to best prepare to integrate the new aircraft into its daily operations.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is pushing hard for the UK’s Protector drone to be able to fly unsegregated (that is without restriction) in UK airspace.  However, airspace regulator, the Civil Airspace Authority (CAA) have previously been unconvinced about the safety of electronic ‘detect and avoid’ technology which is meant to replicate the safety role played by an on-board pilot.

The CAA has, however, come under pressure to accept the technology in order to allow drones to be able to fly ‘beyond visual line of sight’.  The former head of the Royal Air Force, Sir Stephen Hillier, was appointed Chair of the CAA in August 2020.  General Atomics are liable to make billions of dollars from sales of their new drones if they can get approval for them to fly in unsegregated civilian airspace.

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Few could have been slack-jawed at the first significant foreign policy speech of US President Joe Biden.  It can easily be filed under the “America is back” label.  Back as well, as if the previous administration had been incapable of it, was a promise for that practice unflatteringly called jaw-jaw.  “Diplomacy,” the President states from the outset, “is back at the centre of our foreign policy.”

Doing so naturally meant much cap doffing to the US State Department, that long time enunciator of Washington’s imperial policies.  President Donald Trump had held a rather different view of the department he generally saw as fustian and obstructive.  Biden tried reassuring department staff that he valued their expertise, respected them and would have their back.  “This administration is going to empower you to do your jobs, not target or politicize you.”

The effort of the new administration, outlined Biden, will focus on repairing and restoring.  Paint and scaffolding will be provided.  Alliances will be revisited, the world engaged with.  He strikes a collaborative note: cooperation with other states will be needed to fight the pandemic, climate change and nuclear proliferation.

The speech has the usual sprinklings of concern and fear that other powers are posing challenges to US power, but is odd in not mentioning such states as Iran, at least explicitly, or North Korea.  “American leadership,” he urges, “must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism, including the growing ambitions of China to rival the United States and the determination of Russia to damage and disrupt our democracy.”  Beijing remained “our most serious competitor” and needed to be pushed back “on human rights, intellectual property, and global governance.”  He asserts that the US will not roll over “in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions” and will be more “effective in dealing” with Moscow “in coalition and coordination with other like-minded partners.” 

This leaves the impression that the Trump administration was in the business of playing amiable golf with the Putin regime, a point that Democrats in Congress were always keen to push.  But whatever Trump’s strong man admiration might have been for President Vladimir Putin, the US record during his time in office was far from accommodating.  An overview of the various retaliatory sanctions is provided by the Brookings Institute.  They are many and include, among others, the imposition of sanctions in response to Russia’s alleged use of a nerve agent in the British town of Salisbury in 2018; the sanctioning of Russian and a Chechen group for human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings and torture; and sanctions for alleged Russian electoral interference in 2018.

The speech also pays a mandatory pound of cant masquerading as homage to the misunderstood idea of democracy.  He spoke of defending “America’s most cherished democratic values: defending freedom, championing opportunity, upholding universal human rights, respecting the rule of law, and treating every person with dignity.”

Democracy is always a conceptual problem for presidents, largely because the US executive and the country’s political system is a creation of a distinctly non-democratic mindset.  The framers of the US Constitution pooh-poohed democracy and purposely crafted a document and political system that would protect property, stifle the emancipation of slaves, and neutralise factionalism. 

Historians such as Charles Beard developed these ideas in An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (1913), noting how that celebrated document was ratified by fewer than one-sixth of adult males and excluding the un-propertied franchise.  “The Constitution was not created by the ‘whole people’, as the jurists said … but was the work of a consolidated group whose interests knew no state boundaries and were truly national in scope.”  Drafters of the Constitution “with a few exceptions, immediately, directly and personally interested in, and derived economic advantages from, the establishment of a new system.”  Things were off to a cracking start.

A recent smattering of critique of that problematic notion that is American democracy can also be found, if one cares to look.  Political scientist Yascha Mounk, looking at the foiled efforts of residents in Oxford, Massachusetts to secure the local water supply by buying out the company in question, Aquarion, furnishes us a gloomy example.  Despite securing enough funding to achieve their goal, the lobbyists and a generous effort at sabotage ensured that the water company would remain the supplier.  “The preferences of the average American appear,” rues Mounk, “to have only a miniscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

The Trump era, while channelling the concerns of the powerless, left it at that.  Elites were still in rampant play, if only those elites preferred by the president.  The US republic moved ever more deeply into a terrain crawling with billionaires and lobbyists.  It was left for those against Trump and the Democrats to simply identify how best to retake old, unequitable terrain with their substitutes.  The participating voter could well sod off.

Problematically, we return to democracy as an exportable commodity, an effort that has been, for the most part, a disastrous platform of US foreign policy.  Previous sages warned that democracy grown in indigenous climes, like certain wines, travel poorly.  Not acknowledging this fact has led to quagmires, the destruction of states and the crippling of regional and in some cases global security. 

Despite the US being sketchy about democratic ideals (he does allude to the Capitol riots), Biden is optimistic that “the American people are going to emerge from this moment stronger, more determined, and better equipped to unite the world in fighting to defend democracy, because we have fought for it ourselves.”  He also announced “additional steps to course-correct our foreign policy and better unite democratic values with our diplomatic leadership.”  A Global Posture Review of US forces would be conducted, which could only mean one thing: butting the brake on withdrawing US troops and reversing Trump’s policy in various theatres. 

He suggests an example of democracy promotion in action: marshalling cooperative support to address the military coup in Burma; reaching out to the Republicans to test the waters (Senator Mitch McConnell also “shared concerns about the situation in Burma”).  Force, he proclaimed “should never seek to overrule the will of the people or attempt to erase the outcome of a credible election.”  The ghosts of Chile’s Salvador Allende and Iran’s Mohammad Mosaddegh, along with many other casualties of US efforts to overrule the will of the people, would beg to differ.

A more positive note is made on the issue of US support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, where an effort will be made to support UN-led initiatives “to impose a ceasefire, open humanitarian channels, and restore long-dormant peace talks.”  US support for offensive operations in the war, including arms sales, will also cease.

What we can expect for a good deal of the Biden administration will be the resuscitation of the hackneyed and weary.  Even such an ordinary speech had Fred Kaplan claiming that Biden’s cliché’s, after Trump, sounded “revolutionary”.  Trump’s four years had been characterised by “diplomatic decline and atrophy”; Biden’s views, in light of that, “seemed fresh, even bracing.”  But Kaplan is not immune to the substance here.  Talk about stiffening democracy’s sinews, shoring up alliances when allies are doing their own deals with opponents, can come across as rather weak.  The pudding, and the proof that will come with it, is still being made.

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

Featured image is from The Intercept

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***

Today Black Lives Matter Inland Empire announced its departure from the Black Lives Matter Global Network, highlighting several grievances, and perhaps, calling attention to the need for movement leaders and members of movement organizations to have broader conversations of transparency, Collective organizing and accountability. The following is a statement from Black Lives Matter Inland Empire.

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To our community,

Recently, a group of BLM chapters known as the BLM 10 has come forward to voice their concerns and opposition to the Global Network. Those concerns, along with the egregious conduct the Global network demonstrated on Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday, have brought us to the conclusion that continuing to remain silent would be an act of betrayal. While the issues and problems that have been raised have been well known within our circle for years, it prompted many questions & concerns for us locally. We’d like to let the community know everything outlined in the statement put out by the BLM 10 is valid. We’ve also reached out to the BLM 10 and offered to sign on in support. Hopefully, we can provide insight and clarification into our chapter’s history, our relationship with the global network, and our commitments going forward.

When BLM IE first started, we were originally known as the Black and Brown Underground (BBU). In 2015 we were approached by an individual named Patrisse Cullors, who offered us an opportunity to join the Global Network and organize as a Black Lives Matter chapter.  After hearing her proposal, we believed that our work, direction, and principles aligned and agreed to join the network; renaming ourselves Black Lives Matter Inland Empire in the process. We were told that the organization we were joining was decentralized and leaderless, but we quickly discovered that was not the case. The Global Network is a top-down dogmatic organization that promotes certain chapters that choose to align with their direction and sequester the ones that don’t. For us locally, that chapter has been Los Angeles.

For years, the leadership of the Los Angeles chapter has aligned with the Global network and One United Bank to impose on various chapters, particularly ours. We believe that while doing this they received substantial donations and funding, despite them continually soliciting the community for donations. Together, the Los Angeles Chapter along with the Global Network have consistently tried to strong-arm other groups and  have worked to undermine a grassroots movement by capitalizing on unpaid labor, suppressing any internal attempt at democracy, commodifying Black death, and profiting from the same pain and suffering inflicted on Black communities that we’re fighting to end. In spite of  being ostracised, receiving no financial support, and the maltreatment from both the Global Network and Los Angeles Chapter we’ve maintained our composure while working to the benefit of our community and victims of state sanctioned violence.

Clearly, we do not have the same beliefs or sense of ethics. We no longer feel, as we initially did, that our politics align. As a result, we are announcing that we are no longer associated or connected to the BLM Global Network. As an attempt to distance ourselves, we have decided to rename part of our organization The Black Power Collective while we restructure.

The use of the BLM name, which we believed was intended to unify our struggle, has been commodified and debased. It is now being used to sell products, acquire book deals, T.V. deals, and speaking engagements. We have no interest in these pursuits, and we are opposed to the movement to substitute Black capitalism for white capitalism. It has become clear that the Global network and certain figures have platformed our struggles with the sole purpose of exploiting our labor.

Furthermore, the issue of greatest concern for us is the relationship between the Global Network and the Democratic Party. This is hypocritical at best, as the Democratic Party has historically rejected and ignored BLM’s demands and has made it clear that they are pro-police, pro-prison, and committed to capitalism. From Obama’s support of police and his double-cross of Erica Garner, to “Top Cop” Kamala Harris’ denial of justice for Matrice Richardson, even going back to the 1994 Crime Bill authored by Joe Biden along with the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act that stripped basic human rights from countless Black people—the Democratic Party has literally created the conditions that led to the formation of this movement. Even now, the Demoractic party continues to support imperialism, killing African heads of state, bombing Somalia, abusing immigrants (including those of the Black diaspora), and spreading the U.S. military throughout Black and Brown countries around the world. This is a party that is a threat both here and internationally. To ally with them is to ally against ourselves.

The BLM10 statement calls out the lack of financial transparency and power moves by Patrisse Cullors and others. The actions demonstrated by the Global network have provided proof that the Global Network is essentially a steering committee acting in the best interest of various fractions within the Democratic Party. Additionally, the creation of the Black Lives Matter Political Action Committee is a violation of our collective agreement. This agreement was composed of two rules: 1. We do not work with police, 2. We do not endorse politicians. We had hoped that those rules would protect our struggle from being corrupted by the nonprofit sector or absorbed into the Democratic party. However, it now appears that the same fate that many activist groups before us fell victim to is the same fate that the BLM Global Network are destined to face. They have not only aligned with a political party, they’ve used the finances they acquired from a massive uprising during a global pandemic to create the aforementioned BLM PAC.

We believe that all finances should be clear and transparent to the Black community. We also believe they should be controlled by chapters that adhere to a democratic structure along with community checks and balances. Leaders that appoint themselves can no longer serve or be seen as leaders.  We can not accept charismatic figures imposing themselves as dictators, nor can we support personality cults.  In the spirit of Audre Lordre  and Ella Baker we believe that, ‘’…the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” and that “…strong people don’t need strong leaders”.  To that end, it is imperative that we engage in the struggle with our own tools and work to build a stronger people.

We would also like to address the violent rumor-mongering directed towards a member of our group who was maliciously accused of being a member of law enforcement. These slanderous accusations came from a leader of BLM LA and a  figurehead of the Global Network. These accusations were nothing but an attempt to duck accountability for the way members of national leadership have treated victims of police brutality and a violation of their own policies. The bullying and attempts to silence smaller chapters and individuals who speak up must end.

Let us be clear, we are not the authors of the discord within our movement.  Malcolm X encouraged us to handle our differences behind closed doors, but all attempts at that have failed. This corruption has thrived in part due to our silence and for that we must apologize.

“Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories…” – Amilcar Cabral

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Plans to connect Scotland and Northern Ireland with a 25-mile undersea tunnel have been ruthlessly mocked by the chair of the Commons Northern Ireland affairs select committee, who called on his colleagues to “put the hallucinogenics down”.

Reports in the Sunday Telegraph suggest the PM’s plans for a bridge between the two countries could be written off in favour of a tunnel, dubbed the ‘Boris Burrow’, which has been mooted as the most viable way forward by Scotland Secretary Alister Jack.

“You say bridge. I say tunnel”

He told the Daily Telegraph’s Chopper’s Politics podcast: “You say bridge. I say tunnel. I think a bridge would be closed for probably 100 days a year with the weather in the Irish Sea.”

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In his first presidential visit to the Pentagon yesterday, Joe Biden announced the creation of an anti-China task force. This team will review the Pentagon’s policy towards the country in areas such as strategy, technology, military and diplomacy with neighboring countries. During the visit Biden pledged to “meet the China challenge … and win the competition of the future.”

Career politician and long-time Biden aide Ely Ratner has been tapped to lead the task force targeting China. Ratner has continually advocated for bipartisan aggression against China in his roles at the pro-war Center for New American Security, the State Department, and elsewhere.

In 2017 Ratner described China’s calls for non-conflict, mutual respect and win-win cooperation with the United States as a “festering concept.” Ratner wrote in the influential journal Foreign Policy: “Enough is enough. Senior Trump administration officials should make it a top priority to dispense with this concept as soon as possible, first by politely and privately asking Beijing to refrain from using it, and then, if necessary, by publicly denouncing it. The longer they wait to do this, the harder and more awkward it will get.”

China is not the threat

The United States has targeted China as its principal priority since the Obama administration’s “Pivot to Asia” doctrine, marking a major aggressive shift with the largest country in the world by population and second-largest by economy.

Every year the U.S. military publishes two versions of a report assessing China’s armed forces: one classified and one public. The 2020 public report lists a number of “threats”, including China’s single foreign military base and China’s nuclear warhead stockpile “estimated to be in the low 200s.”

But China is not the aggressor. Its lone military base in Djibouti is just a few miles from Camp Lemonnier, among the largest of the Pentagon’s 800+ overseas military bases. And its nuclear stockpile, none of which have been deployed, pales in comparison to the thousands of nuclear weapons in storage and deployed by the United States around the world.

A 1996 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council estimated that the U.S. built more than 70,000 nuclear warheads from 1945 to 1995, more than every other nuclear-armed country combined. During the second term of the Obama administration the U.S. embarked on a $1 trillion effort to “modernize” the nuclear weapons stockpile and build “usable” nuclear weapons.

Biden’s agenda: aggression, aggression, aggression

Biden spoke to Chinese president Xi Jinping hours after revealing the new anti-China task force. With standard imperial hypocrisy Biden criticized China over its internal affairs including its handling of the pro-Western protests in Hong Kong and anti-terrorism policies in the Xinjiang autonomous region. His Chinese counterpart did not bring up the fascist-led insurrection on Jan. 6 that nearly saw the kidnapping or even assassination of many U.S. politicians.

On top of that, In the last week the U.S. Navy sent a warship through the highly politically sensitive Taiwan strait in an attempt to provoke China and inflame tensions. Days later, the U.S. sent two carrier strikes groups –– a collection of warships and aircraft carriers –– to conduct war simulations in the South China Sea. Just one strike group hosts thousands of soldiers, and costs $6.5 million each day to operate.

War criminal and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger euphemistically described these warships as “100,000 tons of diplomacy”. Of the 41 active aircraft carriers in the world, the United States controls 20 outright. Another 13 are operated by U.S. junior partners and client states.

The U.S. government, not China, is the aggressor and the real threat to peace.

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After months of denying there are any plans to introduce so called vaccine passports, the British government has now admitted that not only is it considering introducing them for travel, but also merely to gain access to events spaces, and even shops and pubs.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told LBC radio that the government is considering a domestic scheme to allow greater freedoms to those who can prove they have been vaccinated.

“It’s under consideration, but of course you’ve got to make it workable,” Raab stated:

“I’m not sure there’s a foolproof answer in the way that sometimes it’s presented, but of course we’ll look at all the options,” Raab added.

Raab’s comments come after vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi declared last month that any form of vaccine passport would be ‘discriminatory’.

A senior government source also told the Telegraph that the Government has been “very cautious about this idea that if you don’t have a passport therefore somehow your liberties are curtailed”.

“As Conservatives we should be instinctively concerned about that,” the source further noted.

Despite the repeated details, the government has continued to develop the vaccine passport system.

There are also reports that the government plans to issue exemptions for ethnic minorities, in order to avoid charges of xenophobia and racism.

Former Prime Minister, and arch globalist, Tony Blair has renewed his push for Britain to implement a standardised global vaccine passport while the country has the G7 Presidency.

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Blair urged “We should plan for an agreed ‘passport’ now. The arguments against it really don’t add up.”

“The world is moving in this direction,” Blair added, saying that he “can’t see another way of this.”

“With my team at the Institute for Global Change, I have looked at this from every angle and come to this conclusion: there is no prospect of a return to anything like normal without enabling people to show their Covid status, whether that means they have been vaccinated or recently tested,” Blair proclaimed.

Blair also revealed that he is working with the World Economic Forum on its CommonPass initiative, a COVID passport scheme being pushed by a coalition of Big Tech companies, and that has received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation. The CommonPass is already being implemented by all three major airline alliances.

Blair previously declared that vaccine passports are inevitable and that “It’s going to be a new world altogether.”

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The EU and U.S. seem oblivious to threats made last week by Kosovan political opposition leader Ramush Haradinaj to unite Kosovo with Albania if Serbia does not recognize Pristina’s self-proclaimed independence. This is mostly because the West are not united on the Kosovo issue. 

The EU attributes the threat to unify the breakaway Serbian province with Albania to the election campaign that was underway in Kosovo, but that is not a reason for Brussels to stay silent. The EU did not react strongly against these statements by Kosovo’s political leaders because it is convinced that it is only pre-election populist rhetoric that will quickly dissipate. An EU spokesman did comment on the statements, but it was more tokenistic and appeared to be a forced effort.

The European Commission and most of the EU believe that such statements must be seen as part of the election campaign in Kosovo because Haradinaj and so-called former Prime Minister Albin Kurti were fighting for power. It appears that Haradinaj’s populist rhetoric and ideas for a Greater Albania were popular, but not enough to project him into power as Kurti’s Vetëvendosje Party won Sunday’s parliamentary election.

However, even if we accept that such provocative statements should be tolerated because it was pre-election rhetoric, words are not chosen in such a way that the revival of ideas about a Greater Albania are only for the purpose of gaining votes. Such an idea does exist and has popular support as many Albanians would be very happy to see a Greater Albania emerge that would incorporate Kosovo, Albania, and other areas of Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. Such a grand idea of incorporating the territory of so many countries is unattainable, but a merging of Albania and Kosovo could become a real prospect.

According to a 2010 Gallup Balkan Monitor report, 81% of Albanians in Kosovo supported a Greater Albania, up from 54% in 2008. 11 years on from the report, and although there is no official data, it can be expected this number is even higher. Although Haradinaj did not win the election, the idea of merging Kosovo and Albania enjoys widespread support among all political factions, including the Vetëvendosje Party that won Sunday’s elections. Kurti is a huge advocate for a referendum on unification and frequently criticizes the part of the constitution that forbids such a referendum.

It is unlikely that Western Powers would allow Kosovo and Albania to unite as it would unravel a quagmire in the Balkans – Croats and Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina would demand unification with Croatia and Serbia respectively, Greeks in Northern Epirus in southern Albania would demand unification with Greece, Bulgarians in North Macedonia would demand unification with Bulgaria, and these are just some of the many map redrawings of the Balkans that would be demanded by various ethnic groups.

It would not be surprising if the EU reacted to Pristina privately as they are proposing a dangerous idea at a time when Brussels is attempting to, albeit slowly, expand into the Western Balkans. However, if Brussels cares about peace and stability, as it supposedly champions, reactions should have been clearer and more explicit.

At the same time, if the West accepts Kosovo as an independent state, then they should have no authority from preventing two sovereign states, as they see them, from merging and becoming a single entity through a referendum and a constitutional amendment. This demonstrates weakness in EU foreign policy as they will not be able to prevent an occurrence that they want to avoid, or it demonstrates Kosovo’s servitude to the West as it does not merge with Albania despite widespread support, or perhaps it demonstrates both prospects.

The problem is in the fact that the EU does not have a coherent position when it comes to the breakaway Serbian province because five of its members (Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Slovakia and Romania) have not recognized Kosovo’s independence.

There are several factors why the EU does not see the reality in the West Balkans. Europe is dealing with internal interests of its member states out of fear of an economic crisis, explaining why for example, Turkey has not been sanctioned despite daily territorial violations against member states Greece and Cyprus. The EU does not have a common geopolitical position and because of this they miss opportunities to advance their own geostrategic interests, like those in the Balkans or even during last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

A geopolitically weak Europe means that the U.S., under new President Joe Biden, will take advantage of the gap in influence to promote its own interests in the Balkans. If the U.S. and EU do not agree with each other and position themselves on opposite ends, then they could use the space for advancing their own ideas and influence. However, the EU has not made a clear position because of its own division over the Kosovo issue. If a merging of Albania and Kosovo is to the advantage of the U.S. as it weakens Serbia and thus Russian interests in the Balkans, then Biden will undoubtedly pursue it, even if Brussels is in opposition to this. This is because the EU is unable to prevent it due to its own geopolitical weakness and withdrawal from the region over a prolonged period of time.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

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***

Black History Month challenges all of us to learn, reflect and understand many things about the Black American experience, among them the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. This outrage, perpetrated by the US Public Health Service, was not conducted for a year or even a decade – it went on for forty years.

Originally intended to be a six-month study, the Tuskegee experiment conducted in Macon County, Alabama, lasted from 1932 to 1972, and initially involved 600 Black American men – 399 with syphilis, 201 who did not have the disease but were part of the control group. While the men agreed to be examined and treated for “bad blood” (a local term which included anemia, fatigue and syphilis), researchers never informed them of the study or its actual purpose. It was conducted, from beginning to end, without the patients’ informed consent.

Those who were infected were never told they carried latent syphilis, and they were never treated for the disease, even after penicillin was conclusively shown by the mid-1940s to effectively treat syphilis. Not only did the scientists conducting the study withhold the antibiotic and information about it from the patients, they deliberately prevented participants from making use of syphilis treatment programs which were available in the area. As one commentator stated: “deceit was integral to the study.”

Peter Buxtun, an epidemiologist at the USPHS, filed an official protest on ethical grounds in 1966 and again in 1968 but was twice rejected. In 1972, he finally leaked information on the study to the Associated Press and only after a significant public outcry did the USPHS end the program. Studies now require informed consent, communication of diagnosis and the reporting of test results – but Tuskegee reverberates to this day, having understandably damaged the trust of many Black Americans in their medical providers and in the US government on issues relating to their healthcare.

This study was no well-kept secret. At least thirteen reports on the experiment appeared in scientific journals; and in most of these articles, researchers would refer to their program as precisely what it was: the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Male Negro.” The first report of the study appeared in 1936, and subsequent papers followed every four to six years, including through the 1960s. For four decades, no one sounded the moral alarm. No one publicly questioned how the program was being permitted to continue with the blessing of both the USPHS and the Center for Disease Control, which even in in 1969 determined that the research should continue. Indeed, the Tuskegee experiment was a secret only to the subjects of the study—poor, sick, and largely illiterate Black Americans.

Subjects talking with study coordinator, Nurse Eunice Rivers, c.1970 (Public Domain)

The program’s purpose was to track the natural history of untreated syphilis in Black males. When the study began in 1932, syphilis had no effective treatment; but by 1943, penicillin had been used in the US to effectively cure the disease, and yet at no point were subjects ever given the choice of quitting the study in favor of this new and promising treatment. What the patients were instead prescribed was “fairly horrific” – namely, excruciatingly painful and dangerous spinal taps, which the Tuskegee researchers referred to as “special treatment,” that in some cases led to paralysis.

During World War II, researchers actively began preventing their subjects from accessing treatment ordered under the military draft effort. Instead, patients were tempted to remain within the program with the promise of free examinations and therapy, hot meals, and an offer of burial insurance – amounting to fifty dollars to pay for a casket and grave.

As a result, these men were completely unaware that they had put their lives in the hands of doctors who not only had no intention of healing them but were committed to observing them until the final autopsy – since it was believed that an autopsy alone could scientifically confirm the study’s findings. As one researcher wrote in a 1933 letter to a colleague, “As I see, we have no further interest in these patients until they die.”

The unquestionable ethical failure of Tuskegee is one with which we must grapple, and of which we must never lose sight, lest we allow such moral disasters to repeat themselves. One way we can begin to understand the moral harm that occurred is through the Kantian principle of dignity, which our government grossly and systematically violated at Tuskegee. The principle states that a person must never be treated simply as a means, but always also as an end in and of themselves. This principle is precisely what the US government failed to uphold by adopting a purely instrumental relationship to the patients – in a word, they were not treated as people, possessed with intrinsic self-worth, and capable of self-determination.

Tuskegee had predictably tragic consequences for the men who were part of the study, a number of whom died from advanced syphilitic lesions, while others went blind and insane. Worse still, because the subjects were never told that they actually carried the sexually transmitted disease or that they were contagious, their wives also became infected. Perhaps most disturbing of all is that many of the patients’ children were consequently born with congenital syphilis. The experiment’s consequences were so far-reaching in part because the Tuskegee study was undoubtedly the single longest experiment on human beings in the history of medicine.

What makes Tuskegee so morally abhorrent is that it was, from beginning to end, a racially driven experiment that targeted a vulnerable group. If the subjects had been white, how long would the study have continued? If the subjects had been white, would the doctors have systematically deceived them and allowed them to go on year after year receiving no treatment, so that they could observe the disease take its natural and devastating course? It is an utterly implausible suggestion, because the entire study was premised on the myth of “Negro inferiority,” and that Black men possess an excessive sexual desire. As Allan M. Brandt concluded in 1978, “the Tuskegee researchers regarded their subjects as less than human.”

