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Leading epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford University estimates that about 150-300 million or more people have already been infected by COVID-19 around the world, far more than the 10 million documented cases.

In an interview with Greek Reporter, the Greek American scientist warns, however, that the draconian lockdowns imposed in many countries may have the opposite effect of what was intended. “Globally, the lockdown measures have increased the number of people at risk of starvation to 1.1 billion, and they are putting at risk millions of lives,” he says.

It was just three months ago, soon after the onset of the coronavirus outbreak in the US, when Dr. Ioannidis wrote an article for the journal STAT excoriating the US and other countries for not conducting enough testing, and deploring how little real evidence there was of true infection rates, which he feared might soar and create widespread societal unrest.

Now, after the world has experienced approximately 490,000 deaths from the virus, Greek Reporter contacted Dr. Ioannidis to ask the professor for his opinion on several points he made in his March 17th article, and what he has observed in the fight against the virus as it has progressed around the globe.

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Greek Reporter: You stated at that time, when everything seemed so very uncertain, that the evidence at that point for the number of actual infections was “utterly unreliable” and that the “vast majority” of infections were being missed. How do you think the US and other countries have progressed since then in pinning down the actual numbers of those suffering from the virus? You had said at that time “no countries have reliable data on the prevalence of the virus in a representative, random sample of the general population.” Do you still believe that is true? Which countries have performed the best in this regard?

Dr. Ioannidis:  We have learned a lot within a short period of time about the prevalence of the infection worldwide. There are already more than 50 studies that have presented results on how many people in different countries and locations have developed antibodies to the virus. These numbers are anywhere between 5 times (e.g. Gangelt in Germany) and 600 times (e.g. Japan) more compared to the documented cases, depending on whether a lot or limited testing was already performed in different locations. We know that the prevalence of the infection varies tremendously across countries, but also within countries, within states, and even within population groups in the same location. COVID-19 attacks some disadvantaged and deprived communities (harder), and disadvantage and deprivation means different things in different countries. Of course none of these studies are perfect, but cumulatively they provide useful composite evidence. A very crude estimate might suggest that about 150-300 million or more people have already been infected around the world, far more than the 10 million documented cases. It could even be substantially larger, if antibodies do not develop in a large share of people who get through the infection without symptoms or sparse symptoms.

Greek Reporter: What about the 3.4 % death rate projected by the WHO at that time? What do you think it truly is at this point? At the time you had said that the population-wide Covid-19 case fatality rate of .05% was lower than that of influenza. Earlier you had also said that “reasonable estimates for the case fatality ratio for the general population vary from .05% to 1%.” (This seemed to be based on the rather small example of the Diamond Princess cruise outbreak, but that was basically all you had to work from at that point.)

Dr. Ioannidis: 0.05% to 1% is a reasonable range for what the data tell us now for the infection fatality rate, with a median of about 0.25%. The death rate in a given country depends a lot on the age-structure, who are the people infected, and how they are managed. For people younger than 45, the infection fatality rate is almost 0%. For 45 to 70, it is probably about 0.05-0.3%. For those above 70, it escalates substantially, to 1% or higher for those over 85. For frail, debilitated elderly people with multiple health problems who are infected in nursing homes, it can go up to 25% during major outbreaks in these facilities.

Greek Reporter: Are all the current figures being skewed by the complication that some jurisdictions are recording that people died OF Covid-19 when in reality they died WITH it? You had said on March 17, and this still gets lost in the noise of all the events that have taken place in these last turbulent months, that “a positive test for coronavirus does not mean necessarily that this virus is always primarily responsible for a patient’s demise”.

Dr. Ioannidis: This is still a major challenge. COVID-19 has become a notifiable disease so it is readily recorded in death certificates. What we do know, however, is that the vast majority of people who die with a COVID-19 label have at least one and typically many other comorbidities. This means that often they have other reasons that would lead them to death. The relative contribution of COVID-19 needs very careful audit and evaluation of medical records.

Greek Reporter: There is a huge amount of uncertainty each and every year just in the number of influenza deaths, and despite what you called the “successful surveillance systems” which have “long existed for influenza, the disease is confirmed in a laboratory in a tiny minority of cases.” Is this also true with Covid-19, where many people were no doubt infected and suffered only mild symptoms, thinking it was just the regular annual flu — perhaps even before January, 2020, when the disease officially landed on our shores? You gave the range then as differing a multiple of 2.5 times in trying to estimate how many people actually die every year from influenza.

Dr. Ioannidis: As above, the number of people infected with COVID-19 is far larger from the documented cases. The number of COVID-19 deaths can be both undercounted and overcounted, and the relative ratio of over- and under-counting varies across different locations. In most European countries and the USA it is more likely to be overcounted, especially if we are talking about “deaths by COVID-19”. For influenza we have a long-standing experience and the number of deaths can also be fairly well approximated based on the excess number of deaths that we record every winter, as the influenza wave sweeps around the world. For COVID-19 we are in early days, and we need to be careful to dissociate deaths from COVID-19 versus deaths that happened because of the disruption induced by lockdown.

Greek Reporter: You had earlier extrapolated 10,000 total US deaths using the Diamond Princess cruise ship analysis, using the case fatality rate among those infected, which was .3% (mid-range guess), with 1% of the US population becoming infected.  As we know now, the total amount of those dying with the disease was much higher but it was still not the astronomical, exponentially huge number that some had predicted. There had been only 68 American deaths by March 16, the day before your original article was published. The most pessimistic projection in March was 40 million deaths