Yet, to this day, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study has its defenders. In 2004, Richard Shweder, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Chicago, offered a revisionist account of Tuskegee – arguing, among other things, that standards of consent were not violated because “in 1932 the concept of informed consent had not even been imagined by medical professionals.”

In point of fact, his statement is simply untrue, as Charlotte Paul and Barbara Brookes have pointed out in “The Rationalization of Unethical Research.” Richard C. Cabot, a Harvard professor of medicine, observed already in 1928, that “experimentation upon a human being without his consent and without the expectation of benefit to him is without any ethical justification.” And Cabot was certainly not the first to insist upon the necessity of informed consent in the clinical research setting, or where human experimentation is involved.

The crucial point, however, is that we cannot afford to assume that the lessons of Tuskegee will be evident to all or for all time. What occurred was a moral catastrophe that did untold harm to people who were already especially vulnerable. Recent attempts to rationalize or defend what occurred only serve to underscore how imperative it is that we continue to revisit the Tuskegee program and examine the moral implications of what took place.

Ethical codes and requirements that emerged in the wake of Tuskegee are of great importance of course – but they do not function as guarantees that grave moral lapses on the scale and scope of Tuskegee will not reoccur. Indeed, we risk repetition of such moral travesties precisely when we conclude that we have safely inoculated ourselves against them. We must remember Tuskegee, continue to reawaken and deepen our understanding of it, and honor its victims by remaining vigilant against such injustices in the future.

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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Doctor drawing blood from a patient as part of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study (Public Domain)

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***

As the Senate prepares to confirm Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, a reflection of her last 30 years in government shows how she was connected to nearly every foreign policy disaster undertaken by the United States.

President Joe Biden’s nomination of Victoria Nuland for Under Secretary for Political Affairs, the third-highest position at the State Department, is a dangerous sign. Nuland exemplifies the neoconservatives who have led American foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years, all while evading any shred of accountability.

As a top-level appointee, Nuland must still be confirmed by the Senate. And while pro-peace groups have waged a campaign to stop her confirmation, reflecting on her career in public service makes clear why she is incompetent, highly dangerous, and should not be confirmed.

Afghanistan and Iraq

From 2000 to 2003, when the Bush administration attacked and then invaded Afghanistan, Nuland was serving as Bush’s permanent representative to NATO. The Afghan government offered to work with the Americans to remove al-Qaeda, but the offer was rejected. After al-Qaeda was defeated, the U.S. could have left Afghanistan but instead stayed, established semi-permanent bases, splintered the country, and is still fighting there two decades later.

From 2003 to 2005, Nuland was principal foreign policy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney who “helped plan and manage the war that toppled [Iraqi leader] Saddam Hussein, including making [the] Bush administration’s case for preemptive military action based on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.” The foreign policy establishment, including Nuland, insisted that removing Saddam Hussein and installing a U.S. “ally” would be simple.

The invasion and continuing occupation have resulted in over a million dead Iraqis, many thousands of dead Americans, hundreds of thousands with PTSD, and a bill for American taxpayers of 2 to 6 trillion dollars.

From 2005 to 2008, Nuland served as U.S. Ambassador to NATO where her role was to “strengthen Allied support” for the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Victoria Nuland is sworn in as NATO ambassador by Dick Cheney in 2005. Photo | White House

When Nuland was asked about the lessons learned on the tenth anniversary of the invasion, she responded:

Compared to where we were in the Saddam era, we now have a bilateral security agreement … We have deep economic interests and ties. We have a security relationship. We have a political relationship.”

Nuland’s response makes clear that she is oblivious to the costs, and that her loyalties are to the elite who are still benefiting from the tragedy. Indeed, “one of the top profiteers from the Iraq War was oil field services corporation, Halliburton.” Halliburton gained $39.5 billion in ‘federal contracts related to the Iraq war.’ Nuland’s boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, was its former CEO.

In January 2020, seventeen years after the U.S. invasion, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution demanding U.S. troops and contractors withdraw from their country. Now, over one year later, they still have not left.

Libya

In the spring of 2011, Nuland became State Department spokesperson under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she ramped up the “regime change” assault on longtime U.S.-ally, Moammar Ghaddafi of Libya. UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorized a “No Fly Zone” for the protection of civilians but not an air assault on Libyan government forces. Yet that summer, as the U.S. and her NATO allies bombed and attacked Libyan forces, Nuland dismissed the option of a peaceful transition in Libya and suggested falsely that the UN Security Council required the removal of Ghaddafi.

The bombing campaign led to the toppling of the Libyan government and the brutal public murder of Ghaddafi at the hands of anti-government rebels. Commenting on the murder (and bayonet sodomizing of Ghaddafi) Nuland’s boss Hillary Clinton now famously chortled:

We came, we saw, he died.”

Before Ghaddafi’s overthrow, Libya had the highest standard of living in all of Africa. Since the U.S.-led assault though it has become a failed state with competing warlords, huge inflation, huge unemployment, and exploding extremism and violence that has spread to neighboring countries. Most of the migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe, or drowned trying to, are coming from Libya. By any measure, the goal of “protecting” Libyan civilians has failed spectacularly.

Syria

One reason that Clinton and hawks like Nuland wanted to overthrow Ghaddafi was ostensibly to gain access to Libya’s military arsenal. Doing so would allow them to funnel arms to insurgents seeking to overthrow the Syrian government and any other enemy of the United States or her allies in the region.

This was confirmed in secret DOD documents which stated:

During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria.

In January of 2012, Nuland claimed that the United States was “on the side of those wanting peaceful change in Syria.” At the same time, the U.S. was supplying sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and 125 mm and 155 mm howitzer missiles to the purportedly “peaceful” anti-government protestors in the country,

The U.S. “regime change” strategy for Syria followed the pattern of Libya. First, claim that the protestors are peaceful. Then claim the government’s response is disproportionate. Put pressure on the target government to paralyze it, while increasing proxy support for protesters and subversive anti-government groups. As documented, there were violent protesters in Syria from the start. During the first days of protest in Deraa in mid-March of 2011, seven police officers were killed. As a spokesperson for the State Department, Nuland was a major figure promoting that narrative in order to justify the “regime change” campaign.

Ukraine

In September of 2013, Nuland was appointed to the post of Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. The uprising in Ukraine’s Maidan central plaza began soon after her arrival. To underscore American support for the protests, Nuland and Senator John McCain passed out bread and cookies to a crowd of anti-government protesters.

The protests continued into January of 2014. The issue at hand was a loan from the International Monetary Fund which would require a 40% increase in natural gas bills, or to accept a loan from Russia with the inclusion of cheap oil and gas. The opposition, wary of Russia and in favor of Ukraine’s alignment with “western” powers, wanted the Yanukovych government to accept the IMF loan. That opposition was comprised of different factions, including the neo-Nazi Svoboda Party and Right Sector.

In early February of 2014, an audio recording of Nuland talking to U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was leaked to the public. The four-minute-long conversation was a media sensation as it included Nuland saying, “F**k the EU,” in reference to the European Union’s interests in Ukraine.

But Nuland’s cursing was a distraction from what was truly significant of the recording. It showed the extent to which Nuland was meddling in domestic Ukrainian affairs, had direct contacts with key opposition leaders and was managing the protests to the extent she was deciding who would – and would not – have a seat at the table in the post-coup government. In the recording, Nuland says:

I don’t think Klitsch [Vitaly Klitschko] should go into government…… I think Yats [Arseniy Yatseniuk] is the guy… “

The reason she wanted to “F**k the EU” was that she did not approve of the EU’s preferred method of negotiation and compromise. Nuland and Pyatt wanted to “midwife” and “glue” the toppling of the Yanukovych government despite it being in power after an election that was observed and substantially approved by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).

Over the next few weeks, the protests escalated. The president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Kyiv, Bernard Casey, described what happened next.

On February 18-20, snipers massacred about 100 people [both protestors and police] on the Maidan …. Although the US Ambassador and the opposition blamed the Yanukovych Administration, the evidence points to the shots coming from a hotel controlled by the ultranationalists, and the ballistics revealed that the protestors and the police were all shot with the same weapons.”

The Estonian foreign minister would later echo those claims: “behind the  snipers, it was not Yanukovych, but it was somebody from the new (opposition) coalition.”

Casey continues:

On February 20, 2014 an EU delegation moderated negotiations between President Yanukovych and the protestors, agreeing to early elections – in May 2014 instead of February 2015…. Despite the signing of an agreement … the ultranationalist protestors, and their American sponsors, rejected it, and stepped up their campaign of violence.”

The coup was finalized in the following days. Yanukovych fled for his life and, as planned, Yatsenyuk became president.

One of the first acts of the coup leadership was to remove Russian, the first language of millions of Ukrainians, as an official state language. Over the coming period, the “birth” of the coup government, violence by ultranationalists and neo-Nazis were prevalent.

In Odessa, those peacefully protesting the coup were violently attacked. One video published online shows an especially vicious attack on peaceful protesters followed by the fire-bombing of the building where protestors had retreated. Fire trucks were prevented from reaching the building to put out the fire and rescue the citizens inside. Forty-two people died and 100 were injured. In another incident, a convoy of buses heading to Crimea was attacked and the anti-coup passengers beaten and some killed, and in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, protests against the coup were met with deadly force.

Nuland claims to be a “victim” because her conversation was leaked publicly. The real victims are the many thousands of Ukrainians who died and the hundreds of thousands who were made refugees because of Nuland’s crusade to bring Ukraine into the NATO fold.

The audio recording confirms that Nuland was managing the protests at a top-level and that the result (Yats is the guy) was as planned. If Nuland was willing to go to such lengths, it’s possible that she also approved the decision to both deploy snipers in order to escalate the crisis and to overturn the mediated agreement by the EU which would have forced elections in three months time and effectively undermined the protest movement.

Why were snipers deployed on February 18? No one can say for sure, but time was running out, the Russian leadership was distracted by the Sochi Olympics and perhaps the coup managers were in a hurry to “glue” it in advance.

Russia

During the 1990s, Nuland worked for the State Department on Russia related issues, including a stint as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs. During that time, the U.S. interfered in Russian internal affairs in myriad ways. Time magazine proudly proclaimed, “Yanks to the rescue: the secret story of how American advisors helped Yeltsin win.”

Yet Yeltsin’s leadership and the policies pushed by the United States had disastrous consequences. Between 1991 and 1999, Russia’s gross domestic product decreased by nearly 50% as social safety nets were removed. The Russian economy collapsed, oligarchs, and lawlessness arose. Nuland was part of the U.S. team leading the efforts in Russia, deploying economic “shock therapy” and causing widespread social despair.

Meanwhile, the United States reneged on promises to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch” eastward. Instead, NATO became an offensive pact, bombing Yugoslavia in violation of international law and then absorbing Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Albania, Croatia, and more.

Coming into power in 2000, Putin clamped down on the oligarchs, restored order, and began rebuilding the economy. Oligarchs were forced to pay taxes and start investing in productive enterprises. The economy and confidence were restored. Over seven years, GDP went from 1.3 billion (U.S. dollars) to 2.3 billion. That is why Putin’s public approval rating has been consistently high, ranging between 85% and a “low” approval rating of 60%.

Most Americans are unaware of these facts. Instead, Putin and Russia are persistently demonized. This has been convenient for the Democratic Party establishment as it served as a distraction for their efforts against Bernie Sanders, efforts which ultimately led to their loss to Donald Trump. The demonization of Russia is also especially useful and profitable for the military-industrial complex.

Nuland boosted the “Steele Dossier” which alleged collaboration between Russia and Trump among other salacious claims. The allegations filled the media and poisoned American attitudes towards Russia. Belatedly, the truth about the “Steele Dossier” is coming out. Last summer the Wall Street Journal reported “the bureau (FBI) knew the Russia info was phony in 2017” and that “there was no factual basis to the dossier’s claims.”

While promoting disinformation, Nuland is pushing for a more aggressive U.S. foreign policy. In an article titled “Pinning Down Putin.” she insists that “Russia’s threat to the liberal world has grown,” that Washington should “deter and roll back dangerous behavior by the Kremlin,” and “rebuff Russian encroachments in hot spots around the world.”

The major “hot spots” are some of the same conflicts that Nuland herself promoted, especially Syria and Ukraine. In Syria, the U.S. and its allies have spent billions promoting the overthrow of the Assad government. So far, they have failed, but have not given up. The facts are clear: American troops and military bases in Syria do not have the authorization of the Syrian government. They are actively stealing the precious oil resources of the Syrian state. It is the United States, not Russia, that is “encroaching.”

The queen of chicken hawks

Victoria Nuland has promoted a foreign policy of intervention, coups, proxy wars, aggression, and occupation and that policy has been implemented with bloody and disastrous results in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Ukraine.

With consummate hypocrisy, she accuses Russia of spreading disinformation in the United States, while she openly seeks to put “stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own citizens.” She wants to “establish permanent bases along NATO’s eastern border and increase the pace and visibility of joint training exercises.”

Nuland is the queen of chicken hawks, the Lady Macbeth of perpetual war. There are hundreds of thousands of victims from the policies she has promoted.  Yet she has not received a scratch. On the contrary, she has profited from a stock portfolio likely filled with military contractors.

Now Nuland wants to provoke, threaten, and “rollback” Russia. Yet a quick look at any map of U.S. military bases shows who is threatening whom.

Victoria Nuland is highly dangerous and should not be confirmed.

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Rick Sterling is a journalist and member of the Syria Solidarity Movement based in the San Fransico Bay area. He can be reached at [email protected]

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***

As the US led aggression against Iran escalates, Russia and China stand closer with Iran.    Recent reports of joint naval drills planned with Iran, Russia and China in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman will send a clear message to the new US leadership.  Whatever President Joe Biden and his administration are preparing for Iran, they will need to factor in Russia and China.

Biden is demanding Iran scale back its nuclear programme before the US considers re-joining the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’ – and before the vindictive and ruthless US led sanctions against Iran are lifted.

In January 2021, ‘Al Jazeera’ reported that the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had emphasised Iran is a key priority for the new administration.   “From our perspective, a critical early priority has to be to deal with what is an escalating nuclear crisis as they (Iran) move closer and closer to having enough fissile material for a weapon.”  Earlier, Biden’s new secretary of state, Tony Blinken, insisted Tehran must resume complying with the Iran nuclear deal before Washington would do so.  Blinken said, “that if Iran comes back into full compliance with its obligations under the JCPOA, the United States would do the same thing”.   At a press conference in Istanbul, Iran’s, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, responded that Tehran would not accept the unreasonable US demands.

In 2018, President Donald Trump had pulled the US out of the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’ and imposed stricter sanctions on Iran.  The sanctions aim to crush Iran’s economy – and the US threatens secondary sanctions against any other country doing business with Iran.   Russia and China have repeatedly spoken out against Trump’s withdrawal from the deal and have urged Biden to recommit to it with no conditions – and continue to bypass the sanctions.

The ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’ was adopted under the Obama administration in 2015 – and agreed between Iran and the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council —the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China—plus Germany and the European Union.  The deal was codified into a UN resolution.  It requires Iran to dismantle nearly all of its nuclear infrastructure – and in exchange economic sanctions against Iran would be lifted.

Apart from the US, other signatory nations have remained fully committed to the ‘Iran Nuclear Deal’, even though the Iranian leadership has repeatedly criticised the Europeans for failing to live up to their commitments for fear of American sanctions.

As well as imposing sanctions, the US and its allies have orchestrated further acts of provocation with the murder of Iranian military and civilian personnel.  In January 2020, President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani by a US airstrike at Baghdad International Airport.

In November 2020, Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was assassinated.  The United Nation Special Rapporteur, Agnes Callamard, called the assassination an act in violation of international human rights law and the UN charter which prohibits use of force extraterritorially.  According to reports at the time, the former head of the US CIA, John Brennan, argued the killing of the scientist was a “criminal” and “highly reckless” act that risks inflaming conflict in the region.   On 11 February 2021, ‘The Times’ reported Israel was involved with his murder.

Although Russia and China may have responded to the murders in a muted tone, demanding “restraint” from all sides to avoid escalating tensions, both nations continue to support Iran in other ways.

In December 2020, the Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, remained defiant, asserting, “We do not just refuse to recognise unilateral sanctions, but support Iran with specific measures”, adding, “we will be looking for new methods of ignoring the sanctions’ negative economic effect.”

The Chinese initiated ‘Iran-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’, which includes a potential investment of $400billion over a 25-year period, ensures China’s commitment to Iran in both military and economic terms.

Russia and China view the decline of Western economic hegemony as an opportunity to expand their own ambitions – and involving Iran in their immediate and long-term plans is essential to their growth and rise.   As well as securing access to Iran’s resources, oil and natural gas, Iran acts as a gatekeeper to the Middle East – and closer ties with Iran would give Russia and China a strategic geopolitical advantage over the US and its allies in the region – and the sanctions will have forced Iran to deepen ties with those two powers.

In December 2019, Russia, China and Iran held their first trilateral naval exercise, ‘Marine Security Belt’, in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Oman.  The latest proposed joint naval exercise will reinforce the intended message – Russia and China are in solidarity with Iran.

The growing partnership between the three nations will not only force the new US administration and its allies to rethink their predatory policies towards Iran, but it will also shape and affect their future in the Middle East and the wider global stage.

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Shahbazz Afzal is an independent writer and political activist.

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The Globalization of War: America’s “Long War” against Humanity

Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

ISBN Number: 978-0-9737147-6-0

Year: 2015

Pages: 240 Pages

List Price: $22.95

Special Price: $15.00

Click here to order.

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***

Nearly 10 years after Obama/Biden launched aggression against nonbelligerent Syria threatening no one, Biden/Harris appear hellbent on escalating more of the same.

Last week during a Security Council session, Russian UN envoy Vassily Nebenzia highlighted the problem posed by what he called “pseudo-humanitarian organizations created by Western special services,” adding:

“Instead of pursuing their proclaimed noble goals, they are used for provocations and inciting conflicts.”

“The ‘White Helmets’ are a sad example of this.”

“They are closely linked to (US/NATO/Israeli supported) terrorists,” including ISIS, al-Qaeda and its al-Nusra and other regional offshoots.

“The(ir) financing…does not stop. Remarkably, after the defeat of ISIS in Syria, representatives of the ‘White Helmets’ were transferred to neighboring countries, with Western sponsors promising to take them along.”

“But apparently things got slow. There are concerns that those ‘humanitarians’ may now inspire terrorist activity on their new spots.”

Separately, Nebenzia commented on Security Council Res. 2118 (2013).

It mandated elimination of Syrian chemical weapons long ago achieved by Damascus and earlier affirmed by the OPCW.

Despite fully complying with its obligations, phony claims of noncompliance persist, said Nebenzia, adding:

“Squeezing Syria can take away all its motivation to cooperate with the OPCW.”

“This country is living under Damocles’s sword of accusations of CWC (non)compliance.”

Unacceptable Western demands for Damascus to “declare chemical weapons that it does not have” persist.

US-dominated Western countries falsely and “deliberately (accuse Syria) of violating its obligations under the CWC (Chemical Weapons Convention)” and provisions of Res. 2118.

No evidence is ever presented to prove accusations made because none exists.

“Syria does not evade cooperating with the OPCW.”

“It faithfully accommodates all inspections, provides materials, and demonstrates readiness for dialogue in every possible way.”

The current OPCW technical secretariat in cahoots with the West pretend otherwise.

Despite full compliance by Damascus with its obligations, “its chemical file clearly shows that as long as (Western) countries maintain political pressure…there will always be ‘unresolved issues,’ ” Nebenzia stressed.

What’s going on in Syria is reminiscent of phony claims of Iraqi WMDs under Saddam Hussein ahead of Bush/Cheney’s 2003 aggression.

Will phony claims about undeclared Syrian CWs that don’t exist be used as a pretext for escalated US-led NATO/Israeli aggression in Syria by Biden?

According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, US-supported White Helmets and terrorist groups in Syria’s Idlib province are preparing another CW false flag for which Damascus will wrongfully be blamed.

On Sunday, deputy head of Russia’s Reconciliation Center at its Hmeimim military base Admiral Vyacheslav Sytnik said the following:

“We have information that members of illegal armed groups are preparing to stage a (CW) provocation in order to accuse Syrian government forces of attacking settlements in the Idlib de-escalation zone.”

Al-Qaeda affiliated Tahrir al-Sham jihadists and White Helmets equipped with video equipment were seen preparing to launch the false flag near al-Fuah village northeast of Idlib.

Last year, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service director Sergey Naryshkin said Western intelligence services directly aid jihadists and White Helmets in Syria prepare false flag chemical attacks, adding:

These elements are “fulfilling their objective within the framework of a propaganda campaign against the Syrian people and the Syrian Arab Republic.”

Israel is heavily involved in waging undeclared war on Syria.

Over the weekend and pre-dawn Monday, it warplanes terror-bombed the Damascus countryside from Occupied Golan and northern Galilee, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

Most missiles were intercepted and destroyed. Others hit targeted areas.

These cross-border attacks occur with disturbing regularity, the world community and Western media turning a blind eye to what’s been ongoing throughout most of the war.

Senior aide to Iranian Foreign Minister Zari, Ali Asghar Khaji, slammed Israeli support for jihadists in Syria, warning the Netanyahu regime at the same time, saying the following:

“While the Syrian government is fighting terrorists, Israel supports them,” adding:

Iran’s “presence in Syria is aimed at combating ISIS and other terrorist groups, but if Israel wants to cross the ‘red lines,’ it will face the toughest response, which will make them regret their actions.”

Last week, an unnamed Biden intelligence official said the US and Israel coordinate terror-bombing of targeted areas in Syria, including the latest ones.

The Pentagon reportedly is establishing a new base in Kurdish controlled Syria.

Increased numbers of US troops, equipment and weapons entered the country from Iraq.

According to the Middle East Eye, Israel since December “staged some of its biggest strikes yet inside Syria…”

They “concentrated on Al Bukamal, the Syrian city that controls the border checkpoint on the main Baghdad-Damascus highway.”

“The widening military campaign was part of a so-called ‘campaign within wars, which, according to Israeli generals and regional intelligence sources, have been tacitly approved by the United States.”

Is what’s happening prelude to escalate war in Syria by Washington?

Endless war continues with no signs of possible resolution under Biden.

*

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

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***

In his first speech on foreign policy President Joe Biden announced that the United States would would end its support for Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war in Yemen. This would include a ban on selling weapons that facilitated ‘offensive operations’ by Saudi Arabia and its allies in Yemen.

However, Biden went on to qualify his comments by stating that the United States would continue to defend the Saudi dictatorship which means that weapons of a ‘defensive’ nature such as Patriot missile systems would continue to be supplied to Riyadh.

If US ‘diplomatic’ efforts fail then this comment leaves the door open for the United States to continue supporting the Saudi war effort under the pretext of defending Saudi sovereignty.

Biden has not specified whether US support for Saudi ‘offensive operations’ includes the continued supply of American surveillance such as satellite imagery and other intelligence.

He said nothing about the US taking action to end the air, land and sea blockade of Yemen by Saudi Arabia and its allies that is responsible for mass hunger and malnutrition. 80% of the 30 million people in Yemen are on the verge of famine.

According to the World Food Programme over 400,000 children under the age of five are in danger of dying from acute malnutrition this year.

Meanwhile, Blinken, the new Secretary of State, has talked about sanctioning the Houthis which will hamper even further the delivery of emergency food aid to Yemen.

In his first speech on foreign policy Biden went further by declaring that he would step up US diplomacy to bring an end to the conflict and that he had appointed a special envoy to Yemen. Apparently, the pretext for this was the president’s desire to bring an end to the humanitarian catastrophe that is enveloping the people of Yemen.

This is quite ironic considering that Biden and Obama helped bring about the war in the first place when they gave Saudi Arabia the green light to invade Yemen back in 2015. They supplied it with billions of dollars worth of offensive weaponry.

Finally, Biden completely failed to omit from his speech the fact that the United States will continue drone operations in Yemen. Allegedly, these drone operations are part of an ongoing military operation against the threat of Al Qaeda. However, the majority of casualties from American drone strikes as civilians.

Reasons for change in American stance

If you delve beneath the surface of the diplomatic fan fair accompanying Biden’s announcement then it is clear that this change in American policy is motivated primarily by events on the ground in Yemen. Over the last five years the Saudi led coalition of the killing has spent billions of dollars trying to crush the Ansar Allah movement otherwise known as the Houthis and ignominiously failed in its efforts.

The Houthis have not only held onto the capital capital Sanaa and their northern heartlands but taken the fight into the southern regions of Saudi Arabia such as Jizan inflicting severe losses in terms of casualties. Large quantities of Saudi weapons and military equipment have also been captured by the Houthis.

In a recent statement Brigadier General Yahya Sari, a spokesman for the Houthis said that in January alone the Saudi led coalition had suffered 1283 casualties along with the destruction/damage of 92 armoured and military vehicles. Many will dismiss this as Houthi propaganda.

Yet the Houthis regularly put out videos showing footage of battles on different fronts of the war showing the capture of large amounts of Saudi coalition weaponry and the destruction of large numbers of armoured personnel carriers and other military vehicles. Besides this, the videos reveal how the Houthis have captured large numbers of soldiers from the Saudi led coalition, many of whom mercenaries.

We should also recognise that there are other factors that have influenced Biden’s decision to change American policy towards the war in Yemen. Undoubtedly, the sustained efforts of anti-war activists in the United States and around the world have had some impact on both public opinion and the Democratic Party.

Only a week before Biden’s first speech on foreign policy anti-war activists and union workers in Ontario blocked trucks shipping armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. Countless other protests of a similar nature to this have helped build up a groundswell of opposition to the Yemen war.

The change in American policy towards the Yemeni conflict is also influenced by geopolitical concerns. The American Empire recognises the negative impact of the Yemeni war upon its allies in the Gulf region. In 2017 Qatar withdrew its support for the Saudi led war which led to Saudi Arabia imposing a blockade upon Doha. Qatar then was free to more fully pursue its own dependent foreign policy which included restoring some trade relations with Iran and moving firmly into the orbit of Turkey.

Of course, the United States also saw the danger to its own position in the Middle East when its bloc of allies amongst the Gulf dictatorships were now squabbling and threatening each other.

It is clear that the Biden administration wishes to force Iran to the negotiating table and force it to cease its nuclear programme under even more restrictions than the Obama nuclear deal of 2015. To achieve this, Biden needs all of his allies in the Middle East to be unified under American direction.

It is also clear that the Biden regime seeks to impose an end to the Yemeni war on its terms, to meet the geopolitical and economic interests of itself and its Gulf allies.

According to the US Energy Information Adminstration (EIA) the oil reserves of Yemen amount to 3 billion barrels and its gas reserves amount to 6.9 trillion cubic feet.

The United States and Saudi Arabia also see Yemen’s strategic location as a means of bypassing the choke point that is the strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has built several pipelines that bypass the straight of Hormuz which take oil to the Red Sea which canthen be shipped to China and other important Asian markets.

However, the Bab El-Mandeb Strait is a narrow choke point. It is located between Yemen, Djibouti, and Eritrea, and it connects the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea.

We shouldn’t forget that the Trump regime’s recent classification of the Houthis as a terrorist organisation came after Ansar Allah forces attacked Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea.

Besides the oil and gas angle the United States and the Gulf dictatorships are also fully aware of the vast mineral resources of Yemen which include gold, silver, copper, zinc, cobalt and nickel.

According to the World Atlas Yemen has large industrial mineral deposits of limestone, magnesite, scoria, sandstone, gypsum, marble, perlite, dolomite, feldspar, and Celestine. Yemen also contains the most fertile land in the Arabian peninsula which contrasts sharply with Saudi Arabia which is heavily dependent on food imports for its growing population.

Over the next period the United States and it’s allies both in Europe and Middle East will seek to exert huge pressure upon the Houthis to come to the negotiating table to bring the conflict to an end. Let us be very clear that this so-called peace initiative will be on American terms. The American Empire will not countenance any peace deal that is favourable to the Houthi resistance.

Ansar Allah has responded with defiance to Biden’s so-called peace overture. Mohammed Al al-Houthi on behalf of the Yemen Supreme Political Council said:

“We consider any move that does not end the siege and aggression against Yemen is just a formality and do not pay any attention to it.…”

He further added that if the US was serious about bringing an end to the conflict it must take concrete action to bring justice for the people of Yemen:

“Washington’s allies must also commit themselves to compensate victims, enact a package of measures to guarantee the sovereignty of Yemen, recognise its independence and legitimate rights of defence, and consider any military action either by Arab or foreign states is a criminal act.”

Since Biden’s first foreign policy speech called for an end to the war Saudi Arabia and its allies have continued the aerial bombardment of Yemeni civilians and maintained their starvation blockade around the country.

Not surprisingly, faced with this war of annihilation against the Yemeni people the Houthi resistance has continued to take the fight to the Saudi led coalition.

It seems unlikely that the Houthis will buckle under international pressure over the next period and capitulate to the demands of American imperialism and stand their forces down.

If the Ansar Allah forces continue striking Saudi oil and military infrastructure then it cannot be ruled out that Biden may discard his diplomatic efforts and formally resume American support for the Saudis genocidal war. After all, the American Empire is a rather vengeful beast and does not take kindly to those who continue to show resistance to its will.

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***

As Congress still struggles to pass a COVID relief bill, the rest of the world is nervously reserving judgment on America’s new president and his foreign policy, after successive U.S. administrations have delivered unexpected and damaging shocks to the world and the international system. 

Cautious international optimism toward Biden is very much based on his commitment to Obama’s signature diplomatic achievement, the JCPOA or nuclear agreement with Iran. Biden and the Democrats excoriated Trump for withdrawing from it and promised to promptly rejoin the deal if elected. But Biden now appears to be hedging his position in a way that risks turning what should be an easy win for the new administration into an avoidable and tragic diplomatic failure.

While it was the United States under Trump that withdrew from the nuclear agreement, Biden is taking the position that the U.S. will not rejoin the agreement or drop its unilateral sanctions until Iran first comes back into compliance. After withdrawing from the agreement, the United States is in no position to make such demands, and Foreign Minister Zarif has clearly and eloquently rejected them, reiterating Iran’s firm commitment that it will return to full compliance as soon as the United States does so.

Biden should have announced U.S. re-entry as one of his first executive orders. It did not require renegotiation or debate. On the campaign trail, Bernie Sanders, Biden’s main competitor for the Democratic nomination, simply promised, “I would re-enter the agreement on the first day of my presidency.”

Then-candidate Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said during the Democratic primary, “We need to rejoin our allies in returning to the agreement, provided Iran agrees to comply with the agreement and take steps to reverse its breaches …” Gillibrand said that Iran must “agree” to take those steps, not that it must take them first, presciently anticipating and implicitly rejecting Biden’s self-defeating position that Iran must fully return to compliance with the JCPOA before the United States will rejoin.

If Biden just rejoins the JCPOA, all of the provisions of the agreement will be back in force and work exactly as they did before Trump opted out. Iran will be subject to the same IAEA inspections and reports as before. Whether Iran is in compliance or not will be determined by the IAEA, not unilaterally by the United States. That is how the agreement works, as all the signatories agreed: China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the United Kingdom, the European Union – and the United States.

So why is Biden not eagerly pocketing this easy first win for his stated commitment to diplomacy? A December 2020 letter supporting the JCPOA, signed by 150 House Democrats, should have reassured Biden that he has overwhelming support to stand up to hawks in both parties.

But instead Biden seems to be listening to opponents of the JCPOA telling him that Trump’s withdrawal from the agreement has given him “leverage” to negotiate new concessions from Iran before rejoining. Rather than giving Biden leverage over Iran, which has no reason to make further concessions, this has given opponents of the JCPOA leverage over Biden, turning him into the football, instead of the quarterback, in this diplomatic Super Bowl.

American neocons and hawks, including those inside his own administration, appear to be flexing their muscles to kill Biden’s commitment to diplomacy at birth, and his own hawkish foreign policy views make him dangerously susceptible to their arguments. This is also a test of his previously subservient relationship with Israel, whose government vehemently opposes the JCPOA and whose officials have even threatened to launch a military attack on Iran if the U.S. rejoins it, a flagrantly illegal threat that Biden has yet to publicly condemn.

In a more rational world, the call for nuclear disarmament in the Middle East would focus on Israel, not Iran. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote in the Guardian on December 31, 2020, Israel’s own possession of dozens – or maybe hundreds – of nuclear weapons is the worst kept secret in the world. Tutu’s article was an open letter to Biden, asking him to publicly acknowledge what the whole world already knows and to respond as required under U.S. law to the actual proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

Instead of tackling the danger of Israel’s real nuclear weapons, successive U.S. administrations have chosen to cry “Wolf!” over non-existent nuclear weapons in Iraq and Iran to justify besieging their governments, imposing deadly sanctions on their people, invading Iraq and threatening Iran. A skeptical world is watching to see whether President Biden has the integrity and political will to break this insidious pattern.

The CIA’s Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center (WINPAC), which stokes Americans’ fears of imaginary Iranian nuclear weapons and feeds endless allegations about them to the IAEA, is the same entity that produced the lies that drove America to war on Iraq in 2003. On that occasion, WINPAC’s director, Alan Foley, told his staff, “If the president wants to go to war, our job is to find the intelligence to allow him to do so” – even as he privately admitted to his retired CIA colleague Melvin Goodman that U.S. forces searching for WMDs in Iraq would find, “not much, if anything.”

What makes Biden’s stalling to appease Netanyahu and the neocons diplomatically suicidal at this moment in time is that in November the Iranian parliament passed a law that forces its government to halt nuclear inspections and boost uranium enrichment if U.S. sanctions are not eased by February 21.

To complicate matters further, Iran is holding its own presidential election on June 18, 2021, and election season–when this issue will be hotly debated–begins after the Iranian New Year on March 21. The winner is expected to be a hawkish hardliner. Trump’s failed policy, which Biden is now continuing by default, has discredited the diplomatic efforts of President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif, confirming for many Iranians that negotiating with America is a fool’s errand.

If Biden does not rejoin the JCPOA soon, time will be too short to restore full compliance by both Iran and the U.S.—including lifting relevant sanctions—before Iran’s election. Each day that goes by reduces the time available for Iranians to see benefits from the removal of sanctions, leaving little chance that they will vote for a new government that supports diplomacy with the United States.

The timetable around the JCPOA was known and predictable, so this avoidable crisis seems to be the result of a deliberate decision by Biden to try to appease neocons and warmongers, domestic and foreign, by bullying Iran, a partner in an international agreement he claims to support, to make additional concessions that are not part of the agreement.

During his election campaign, President Biden promised to “elevate diplomacy as the premier tool of our global engagement.” If Biden fails this first test of his promised diplomacy, people around the world will conclude that, despite his trademark smile and affable personality, Biden represents no more of a genuine recommitment to American partnership in a cooperative “rules-based world” than Trump or Obama did.

That will confirm the steadily growing international perception that, behind the Republicans’ and Democrats’ good cop-bad cop routine, the overall direction of U.S. foreign policy remains fundamentally aggressive, coercive and destructive. People and governments around the world will continue to downgrade relations with the United States, as they did under Trump, and even traditional U.S. allies will chart an increasingly independent course in a multipolar world where the U.S. is no longer a reliable partner and certainly not a leader.

So much is hanging in the balance, for the people of Iran suffering and dying under the impact of U.S. sanctions, for Americans yearning for more peaceful relations with our neighbors around the world, and for people everywhere who long for a more humane and equitable international order to confront the massive problems facing us all in this century. Can Biden’s America be part of the solution? After only three weeks in office, surely it can’t be too late. But the ball is in his court, and the whole world is watching.

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Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. She is a member of the writers’ group Collective20.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

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***

Lawyer Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, Corona Committee Foundation, demands after the public hearing of an eyewitness on the consequences of mass vaccinations: “This deadly human experiment must be stopped as soon as possible!”

“When fellow citizens first learn of the diabolical plans of the enablers and ‘enforcers’ of the ‘New Normal’, many of them will suffer a mental shock. Tried and tested defence mechanisms will then only function to a limited extent and for a short time. Free, courageous and honest intellectuals should therefore do everything in their power to gently take their interested fellow citizens with them step by step on this journey ‘from darkness into light’. For it needs the cooperation of all people of good will to be able to ward off the long-planned ‘attack’ on humanity. And the path to this cooperation must begin in the hearts of people” (1).

The author of these lines begs your indulgence for quoting from his own “psychological manifesto of common sense”, which he published in the course of the second half of 2020 under the title “Hand over power to no one!”. At that time, he had no idea that he, as an experienced psychologist and former psychotherapist, would also suffer a mental shock about half a year later due to certain news.

“The terrible dying after vaccination”

Lawyer Dr. Fuellmich, together with his lawyer colleague and economist Viviane Fischer – two of four directors of the Corona Committee Foundation – interviewed a whistleblower, i.e. a courageous nurse from a Berlin nursing home. As an eyewitness, he gave shocking insights into the apparently common vaccination practice in homes for elderly and partly demented German citizens (2).

According to the carer, these homes for elderly people in need of care are literally raided by doctors accompanied by Bundeswehr soldiers in uniform. Afterwards, wherever they are found in the corridors or rooms, they are vaccinated, sometimes with the use of physical force. The consent of the relatives of nursing home inmates with dementia is obtained beforehand. This deeply inhumane vaccination procedure is repeated.

The threat of Bundeswehr soldiers is probably set up so that the home residents will submit without resistance – and they do. They freeze with fear because they were not allowed to receive family visitors for a long time and many of the residents experienced the Second World War.  The health condition of the residents is not queried before the sometimes violent vaccination.

After vaccination, the health of even formerly lively elderly people deteriorates rapidly. There is gasping for breath, fever, oedema, skin rash, a yellowish-grey discolouration of the skin and muscle tremors in the upper body and arms. Residents who tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 before the vaccination suddenly test positive afterwards. And soon the first vaccinated people die. Despite requests from the lawyers, the police and the public prosecutor’s office in Berlin do not take action.

The vaccines used are mRNA vaccines, including the one from BioNTech/Pfizer. BioNTech has recently started production in Germany. These vaccines have come under massive criticism worldwide because of their lack of testing.

Is death once again a master from Germany? (3)

The believable descriptions of the sensitive nurse are shocking. Anyone interested can listen to them for themselves and form their own judgement. The author of this commentary shares the opinion of the lawyer Dr. Fuellmich and his team that this deadly human experiment with vaccination, which is certainly not an isolated case in Berlin and Germany and is being concealed by the mass media, must be stopped as soon as possible. Our fathers, mothers and grandparents are not human guinea pigs of deviant psychopaths in collaboration with Big Pharma.

Let us no longer be intimidated by this centuries-old diabolical “game” with the fear of the rulers and let us discard our religiously conditioned belief in authority and obedience reflex today! Let us have the courage to use our own intellect and stand up against the screaming injustice!

If we do not stop this crime against our older relatives and fellow citizens as well as against the whole of humanity immediately, we younger ones will naturally be the next victims.

We have no more time to lose!

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Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a graduate psychologist and educationalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes:

(1) Hänsel, R. (2020). Handing over power to no one! A psychological manifesto of common sense. Gornji Milanovac. ISBN 978-86-7432-119-5. The “Neue Rheinische Zeitung NRhZ” published the entire text in three installments. An abridged version was also published in the NRhZ and additionally in “Rubikon” as well as in English in “Global Research” (www.globalresearch.ca).

(2) https://www.wochenblick.at/schockierender-whistleblower-bericht-tote-nach-impfung-in-berliner-heim/; https://t.me/tagesereignisse/1142

(3) Quoted from “Todesfuge”, a poem by the lyricist Paul Celan. 

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***

One of Washington’s main strategic objectives is to consolidate and organize Eastern European states to oppose and contain Russia. Supporting Black Sea countries against Russia has become a major American priority as Turkey is now an unreliable partner, and therefore Washington is attempting to create a new alliance officially outside of the NATO structure but attached to it indirectly. The creation of a military bloc between Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova is a Washington-led initiative, but is unlikely to have any major impact in limiting Russian influence.

Last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba revealed details of his conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Kuleba said that Kiev, with the support of Washington, will start forming a trilateral military alliance comprising of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. Although Moldova is not directly on the Black Sea like Ukraine and Georgia, it does have relatively easy access via the Port of Giurgiulești on the Danube River. The bold statements by Kiev’s leaders do not usually provoke significant global interest, but this is special as the order came directly from the White House. Therefore, it unsurprisingly proves a continuation of Washington’s hostile policies towards Russia under new U.S. President Joe Biden.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, almost immediately after Blinken’s endorsement, began to check the combat readiness of his troops in Donbass and stopped the transmission of “pro-Russian” television stations on February 3. Then a week later on February 10, Ukraine made a provocative proposal to NATO by urging the Alliance to use the airspace in the Simferopol Flight Information Region (FIR) over Russia’s Crimean Peninsula for its operations.

The Simferopol FIR includes Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, the Crimean Peninsula and the central part of the Black Sea. International air routes over Crimea have been banned by Eurocontrol (European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation) as the Simferopol dispatch center is Russian operated and the only flights to Crimea come from Russia. The sky above the peninsula and the adjacent waters of the Black and Azov Seas are effectively protected by the Russian Aerospace Forces and the Russian Navy. Therefore, Ukraine’s invitation for NATO to fly over Crimea with military aircraft is an insidious military ingenuity and an attempt by Zelensky to force the Alliance into a conflict with Russia.

The intensification of Ukrainian military operations in Donbass, even with the promised support of the U.S., will only lead to a new humanitarian catastrophe, but more importantly a changing of the frontlines that will not be in Kiev’s favor. We cannot overlook that the Donbass People’s Militia defeated the Ukrainian Armed Forces and their advance was only halted because of orders from Moscow. President Vladimir Putin has already announced that he will never allow the repression of Russian-speakers in eastern Ukraine to occur, but authorities in Kiev have not shown any sign in ending their hostilities.

Kiev, as well as decisionmakers in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, dream of complete NATO support in any future war against Russia. Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia in 2008 and Ukraine’s military actions against Donbass in 2014 should serve as stark reminders that NATO is not willing to go to war with Russia for their sake. This is even despite Washington’s encouragement for these countries to be openly hostile against Russia.

In the Global Firepower military ranking, Poland ranks 23. The Pentagon has promised to assist Warsaw within five days of any conflict breaking out. However, recent computer simulations of a possible conflict between Poland and an adversary from its east (i.e. Russia) suggest that assistance will be shortcoming. Given the logistical problems, a five-day transfer of U.S. troops to Poland is an overly optimistic forecast. Using the realistic background of Poland which directly borders several friendly states, such as Germany which has a huge contingent of American soldiers, the geographical separation between Ukraine and Georgia is discouraging if they are supposed to be in an alliance to counter and/or contain Russia.

A hypothetical military bloc between Ukraine (ranked 25 by Global Firepower), Georgia (ranked 92) and Moldova (ranked 107) seems extremely unconvincing in being able to contain Russia. Although Moldova has a “non-aligned” Constitution, new Russophobic President Maia Sandu is more than willing to carry out demands made by Washington.

The U.S. and NATO are attempting to turn the post-Soviet space into a state of permanent military hostility and conflict as they believe it is the best guarantee for Western countries to keep Russia distracted and weak. However, close coordination between Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova is unlikely to be a major concern for Russia in security terms as they don’t have navies.

As Turkey has become an unreliable NATO member, the U.S. is hedging their bets on NATO members Bulgaria and Romania, and NATO-friendly states like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, to serve Turkey’s role in pressuring Russia in the Black Sea. Although the U.S. and Turkey conducted military exercises in the Black Sea to the condemnation of Moscow only days ago, there is little suggestion that if a conflict broke out in the Black Sea involving NATO and Russia, Turkey will commit to its Alliance obligations. It is for this reason that Washington is pushing Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to more closely cooperate with NATO against Russia despite not being Alliance members.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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***

The numbers reflect the latest data available as of Feb. 4  from the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System website. Of the 653 reported deaths, 602 were from the U.S. The average age of those who died was 77, the youngest was 23.

As of Jan. Feb. 4, 653 deaths — a subset of 12,697 total adverse events — had been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID-19 vaccinations. The numbers reflect reports filed between Dec. 14, 2020 and Feb. 4, 2021.

VAERS is the primary mechanism for reporting adverse vaccine reactions in the U.S. Reports submitted to VAERS require further investigation before confirmation can be made that the reported adverse event was caused by the vaccine.

As of Feb. 10, about 44.77 million people in the U.S. had received one or both doses of a COVID vaccine. So far, only the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have been granted Emergency Use Authorization in the U.S. by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). By the FDA’s own definition, the vaccines are still considered experimental until fully licensed.

According to the latest data, 602 of the 653 reported deaths were in the U.S, and 137 of the deaths were related to cardiac disorder. Fifty-three percent of those who died were male, 44% were female, the remaining death reports did not include the gender of the deceased. The average age of those who died was 77, the youngest reported death was of a 23-year-old. The Pfizer vaccine was taken by 58% of those who died, while the Moderna vaccine was taken by 41%.

As or Feb. 4, there had been 163 cases of Bell’s Palsy reported and 775 reports of anaphylaxis.

As The Defender reported today, the CDC is investigating the Feb. 8 death of a 36-year-old doctor in Tennessee who died about a month after receiving the second dose of a COVID vaccination. According to news reports, Dr. Barton Williams died from the adult form of multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-A), a condition caused when the immune system attacks the body resulting in multi-system organ failure. New reports attributed the death to a reaction to an asymptomatic case of COVID, although Williams never tested positive for the virus.

On Feb. 8, Fox5 reported the death of a man in his 70s who collapsed and died Feb. 7 as he was leaving the Javits Center in Manhattan about 25 minutes after receiving a COVID vaccination.

On Feb. 7, a local Villa Hills, Kentucky news site reported on the deaths of two nuns following a “COVID-19 outbreak” that occurred two days after the nuns were vaccinated. Prior to beginning the vaccination program, there had been no cases of COVID at the monastery, which has been shut down to visitors during the pandemic. After vaccinations began, 28 of the women had tested positive for COVID as of Feb. 7.

The clinical trials suggested that almost all the benefits of COVID vaccination and the vast majority of injuries were associated with the second dose.

The Defender also reported this week that according to the New York Times, several doctors now link the Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines to immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), a condition that develops when the immune system attacks platelets (blood component essential for clotting) or the cells that create them. The Times article featured two women who are recovering from ITP after being vaccinated. Last month, Dr. Gregory Michaels died from ITP two weeks after he got the Pfizer vaccine.

While the VAERS database numbers may seem sobering, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services study, the actual number of adverse events is likely significantly higher. VAERS is a passive surveillance system that relies on the willingness of individuals to submit reports voluntarily.

According to the VAERS website, healthcare providers are required by law to report to VAERS:

• Any adverse event listed in the VAERS Table of Reportable Events Following Vaccination that occurs within the specified time period after vaccination.
• An adverse event listed by the vaccine manufacturer as a contraindication to further doses of the vaccine.

The CDC says healthcare providers are strongly encouraged to report:

• Any adverse event that occurs after the administration of a vaccine licensed in the United States, whether or not it is clear that a vaccine caused the adverse event.
• Vaccine administration errors.

However, “within the specified time” means that reactions occurring outside that timeframe may not be reported, in addition to reactions suffered hours or days later by people who don’t report those reactions to their healthcare provider.

Vaccine manufacturers are required to report to VAERS “all adverse events that come to their attention.”

Historically, fewer than fewer than 1% of adverse events have ever been reported to VAERS, a system that Children’s Health Defense has previously referred to as an “abject failure,” including in a December 2020 letter to Dr. David Kessler, former FDA director and now co-chair of the COVID-19 Advisory Board and President Biden’s version of Operation Warp Speed.

A critic familiar with VAERS’ shortcomings bluntly condemned VAERS in The BMJ as “nothing more than window dressing, and a part of U.S. authorities’ systematic effort to reassure/deceive us about vaccine safety.”

CHD is calling for complete transparency. The children’s health organization is asking Kessler and the federal government to release all of the data from the clinical trials and suspend COVID-19 vaccine use in any group not adequately represented in the clinical trials, including the elderly, frail and anyone with comorbidities.

CHD is also asking for full transparency in post-marketing data that reports all health outcomes, including new diagnoses of autoimmune disorders, adverse events and deaths from COVID vaccines.

Children’s Health Defense asks anyone who has experienced an adverse reaction, to any vaccine, to file a report following these three steps.

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“No one makes a billion dollars. You TAKE a billion dollars. You take it from your workers…you plunder it from the environment…you strip it using patents/protections” (Stephanie Kelton tweet(1))

Rent-seekers: Who gets the Free Lunch? 

Many writers have noted that capitalism concentrates wealth and power into a small number of hands. Up until approximately 1890, economists understood that a key part of the economic system is what are known as rents.(2) This means unearned income, or excess profits. Recent economic theory does not talk about rents very much – there is an assumption that all income is earned. The people and companies who receive excess wealth from rents are usually described by the media as wealth-creators, but this is partly propaganda. Many of them are ‘rent-seekers’ (also known as rentiers) – people who know how to take money from the system because they understand how it is rigged.

Critical economists sometimes discuss the most important ways in which big companies can extract wealth from society. This includes Crony Capitalism where big companies receive subsidies from governments; monopoly and oligopoly, where companies are so dominant in each industry that they can limit competition, charge higher prices and make excess profits; and externalities where companies do not pay the true cost of their activities, such as pollution, global warming and the destruction of the environment.

This post explains other methods that big companies use to extract wealth from society, and to maintain their dominance. This gives a brief overview of the extent to which the system is rigged in favour of the biggest and most powerful companies.

Economies of scale – Size Matters 

As a general rule, the more you produce of something, the more cheaply you can make each item.(3) This means that in many industries it is impossible for small companies to produce things as cheaply as big companies. There are a number of techniques that companies use to establish and maintain dominance.

Spend, spend, spend to become dominant 

Big companies have deep pockets to enable them to invest in new industries, and to survive short-term losses whilst they try to establish market dominance early on. This creates what is known as first-mover advantage. This is the business model of Uber, the taxi company. To start with, they pay drivers well and they charge low fares to customers. Once they become dominant, they increase fares and decrease pay to drivers. Despite this, customers and drivers remain loyal, because customers know they can get a taxi quickly, and drivers know they will get regular fares. It is difficult for competing businesses to establish a foothold because initially they don’t have enough drivers to attract customers, or enough customers to attract drivers. When Uber began in the US they paid drivers $40/hour. A few years later they were paying $9/hour.(4)

More generally, bigger companies tend to have bigger marketing budgets.(5) They spend huge amounts on advertising and on more direct forms of marketing, such as pharmaceutical companies ‘persuading’ doctors to use their medicines.(6) The role of advertising and marketing to achieve and maintain dominance and excess profits will be discussed in later posts.

One Big Business becomes Many Big Businesses 

It is easy for big companies to invest in the same industry in other countries, and sometimes in new industries. Amazon started out selling books, but soon realised that it was well positioned to dominate online selling more generally in much of the world. As with other tech companies, Amazon is also able to make money by collecting and selling immense amounts of data to advertisers, market researchers, and governments.

Many of the biggest companies control different parts of a supply chain. For example, oil companies dig oil out of the ground, refine it in their own refineries, and sell it from their own petrol stations.(7) They are therefore able to take profit at every stage. They do not have to share the profit with anyone else. (This is known as vertical integration(8)).

The Global Trade System is Rigged 

A number of international organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) try to force countries to adopt neoliberal economic policies.(9) This creates huge profit opportunities for global companies.

A company that might only make moderate profits if it dominates in its own country, is able to make spectacular profits if it is able to use its existing knowledge and resources to dominate in many countries. The US government is able to ‘persuade’ other countries to pursue policies that work for US companies, using a combination of threats and bribes. This has contributed significantly to US companies being able to extract wealth from many countries simultaneously. The same applies to a smaller number of big companies from other countries, including Britain and France.

Most people associate corruption with developing countries, but big companies from advanced nations are responsible for paying many of the biggest bribes in order to gain contracts overseas. We saw in an earlier post about the weapons industry that British Aerospace was able to pay a bribe of £7 billion to the government of Saudi Arabia so that they would buy military weapons.(10) 

The profit motive encourages companies to exploit everyone else 

Most of the business world follows the idea of ‘Greed is Good’ (made famous by the 1980s film ‘Wall Street’). In other words, their main goal is their own profit. However, recent evidence shows that structuring big, dominant businesses to selfishly pursue their own profits does not lead to good outcomes for society. The economist, Mariana Mazzucato, demonstrates in her book ‘The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy’ that modern capitalism encourages businesses to take from the economy.

In practice, the profit motive incentivises companies to exploit people.(11) There are four main groups of people that get exploited – customers get ripped-off; suppliers get unfair contracts; employees receive low pay and are exploited in many different ways; and governments provide huge subsidies without receiving all the taxes they are owed. Different industries exploit different groups so, for example, banks pay their staff well, but de-fraud customers.

Economists refer to textbook theories where companies have to become ‘efficient’ in order to survive. However, in the real world, ‘efficiency’ has become a code that means earning the maximum profit by almost any means, whether legal or illegal. In service industries where the main cost is staff, efficiency means paying staff less, employing fewer staff, giving them less training, making them work longer hours, and putting them on contracts where they have no certainty about how much they will earn each week. In private hospitals, efficiency means turning patients out of their hospital bed before they are ready, so another paying customer can use that bed. In insurance, efficiency means finding ways to not pay out on genuine claims.

Companies offer goods at lower prices, but they are able to do this because they offload some costs onto the customer. A good example is self-assembly flat-pack furniture. Millions of people with poor DIY skills each spend hours interpreting complex instructions and assembling things that can be put together by experts in minutes. By any normal definition, this is very inefficient. If a customer has to wait for a long time when phoning a company helpline, this is similarly inefficient, but profitable for the company.

Corporate Lawyers, Bankers and Accountants Help Companies Bend, Break and Make the Rules 

Big companies employ large numbers of lawyers who play multiple roles. They write laws and regulations that benefit their companies, and they set up offshore bank accounts to avoid paying tax. It is estimated that there are currently $20-30 trillion in tax havens.(12) Together the lawyers and accountants set up complex webs of international companies, so that they can manipulate laws and prices, and hide profits overseas. The main accountancy firms, known as the Big 4, have repeatedly engaged in corrupt accounting, to help companies manipulate their financial statements to avoid tax, and exaggerate profits to mislead investors.(13) Most tax avoidance scams are believed to be illegal but are never tested in court. The billionaire, Warren Buffett, has famously pointed out that he pays a lower rate of tax than any of the staff in his office.(14)

Privatisation 

One of the easiest ways for people with political connections to get much richer is by taking over state industries and extracting profits from them. This is known as privatisation. This includes the privatised infrastructure monopolies such as water, sewerage, healthcare, transport, electricity and energy supplies, and broadcasting and communications spectrum. The agreed sale-price is often well below the true value. Many economists, including one of the leading experts on economic rents, Michael Hudson, has explained that all of these should be public utilities, owned and controlled by the government and provided to everyone at the lowest possible price, so that they cannot be exploited to make excess profits.(15)

Exploiting natural resources provided by nature at no cost, such as oil and minerals. The cost of extracting and processing these resources varies considerably, and is often not related to the price at which they can be sold. Oil and mining companies have been some of the most profitable in the world for many years.(16)

Patents and Copyright – being able to charge extremely high prices, and make excess profits, because no other company is allowed to compete against you. This particularly applies to medicines and software.

Criminal Activity – Many of the activities mentioned above, such as price fixing or tax evasion, are illegal. Financial companies have committed multiple huge frauds.(17) Big companies are able to get away with their crimes, and effectively operate outside the law, because politicians are reluctant to take serious action against them.

Much of this is missing from economics textbooks 

The importance of friends in high places, criminal activity, bribery and corruption, exploitation, power, externalities, and the general extent to which the system is rigged in favour of the rich and the powerful does not receive much attention in economics textbooks. The financial system is also rigged, but does not appear in most economics textbooks at all. Debates about this system have become more prominent in the US in recent years, but this has not yet had any impact on policy.(18) In Britain there is still little awareness of just how rigged the system is.

The correct term for this system is rentier capitalism, but this is not helpful for non-economists. We need a better term to allow everyone to talk about this. The civil rights campaigner, Malcolm X, once said “You show me a capitalist, I’ll show you a bloodsucker.”(19) The expression ‘Bloodsucker Capitalism’ seems to accurately describe how British and US companies operate, extracting wealth from everyone else, destroying the planet and our societies along the way.

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Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda, and explaining war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media.

Source

Joseph Stiglitz, ‘America has a monopoly problem – and it’s huge’, The Nation, 23 Oct 2017, at https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/

Notes 

1) Stephanie Kelton, 22 Jan 2019, at https://twitter.com/stephaniekelton/status/1087780034348306432?lang=en

2) Michael Hudson, J is for Junk Economics

3) Prateek Agarwal, ‘Economies of Scale’, 13 April 2020, at https://www.intelligenteconomist.com/economies-of-scale/

4) CBInsights, ‘How Uber Makes Money Now’, Dec 2020, at https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/how-uber-makes-money/

5) Business Chief,  ‘Top 20 companies with the biggest advertising budget’,  19 May 2016, at https://www.businesschief.eu/digital-strategy/top-20-companies-biggest-advertising-budget 

6) Carl Heneghan, ‘The influence of medical marketing’, BMJ, 21 Jan 2019, at https://blogs.bmj.com/bmjebmspotlight/2019/01/21/the-growing-influence-of-medical-marketing/ 

7) Kiran Stacey and Ed Crooks, ‘Oil majors find virtue in integration’, FT, 12 June 2016, at https://www.ft.com/content/8ff8ec62-2dcc-11e6-a18d-a96ab29e3c95

8) Evan Tarver, ‘Horizontal vs Vertical Integration: What’s the difference?’, Investopedia, 18 Jan 2021, at https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/051315/what-difference-between-horizontal-integration-and-vertical-integration.asp 

9) Richard Peet, Unholy Trinity: The IMF, World Bank and WTO, 2009

10) Andrew Feinstein: The Shadow World of the Global Arms trade’, talk at Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies, 22 Nov 2017, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCjZXCYD_8c

11) Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich, The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy, 2005

12) Nicholas Shaxson, ‘Tackling Tax Havens’, Finance and Development, Sep 2019, Vol.56, No.3, at https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2019/09/tackling-global-tax-havens-shaxon.htm#:~:text=Individuals%20have%20stashed%20%248.7%20trillion,of%20up%20to%20%2436%20trillion. 

13) Hanna Ziady, ‘The big 4 audit firms keep failing. Now they’re being forced to change’, 6 July 2020, at https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/06/business/uk-big-4-accountancy-firms-frc/index.html 

14) https://www-cdn.oxfam.org/s3fs-public/file_attachments/bp210-economy-one-percent-tax-havens-180116-en_0.pdf

15) Michael Hudson, ‘The rentier resurgence and takeover: Finance capitalism vs Industrial capitalism’, 27 Jan 2021, at https://michael-hudson.com/2021/01/the-rentier-resurgence-and-takeover-finance-capitalism-vs-industrial-capitalism/ 

16) Matthew Taylor and Jillian Ambrose, ‘Revealed: Big oil’s profits since 1990 total nearly $2tn’, The Guardian, 12 Feb 2020, at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/12/revealed-big-oil-profits-since-1990-total-nearly-2tn-bp-shell-chevron-exxon 

17) ‘Inside Job’, 2010, documentary by Charles Ferguson about the 2008 financial crisis, at https://watchdocumentaries.com/inside-job/ 

18) Emily Peck, ‘Should Billionaires Even Exist’, Huffington Post, 30 Jan 2019, at https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/billionaires-tax-the-rich_n_5c51ea30e4b0ca92c6dcafc6?ri18n 

Joseph Stiglitz, ‘America has a monopoly problem – and it’s huge’, The Nation, 23 Oct 2017, at https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/ 

19) Malcolm X at the Audubon Ballroom, 20 Dec 1964, at https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/at-the-audubon/

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).

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The Biden White House has seemingly disappeared its “100 days” back to normal COVID-19 plan, substituting its highly-publicized pledge for a more permanent safety regime, at the request of power-drunk officials and “public health experts” who continue their reign over U.S. society.

Strategy document laying out President Biden’s 100 day COVID-19 response plan

Schools

Reopening schools was the staple of Joe Biden’s 100 days COVID-19 response plan.

“The United States is committed to ensuring that students and educators are able to resume safe, in-person learning as quickly as possible, with the goal of getting a majority of K-8 schools safely open in 100 days,” the plan reads.

However, the White House is now suggesting that this is no longer an obtainable goal, and they’ve lowered the benchmark significantly.

Jen Psaki: Kids Going to School ONE Day a Week is Bold and Ambitious. #COVID19https://t.co/UT2s8NmqV1

— Mr Producer (@RichSementa) February 10, 2021

With millions of children still remaining at home, and a nationwide children’s mental health crisis damaging millions of American families, Team Biden has completely backed off of the 100 day “majority of schools” opening plan.

Instead of stressing the urgency of a return to the classroom, the White House, government health agencies, and teachers unions have acted in concert to pump the brakes on a return to school anytime soon. Both institutions are peddling pure pseudoscience and evidence-free definitive statements in suggesting that it is not safe to return to schools. The teachers unions, which have enormous influence over the Democratic Party, have taken to demanding a $130 billion dollar ransom payment in exchange for their endorsement of a very gradual reopening plan.

Anthony Fauci, for his part, is now demanding that Congress passes a stimulus package before schools reopen.

Fauci: Stimulus bill needs to be passed for schools to reopen https://t.co/XQPz5UwRYO pic.twitter.com/OoBC0K5xB8

— The Hill (@thehill) February 14, 2021

Masks

As part of the 100 day plan, President Biden famously stressed the supposed importance of wearing a mask as an apparent accelerant to a full reopening society.

“President Biden has called on every American to wear a mask for 100 days when they are around people outside of their household,” the Biden plan states.

Team Biden has backtracked on that component of the plan, too. After talking with government health bureaucrats, President Biden is now demanding that Americans wear masks until at least 2022 in order to “stop the spread” of the coronavirus.

“You know that wearing this mask through the next year here can save lives — a significant number of lives,” a masked President Biden said at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) this week, after a meeting with Anthony Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins. “And so I apologize if you don’t hear me as clearly as you, maybe you should.”

“The new strains emerging create immense challenges, and masking is still the easiest thing to do to save lives. But we need everyone to mask up,” Biden added.

Biden tells Americans to wear masks for COVID-19 until at least 2022 https://t.co/SnkIWh7c4s pic.twitter.com/pXZErV38cS

— New York Post (@nypost) February 12, 2021

Vaccines

The final component of the 100 days plan was to deploy 100 million vaccines into 100 million arms in 100 days. This was not much of a lofty target, as the Trump Administration had already ramped up deployment to the per day average needed for the Biden Administration to accomplish that goal. Moreover, vaccine efficacy remains unclear, and “public health experts” now claim that “new variants” may not work on some COVID-19 vaccines. Big Pharma companies, academic epidemiologists,  and government health bureaucrats are slowly popularizing the idea that COVID vaccination may have to become an annual event, similar to the Flu shot.

If Team Biden had just followed the actual science on COVID-19 spread, their 100 day COVID plan would have been a layup for success, but we are dealing with politicians and bureaucrats, who are not the most competent of human beings. As I have explained in The Dossier, there are several metrics that guaranteed this plan would have succeeded. For a quick summary, refer to this paragraph I wrote in December:

“Given that we’ve now been monitoring COVID-19 for a full year, observers of the pandemic have been able to track how seasonal changes impacted the spread of the novel coronavirus. During the warmer months, the United States and every other nation on a similar geographic latitude experienced a dramatic dip in cases in addition to every other metric, such as hospitalizations and COVID-19 deaths. This is not some miraculous coincidence of human behavior. It’s a scientific reality.”

Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths will continue to decline, not because of any human interventions, but because this is an annual occurrence and respiratory season will fade in warmer months. The incompetence of the Biden White House has resulted in the destruction of their 100 day COVID plan, in exchange for an indefinite COVID regime that is ruled by the people who helped get us into this mess. Similar to the mistakes made by the past administration, this White House has handed off the levers of power indefinitely to power-drunk state governors, “public health expert” witch doctors, and other incompetent politicians and bureaucrats.

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Canada is purchasing a “civilian” version of the Hermes 900 drone made by Israel’s largest privately-owned arms company, Elbit Systems, Electronic Intifada reported.

The deal which was announced in December by Canada’s transport ministry is worth $28 million.

As Israeli media reported, the Hermes 900 was first “tested” by ‘Israel’ during its 2014 war on Gaza, when it killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 550 children, in attacks that frequently obliterated entire families.

“The air force used the Hermes 900 in Gaza in the final days of Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, even though it was still in the initial stages of being adopted by the IDF,” said the Globes, Israel Business News.

Aa a major weapons supplier to the Israeli military, Elbit was deeply involved in, and reaped huge profits from, that attack on Gaza.

Canada is greenwashing the purchase from Elbit by claiming the drones will be used for surveillance of the Arctic region, including “to detect oil spills, survey ice and marine habitats.”

The Trudeau government claims that this purchase will help “to keep our waters clean and safe.”

In fact, what it will do is put money into the hands of Israel’s blood-soaked arms industry, effectively rewarding it for perpetrating war crimes whose investigation and prosecution Trudeau opposes.

Canada opposed the ICC ruling that it has jurisdiction to open a criminal investigation into ‘Israel’ for war crimes in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, saying it “does not recognize a Palestinian state.”

“Canada is firmly committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We continue to support the goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East, including the creation of a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel. The creation of a Palestinian state can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties,” Canadian Foreign Minister Marc Garneau said.

“Until such negotiations succeed, Canada’s longstanding position remains that it does not recognize a Palestinian state and therefore does not recognize its accession to international treaties, including the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Canada has communicated this position to the Court on various occasions.”

Canada is firmly committed to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Until such negotiations succeed, Canada’s longstanding position remains the same. We will continue to support the @IntlCrimCourt and its critical work.

My statement: pic.twitter.com/nbhB0bWUeL

— Marc Garneau (@MarcGarneau) February 7, 2021

While the Trudeau government claims to be a global champion of human rights, it has massively expanded its arms trade with Saudi Arabia, despite that country’s brutal war on Yemen.

Last month, activists protested the Trudeau policy by blocking the entrance of a Hamilton, Ontario, factory that ships weapons to the Saudis.

More photos from today's action…activists blocked trucks at @PaddockTrans, a Hamilton-area transportation company involved in shipping Canadian-made, light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia. #CanadaStopArmingSaudi#YemenCantWait#StopArmingSaudi pic.twitter.com/ncmc47vA39

— World BEYOND War Canada (@WBWCanada) January 25, 2021

And now Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, an advocacy group, is urging Canadians to write the Trudeau government opposing the Elbit deal.

“Through this purchase, Canada directly supports the profits of a weapons company responsible for ongoing human rights violations against Palestinians,” CJPME says in an action alert.

As CJPME notes in a useful backgrounder, Elbit brags that the “civilian” drones Trudeau’s government is purchasing draw on the “legacy” of its killer drones used on Palestinians.

Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems is deeply involved in violations of human rights. Why should Canada give it $36m?

Tell @OmarAlghabra: Canada must cancel the drone contract! https://t.co/8Ug6UUL8Tr @JustinTrudeau @MarcGarneau @AnitaOakville #cdnpoli #StopElbitDrone pic.twitter.com/0XuL6KU3GP

— Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (@CJPME) February 10, 2021

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The United States has an extensive sanctions programme affecting two dozen countries across the globe, and three of those states singled out for coercive measures are in Latin America: Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. 

The cost to those three nations of US sanctions imposed allegedly “to counter threats to national security” are breathtakingly severe and must be stopped.

Not only do these unilateral sanctions cause immense harm to each country’s inhabitants, but they are also illegal under the charters of both the UN and the Organisation of American States.

In the last four years under the Trump administration, all three states have experienced an alarming extension in the breadth and harshness of the sanctions levied against them.

During the period from April 2019 to March 2020, for example, the US introduced 90 new economic actions and measures against Cuba, reaching unprecedented levels of hostility.

Nor are the sanctions — deadly as they are — the only form of aggression that the US has been employing against these three countries.

All have been subjected to internal destabilisation through, for example, US funding of right-wing (and often violent) opposition groups, and disinformation strategies aiming to discredit and isolate them internationally.

The US’s ultimate purpose is always the same: to bring about regime change in the country and enable the US to secure its economic and political dominance in the region.

The damage that US sanctions have imposed on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua is huge.

In the case of Cuba, the six-decade-long blockade is estimated to have caused losses to its economy of over $144 billion (£105bn).

At its core is the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 which authorises the US president to establish and maintain a total embargo on trade with Cuba and prohibits the authorisation of any aid to the Cuban government.

Over time the embargo has become a multilayered blockade that not only restricts trade, especially through provisions for enforcing it extraterritorially on non-US companies, but has also frozen and confiscated Cuban assets, limited or prohibited tourism, cut flights to Cuba, and levied a host of other penal measures designed to strangle Cuba’s economy and make ordinary life for Cubans as uncomfortable as possible.

For Nicaragua, the US’s main vehicle for applying economic pressure to destabilise the country’s government and economy is the “Nica Act” (Nicaraguan Investment Conditionality Act), introduced by Trump in December 2018.

This followed the failure by US-funded opposition forces to secure regime change through an attempted violent coup in spring 2018 which led to 200 deaths and untold economic damage.

The Nica Act’s aim is to cut Nicaragua off from loans and financial or technical assistance by multilateral-lending institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF.

The Act also grants the president powers to block and prohibit financial and other asset transactions, and sanctions serving and former government officials.

Coupled with these sanctions, the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) committed in 2018 a further $1.5 million in assistance “to continue to support freedom and democracy in Nicaragua”.

USAid has an infamous reputation for funding “civil society” groups and right-wing opposition parties to undermine and oust elected governments seen as detrimental to US interests.

In anticipation that President Daniel Ortega and the FSLN party are likely to win the presidential election scheduled for November 2021, USAid has also secretly hired a contractor to work on plans, codenamed Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (Rain), to destabilise and replace Nicaragua’s elected government.

The US’s aggressive tactics against Venezuela have drawn on its in-depth experience of destabilising and sanctioning both Cuba and Nicaragua in pursuit of regime change.

And the prize for securing such change in Venezuela would arguably be incalculably greater  — the world’s largest oil reserves, as well as extensive mineral wealth, notably gold and bauxite.

The raft of sanctions applied to Venezuela since an Executive Order in 2015 declaring Venezuela a threat to US national security now amounts to a blockade virtually indistinguishable from that imposed on Cuba.

The effects have been similarly far-reaching, with the Washington-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research calculating that US sanctions led to more than 40,000 deaths in 2017-18 alone.

Since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, these sanctions have had an even greater effect by restricting all three countries’ ability to buy medicines and equipment to address the current health emergency.

Opposition to the sanctions has come from a range of voices.

In March 2020 UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres called for the waiving of sanctions, saying: “This is the time for solidarity not exclusion.”

The Pope has also appealed for an end to sanctions preventing countries from “providing adequate support to their citizens.”

And in an unexpected move that may signal a possible thawing in US policy, US Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate finance committee, has introduced a Bill to end Cuba’s blockade and establish normal trade relations with the US.

A change of president potentially offers an opportunity for constructive engagement and dialogue with Biden.

But given his track record and position to date, a dialogue that could benefit all three countries cannot be assured.

Now more than ever it is vital to step up our expressions of international solidarity with Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela in defence of their national sovereignty and to make it clear that sanctions are not only illegal but also unacceptable and unjustifiable.

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Featured image: US Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who chairs the Senate finance committee, has introduced a Bill to end Cuba’s blockade and establish normal trade relations with the US (Source: Morning Star)

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Why has the flu disappeared since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic?

In 2020, after the global coronavirus pandemic began, influenza viruses mysteriously disappeared from global circulation (see WHO FluNet chart below). Some skeptics suspected that influenza was simply reclassified as covid, while many journalists and ‘fact checkers’ claimed influenza was suppressed by face masks and lockdowns.

Global circulation of influenza viruses, 2018-2021 (WHO FluNet)

But influenza has not been reclassified as covid, and influenza viruses have disappeared even in countries without face masks and lockdowns, while they had not disappeared during previous flu epidemics and pandemics, despite face masks, school closures, and other measures.

Instead, influenza viruses have simply been displaced by the more infectious novel coronavirus. This displacement effect is well known from previous influenza pandemics: the 1918 flu virus was displaced by the 1957 flu virus, which in turn was displaced by the 1968 flu virus (see chart). The 2009 swine flu virus temporarily displaced previous flu viruses, but eventually couldn’t assert itself (see chart). And even during the current coronavirus pandemic, more transmissible virus strains have repeatedly displaced previous coronavirus strains, often within weeks.

The last coronavirus pandemic is thought to have occurred in the 1890s (“Russian flu”), which is why a coronavirus displacing influenza viruses was not seen for more than a century. It is well known, however, that influenza vaccinations do not reduce the overall incidence of influenza-like illnesses, as influenza viruses simply get replaced by other respiratory viruses, including coronaviruses.

But why do countries with little or no covid – most of them are islands – also have no influenza? Because they closed their borders early. If the coronavirus doesn’t get in, influenza viruses – which normally oscillate between the northern and southern hemispheres – won’t get in, either.

An interesting and open question is whether the novel coronavirus might permanently suppress some or all of the existing influenza virus strains. This might, at last, be a positive development.

Additional figures

1) Competition between various respiratory viruses

Temporal patterns of seasonal respiratory viral infections in Glasgow (UK). Red: rhinoviruses, orange and yellow: influenza viruses; light green: coronaviruses.

Temporal patterns of viral respiratory infections (Nickbaksh et al, 2019)

2) The 2009 swine flu virus (almost) displacing other flu viruses

3) Timeline of pandemic influenza viruses

Timeline of pandemic influenza viruses (Nickol, 2019)

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A new report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) finds that US economic sanctions on Venezuela are harming the Venezuelan economy, especially by depressing oil production and exports, and that they are also hindering US-backed humanitarian assistance to the country. The report, which looks at the impact of US sanctions on Venezuela’s economic crisis, was requested by former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Eliot Engel (D-NY) and committee member Congressman Andy Levin (D-MI).

“This report from the GAO offers more evidence that these unilateral, illegal US sanctions are a form of collective punishment against the Venezuelan population and should be ended immediately,” Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said. “The sanctions have already killed tens of thousands of people in Venezuela.”

The report, which “review[s] information on the impact that U.S. sanctions have had on the Venezuelan crisis,” affirms the conclusions of a 2019 Center for Economic and Policy Research report by economists Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot, which found that US sanctions were responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in Venezuela. The sanctions drastically reduced Venezuelan oil production, which in turn means fewer imports, including of food, medicines, medical equipment, and other health-related necessities. “U.S. sanctions have contributed to the revenue decline by making it more difficult for [Venezuelan state oil company] PdVSA to market its oil, according to a Congressional Research Service report,” the GAO notes.

“According to experts we interviewed and literature we reviewed, U.S. sanctions have had a negative impact on the already declining Venezuelan economy,” the GAO report says. It notes that electricity blackouts have increased “in frequency and duration” under the sanctions.

Citing the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Weisbrot noted that the collective punishment that is administered through sanctions is a crime under the Geneva Conventions. “As the UN has noted, civilians who are killed by sanctions ‘deserve the same protections provided by the Geneva Conventions to people in war.’ In other words, something that is a crime when it happens during a war is still a crime when it is perpetrated during peacetime. These sanctions are a very serious crime, as any number of human rights experts will affirm.”

Another 2019 report by Venezuelan economist Francisco Rodríguez, “Sanctions and the Venezuelan Economy: What the Data Say,” “estimate[s] that financial sanctions were associated with a decline in [oil] production of 797 tbd, which at today’s oil prices would represent USD 16.9 bn a year in foregone oil revenues.” By itself, this drop in foreign exchange revenue has enormous repercussions for the importation of humanitarian needs, as exemplified by the fact that from 2017 to 2018, total pharmaceutical imports collapsed by more than half.

The GAO also noted that the IMF revised its projections for how much the Venezuelan economy would contract in 2019, from 5 percent to 25 percent, due to the estimated impact of US sanctions. “An economic collapse of this magnitude, in a country that is already unable to import sufficient medicines, will result in many excess deaths,” Weisbrot noted.

“It is clear that in a country that cannot access the resources needed to purchase a sufficient quantity of medicines as well as public health infrastructure, a collapse of the economy of this magnitude is quite devastating,” Weisbrot said.

The GAO report also reveals that USAID implementing partners, tasked with providing humanitarian assistance, have been hindered by the sanctions: “All nine USAID implementing partners we spoke with reported instances of banks closing their accounts or delaying or rejecting transactions due to concerns over U.S. sanctions.” Humanitarian groups also struggle with challenges such as “gas shortages and electrical outages, supply chain and labor disruptions, security concerns, and the politicization of humanitarian aid” that the groups say may be made worse by US sanctions.

The GAO report also finds that the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury Department has not been tracking inquiries related to the sanctions.

“The Trump administration, in its public statements, acknowledged that the purpose of sanctions in both Venezuela and Iran was to cause mass suffering that would lead people to rise up against their governments,” Weisbrot noted.

On March 11, 2019, Pompeo stated:

“The circle is tightening. The humanitarian crisis is increasing by the hour. I talked with our senior person on the ground there in Venezuela last night … You can see the increasing pain and suffering that the Venezuelan people are suffering from.”

Human Rights Watch has called attention to a similar statement on sanctions strategy, from Pompeo, with regard to Iran:

“Things are much worse for the Iranian people [with the US sanctions], and we are convinced that will lead the Iranian people to rise up and change the behavior of the regime.”

“President Biden has already ordered a review of economic sanctions to determine their humanitarian impact,” Weisbrot observed. “This is positive, but only if it leads to a lifting of the sanctions. The GAO report provides further confirmation that the sanctions on Venezuela are attacking the civilian population, and are worsening a humanitarian crisis. There is no reason to allow this crime from the Trump administration to continue.”

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Featured image: Since the cutting off of electricity, food and water inside the embassy has not been enough to force the collective to leave, late Tuesday afternoon, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police handed out a trespassing notice that was printed without letterhead or signature from any U.S. government official. (Photo: CodePink)

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“South Africa suspends Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine rollout after researchers report minimal protection against variant” announces the headline of a recent Washington Post report.

The article’s opening sentence reads as follows:

“South Africa will suspend use of the coronavirus vaccine being developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca after researchers found that it provided ‘minimal protection’ against mild to moderate coronavirus infections caused by the new variant first detected in that country.”

The information conveyed by the above exposes the gargantuan fraud that has been perpetrated upon humanity in the name of COVID-19.

Even though many people will be deeply disappointed and disheartened by what happened in South Africa, the news should not have come as a surprise to anyone, since the vaccine failure was completely predictable and inevitable.

Here is the truth: It is not possible to devise an effective vaccine for the type of virus that causes COVID-19. Why? For the very reason that AstraZeneca’s vaccine has failed in South Africa and will fail elsewhere as well.

Coronavirus is a type of virus that mutates widely and because of that it is impossible to come up with a vaccination protocol that would stop its spread.

Every bona fide virologist knows this. And yet the public has not been advised of this. Quite to the contrary, this crucial information has been actively suppressed.

Rather than being told the truth, we were commanded to hunker down in lengthy lockdowns and ordered to wait until the vaccine was found. Once that happened, they told us, we would be able to prevail over the virus and get our lives back. Until quite recently, this was the official narrative propagated by the governing elites around the world.

Consequently, billions of people pinned their hopes on the vaccine and desperately waited for its deliverance. At the same time, governments channeled billions of dollars into the development of these fake concoctions and a number of pharma executives and scientists became billionaires on the news of “progress” and “successful” trials.

While some were getting fabulously wealthy, the frightened and gullible public was kept in the dark about the racket. Sadly, most people apparently lack the will and independence of mind to go beyond the propaganda and do their own research. It does not help, of course, that the establishment has done its best to censor and suppress the information that goes against its official narrative.

The first news that showed that all was not well came when the Chinese vaccine Sinovac was found to be only fifty percent effective in Brazil. Bad as it was, we can be sure that even the paltry fifty percent figure was tweaked upwards by a joint effort of the Brazilian authorities who purchased the vaccine and the vaccine’s Chinese manufacturer. They lied because it is in the interest of both parties to do so. The government authorities needed to cover for their incompetence of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a bad product while the manufacturer wants to protect his profits. The likely truth is that the Chinese vaccine is for all practical purposes useless and possibly dangerous due to potential side effects for which it has not been adequately tested in the extremely short time frame in which it was developed.

Tellingly, the Chinese manufacturer of the shoddy Sinovac vaccine initially claimed an effectiveness of nearly one hundred percent. Their claims were in line with those of western manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines. We can be sure – given the mutating nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – that the vaccines developed by western pharma companies are equally as useless as that of their Chinese counterpart. We have already seen clear evidence of it from South Africa. In the aforementioned piece by the Washington Post we learn that when in South Africa the new “variant became dominant in the country in November, the vaccine [by Oxford-AstraZeneca] provided no significant protection against illness…” South African researchers estimated that the effectiveness of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is ten percent.

Think about it: The vaccine is ten percent effective! And this likely is still an exaggeration as all the parties involved try to save face.

But even at ten percent the vaccine would be worse than useless, because while it offers virtually no protection it potentially carries serious side effects for which it has not been adequately tested.

Because of the potential dangers inherent in this kind of medical product, it normally takes around six years to develop a vaccine that ban be considered reasonably safe. According to Business Insider “vaccines often take years, and sometimes even decades, to develop, test, and approve for public use.”

It was only in April of last year that CNN claimed that a year and a half timeframe of producing a vaccine would raise safety concerns:

“Eighteen months might sound like a long time, but in vaccine years, it’s a blink. That’s the long end of the Trump administration’s time window for developing a coronavirus vaccine, and some leaders in the field say this is too fast – and could come at the expense of safety.”

This was one of those rare occasions on which CNN said something that was actually true. The piece goes on to quote real experts in the field like Dr. Peter Hotez, an expert on infectious disease and vaccine development at Baylor College of Medicine who said: “Tony Fauci is saying a year to 18 months – I think that’s optimistic. Maybe if all the stars align, but probably longer.”

Dr. Paul Offit, the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, had this to say: “When Dr. Fauci said 12 to 18 months, I thought that was ridiculously optimistic. And I’m sure he did, too.”

To rush, therefore, COVID vaccines on the market after mere nine months of development is beyond irresponsible. To do this with “vaccines” that their manufacturers know cannot be ultimately effective is outright criminal.

Being part of the establishment, the vaccines manufacturers will not get called out and punished for their misdeeds. Their face (and their business model) will be saved. The data showing the ineffectiveness of their products will be tweaked and shown in the best light possible. They will then offer to devise boosters for different variants, which will be as ineffective in stopping COVID-19 as their original vaccine was. But never mind this: it will be excellent for their business, since each new variant represents more than seven billion potential customers. Western pharma conglomerates are known to be among the greatest scam artists within the system, and they will exploit the COVID scam to line their pockets in a big way.

While the effectiveness of the vaccines to protect against COVID is questionable at best, there is no doubt that they have already produced some serious side effects. One of these side effects happens to be death. In a number of countries hundreds of elderly people died after having received their shots. This side effect became so troublesome that some governments – Norway, for instance – issued new advisories and guidelines concerning vaccinations for older individuals. They did this even though the elderly were initially the first group targeted for this treatment. But rather then benefiting from it, many seniors were killed by the very thing they were told would protect their lives.

Given that it was never possible to stop a highly mutating virus by vaccination – which was something that has been well known – the whole COVID vaccine enterprise was fraud from the beginning and a dangerous one at that. The best we can hope for is that that these fake vaccines being peddled by the unscrupulous governments and greedy pharma companies are ineffective. Being administered on the order of millions of doses a day, we can only pray that the potential side effects of these untested concoctions hastily cobbled together by ruthless profiteers will not produce the greatest man-made medical calamity in history.

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Vasko Kohlmayer [email] was born and grew up in former communist Czechoslovakia. He is the author of The West in Crisis: Civilizations and Their Death Drives.

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As much as some Canadians would like to believe their country is a force for good in the world, the truth is more sobering. Extreme inequality is rampant and the Canadian government is an important supporter of corporate power and imperialism in global affairs. The good news is that the pushers of the unfair, unjust and immoral existing world order do not always get their way.

It is uplifting to tally some of the Trudeau government’s setbacks:

• Last Friday the International Criminal Court ruled that it has jurisdiction over Israeli war crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, which should pave the way for a possible criminal investigation. A year ago the Trudeau government sent a letter to the ICC saying it didn’t believe the court had jurisdiction over Palestine. Its letter implied it could sever funding to the ICC if the court pursued an investigation of Israeli crimes. After the recent decision new Foreign Minister Marc Garneau released a statement criticizing the ICC decision.
• On January 26 former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau withdrew his bid to lead the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries after it was determined he had no chance of winning.
• On January 22 the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) entered into force, making weapons that have always been immoral also illegal under international law. Canada voted against holding the 2017 UN Conference to Negotiate a Legally Binding Instrument to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, Leading Towards their Total Elimination and boycotted the TPNW negotiating meeting, which two-thirds of the world’s countries attended.
• On January 20 new US President Joe Biden revoked the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The Trudeau government pressed the president-elect to break a direct promise and maintain a climate-destroying pipeline okayed by Donald Trump.
• Since Venezuela’s new National Assembly began sitting on January 6 numerous countries have withdrawn from the US–Canada led campaign to anoint Juan Guaidó President. The European Union dropped its de facto recognition of Guaidó. As did the Dominican Republic. Even the Ottawa-led Lima Group has softened its stance. Last week Panama withdrew the credentials of Guaidó’s ambassador.
• In October Chileans voted overwhelming to rewrite the country’s Pinochet-era constitution. The referendum was a blow to Canadian corporations operating in Chile and the Trudeau government’s alliance with right-wing governments in the hemisphere.
• A week earlier Bolivia’s Movimiento al Socialismo won a decisive election victory that was a rejection of the Canadian-backed coup against Evo Morales a year earlier. The overwhelming results were also a blow to Ottawa’s bid to wipe out the remnants of the leftist pink tide in Latin America. (On Sunday an ally of leftist former President Rafael Correa, Andrés Arauz, gained the most votes in the first round of Ecuador’s presidential election.)
• In June the international community decisively rejected Trudeau’s foreign policy. They voted against Canada’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Security Council by a larger margin than a decade earlier under Stephen Harper.

People who support a fairer, more just and equal world should take comfort from these defeats for the Trudeau government’s pro-corporate and imperial policies. Proof that the bad guys are not invincible should offer hope for bigger victories to come.

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Last Monday, US General Frank McKenzie stated that the US shall continue to help Saudi Arabia defend itself against “the common threat of Iran”. On Tuesday, the Saudi government stressed the importance that the countries affected “by Iranian threats” should be a party to all international negotiations about the Iranian nuclear programme, while accusing Iran of “threatening the security of the region”. Tensions are on the rise, it would seem. But the situation is more complex. For the last weeks, Saudi Arabia has been alternating between sending “warnings” to Iran and making conciliatory statements. Meanwhile, Qatar aims to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Iran and to de-escalate tensions.

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan claimed on January 22 that the Kingdom’s hands “are extended” to Iran to make peace – at the same time, he also accused Tehran of not being serious enough about peace talks and of not complying with agreements. The two countries have not had diplomatic relations since the 2016 attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran after Sunni-governed Saudi Arabia executed Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr – Iran is the world’s largest Shia-governed country (Shia and Sunni being the two major denominations within Islam). Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh responded by remarking to the Iranian Students’ News Agency (ISNA) that Iran, in its turn, would welcome reforms in Saudi policies to establish a “security mechanism” in the region.

The Middle East geopolitical scenario is changing. We have seen for example how different Arab countries signed normalization agreements with Israel. While Turkey is involved in a proxy war with some Arab states in North Africa, in the Gulf region things are perhaps even more complex. In a new development, Qatar is urging Gulf Arab states to enter a dialog with Iran; according to a statement by Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani on January 18, authorities in the Qatari capital of Doha could broker such negotiations. This happened some days after Joe Biden was sworn in as the new American president – during the campaign, he promised to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Meanwhile, Doha is also having discussions with Iran and South Korea to ensure the release of an oil tanker seized by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Saudi Arabia’s small and yet significant gesture took place after the Qatari statements.

This is also happening at a time when a landmark “solidarity and stability” agreement was signed on January 5 between Qatar on one hand, and the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain on the other, thus re-establishing full diplomatic relations with Doha. Such agreement basically ended the blockade on Qatar and, at least for now, the Gulf crisis which lasted for three-and-a-half years. The crisis was also about Iran. In 2017, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the UAE had cut all ties with Qatar, accusing it of being “too close” to Iran (Saudi Arabia’s archenemy) and supporting “terrorism”. Could things be changing? Such rapprochement between Gulf states, according to Emadeddin Badi (an Atlantic Council senior fellow), was clearly also influenced by their desire “to preempt pressure” from the incoming Biden administration. All is not well in the Gulf, however.

Qatar basically still wishes to maintain its good relations with both Turkey and Iran. It is a complicated task: the priority today for the Arab Gulf states, after all, is no longer antagonizing Israel but countering both Turkey and Iran – two countries which also have complex and often tense relations.

In the aftermath of the Gulf countries agreement, the UAE and Oman are also making efforts to improve their relations with Turkey. Qatar has also offered to mediate between Ankara and the authorities in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. And indeed for the first time in two years – since Saudi dissident journalist of Turkish origins Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul (Turkey) – there seems to be a path for reconciliation between Ankara and Riyadh.

With Iran, however, things are far from that and tensions remain high. On January 22, Emirati (along with Israeli) officials expressed their approval for former US president Donald Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran – but Omar Ghobash, UAE assistant minister for public diplomacy, also stated that the UAE does not oppose a new deal with Tehran, even though he disagrees with the way Gulf states were not included in the nuclear deal of 2015 (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPO – signed by Iran, China, US, France, Russia, the UK, and Germany).

The Kingdom of Bahrain, in its turn, accuses the Islamic Republic of Iran of fomenting unrest in the country. Bahrain is now facing demonstrations from the Shia-led opposition that are demanding reforms in the Sunni-led country.

Meanwhile, Turkey and Iran have nonetheless signed agreements with Pakistan to boost railway cooperation – thus further developing the routes linking Istanbul, Tehran and Islamabad, and even further, enhancing connectivity with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It is worth remembering that in February 2020, state-owned Russian Railways pulled out from a $1.3 billion railway electrification project which includes a line between Gamsar (Iran) and Ince Burun (Turkey). This was due to US pressure regarding sanctions imposed on Iran. This is a railway line also designed to connect Turkey (via Iran) to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

In the end, the interests of countries such as Turkey and Iran, and even Russia, can converge against US sanctions and such countries should work together at some levels in dialog with Gulf countries to counter international isolation. In this scenario, the role of Qatar is very relevant.

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Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts.

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US President Joe Biden wants to “End the Yemen War” by cutting support to the Saudi-led coalition and focusing on diplomacy to end the six-year conflict in one of the world’s poorest countries, which has brought 30 million Yemenis close to famine.

The US has a history of looking for a quick fix, without considering the complex reality on the ground.  Yemen’s conflict is multifaceted, includes many actors, and can’t be solved in a rushed political agreement.

Biden may be considered for the Noble Peace Prize if his administration could bring peace to Yemen; however, halting arms sales to the Saudis, or making a deal between the Hadi government and the Houthis won’t end Yemen’s war, or stop the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Biden has announced a big policy shift on Yemen by ending US support for the Arab Coalition’s operations in Yemen, calling out Saudi Arabia for human rights issues, halting arms sales to Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, and holding the Saudi-led coalition accountable for their role in mismanaging the war.

Biden has appointed Timothy Lenderking, former deputy assistant secretary for Arabian Gulf affairs, as the special envoy to Yemen, and called the Saudi foreign minister twice over the past week.

Lenderking met with the internationally recognized Yemeni President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi in Riyadh on February 11 and also met with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan, while discussing a comprehensive solution to ending Yemen’s war.

Saudi Arabia’s military spending has been exceeding even that of global powers, although direct Saudi-led coalition attacks against the Houthis have decreased in recent years while shifting the Saudi strategy to defending the border with Yemen.

Riyadh is aiming to strengthen its influence among all Yemeni factions and is now more actively pursuing negotiations with the Houthis.

Farhan went to Moscow a few weeks ago, and the Kingdom enjoys a good relationship with China, which provides the oil-rich monarchy a contingency plan.

Saudi Arabia can’t afford to get out of Yemen entirely, as the security cost would be too high. Riyadh might invest in mercenaries while it continues to reduce its direct military interventions.

Trump

President Trump imposed upon the Houthi movement the specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) and foreign terrorist organization (FTO) designations on his last full day in office, in a final attempt to cut off funding, weapons, and other support for Iran’s proxy fight in Yemen. Trump was often criticized for his close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, while he used his close ties to push through peace deals between Arab states and Israel.

Sanctions

The United Nations describes Yemen as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with 80 percent of its people in need. The Trump-ordered terrorist designation threatened to deepen the humanitarian crisis by denying food, fuel, and other basic commodities to civilians.  Importers would have faced criminal penalties should the goods fall into Houthi hands, which could push Yemen into a major famine.

The US and EU sanctions on Syria, for example, have caused hospitals to be without chemotherapy drugs, ventilators, and other essential medicines and medical equipment. Gasoline, heating oil, and electricity supplies have all been in dire short supply because of the sanctions on Syria. It is the innocent, unarmed civilians who suffer from Western sanctions.

“This decision is a recognition of the dire humanitarian situation in Yemen,” Blinken said in a statement.

“We will continue to closely monitor the activities of Ansar Allah and its leaders and are actively identifying additional targets for designation,” Blinken said, referring to the name of the Houthi movement.

Houthi

The Houthis currently have the upper hand militarily, and a political settlement risks tipping the military balance in favor of the Houthis, who have not held to cease-fires in the past.

Biden’s speed to call out Arab Gulf monarchies, without first condemning actions taken by the Houthis was perceived by the group as a sign of American weakness, and a Houthi victory.

The move created widespread anger among Yemenis, who saw it as the Biden administration giving the Houthis a green light and a new sense of confidence.

The US administration’s decision to revoke the terrorist designation of the Houthis has emboldened the group, and they escalated their offensive to capture Marib the following day after the designation was rescinded when a Houthi drone was launched toward Khamis Mushait in the kingdom’s Asir province.

On February 12, the Houthis claimed a drone attack that targeted a civilian airplane in Saudi Arabia’s Abha airport.

How the war started

In 2011, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Initiative resulted in a power-sharing deal between former President Saleh and his opponents and called for a political transition process.

Lost between the two sides were the long-standing grievances of ordinary Yemenis, who still feel their voices are not heard.

The deal granted former President Saleh immunity, which effectively allowed him to remain in control of most of the armed forces. He then allied with the Houthis and overthrew the government in September 2014, and from there the country was dragged into a civil war.

The war in Yemen is between the Iranian-aligned Houthi movement, and the internationally recognized government of Yemen, which has been supported since 2015 by a Saudi-led military coalition.

The Stockholm Agreement was brokered by the UN envoy in December 2018 between the Hadi government and the Houthis but failed to deliver peace or stability.

The UN

A series of UN special envoys for Yemen has tried to broker a political settlement between the two sides since 2014.

The Biden administration should work with the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Yemen Martin Griffiths to ease access to humanitarian aid and opening airports, seaports, and key roads to cities for the sake of the suffering civilians.

Down the road

Yemen is a conflict that’s more than just politics and will require getting firm commitments from the Houthis while working with the Saudis as well.

Most Yemenis are currently not represented in the peace talks. Western policy experts, diplomats, and peace activists are not enough to end the war when most Yemenis have animosity toward both the Houthis and Hadi’s government. The voiceless civilians must be made part of the solution for the war to come to an end, and have lasting stability.

The Biden administration must look farther down the road than just a quick fix, or risk an uptake in violence and a long-lasting conflict with no end in sight.

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Steven Sahiounie is an award-winning journalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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It’s all over but the postmortems. Trump’s five day Senate trial ended as expected with acquittal. More on this below.

Trump remains unaccountable for crimes of war, against humanity, breaching the public trust and other offenses he committed.

None of the above were part of his year ago politicized Senate show trial — nor Act II now over.

He’s innocent of earlier charges and the current one.

They’re phony without a leg to stand on.

Not a shred of credible evidence provides proof because there is none.

Trump had nothing to do with inciting insurrection on Capitol Hill that didn’t occur in the first place.

Witch hunt Dems and complicit media lied and mass deceived the public claiming otherwise.

What occurred earlier and currently are two of the most disgraceful political chapters in US history.

They further blackened the nation’s already sullied image — a rogue state masquerading as democratic, what it never was, isn’t now, and won’t tolerate anywhere.

Despite no evidence linking Trump to the allegation of inciting insurrection on Capitol Hill that didn’t happen, NYT editors pronounced him guilty by accusation.

Disgracing themselves more than already — no simple task — they roared the following:

“There’s no doubt who must be held responsible for attacking the Capitol (sic) and trying to overturn the results of the election (sic).”

The January 6 Capitol Hill episode was an orchestrated anti-Trump false flag.

Aided and directed to where they wanted to go by guards, bussed in hooligans stormed the main building, not Trump supporters whose actions were lawful.

Instead of reporting accurately about what happened, the NYT and other anti-Trump media pronounced him guilty by accusation — despite no evidence proving the phony charge.

Screaming for his unjustifiable conviction, Times editors recited a litany of beginning-to-end bald-faced Big Lies, typical Times misinformation, disinformation and fake news it features on all major issues.

“If you fail to hold him accountable, it can happen again,” the Times deceptively roared.

Charging, prosecuting and convicting someone without supportive evidence is what police state injustice is all about.

It’s what Times editors demand. They should be in the dock, not Trump.

They’re guilty of endless counts of fake news propaganda pretending to be real news and information.

No “mob of Trump supporters sacked the US Capitol,” no “attack on America’s democracy” that doesn’t exist.

“Trump stands (falsely) charged with inciting of insurrection.”

The Times stands guilty of inventing its own reality to serve its diabolical agenda against Trump in cahoots with undemocratic Dems and other dark forces.

Time and again, it finds new ways to disgrace itself.

Gray Lady presstitution substitutes for truth and full disclosure.

Earlier it called Trump’s reelection campaign “the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II (sic).”

What doesn’t exist can’t be threatened.

The US is the greatest threat to virtually everything just societies hold dear.

The Times and other Big Media share guilt.

On all things Trump, it piles on one phony charge on top of others, ignoring legitimate ones.

On all things undemocratic Dems, their highest of high crimes are supported.

On all things journalism as it should be, it was long ago banned in its editions.

The Dems case against Trump was emotionally charged with no supportive evidence.

The Times lied claiming otherwise.

Law Professor Jonathan Turley slammed orchestrated proceedings by Dems, saying:

There’s no (House) record. None.”

“There was no hearing, no investigation. Just a snap impeachment” with no credible evidence backing it.

According to undemocratic Dems, the Times and other anti-Trump media, no proof is needed to pronounce guilt as charged.

Turley: “(T)he burden is on (Dems), and they presented an entirely circumstantial case” proving nothing.

So much for the democratic process, due process and judicial fairness. They’re off the table when conflict with diabolical aims of US dark forces.

When it comes to Trump for Dems and other diabolical aims they pursue, the above aren’t tolerated — how all police states operate.

At the 11th hour with proceedings nearing an end, Dems and five Republicans agreed to call witnesses, delaying closing arguments and a floor vote.

Reversing the above followed, no witnesses called.

Final arguments were made Saturday.

Earlier in the day, it was unclear when Trump’s witch hunt show trial would end.

It’s been very clear all along that no credible evidence supports the phony inciting insurrection charge.

It’s clear as well that democracy and rule of law in the US don’t exist.

Later on Saturday, Trump’s politicized show trial ended.

During the day, GOP Senate Minority Leader notified Republicans that he’d vote for acquittal.

As expected, Trump was acquitted by a vote of 57 – 43 vote, well shy of a two-thirds super-majority needed to convict.

Will undemocratic Dems and their Big Media press agents go for a third time around impeachment and trial — further shaming and discrediting themselves than already?

Put nothing past the US criminal class. They keep searching for new lows and finding them.

All they achieved by impeaching and trying Trump twice on phony charges was to display their contempt for the rule of law.

On that count, they showed the world community the ugliness of their true colors!

A Final Comment

On Friday, Trump’s legal team hoisted undemocratic on their own petard.

They played videos of Dems screaming threats against Trump and his supporters in sharp contrast to DJT’s call to protest against brazen election fraud.

In 2016, Pelosi falsely accused Trump of hijacking the election, adding:

He’s “an imposter and a traitor.”

Many Dems encouraged mass anti-Trump protests and riots.

When Dem-supporting extremists rioted in Portland, OR, she failed to accuse them of staging an insurrection.

When mobs she supported destroyed public property, she and other undemocratic Dems turned a blind eye to their rampaging.

Pelosi is a war-mongering corporate tool, a guardian of power against public health and welfare.

She supports virtually everything just societies abhor, including endless wars on humanity at home and abroad, corporate empowerment, and what benefits privileged Americans at the expense of most others.

Disgracing the office she holds,   she and her co-conspirators belong in the dock — accountability for their abuses of power long overdue.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image: President Trump at a July briefing at Southern Command Headquarters in Miami.

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***

Nicaragua’s elected leftist government passed a law requiring NGOs funded by outside governments to register as foreign agents, so a CIA agent-turned-Biden State Department spokesman smeared it as “driving toward dictatorship” — despite the policy’s similarity to US legislation.

Since Nicaragua’s socialist Sandinista Front returned to power through democratic elections in 2006, the United States government has poured many millions of dollars into right-wing opposition groups in the Central American country.

These US-funded NGOs have aimed to destabilize the government of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and played a central role in a brutally violent coup attempt in 2018.

Nicaragua’s National Assembly responded to the Washington-sponsored violence and destabilization efforts by passing a law in October 2020 that requires organizations funded by outside governments to register as foreign agents.

The legislation is very similar to a law passed by the United States in 1938 known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). In recent years, Washington has exploited FARA to force Russian and Chinese media outlets and journalists working in the United States to register as foreign agents — in a bipartisan, Cold War-style political escalation against both countries.

Though Washington has had this legislation on the books for more than eight decades, and still utilizes it regularly, the Joe Biden administration has lashed out at Nicaragua for its decision to pass a similar law.

On February 8, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, a former CIA agent, published a statement condemning the elected Sandinista government.

Price claimed that President “Ortega is driving Nicaragua toward dictatorship,” because the new foreign agent law led to the voluntary suspension of operations of a major US government-funded opposition organization in the country.

Price demonized Nicaragua’s democratically elected government as a “regime,” while stressing that the US government is “focused on empowering civil society.”

President Ortega is driving Nicaragua toward dictatorship with the foreign agents law, isolating his country and depriving his people of progress toward democracy and prosperity. We urge President Ortega to change course now. https://t.co/6UnHlVhWWL

— Ned Price (@StateDeptSpox) February 9, 2021

Price’s statement condemning Nicaragua came one day after the US-backed right-wing president of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, effectively declared himself a dictator, ruling without a Senate or Chamber of Deputies, hand-picking mayors, shooting journalists, and killing protesters.

Fixating on Nicaragua, the CIA staffer-turned-State Department spokesperson concluded his declaration with a thinly veiled threat: “We urge President Ortega to change course now.”

Despite the Biden administration’s hyperbolic rhetoric, it was not Ortega that passed the law; rather, it was the elected deputies of Nicaragua’s National Assembly that did so.

If the US Congress approved a law, it would be very strange for a foreign government to blame the US president for the legislation. But Washington reduces all of Nicaragua’s government, including its 92 assembly members and other state officials, to just one man, grossly simplifying the country’s politics.

The author of the State Department declaration, Ned Price, worked at the CIA for more than a decade, although he retired early in 2017 in protest of Donald Trump’s presidency.

The CIA has a long history of supporting right-wing opposition groups in Nicaragua. During the 1980s, the CIA armed and trained far-right death squads, known as the Contras, who waged a terrorist war on the revolutionary Sandinista government, massacring civilians, torturing officials, bombing infrastructure, mining ports, and burning down hospitals, schools, and farms.

Today, funding for anti-Sandinista NGOs comes largely through the US government’s regime-change arms the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The latter is a CIA cut-out created by the Ronald Reagan administration at the same time when it was waging this Contra terror campaign, in order to finance similar destabilization schemes in the guise of democracy promotion.

USAID pours tens of millions into right-wing opposition media in Nicaragua

The real source of the Biden administration’s anger over Nicaragua’s foreign agent law was the announcement that a right-wing opposition group funded with millions of US government tax dollars had decided to shut down.

On February 5, the anti-Sandinista activist organization the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation announced that it is voluntarily suspending operations in protest of the foreign agent law.

The US State Department press release falsely accused the Nicaraguan government of closing the Chamorro Foundation. In reality, the Sandinista government was not shuttering or expelling the foundation or any other organization; rather, they voluntarily decided to cease activities to avoid compliance with the new legislation.

The Chamorro Foundation was founded by and is named after Nicaragua’s neoliberal former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who came to power in 1990 thanks to a US-backed terror war and blockade of the country, along with funding from Washington’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

In 1991, the NED personally rewarded President Barrios de Chamorro for her loyalty to Washington, giving her a high-profile award.

The Chamorro clan is one of the wealthiest and most powerful oligarch families in Nicaragua. Many right-wing opposition leaders in the Central American nation are Chamorros, and they enjoy a close relationship with the US government.

This oligarch family’s foundation is bankrolled by Washington’s soft-power arm, the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

While the minimum wage in Nicaragua is just over $200 per month, USAID has poured millions of dollars into the Chamorro Foundation, allotting the following sums:

• $1.7 million in 2020
• $1.7 million in 2019
• $1.2 million in 2018
• $1.6 million in 2014

The Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation has also been used to run USAID’s Media Strengthening Program (MSP), funding and training right-wing media activists on behalf of Washington.

According to a review of USAID’s publicly available data, the agency has spent the following sums of money just on opposition media outlets in Nicaragua since 2011:

• $1,697,400 in 2020
• $1,729,645 in 2019
• $889,355 in 2018
• $400,000 in 2017
• $1,600,000 in 2014
• $550,000 in 2013
• $413,163 in 2012 (1)
• $286,387 in 2012 (2)
• $541,000 in 2011

And this does not include many millions of dollars more that were rewarded to redacted grantees, whose information is not revealed on the USAID website.

A small sample of USAID funding for opposition media outlets in Nicaragua

One of the recipients of US government funding through the Chamorro Foundation was Nicaragua’s far-right opposition media outlet 100% Noticias. This channel actively encouraged violence during the 2018 coup attempt, promoting extremists who used mortar cannons to kill and injure Sandinista activists and state security forces.

Washington-funded 100% Noticias director Miguel Mora has openly requested that the US military invade his country and overthrow President Daniel Ortega, citing the war on Panama in 1989. Mora also hosted extremists who called on Nicaraguans to organize a violent mob to invade the presidential compound and lynch the elected leader.

The Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation is directed by Cristiana Chamorro, a wealthy right-wing operative who will likely be the opposition’s presidential candidate in the November 2021 election. Cristiana Chamorro has also helped to run the leading conservative newspaper, La Prensa.

In effect, this means that USAID has been bankrolling the Nicaraguan right-wing’s presidential candidate and the country’s top media outlet with millions of dollars over many years.

USAID allotted more than $122 million overall on operations in Nicaragua in the five years from 2016 through 2020. The majority of that money went to “Leadership, Management, Governance,” the “Municipal Governance Program,” and the “Democratic Leadership Development Program” – in other words, funding and cultivating right-wing opposition leaders.

While USAID claims that its projects are “humanitarian,” its own publicly available data shows that the vast majority of its spending in Nicaragua goes to funding “Government and Civil Society” and operating expenses for its staff, while less than 1 percent of its money goes to supporting public health and agriculture.

The Grayzone has exposed USAID’s role in overseeing a regime-change operation called Responsive Assistance in Nicaragua (RAIN), which explicitly aims to overthrow the socialist government, impose neoliberal reforms that lead to a “transition to a rules-based market economy” based on the “protection of private property rights,” and purge state institutions of Sandinistas.

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Ben Norton is a journalist, writer, and filmmaker. He is the assistant editor of The Grayzone, and the producer of the Moderate Rebels podcast, which he co-hosts with editor Max Blumenthal. His website is BenNorton.com and he tweets at @BenjaminNorton.

Featured image: Sandinistas at a peace rally in Managua, Nicaragua on February 1, 2020 (Photo: Ben Norton / The Grayzone)

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***

It goes without saying that the Constitution called into existence a government with few, limited powers. That was the purpose of enumerating the powers of the federal government. If the Constitution was bringing into existence a government of unlimited or omnipotent powers, then there would have been no point in enumerating a few limited powers. In that event, the Constitution would have called into existence a government with general, unlimited powers to do whatever was in the interests of the nation.

If the Constitution had proposed a government of omnipotent powers, there is no way the American people would have accepted it, in which case America would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation. Our American ancestors didn’t want a government of omnipotent powers. They wanted a government of few, limited, enumerated powers.

Among the most omnipotent powers a government can wield is the power of government officials to assassinate people. Our American ancestors definitely did not want that type of government. That is why the power to assassinate is not among the enumerated powers of government in the Constitution.

Despite the enumerated-powers doctrine, our American ancestors were still leery. They knew that the federal government would inevitably attract people who would thirst for the power to assassinate people. So, to make certain that federal officials got the point, the American people enacted the Fifth Amendment after the Constitution was ratified. It expressly prohibited the federal government from taking any person’s life without due process of law.

Due process of law is a term that stretches all the way back to Magna Carta. At a minimum, it requires formal notice of charges and a trial before the government can take a person’s life. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, assassination involves taking a person’s life without notice or trial.

For some 150 years, the federal government lacked the power to assassinate people. For the last 75 years, however, the federal government has wielded and actually exercised the omnipotent power to assassinate, including against American citizens.

How did it acquire this omnipotent power? Certainly not by constitutional amendment. It acquired it by default — by converting the federal government after World War II from a limited-government republic to a national-security state.

A national-security state is a totalitarian form of governmental structure. North Korea is a national security state. So is Cuba. And China, Egypt, Russia, and Pakistan. And the United States, along with others.

A national-security state is based on a vast, all-powerful military-intelligence establishment, one that, as a practical matter, wields omnipotent powers. Thus, when the CIA, one of the principle components of America’s national-security state, was called into existence in 1947, it immediately assumed the power to assassinate. In fact, as early as 1952 the CIA published an assassination manual that demonstrates that the CIA was already specializing in the art of assassination (as well as cover-up) in the early years of the national-security state.

In 1954, the CIA instigated a coup in Guatemala on grounds of “national security.” The aim of the coup was to oust the country’s democratically elected president, Jacobo Arbenz, and replace him with a military general. As part of the coup, the CIA prepared a list of people to be assassinated. To this day, the CIA will not disclose the names of people on its kill list (on grounds of “national security,” of course) but it is a virtual certainty that President Arbenz was at the top of the list for establishing a foreign policy of peace and friendship with the communist world. To his good fortune, he was able to flee the country before they could assassinate him.

In 1970, the CIA was attempting to prevent Salvador Allende from becoming president of Chile. Like Arbenz, Allende’s foreign policy was based on establishing a peaceful and friendly relationship with the communist world. The CIA’s plan included inciting a coup led by the Chilean military. However, the overall commander of Chile’s armed forces, Gen. Rene Schneider, stood in the way. His position was that he had taken an oath to support and defend the constitution and, therefore, that he would not permit a coup to take place. The CIA conspired to have him violently kidnapped to remove him as an obstacle to the coup. During the kidnapping attempt, Schneider was shot dead.

Schneider’s family later filed suit for damages arising out of Schneider’s wrongful death. The federal judiciary refused to permit either U.S. officials or the CIA to be held accountable for Schneider’s death. Affirming the U.S. District Court’s summary dismissal of the case, the D.C. Court of Appeals held that U.S. officials who were involved in the crime could not be held liable since they were simply acting within the course and scope of their employment. Moreover, the U.S. government couldn’t be held liable because, the court stated, it is sovereignly immune.

Central to the Court’s holding was what it called the “political question doctrine.” It holds that under the Constitution, the judicial branch of the government is precluded from questioning any “political” or “foreign policy” decision taken by the executive branch.

Actually though, the Constitution says no such thing. It is in fact the responsibility of the judicial branch to enforce the Constitution against the other branches, including the national-security branch. That includes the Fifth Amendment, which expressly prohibits the federal government from taking people’s lives without due process of law.

So, why did the federal judiciary come up with this way to avoid taking on the CIA? Because it knew that once the federal government was converted to a national-security state, the federal government had fundamentally changed in nature by now having a branch that could exercise omnipotent powers, such as assassination, with impunity. The federal judiciary knew that there was no way that the judicial branch of government could, as a practical matter, stop the national-security branch with assassinating people. To maintain the veneer of judicial power, the judiciary came up with its ludicrous “political question doctrine” to explain why it wasn’t enforcing the Constitution

Once Pinochet took office after the coup in Chile, the Chilean judiciary did the same thing as the U.S. judiciary. It deferred to the power of the Pinochet military-intelligence government, declining to enforce the nation’s constitution against it. Like the U.S. judiciary, the Chilean judiciary recognized the reality of omnipotent power that comes with a national-security state. Many years later, the Chilean judiciary apologized to the Chilean people for abrogating its judicial responsibility.

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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the country as well as on Fox News’ Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s show Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full Context. Send him email.

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).

***

During the first six weeks of the coronavirus vaccine rollout among U.S. adults, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) — notorious for collecting only a tiny fraction of adverse events — received reports of more than 500 post-vaccination deaths and close to 11,000 other injuries.

Internationally renowned molecular genetics expert Dolores Cahill believes that these injuries portend a forthcoming tsunami of crippling and fatal problems. In the coming months, Cahill expects to see successive waves of adverse reactions to the experimental messenger RNA (mRNA) injections ranging from anaphylaxis and other allergic responses to autoimmunity, sepsis and organ failure.

Notwithstanding these and other credible warnings, U.S. health officials are signaling their intent to rapidly green-light the as-yet unlicensed mRNA vaccines for children.

Already last April — when next to nothing was known about COVID’s epidemiology, and candidate vaccines had barely begun to be studied — Bill Gates set the stage for the pediatric push, declaring that the end goal is to make COVID-19 vaccines “part of the routine newborn immunization schedule.”

We have since learned that 99.997% of young people ages 0-19 survive COVID-19 (with most experiencing either mild symptoms or no symptoms at all). But that does not seem to matter. Nor does a January 2021 study, which confirmed that it is only in a minuscule subset of children — mostly kids with serious underlying medical conditions — that the illness occasionally takes a turn for the worse.

In this low-risk context, public health officials know that they need to come up with different arguments to persuade parents to give the coronavirus vaccines to their offspring. Fortunately for these vaccine functionaries, there is a concept that is readily at hand: herd immunity.

And as Moderna joins Pfizer in conducting vaccine experiments on 12- to 17-year-olds — with additional trials in the works to test the injections in children under-12, including infants as young as six months — the chorus of voices casting herd immunity as “the main driver for COVID-19 child vaccinations” is growing noticeably louder.

A flawed ‘marketing gimmick’

Several years ago, JB Handley, author of “How to End the Autism Epidemic,” dissected herd immunity’s use as a “marketing gimmick” to shame and pressure people into vaccination, based on the guilt-tripping claim that non-compliers are free-riders who “put the health of the ‘herd’ at risk.”

Immunologist Tetyana Obukhanych, Ph.D., and others concur that officials enjoy wielding herd immunity “as a trump card to justify any measures, often at odds with personal freedom of choice, aiming to increase vaccination compliance.”

There’s just one problem with vaccine herd immunity claims, says Handley: “[W]e’ve never come close to achieving ‘herd immunity’ through vaccination, and we never will.”

Having conducted extensive research on the history of vaccine policies (such as mandated vaccines for school attendance), Children’s Health Defense (CHD) President and General Counsel Mary Holland agrees, stating that decades of intensive effort “have not attained herd immunity for any childhood disease.”

The theory of herd immunity originated with a health officer working in Chicago in the 1930s. At its inception, the concept “had nothing to do with vaccination.” Instead the theory reflected the physician’s careful observations “about the process of how a disease works its way through a community and how that community, eventually, naturally builds up a resistance to it as a result.”

As Obukhanych also explains, herd immunity evolved as an epidemiologic rather than an immunologic construct, offering at best a theoretical opportunity to predict successful disease control. As vaccines (and vaccine mandates) became more widespread in the mid-20th century, herd immunity theory underwent a pivotal transformation, based on the “faulty assumption that vaccination elicits in an individual a state equivalent to bona fide immunity,” Obukhanych said. Overlooking the sophistication of the human immune system — the very model of versatility — vaccine scientists adopted the flawed assumption of equivalence and, despite decades of evidence to the contrary, now view vaccination as a superior — even ideal — route to herd immunity.

The World Health Organization goes even further, omitting any reference to natural infection and defining herd immunity solely as “a concept used for vaccination.” Ironically, even as medical facilities report “an uptick in the recording of [COVID-19 vaccine] side effects” — not to mention disruptive “health impact events” — the Mayo Clinic asserts that vaccination “create[s] immunity without causing illness or resulting complications.”

The moving herd immunity target

Dr. Anthony Fauci — director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which is 50% owner of the royalty-generating Moderna vaccine patent — has declared that herd immunity cannot be achieved and life cannot “return to some kind of normal” unless 85% to 90%of the entire U.S. population gets a coronavirus vaccine, children included. Today, Fauci told ProPublica children as young as first graders may be authorized to get the coronavirus vaccine by the time school starts in September.

Children (ages 0-17) make up 22% of the U.S. population. In late December, Fauci breezily admitted to the New York Times that he “nudged” the herd immunity target up to 90% (from a prior estimate of 70%) after he saw polls indicating growing public willingness to get a vaccine.

Educators have been quick to reinforce Fauci’s message that young people should get the shots, stating that vaccinating students is “a crucial step in the return-to-normal for schools.” Conversely, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), recently asserted that teachers don’t need to be vaccinated to reopen schools safely.

Two French scientists at the Pasteur Institute published a slightly more scientific discussion of COVID-19 herd immunity goals last September. While still promoting vaccination as the pathway of choice, they acknowledged that herd immunity calculations necessarily must account for variables such as susceptibility and transmission. They also noted that “children, particularly those younger than 10, may be less susceptible and contagious than adults, in which case they may be partially omitted from the computation of herd immunity.”

Although American officials admit that “kids do not generally suffer from severe COVID-19” and are unlikely to directly benefit from the injections, they have no intention of following the French authors’ advice to exclude children from their herd immunity calculus. Instead, framing their ethically shaky and scientifically doubtful argument in the conditional tense, they claim that “inoculating [children] could reduce the spread to people at higher risk.”

In short, public health leaders say, parents must “vaccinate the young to protect the old.” Given the federal government’s estimate that one vaccine injury results from every 39 vaccines administered, it seems clear that officials expect children to shoulder 100% of the risks of COVID vaccination in exchange for zero benefit.

Natural immunity and COVID

Interestingly, the experts issuing sweeping statements about the need for 90% vaccine coverage and protection of the elderly make no mention of the many Americans who have already had COVID-19, even though a growing number of studies point to “persistent [natural] immunity” in recovered individuals (see here and here).

Rep.Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), an MIT-trained scientist and inventor who had COVID early on in the pandemic, scrutinized data from the Pfizer and Moderna clinical trials and ascertained that neither vaccine offers any benefit to those with naturally acquired immunity.

However, Massie discovered that the CDC not only was advising previously infected individuals to get vaccinated but continued to do so even after Massie alerted them to their propagation of “false and incorrect science.”

A phenomenon known as pathogenic priming (also called “disease enhancement”) represents another important reason to question the advisability of recommending that adults and children who have already had a SARS-CoV-2 infection get a COVID vaccine.

A pivotal April paper by Dr. James Lyons-Weiler explained how exposure to specific peptides (components of proteins) through infection may “prime” some individuals “for increased risk of enhanced pathogenicity during future exposure” — including subsequent exposure in the form of vaccination.

In December, Lyons-Weiler and CHD Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. noted that the clinical trials of COVID-19 vaccines “did not rule out pathogenic priming in any way.” Reports of post-COVID-vaccine deaths filed with VAERS (searchable at medalerts.org) indicate that some of the deceased had previously experienced COVID illness, including seniors who were a couple of weeks “post COVID” and then died within minutes or hours of receiving their injections.

A multi-country serological analysis published in Nature estimated (Table S4) that by the beginning of September, 14% of Americans had been infected — a conservative estimate given that serology (antibody) testing provides only a partial picture, assessing what is called “humoral immunity.” As the two Pasteur Institute authors observed in their fall paper, humoral immunity (which is the type of immunity induced by vaccination) “does not capture the full spectrum of SARS-CoV-2 protective immunity.”

Also in September, Dr. Peter Doshi, associate editor of The BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal), drew attention to studies showing mobilization of memory T cells against SARS-CoV-2 “in 20% to 50% of people with no known exposure to the virus.” The scientists quoted by Doshi in his article attribute this to prior exposure to common cold and other coronaviruses — and wonder whether “there is more immunity out there” than meets the eye.

In fact, memory T cells are some of the immune system’s busiest white blood cells, and Doshi notes that they “are known for their ability to affect the clinical severity and susceptibility to future infection.” He suggests, therefore, that they could help elucidate “mysteries of COVID-19, such as why children have been surprisingly spared the brunt of the pandemic. . . and the high rate of asymptomatic infections in children and young adults.”

However, vaccine-centric scientists (and their mainstream media promoters) are not exploring these mysteries, instead ignoring T cells while maintaining their narrow focus on antibodies. Piggy-backing on Doshi’s questions, another writer asks: “Is [the lack of research attention to T cells] because vaccines are good at provoking antibody responses but not so great at generating T-cells?”

Protecting the young

Over many decades, the far-from-uncommon phenomenon of vaccine failure in fully vaccinated individuals has made it abundantly clear that antibody responses are inadequate as a guarantor of real immunity. For children, an even bigger problem is that, before their immune system has even had a chance to develop, a pile-up of vaccinations aggressively overstimulates them into a state of artificial immunity. Immune dysfunction and chronic illness are the not-infrequent outcomes.

The pediatric study that recently identified underlying medical conditions as the strongest risk factor responsible for COVID-19 deaths in children cited conditions such as “asthma, autoimmune disease, cardiovascular disease, chronic lung disease, GI/liver disease, hypertension, immune suppression, metabolic disease, neurologic disease, obesity and renal disease.” Coincidentally or not, these are among the nearly 400 adverse reactions identified in package inserts as being potentially associated with vaccination.

As Lyons-Weiler reminded us several years before COVID, “The determination of the benefit of widespread vaccination for any vaccine must consider not only the ability to protect those at risk, but also the downstream costs due to vaccine injuries.”

Instead of absurdly arguing (as some are doing) that rushing risky mRNA vaccines into children is what is needed not just to achieve an arbitrary level of herd immunity but to “fully revive the economy,” let’s heed Handley’s words: “Until we are honest in our assessment of both the safety and efficacy of vaccines, kids will continue to be hurt, rights will continue to be trampled, and mythology will continue to trump science.”

Parents should not be lulled into the false notion that vaccines (or any medical procedure) are all benefit and no risk.

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***

Although the effort has never produced the results expected by its organizers, subversion against Cuba continues to be a profitable business involving millions of dollars.

Disguised in multiple trappings, through agencies, companies and organizations, which rarely offer public information on the management of their funds, the financing of actions intended to undermine the Revolution have exceeded 249.5 million dollars, over the last two decades.

This has been investigated and published by the Cuba Money Project, a website devoted to covering stories on U.S. government programs and projects related to the island.

In 2020 alone, a report based on public information found on the digital portals of agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), estimates the total allocated to finance subversive initiatives at 2.5 million.

This is only a partial figure since, “Some programs are so secret that the recipients of funds are never disclosed,” explains journalist Tracey Eaton, in an article for the Cuba Money Project, entitled “The democracy business in Cuba is bustling.”

Eaton reports that at least 54 groups have operated programs on the island with money from USAID and NED since 2017, when Donald Trump assumed the Presidency.

“A sprawling network of U.S. government-financed groups sends cash to thousands of Cuban democracy activists, journalists and dissidents each year,” he wrote.

Recently, after the provocation at the Ministry of Culture, a reporter for the ADN-Cuba website – one of the foreign-run outlets that regularly distorts the country’s reality – acknowledged in a video circulating on social networks having received between 150 and 200 dollars to cover the event.

Other publications with an anti-Cuban agenda, describing themselves as practitioners of “independent” journalism, have also admitted having ties to U.S. agencies.

This, however, is only the visible face of an extremely lucrative business, since the State Department, USAID and NED report having “undisclosed” contractors, who receive an unknown portion of the funds directed toward changing our country’s political system.

It is impossible to know exactly how much of U.S. money ends up in Cuba and how many individuals are paid, Eaton concludes. What is very clear is that the millions invested have not been enough for the empire to subjugate a people determined to defend our sovereignty at any cost.

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According to a directive from Quebec’s Ministry of Health :

“If the presumed cause of death is Covid-19 (with or without a positive test) an autopsy should be avoided  [emphasis in original document] and death should be attributed to Covid-19 as the probable cause of death. In addition, deaths whose probable cause is Covid-19 are considered natural, and are not subject to a coroner’s notice. “

The directive does not allow the counting of co-morbidities. And if the family of the deceased does not accept the Covid-19 categorization (which incidentally requires no PCR test), the autopsy request procedures are complex (almost impossible, two hospitals for the whole of Quebec, see document below).

This directive dated Thursday, April 16, 2020 was conducive to an immediate sharp increase in the number of deaths attributed to Covid-19: 44.9% of total deaths in Quebec are attributed to Covid-19 (week of 11-18 April 2020).

Read carefully the text of the directive sent to the managers of the OPTILAB clusters (the clinical-administrative and medical co-directors). (Les Grappes – OPTILAB are the medical biology laboratories)

 

 

The directive is issued on April 16, 2020.

Four days later, Monday April 21, 2020, La Presse (Montreal) reports that Covid-19 has become:

“…  the main cause of death in Quebec, beating the daily average of deaths attributable to cancer and heart disease”

“The coronavirus, with 62 deaths recorded in the last 24 hours [20-21 April 2020], also claims more lives than the flu, alzheimer’s, road accidents and all the other causes of death listed by Health public.

According to La Presse,  April [2020] was the deadliest month . But  did La Presse consult the directives of the Ministry of Health:

Similarly, Le Devoir confirms that COVID-19 had become deadly precisely in April 2020,  at the very moment when the Ministry imposed its new guidelines concerning the Covid to the OPTILAB grappes labs.

And below is the (daily) mortality statement for Quebec corresponding to the week of April 12 to 18, 2020 measured according to the criteria issued by the Ministry of Health.

Are these figures the result of the so-called deadly pandemic?

Or is it the result of the Ministry of Health’s “guidelines” based on erroneous criteria? See below:

•  “presumed” case pertaining to Covid,
• “With or without a positive test”,
• “probable” cause of death,
• “Autopsy should be avoided” in the case of Covid-19.
• “ Deaths of which the probable cause is Covid-19, are considered natural, and are not the object of a notice to the coroner “

Mortality statistics go fly high following the implementation of the Ministry guidelines.

It is not even necessary to require a “confirmed positive cause” (PCR test) to establish that the death is caused by the virus. Covid-19 “presumed cause” (which proves absolutely nothing) is sufficient. It meets the requirements of the Ministry of Health.

Are the criteria dictated by the Ministry valid? Do they abide by scientific and medical standards?

These directives of April 16, 2020 have triggered a surge in mortality figures in Quebec attributed to the virus. (See figure below).

See the progression of mortality from April 2020  (figures from April 11 are categorized according to the April 16, 2020 guideline).

There were no cases of death (attributable to Covid) in Quebec before March 18, 2020. And all of a sudden in April the death figures associated with Covid-19 go fly high, thereby  becoming the leading cause of death in Quebec.

In April, 1989 deaths associated with COVID-19 were reported by the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ).

This flawed methodology has allowed the government to claim that Covid is the main cause of “excess mortality” compared to previous years.

It is also used to distort the causes of mortality in the CHSLDs [Quebec’s nursing homes]. And most of the media contend (without examining the directives of the Ministry) that it is the virus which caused a death trap [hecatomb] in the CHSLDs” ( Le Devoir ).

This rise of the mortality statistics pertaining to Covid-19 has contributed to triggering a fear campaign. It is also being  used by the Legault government to justify diabolical measures imposed on Quebecers including the curfew and a partial closure of the national economy (which has been conducive to creating mass unemployment).

Deaths in the CHSLD are not attributable to the Covid

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***

As relations between the USA and Russia continue to fall ever deeper into the abyss, and as China’s Belt and Road Initiative continues to evolve deep into the Eurasian Arctic via the Polar Silk Road, a new era of potential for cooperation as well as nuclear war awaits humanity. The decisions made over the coming months will determine which of those two opposing destinies are selected.

For the time being, things are looking bad.

On February 5, 2021 the Canadian press was lit abuzz with the headline NORAD Modernization to Dominate Agenda of Canada-U.S. Defence Relations citing various military think tanks and ivory tower game theorists who should be kept as far from any actual policy making circles if the world is going to survive beyond the coming decade.

Citing the recent Biden-Trudeau meeting which featured a long discussion about Russian-Chinese aggression and Arctic defense, Andrea Charron (head of Manitoba’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies) states:

“Where as before the primary threat during the Cold War was one peer competitor, who wasn’t using greyzone tactics, or at least not to the same extent as now, we now have two peer competitors to the U.S. – China and Russia – and they are using greyzone tactics, and they’re developing more sophisticated weapons like hypersonic glide vehicle weapons,”

The idea being conveyed here is that Russian hypersonic air launched Kinzhal ballistic missiles will soon be stationed in Russia’s north which should cause NORAD to be completely revamped.

Of course, these academics are quick to ignore all evidence of NATO encirclement of Russia and China under the insane “full spectrum dominance” game plan which certain geopoliticians believe will make nuclear war somehow winnable with 21^st century technology.

In the face of this supposed Russian and Chinese aggression, NATO-philes are screeching for Canada’s speedy entry into the NORAD Ballistic Missile shield which it abandoned over 15 years ago.

Citing the 2020 Wilson Center report co-written by former NORAD chief Terrance O’Shaughnessy, and published by the Canada Institute, artificial intelligence programs (“SHIELD” and “Pathfinder”) are introduced as the key to the total overhaul of Canada-USA arctic strategy. O’Shaughnessy wrote of SHIELD that “It pools this data and fuses it into a common operational picture. Then, using the latest advances in machine learning and data analysis, it scans the data for patterns that are not visible to human eyes, helping decision-makers understand adversary potential courses of action before they are executed.”

Anyone who has read Cynthia Chung’s Dr. Strangelove’s Spoonbenders will quickly realize why using AI to pick up algorithms that would normally be missed by human analysts, and generate hair-trigger decisions to counter threats from Eurasia creates a mountain of trouble for humanity, as glitches and mis-readings of Russian/Chinese intentions can easily escalate unstoppably into a nuclear retaliation by deductive/inductive machine thinking.

Now at this point, many onlookers might make the mistake of brushing off these obvious plans for a revamped NORAD-NATO Arctic doctrine since Canada’s military is negligible, and it is merely a “middle power” that couldn’t possible do great damage anywhere.

It is to the person asking this question that this report was written.

The British Great Game Past and Present

The first factor which such a person must recognize is the nature of the British Empire as an efficient power structure dominating the world even today.

Anyone confused about this still-existing power structure need only read Eric Zuesse’ new report entitled ‘Further Proof that the U.S. and UK are One Empire’ where the author astutely writes:

“Although the “Special Relationship” between the United States and the United Kingdom was first announced by Winston Churchill at Fulton Missouri on 5 March 1946, in the company of an approving U.S. President Harry S. Truman, it was actually started by Cecil Rhodes in 1877 when he drew up his plan for England secretly to retake America and use it so as to preserve and expand Britain’s empire throughout the world, via the Rhodes Trust. Rhodes was the first person to think up a “U.S. empire,” but it was actually only as a tool for the preservation and extension of England’s existing empire. And Winston Churchill, as a young man at the start of the 20th Century, was an acolyte and friend of Rhodes, and was viewed by Rhodes as being one of his most promising young followers.”

The Post-WWII Order and the Rhodes Trust Origins of NATO

In the Post-WWII order, the important tendency for U.S.-Russian partnership which shaped the 1780 League of Armed Neutrality, Russia’s support for the union in 1863 and the U.S.-Russia friendship that made WWII a success was overthrown.

This historic friendship was directly targeted by forces loyal to the British Empire’s grand strategy for global Anglo-Saxon Dominance exemplified by Sir Winston Churchill’s unveiling of the Cold War during his March 5, 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton Missouri and the follow-up creation of NATO in 1949 as a military bloc which would operate independently of the UN Security Council.

An under-appreciated role in the formation of NATO and international dis-order more generally during these Cold War years is the British Deep State of Canada and due to the neglect of this fact, a few words should be said about this problem here and now.

While official narratives have tried to spin NATO’s origins as the effect of an agreement amongst all western powers, the fact is that British intelligence operations are the true source, with British-trained Rhodes Scholar Escott Reid laying out the thesis for a supranational military body outside of the influence of the UN Security Council as early as August 1947. It was another two years before the design would materialize as an anti-Soviet military coalition based on the binding agreement that if one member enters a conflict, then all members must so enter.

At a Round Table-directed Conference on August 13, 1947, Reid, an ardent globalist and co-founder of the Canadian branch of the London Fabian Society:

“recommended that the countries of the North Atlantic band together, under the leadership of the United States, to form ‘a new regional security organization’ to deter Soviet expansion.” He went on to state “In such an organization each member state could accept a binding obligation to pool the whole of its economic and military resources with those of the other members if any power should be found to have committed aggression against any one of the members.”

The name of the British Imperial game has always been “balance of power”. Manipulate society as a single closed system by monopolizing resources, and then manage the diminishing rates of return by creating conflict between potential allies. This process can be seen clearly today behind the conflicts manipulated in the South China Sea between China and Philippines, the Diaoyu-Senkaku Islands between China and Japan, wars for oil in the Middle East and the new tension being created in the Arctic. The opposing, typically “American System of Political Economy” has always disobeyed this game of “balancing a fixed system” by introducing creative change.

The American System on the other hand, has traditionally located its point of emphasis primarily upon creating new resources, through inventions and discoveries, rather than simply looting, consuming, and distributing what already exists. This system formulated by Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt proved that more energy could always be produced than was consumed IF discoveries and inventions were cultivated in a creatively developing society, shaped by concrete national intentions and bold visionary goals to increase the powers of production of society. The American System is thus understood as an open-system founded upon win-win cooperation while the British System is based on a closed-system worldview under a win-lose operating system where the elite managing nations from above dictate the wars, and diminishing rates of returns to a depopulated society.

Since the British system implies that the world resources are limited, then the stronger will necessarily have to loot the weaker… Hence, the system is also “zero-sum”.

Throughout the Cold War, Canada’s role as a “middle power” was defined most succinctly by Fabian Society asset Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who, when asked what his foreign policy was, explained simply: “to create counterweights”. That is, when the “geopolitical center of gravity” moves towards “capitalist America”, then Canada must move towards befriending “socialist” Russia and its allies. When the center of gravity moves towards a Russian edge within the Great Game, then do the opposite. Although the Cold War “officially” ended in 1991, the imperial Great Game never did, and Canada’s role as a British chess piece continues unabated to the present.

The future battleground which Canada is being prepared to set up is to be found in the Arctic.

The Strategy of the Arctic in History

The struggle for Arctic dominance is currently being defined by the rules of British geopolitics. The above map features the layout of the arctic with dotted lines defining areas still not under the control of any particular nation.

Today, the northern Arctic is among the last unexplored and undeveloped frontiers on the earth. With an area over 14 million square kilometers, this area is rich in a variety of mineral and gas deposits containing approximately 90 billion barrels of oil and 1670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. This abundance is complicated by the fact that its borders are highly undefined, overlapping eight major nations with Canada and Russia as the dominant claimants.

In recent history, American System methods were attempted in the opening up of the Arctic for mutual development and cooperation beginning with the sale of Alaska to America in 1867 by the “American system Czar” Alexander II to the allies of Abraham Lincoln. These same forces orchestrated the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway and heavily promoted the Bering Strait Rail tunnel connecting the two great continents which arose by the turn of the century. Early designs for the Russian-American rail connection were published in 1893 by Governor William Gilpin of Colorado which gained renewed support by the soon-to-be-deposed Czar Nicholas II in 1905. Russia again revived this project in 2011.

Throughout the 20th Century, Russia has developed a far greater aptitude at creating corridors of permanent habitation in the Arctic relative to their North American counterparts which are expanding at a fast pace under Putin’s Eastern vision and China’s Polar Silk Road. Due to the post WWII Cold War dynamic of tension, much that could have been accomplished, had resources not been so badly drained by Cold War militarization, was not.

The beacon of light during this Cold Dark process was to be found in Canada’s 13th Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, whose Northern Vision, unveiled in 1958, hinged upon his $78 million allocation for funds to construct a permanent domed nuclear-powered city in Frobisher Bay (now named Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut), as a test case for a greater nation building program in the Arctic. When Diefenbaker was run out of office in 1963 through a British-steered operation, his vision was scrapped, and a new Arctic doctrine was artificially imposed upon Canada.

False Polarizations Imposed onto Arctic Grand Strategy

This new imperial Arctic doctrine was modeled around the two (anti-nation building) measures of “conservation” of fixed ecosystems and indigenous cultures on the one side, and rapacious mineral exploitation for the increasingly deregulated “global markets” on the other. Canadian examples of this operation can be seen in the Munk School of Global Affairs, the World Wildlife Fund of Canada (whose 2^nd president was the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell), and their powerful affiliate, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, presided over by Pierre Trudeau’s former Principal Secretary Thomas Axworthy. Barack Gold Founder and CEO Peter Munk was one of hundreds of oil barons who acted as founding members of the 1001 Club which was created by Prince Bernhardt of the Netherlands and Prince Philip of England in order to fund the WWF in its early years. Other Canadian Deep State founding members of the 1001 Club included WWF Vice Presidents Maurice Strong and Louis Mortimer Bloomfield.

Axworthy is a major player in the Canada 2020 machine associated with the current Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau. The overlap of major banking institutions like the Royal Bank of Canada and Scotiabank with the mineral cartels, holding companies and environmental organizations in this structure produces a very real picture that the left and the right are merely two sides of the same imperial beast.

The role of the above interests in creating the Arctic Council in 1996 (and the later Circumpolar Business Forum) was designed to trap nations into an intellectual cage of resource exploitation under free market doctrines of zero national planning on the one side, with eco-systems management and zero national planning on the other. Now that the post-1971 world financial order is on the verge of collapse, these technocrats believe that a new replacement system will allow for national planning, but only on condition that it be directed by Malthusian technocrats and aimed at the goal of lowering the population potential of the planet. This agenda has come to be known as the Green New Deal in 2018 and since evolved into the Great Reset Agenda.

To re-emphasize: When observed from a top-down perspective, both the “left” eco-green movement and the “right” monetarist institutions are one single thing. It is only by foolishly looking at this process from the “bottom up” that apparent differences are perceived. This is just an illusion for the credulous victims of an imperial education system who have been taught to believe their sense perceptions more than their powers of reason. The reality is that this is nothing more than British Malthusian geopolitics.

Breaking Out of the Great Game

The fact is that while the Atlantic economies have currently submitted to the City of London- Wall Street and Troika demands for policies of depopulation, austerity and hyperinflation, Russia and China are committed to true development. Both countries are intent on creating a unified block of win-win cooperation based upon the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Eurasian Economic Union and BRICS and that intention is based on anti-Malthusian scientific and technological progress. The Belt and Road Initiative which now involves over 135 countries exemplifies this spirit.

The financial system of the trans-Atlantic is collapsing and it will be reset. The only question is, will it be reset by the open system agenda advocated by Russia and China or will it be the closed system unipolar agenda promoted by sociopathic Davos creatures?

If western societies should wish to have any claim to being morally fit to survive, then this is an optimistic power that we must re-awaken in ourselves fast. For it is only by acting on principles of scientific discovery and progress that a proper perspective can be discovered to overcome the current obstacles to our survival. That is, the discovery of what the future can and must become IF a creative change is introduced into the system.

The only pathway to avoiding the collapse of the financial system and a thermonuclear war is to be found in imposing Natural Law vigorously upon the claimed “debts” which Wall Street, and the City of London wishes to have bailed out. The expression of this Natural Law takes the form of the restoration of Glass-Steagall laws across the trans-Atlantic economies, eliminating the $1.5 quadrillion debt bomb before it explodes and returning to the principles of national banking for all countries. Under such a reform and by joining in common interest with other nations in the Eurasian zone, a commitment to progress and security can be realized, and such poisonous agendas as the Great Reset can be avoided.

Escaping the British two-sided trap of monetarism and ecologism means going to fusion energy, space exploration, and mining the moon for Helium-3 as China is already preparing to do. It means closing the fuel cycle, and scrapping low quality “green” energy boondoggles.

The applications of a forward-looking space age society using fusion power, involves not only rendering imperial wars for oil and water obsolete (as energy and water will be made both incommensurably cheap and abundant relative to the fossil fuel based system now defining society’s limits), but gives mankind the tools to green deserts, build great projects, create a system of Asteroid Defense and construct the long-overdue Bering Strait Tunnel, a key link in the World Land Bridge. These are the sorts of long term projects which not only remind us of our common self interests, but as JFK described the space program in 1962, create goals which “will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”.

Without this sort of “outside the box” thinking, it is safe to say that the current rules of the game now in place are set for total self-destruction.

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Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review. The author can be reached at [email protected]

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***

Letter to the President of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz,

Dear colleagues,

With greatest astonishment, with deepest concern, even bewilderment, I have taken note of the “7th ad hoc statement” of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina of 8.12.2020. In my opinion, this paper is not worthy of an honest, critical-balancing science oriented towards the service and welfare of human beings. I do not have medical expertise. However, as a scientist committed to nothing but the pure truth, I take the liberty of speaking out.

I feel very strongly alarmed by several points:

1. on 11/27/2020, a group of 22 internationally renowned experts submitted the following expert opinion on the PCR test, the linchpin of the “pandemic”, for the journal Eurosurveillance:

“External peer review of the RT-PCR test to detect SARS-CoV-2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results”.

Quote: “This highly questions the scientific validity of the test”. Furthermore, the serious remark: “serious conflicts of interest of the authors are not mentioned” (1).

2. The PCR test is the basis of the justification for declaring a “pandemic”, and RKI, politicians and the media announce the positive test results daily as so-called “new infections”. According to the 22 independent experts, the test contains “several scientific inadequacies, errors and flaws”. It is clearly stated:

“the test (is) unsuitable as a specific diagnostic tool to identify the SARS-CoV-2 virus and make inferences about the presence of an infection”.

Is it not obvious that there is an extremely serious problem here, which should actually shake the whole “pandemic”? I cannot understand why neither the Leopoldina nor other academies include this well-founded expert opinion and demand or initiate a further, thorough and scientifically clean clarification.

3. Based on this “pandemic”, which is based on at least a very questionable test, a worldwide vaccination campaign is now to be started on an unprecedented scale; and this with vaccines that have never been tested before and that have been developed at a

In unprecedented speed. In light of the first reported serious side effects and after warnings from renowned experts, it is clear that the completely novel RNA vaccines have been far from adequately tested, especially with regard to long-term effects. Why are the academies silent on such existential issues?

4. Problematic aspects of the Leopoldina statement are even named by Die Welt [German Newspaper] in a scathing analysis (2). Quote: “The damage done by the science functionaries is immense.“

Incidentally, there are currently several statements by medical practitioners that are diametrically opposed to the Leopoldina paper. For example, the Chairman of the Board of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, Prof. Gassen, expects that the hard lockdown now ordered will fail (3). The infectiologist Prof. Schrappe declares the entire lockdown policy a definite failure (4).

I had hoped that the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz, as an important sister organization of the National Academy of Sciences, would make a critical statement on the Leopoldina statement. Regrettably, this has not happened so far. Are not the academies the guardians of pure science and also of the freedom of the sciences ? Aren’t the venerable academies particularly challenged in a scientific landscape that is increasingly characterized by third-party funding and the massive influence of powerful lobby interests (e.g. the pharmaceutical industry)? Is it really the task of an academy such as the Leopoldina to fuel the scaremongering of the media and politics?

5. Where is the broad discourse that used to be customary, with a balanced assessment of the sometimes very contradictory statements by scientists and physicians from various disciplines, lawyers, psychologists, sociologists, economists and philosophers? Why is there no reaction from the academies when, in recent months, the voices of proven experts (often of international standing) who articulate an assessment that deviates from the one-size-fits-all narrative, indeed in some cases diametrically contradicts it, are repeatedly ignored, marginalized, even defamed, censored, and deleted from social media? Why no reaction of the academies, if the right to freedom of science and freedom of expression, which is guaranteed in the Basic Law, as well as other fundamental rights are trampled ? Has Germany learned nothing from history?

After the governments refer to this, from my point of view disastrous paper of the National Academy of Sciences when imposing a renewed “hard lockdown”, as well as because of the points listed above, I have decided, after careful consideration, to take the certainly unusual step of resigning from the Academy of Sciences in Mainz as an expression of my personal protest.

I cannot reconcile it with my conscience to be a part of this kind of science. I want to serve a science that is committed to fact-based honesty, balanced transparency, and comprehensive humanity.

For the attention of Prof. Dr. Burkhard Hillebrands (Vice President, Mathematical and Natural Sciences Class),

members of the Mathematical and Natural Sciences Class of the Mainz Academy of Sciences,

and Prof. Dr. Gerald Haug (President of the National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina).

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Notes

1 https://cormandrostenreview.com/…

2 https://www.welt.de/kultur/plus222264910/Angela-Merkel-und-das-Leopoldina-Desaster.html

3 https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/news/kassenaerzte-chef-harter-lockdown-wird-scheitern-li.126568

4 https://www.focus.de/gesundheit/news/matthias-schrappe-im-focus-online-interview-medizin-professor-lockdown-politik-ist-endgueltig-gescheitert-das-raecht-sich-bei-impfung_id_12780854.html

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***

A geopolitically changing event took place on February 11 when Athens hosted the Foreign Ministers of Cyprus, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq, as well as the Minister of State for International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates. The French Foreign Minister participated via video link. Their attendance, whether in Athens or via video link, was for the inauguration of the Philia Forum. Officially called the “Philia Forum – Building Friendship, Peace and Prosperity from the Mediterranean to the Gulf,” the name explicitly highlights the intentions of the forum – Philia, coming from the Greek word for friendship.

The forum was the brainchild of Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias, who since assuming his role in mid-2019, has been working tirelessly to change the international perception of Greece as an economical and geopolitical nuisance on the periphery of the European Union, to a geopolitical center that connects Europe, West Asia and North Africa together.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis opened the forum and explained that it is natural for Greece to establish this forum as it is positioned in the middle of two geographical arcs – a horizontal one from Portugal to the Persian Gulf, and a vertical one from the Balkans to Egypt which connects Europe with Africa. Emphasis on Greece’s geopolitical positioning was again made by Dendias, who said “Greece’s ambition is to be a bridge between the Eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf.”

The Greeks were the original Eurasian civilization. In fact, Greek civilization spanned three continents when we consider Greek colonies in Ancient Egypt and Libya. However, the modern Greek state, which celebrates its 200th anniversary of independence from the Ottoman Empire on March 25, lays entirely within the European continent. Being reduced to the bounds of Europe and thanks to Russia, France and Britain for their contributions to the War of Independence, Greece has always looked westwards rather than towards their ancient civilizational connections in the east. This was especially consolidated in 1952 when U.S.-backed Nazi-collaborators forced Greece into NATO.

Under Dendias though, the prevalence of Greece’s westward pivot is finally being balanced out by an equal eastward focus. Previous to Dendias, Greek diplomacy and attitude was one of inferiority to their Turkish neighbors – one that believed Greece could not compete with Ankara because Turkey controls the Dardanelle and Bosporus Straits, has land borders with Europe, the Caucasus and West Asia, and has access to the Aegean, Black and Mediterranean Seas. This certainly gives Turkey a geopolitical advantage that it leverages to make demands against the Great Powers.

However, NATO’s reliance on Turkey against Russia has been significantly reduced as the Alliance now also has access to the Black Sea via Bulgaria and Romania, direct borders with Russia via Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, and can block the Dardanelle Straits via the Alexandroupolis Port in northern Greece. NATO’s reduced reliance on Turkey is coupled with the country’s growing isolation from its neighbors and the Great Powers as it continues to antagonize states through unlawful and unilateral actions in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Cyprus, the Caucasus and the East Mediterranean.

Through these antagonizations, Turkey has a host of adversaries, especially in the Arab World. It is no surprise that Greece has now created a Forum, where it emphasises its newfound confidence and strategic location, to include France, Cyprus and the Arab countries that have issues with Turkey.

“What unites us all today is the condemnation of illegal acts and the condemnation of irrational acts that undermine peace and security,” Dendias said at the forum, adding “Our goal is to create a bulwark against threats, violence, extremism, intolerance and distortion of religion.”

This again is in clear reference to Turkey’s destabilization across the region and its utilization of Political Islam to work towards its ambitions. After highlighting Turkey’s destabilizing actions, Dendias said “the Philia Forum on the other hand is the background for the creation of synergies in various fields, such as the economy, energy, transport, tourism, culture, education, civil protection and dialogue between religions.”

Most importantly, in preparation of changing Greece’s global image as a near bankrupt peripheral and unimportant European Union member, Dendias has prioritized engaging all the Great Powers, not just the U.S., in a positive manner. Whereas the West is consumed by Russophobia and Sinophobia, Dendias opened the path to mend relations with Russia, something Moscow has recognized by acknowledging openly why Athens cannot veto European Union sanctions but can still maintain positive relations, and by announcing 2021 to be the year of Greek-Chinese Culture and Tourism. In addition, Dendias was to be the first Greek Foreign Minister to meet an Indian counterpart since 2003. The COVID-19 pandemic put the meeting on hold, but Dendias emphasized last month that “it is a fact that on many issues of international interest, our positions are identical with those of India.”

Through the Philia Forum, Greece is also prioritizing its relations with France and the Arab World. Greece is already acquiring the powerful Rafale fighter jets from France and will likely procure the French-made Belharra frigates. However, it is with the Arab World where Dendias’ work has been most impressive, signing a mutual defense clause with the UAE, the first such agreement Greece has outside of NATO and Cyprus, and building military, economic and diplomatic relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq.

Through the Philia Forum, Greece is advertising itself as the geopolitical center that connects West Asia, North Africa and Europe together, thus sidelining Turkey’s traditional role as this meeting point. Greece will certainly remain a NATO and European Union member, and will continue to build its relations with Washington, but it appears that it has taken a much more realistic approach, rather than liberal, to international relations. As part of this newfound confidence, Greece will no longer be bound by the interests of Washington and Brussels, but pursue multipolar policies to its own advantage that includes balancing its relations with the Great Powers and building strong ties with countries to its east. The Philia Forum is the first major step towards not only increasing Greece’s importance in the regional chessboard, but a player that can no longer be ignored.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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“There isn’t one grain of anything in the world that is sold in a free market. Not one! The only place you see a free market is in the speeches of politicians. People who are not in the Midwest do not understand that this [the US] is a socialist country”
(Dwayne Andreas, former CEO of Archer Daniels Midland(1))

Monopoly and Oligopoly: ‘The Invisible Hand of the Market’ is Nonsense

A market is where people who have things to sell meet up with people who want to buy. We are all familiar with the local markets where small traders set up their stalls, but the term also applies on a worldwide scale, so there are global markets, such as the market for oil, or the market for coffee. The theory of markets assumes that sellers will vary their prices in order to try to make the most profit, but at the same time buyers can shop around to find the lowest prices. If one seller is making excessive profits, another seller will step in and sell more cheaply, so competition between sellers stops profits from becoming too big. All sellers are forced to become more ‘efficient’, otherwise they will go out of business. If there are lots of buyers and lots of sellers then all buyers can get a low price. This is known as competitive markets, or ‘the invisible hand’ of the marketplace. Mainstream economists suggest that this ‘invisible hand’ is the best way for economies to operate.

There are lots of problems with this theory, but the main one is that whilst it sounds good in a textbook, it has little relevance to the real world. The theory only works if it is applied to large numbers of small businesses. It assumes that no business has too much power. But in the real world, many industries are now dominated by a single dominant company, such as Google (known as monopoly), or a handful of big players (known as oligopoly).(2) These big companies are able to limit competition to make excess profits. For example, in Britain and the US, there are only a small number of major banks, and a small number of dominant supermarkets.(3) The same is true in much of the rest of the world. Oligopoly is often true with international trade.

Sometimes small groups of dominant companies will illegally collaborate to fix prices.(4) This is called a cartel. A notorious example of this was the seven largest oil corporations, known as the Seven Sisters oil cartel.(5) They met in Scotland in 1928 to agree to stop competing against each other. They fixed prices and partitioned the world’s oil supplies, guaranteeing huge profits for themselves. This type of price-fixing is much more widespread than most people realise.

The global trading system today also has extra layers of powerful middlemen who control much of the buying and selling. The prices of tobacco, coffee, bananas and many other basic foods are manipulated by small numbers of big buyers, who again make sure that there is only limited competition between them.(6) If they work together to control prices then they are able to overcharge customers and pay less to suppliers, thus making excess profits at the expense of everyone else. The prices paid to growers in poor countries often bear no relationship to the prices paid by consumers in rich countries.

Senior executives of big companies claim publicly to be in favor of competitive arrangements of markets and trade, but in practice they try to develop the monopoly or oligopoly arrangements that are intended to avoid competition, and they bribe governments to assist and protect them. These are important parts of ‘really existing capitalism’.

Wealth equals Power

Unlike democracy, which is one person = one vote, a market system is one pound or one  dollar = one vote. In other words, money gives people economic power. If we lived in a society where everyone was reasonably wealthy and approximately equal, then it might be possible to make an argument that market-based systems could work. However, we live in a society where most people are not rich, and there is great inequality. Markets take no account of the unequal distribution of wealth that already exists. Under these circumstances, market-based systems always give an advantage to those who are already wealthy and powerful.

How Adam Smith Has Been Misrepresented to Create propaganda

Supporters of ‘free’ markets use the word ‘free’ to mean free from government interference. They often quote the economist and philosopher, Adam Smith, who wrote about the ‘invisible hand of the market’ creating good outcomes for society. However, his writing has been deliberately distorted to turn it into propaganda. Smith used the word ‘free’ to mean something completely different. He meant free from big companies and wealthy landowners with too much power, who could make unearned profits (these are sometimes called economic rents, or ‘free lunches’.) Smith was all in favour of governments interfering to stop companies gaining that power, and to stop them making excessive profits.(7)

Markets might work for haircuts, but cannot be relied upon for essentials

If a market is structured correctly and properly regulated, then it might work reasonably well for some things, such as hair-cuts or restaurant meals. In general, things that are not considered essential, where new businesses can be set up fairly easily, and no business dominates the industry.

When there is a shortage of something, the price will usually rise, so the rich can always buy whatever they want, but the poor are not able to afford things. If computer consoles are too expensive, some people go without. This creates lots of unhappy children but no one dies. If food is too expensive, people starve. When we see a famine on TV, it is rarely because there is a shortage of food in the world. It is because people in some places cannot afford to buy food.(8) In the US, millions of poor people cannot afford healthcare. It is widely recognised that markets and private companies cannot be relied upon to provide essentials for the poorest people.

Externalities – Corporations do not pay their true costs

There is one particular area where even free-market supporters recognise that markets don’t work. This is called externalities, where corporations do not pay the full costs of their activities.(9) At the moment, corporations do not pay for the depletion of natural resources, such as fishing stocks, freshwater, forests, and soil, all of which play an important role in life on Earth. They do not pay for causing global warming, or for other forms of pollution, such as plastics in the ocean. They do not pay for the ill health of employees, or the health consequences of people in developing countries who are affected by corporate activities such as mining. They do not pay for bank bail-outs when the financial system fails. Different groups of companies pursue different activities that create huge externalities, such as ill health being caused by tobacco companies, or cities becoming ghost-towns when factories relocate abroad. Some corporate activity poses a risk that the whole financial system could collapse, or that large numbers of animal species will be lost. However, these tend to be ignored because economists have no way of calculating them and incorporating them into their mathematical models.

Most economics textbooks give the impression that externalities are a trivial issue, but in the real world they have huge impacts on many people. Research in 2010 suggested that externalities add up to at least $2trillion each year(10) but externalities like global warming or the destruction of ecosystems are many times greater than this. They are so big that they swamp everything else. In reality, the cost is so great that it cannot be calculated.

One of the best writers on the subject, Jonathan Cook, has explained that the profit motive actually encourages companies to offload costs onto others in order to make profit. The more externalities they can offload, the more profit they make. “Externalities are not incidental to the way capitalist economies run. They are integral to them.”(11)

The Myth That Big Companies ‘Earn’ their profits – Private profits for the few at the expense of the many

Executives and shareholders of private companies are aware that they would make much less profit, or none at all, without government subsidies and bailouts, and without society paying so many of their costs. This is known as privatising profits while socialising costs(12) and is one reason why great wealth ends up in the pockets of a small number of people. This raises the obvious question:

Why should companies make huge profits, and why should executives and shareholders be entitled to enormous payments, when they receive so much help from the government, and when they offload huge costs onto the rest of society?

In fact there is no real justification. The system has simply become a mechanism to allow the rich and powerful to extract wealth from society. The profit motive is now specifically about pursuing inequality, as the aim is to pay more to shareholders and executives by exploiting everybody, and everything, else.

Wealth Extraction – ‘The Market’ is code for Privatisation and De-regulation

If markets worked as textbooks say they do, no business could make big profits, and executives and shareholders would find it almost impossible to become excessively rich. Academics and journalists interpret ‘markets’ to mean ‘competition’, but they forget that when we have big, dominant companies, competition will usually end up with those dominant companies being successful, earning excess profits, and enabling executives and shareholders to extract excess wealth. People sometimes use the phrase ‘market failure’, as if we should be able to make slight changes to get competition to work, but this is unlikely when big companies can manipulate the rules in their favour.

The mainstream media’s use of the term ‘free markets’ is propaganda. It has become code for ‘less regulation by governments’ (de-regulation or liberalisation) and persuading governments to allow businesses to make excess profits by controlling more of our societies (privatisation). It is not about good outcomes for society, or the ‘best’ economic system. The success of this propaganda about markets has led to what is known as a ‘market society’, where more and more aspects of our daily lives are re-structured to allow powerful people to extract more wealth.

 

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This article was first posted at medium.com/elephantsintheroom

Rod Driver is a part-time academic who is particularly interested in de-bunking modern-day US and British propaganda, and explaining war, terrorism, economics and poverty, without the nonsense in the mainstream media. 

Notes

1) Dan Carney, ‘Dwayne’s World’, Mother Jones, July/August 1995, at https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1995/07/dwaynes-world/

2) Joseph Stiglitz, ‘America has a monopoly problem – and it’s huge’, The Nation, 23 Oct 2017, at
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/america-has-a-monopoly-problem-and-its-huge/

3) Jonathan Ford, ‘Watchdog needs to check out merits of supermarket merger’, Financial Times, 29 April 2018, at https://www.ft.com/content/d643b1ca-4b8e-11e8-97e4-13afc22d86d4

4) Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, The Trouble with Billionaires, p.48

5) Daniel Yergin, The Prize, p.503

6) Oxfam, ‘Mugged: Poverty in your coffee cup’, 2002, at https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-us/www/static/oa3/files/mugged-full-report.pdf

7) Jesse Norman, ‘How Adam Smith would fix capitalism’, 22 June 2018, at https://www.ft.com/content/6795a1a0-7476-11e8-b6ad-3823e4384287

8) Amartya Sen, Development As Freedom

9) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

10) Juliette Jowett, ‘World’s top firms cause $2.2tn of environmental damage, report estimates’, Guardian, 18 Feb 2010, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage

11) Jonathan Cook, ‘Capitalism is double-billing us: We pay from our wallets only for our future to be stolen from us’, 25 Oct 2020, at https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2020-10-25/capitalism-double-billing/

12) David Rosen, ‘Socialize costs, Privatize Profits’, 1 March 2013, at https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/01/socialize-costs-privatize-profits/

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Wir begehen kollektiv Selbstmord aus Angst vor dem Tod. Die Corona-Maßnahmen dienen vorgeblich dazu, Leben zu schützen. Doch haben diese Regierungsbeschlüsse die Menschen mittlerweile auf ihre nackte Existenz reduziert und jede Lebendigkeit aus ihrem Dasein vertrieben. Die Folge ist, dass die ersten Kinder dieses Leben gar nicht mehr wollen. Es ist für sie schlicht nicht mehr lebenswert. Junge Menschen repräsentieren normalerweise Neugier und unverbrauchte Kraft. Erlahmt ihre Vitalität schon so bald nach der Geburt, müsste dies für uns ein Alarmsignal ersten Ranges sein. Spätestens jetzt müsste eine Gesellschaft so laut aufschreien, dass es uns die Masken vom Gesicht bläst.

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Montreal-based publisher Robin Philpot joins the program to discuss two subjects:

• America’s new favourite freedom-fighter Navalny
• another journalist speaking out about Kagame’s crimes.

With regard to the latter, Philpot praises Nathalie Blaquiere for adding her voice to that of Judi Rever in demanding the truth be told in Canadian media.

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Instead of explaining the dire state of things in the US, West and elsewhere — Main Street economies in collapse — establishment media pretend otherwise.

One example among many was from the NYT in late January, saying:

“(N)ew injections of government aid into the economy and of vaccines into people’s arms should power a much stronger recovery in 2021 (sic).”

Reality in the US and elsewhere is worlds apart from the above rosy scenario.

Paul Craig Roberts asked if a US economy still exists — no longer, he stressed for clear reasons.

He lists a menu of them, including the offshoring of industrial America — millions of high-pay, good benefits jobs and investments gone to low-wage countries.

What remains for most working Americans at a time of high unemployment are largely low-pay service jobs with few or no benefits.

In 1962, I was a marketing analyst for J&L Steel in Pittsburgh when industrial America thrived.

What I recall no longer exists, the company sold to LTV Corp., its area buildings and facilities dismantled.

Today the city is part of the nation’s rust belt. Countless numbers of industrial jobs in the area and elsewhere nationwide no longer exist.

What benefits privileged interests came at the expense of ordinary Americans.

The nation’s super-rich never had things better while most Americans suffer during the nation’s most severe ever Main Street Depression with no end of it in prospect.

The state of Main Street America is dismal at a time when poverty is its new growth industry.

Over one-fourth of working-age Americans are jobless while equity valuations are at or near all-time highs.

The disconnect is unprecedented. The world’s long ago leading industrial powerhouse was thirdworldized to its current state.

For the 47th straight week, around a million or more jobless Americans filed claims for unemployment insurance — 1.1 million in the latest reporting period.

Virtually no US jobs-creation programs exist when they’re most needed.

Nothing before in US history matches the severity of what’s ongoing for ordinary Americans and small businesses.

Distorted official data mask how bad things really are.

According to a new Fed report, around nine million US small businesses may shut down permanently this year without government help to continue operating.

Along Chicago’s upscale Magnificent Mile shopping district, stores are sparsely trafficked, some closing down altogether for lack of enough revenue to keep operating.

Last month, the Chicago Tribune reported that area’s landmark Water Tower Place (WTP) shopping mall faces its greatest challenge since opening a near-half century ago.

Anchor store Macy’s is closing, everything on sale at deep discounts.

When shuttered, nearly 324,000 square feet of shopping space will be empty with little near-term prospect of attracting new tenants.

Other WTP shops and restaurants closed. The same goes for area stores along the avenue — some with closeout sale signs of the times displayed.

According to the Tribune, “the health of Chicago’s premier commercial street” is jeopardized.

Stone Real Estate head David Stone noted that the once “seemingly invincible” Magnificent Mile shopping district lost its status to the economy’s dismal state.

Since WTP opened in 1975 with great fanfare, I and my family patronized some of its stores from inception.

Now it’s in danger closing if things don’t improve — along with other shops along the avenue.

At the time of the Tribune’s report, it said “(e)ach floor at Water Tower Place had just a handful of shoppers walking around…and at many stores, employees outnumbered customers.”

Will that be WTP’s epitaph one day, the same true for millions of retail and other US small businesses ahead?

Since Apple relocated its Magnificent Mile store to a new location along the Chicago River several years ago, the other building remains vacant.

The current conventional retail environment in the US was never more challenging than now with little prospect for improvement any time soon.

The same is true for millions of other US small business. Many shut down permanently, many more likely to follow this year.

Because of Depression-level unemployment, millions of US renters lack income to pay landlords.

They’re hard-pressed for enough revenue to pay expenses.

When rent moratoriums end, millions of US households will be at risk of eviction with nowhere to go.

According to Pew Research, around one-fourth of US households struggle to pay for food, rent, medical expenses, and other essentials.

For countless millions of Americans and others hard hit by economic collapse since last year, what’s ongoing may be prelude for much harder times ahead.

If dark forces behind the diabolical Great Reset aren’t challenged, the worst of dystopia may permanently replace what I remember as an adolescent, youth and young adult.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

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“Love is Dead” is the title of British singer-songwriter Brett Anderson’s first single released on 19 March 2007 with the following lyrics:

Nothing ever goes right

Nothing really flows in my life

No one really cares if no one ever shares my care

People push by with fear in their eyes in my life

Love is dead, love is dead

The telephone rings, but no one ever thinks to speak to me

The traffic speeds by, but no one’s ever stopped too late

Intelligent friends don’t care in the end, believe me

Love is dead, love is dead

And plastic people with imaginary smiles

Exchanging secrets at the back of their minds

Plastic people

Plastic people

Nothing ever goes right

Nothing really flows in my life

No one really cares if this horror’s inside my head

People push by with fear in their eyes in my life

Love is dead, love is dead

Love is dead, love is dead

Love is dead, love is dead

And all the lies that you’ve given us

And all the things that you said

And all the lies that you’ve given us…

Blow like wind in my head

“Love is dead” may only be taken meaningfully if viewed in a context. As a description of a particular event, we may utter it in reference to a specific relationship that has lost its original state of deep intimacy. The statement, therefore, refers and points to a concrete circumstance of actual human experience; something whose real occurrence is not special or unique but commonplace in a variety of conditions. It points to the fact that there is nothing persistently eternal in love. Love comes and goes; it appears and disappears. Its magic shines at one point and loses its brilliance at another. There is nothing permanent and immortal in love. But again, lest we lose track of our reference point, the context is particular–or more accurately, specific–experience and not general, much less universal.

The death of love in one particular experience does not accurately sustain the idea that love is dead as a matter of generalization for reality proves otherwise. Such is a clear case of hasty generalization that only feeds emotional exaggeration. There could be thousands of instances where we could consistently say that love has already died in the personal lives of diverse individual persons, but love remains alive and kicking in thousands of other people’s lives. As long as there are lovers, love cannot die in the experiences of these people. And in this connection, even if we stretch the scope of signification to the universal degree, love as such will never die.

In fact, even when a partner in a relationship bound by deep love as in the case of two lovers–they could be husband and wife–has already passed on (read: died), the love of the living partner for the former lingers and lives on within the lifetime of the latter. This is, therefore, an affirmation that in certain cases, love seems undying. And what could be the problem if we call this “true love”? Nothing at all, for true love is the love that never dies.

God may die as the German philologist Friedrich Nietzsche figuratively puts it in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra (in the original German: Also Sprach Zarathustra) while advancing the notion that in reality, there is no God at all since such is just a product of human conceptualization. But such formulation never applies to love since it is above and beyond a concept. In fact, the Austrian-Jewish Hasidic philosopher Martin Buber situates it in a more noteworthy location in his I-Thou (in the original German: Ich-Du) by describing love as “a relationship-between” and not “an experience-within”. Buber asserts:

“Love is the responsibility of an I for a You: in this consists what cannot consist in any feeling – the equality of all lovers. . . .”

Perhaps, appropriating the Buberian contextual configuration would lead us to infer that, on the one hand, “experiential love” which generally depends on an emotional platform as a matter of subjective feeling is the kind of love that could possibly meet its death. On the other hand, “relational love” which draws its strength equally from the energies of individual persons in love with each other is the kind of love that never dies. This notion is likewise echoed in the Lebanese philosopher Kahlil Gibran’s words “On Love” in his monumental opus, The Prophet:

Love gives naught [nothing] but itself

and takes naught[nothing] but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

In the final analysis, we could truly say that for some individuals, love is really dead, but lovers come and go every now and then without losing their sense of love and this assures us that by and large, love is always alive.

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Prof. Ruel F. Pepa is a Filipino philosopher based in Madrid, Spain. A retired academic (Associate Professor IV), he taught Philosophy and Social Sciences at Trinity University of Asia, an Anglican university in the Philippines. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia Pacific Research.

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Associate Professor of Health Sciences Adam MacNeil at Brock University, Canada and his PhD student Jeremia Coish were among the earliest to warn, last June, of the dangers of not looking very carefully at the possibility that vaccines might trigger antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) of disease. This could mean that people who are vaccinated might, paradoxically, suffer more severe disease when exposed to the wild virus than if they hadn’t been vaccinated.

In their aptly titled article, “Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Due diligence warranted for ADE in COVID-19,” published in the journal Microbes and Infection in June 2020, they argue that ADE is well known to be a risk for coronavirus-mediated infections, as well as dengue. For those not already familiar with ADE, it is the paradoxical immune response that makes a person who was previously exposed to the disease, or a vaccine targeting it, more – not less – susceptible in the event that they’re subsequently infected.

Proceed with caution

Seemingly countering this view, in August 2020, was viral epidemiologist Leah Katzelnick PhD, a dengue and zika specialist now in the employ of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) headed by Dr Tony Fauci. Along with co-author Scott Halstead, Dr Katzelnick argued that ADE shouldn’t be something to be feared. Katzelnick and Halstead proposed that the fundamental differences between SARS-CoV-2 infection that can cause covid-19 and other diseases, for which ADE has been shown, meant that ADE would be highly unlikely. They supported their arguments with evidence from cases of classic, intrinsic ADE, notably infectious peritonitis (FIP), a coronavirus infection in cats, as well as from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), dengue and SARS – suggesting significant differences in the pathology, epidemiology and immune responses involved in these diseases as compared with covid and SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Careful readers of Halstead and Katzelnick’s paper will note that while the authors largely dismiss the ADE risk, they very clearly identify a risk of vaccine hypersensitivity (or VAH), a closely related immunological hyper-reaction that was first identified in the late 1960s when children developed atypical measles following measles vaccination. Many who’ve used the paper to dismiss ADE risks may only have read the title and abstract and not picked up that Katzelnick and Halstead dismiss only intrinsic ADE or iADE (i.e. the risk of disease enhancement on re-infection in the absence of vaccination). They also may not have read the sombre advisory in the paper’s last sentence: “Given the magnitude of the repertoire of COVID-19 problems and the need for an effective vaccine, the full force of worldwide investigative resources should be directed at unravelling the pathogenesis of VAH.”

There is not much to suggest that this advisory has been heeded, other than the fact that thousands of volunteers have been put through Phase 3 trials and there has been no evidence of spikes in more severe reactions among those vaccinated with the real thing, as opposed to the placebo.

Herbert Virgin, Ann Arvin and colleagues, writing in Nature, one of the most influential journals in the world, made a not dissimilar call for caution back in July.  These authors discuss the great difficulties in identifying the incidence and frequency of ADE (and VAH) and suggest that “…it will be essential to depend on careful analysis of safety in humans as immune interventions for COVID-19 move forward”.

Transparency is key

This requires full transparency of surveillance data so that cases of infection and re-infection post-vaccination can be correlated against severe reactions following infection or vaccination. It also requires time – much more time than we’ve had so far.

Presently, data released by VAERS in the US and the MHRA in the UK don’t come close to telling us anything about the ADE or VAH risk. In fact, there will have to be a lot more re-infection before we know conclusively one way or another. And will we be able to find out if there are genuine issues with ADE or VAH, or will the authorities manage to keep a lid on it by just not communicating them given many reactions will be substantially delayed following vaccination?

Timothy Cardozo from New York University and Ronald Veazy from Tulane University took it a step further in their article in the International Journal of Clinical Practice published in October, when Phase 3 trials for the covid frontrunner vaccines were in full swing. They argued not only that vaccine-mediated ADE (i.e. VAH) risks were more than just theoretical, they also suggest that the risks may be greater following particular types of mutations in the circulating viruses.

In their discussion on SARS-CoV-2, they discuss how very tiny changes, such as changes in the conformity (shape) of its spike protein both before and after fusion with host cells, via ACE2 receptors might impact those who’ve been vaccinated. Several months on with emerging evidence that some variants are able to evade the immune response that has been trained to offer protection against the original Wuhan variants, there is cause for even greater concern. This risk also can’t be dismissed on the basis of the results of the Phase 3 trials.

What Drs Cardozo and Veazy also suggest is another point we’ve long been concerned about. That relates to the fact that trial subjects – let alone members of the public who’re now lining up for covid vaccines – are just not being informed of these potential risks, and the delayed nature of possible ADE/VAH reactions. What about vaccinees who become ill several months after being vaccinated, suffering the classic range of symptoms associated with many respiratory diseases (including covid), such as fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, headache, fatigue, and so on? Will they know that these symptoms might be related to enhanced covid disease mediated by the vaccination given to them months before, something that didn’t occur to them because they thought the vaccine gave them protection from covid?

Cardozo and Veazy then show how informed consent forms for volunteer subjects in vaccine trials fail to meet the required ethical standards for informed consent. While ADE is mentioned, it is generally added at the end of the list of possible risks and its implications and identification are unlikely to be adequately understood by the lay public.

With a tick in the box and a sense from regulators and vaccine makers that they’ve successfully negotiated the hurdle of ADE/VAH risks, there’s been no further discussion of the issue. The vast majority of pre-vaccinees lining up as part of the global mass vaccination roll out simply have no idea of the risk – because they’re not being told.

Could ADE be a ticking time bomb?

Does non-disclosure as part of the informed consent process constitute not only a breach of medical ethics, but also a breach of law? In our view, that’s highly likely and should evidence accrue in the future, this will be something the courts will need to grapple with.

Presently there is no evidence of any significant ADE/VAH signal – but it is too early to tell and many cases could have gone undetected.

Is it possible that some instances of ‘long covid’ could be a form of ADE? This is a possibility we have been considering. Typically people who get long covid don’t test as positive from nasopharyngeal swab tests. But in deep seated systemic infections the mucosa may no show evidence of viral multiplication, whereas the infection may become systemic in certain tissues and be enhanced. This possibility cannot easily be dismissed.

Could the problem increase with new variants of SARS-CoV-2? Yes, as explained above.

What you can do

1. Anyone who is deciding to have the vaccine should inform themselves of the ADE and VAH risk, where there could be a considerable delay between vaccination and the experience of disease symptoms that may be more severe than those that would occur without the vaccine.
2. Let those you know who are considering or planning to have the covid vaccine of this risk. Read and share our article, “Informed consent – is this fundamental right being respected?”
3. Share this article widely.

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As US senator and vice president for nearly half a century, Biden supported US aggression against invented enemies.

He partnered with Obama’s preemptive wars on nonbelligerent Libya and Syria, continued inherited wars on Afghanistan and Yemen.

Their troop drawdown from Iraq was head fake deception. The country remains occupied by unwelcome Pentagon forces.

Along with orchestrated coups in Honduras, Paraguay and Brazil, they replaced democracy in Ukraine with Nazi-infested fascist tyranny.

They supported multiple Israeli wars on Occupied Palestine, along with war by other means on nations free from US control.

As selected, not elected, president, Biden’s geopolitical team is stacked with hawks.

Are plans afoot for escalated warmaking ahead?

Was pledging “to bring a responsible end to wars that have dragged on for far too long” polar opposite of what his hardline geopolitical team intend?

Was saying he’ll “ensure that terrorist threats cannot endanger the security of the American people” code language for continuation of Washington’s permanent war on humanity?

In mid-March, US aggression in Syria will enter its 11th year.

Instead of ending America’s fourth longest war in modern times — after Afghanistan, Yemen and Southeast Asia — Biden appears intending to escalate it on the phony pretext of combatting ISIS (again).

Unexplained is that the US created and supports the terrorist group and likeminded ones.

Their jihadists are used as proxy fighters where deployed by the Pentagon and CIA.

They’re recruited, armed, funded, trained, directed, and used to advance US imperial interests in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries.

On Wednesday, Iran’s judiciary head Ebrahim Raeisi said the Biden/Harris regime is relocating and “strengthening Daesh (ISIS) in terms of weapons, logistics, intelligence, and other aspects,” adding:

“While Iraq, Syria, Iran and regional countries are working together to eliminate the remnants of Daesh, the Americans do nothing but relocate the Daesh terrorists in the region” to continue pursuit of their hegemonic aims.

After withdrawing from Iraq in 2011, US forces were redeployed to the country on the phony pretext of combatting ISIS.

Belying Biden’s message about turning a page for peace by ending ongoing US wars, Southfront reported the following:

The US “is returning to a level of activity in the Middle East unseen in nearly 4 years.”

Instead of withdrawing US forces from Syria, a buildup of larger numbers is underway.

On Monday, the Pentagon said its mission in the country is once again combatting ISIS (sic).

The announcement came after the terrorist group’s force strength in the country was increased by its US handlers — a convenient pretext for escalating war in Syria instead of ending it once and for all.

Southfront noted “a massive shift in posture (by) the US,” terrorist infested Idlib province the main battleground in Syria.

Building up ISIS forces in Syria and elsewhere assures continued wars and no US regional withdrawal.

Are things on the cusp of escalated US war in Syria and perhaps elsewhere?

Last week, AMN News reported that Syrian forces were engaged in “fierce battles” with ISIS in central parts of the country.

Around the same time, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported the following:

Israel carried out “air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan with bursts of air-to-surface and ground-to-ground missiles, targeting some sites in the southern region.”

Since early January, Israel terror-bombed Syria a number of times, “including a massive attack on the eastern governorate of Deir Ezzor near the Iraqi border.”

It’s part of undeclared Jewish state war on Syria, missiles and rockets most often fired from Lebanese airspace and Occupied Golan.

In late January after Biden replaced Trump, AMN News said southern Syria experienced an increased “wave of violence” by US proxy fighters.

“(A)ttempts to ease the tensions in southern Syria have failed thus far…”

According to the Biden regime’s State Department:

The US “supports the UN-facilitated, Syrian-led process mandated by UNSCR 2254 (sic).”

“There is no military solution to the Syrian conflict (sic).”

Hardliners surrounding Biden falsely blame Syria, Russia and Iran for US aggression with no end of it in prospect ahead under Biden.

Claiming that Washington is committed to defeating ISIS is belied by its actions in support of the terrorist group and likeminded ones.

Deceptively claiming that the US “is the largest single donor to the humanitarian response in Syria” ignores so-called Caesar Syria Civilian Protection legislation (Caesar Act).

Signed by Trump in December 2019, implemented last June, the draconian measure has nothing to do with protecting Syrian civilians.

It’s all about wanting them starved into submission to Washington’s imperial aims.

In stark contrast to claims about providing vital humanitarian aid to long-suffering Syrians, the measure threatens US sanctions on nations, entities and individuals that help the Syrian Arab Republic and its people.

Endless war on the country continues under Biden.

Based on what’s discussed above, things appear heading for escalating US aggression instead of steps to end it altogether.

*

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.

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

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at [email protected].

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

“How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

“Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity”

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

Featured image: Biden was sworn into office by Associate Justice John Paul Stevens on January 20, 2009. (Public Domain)

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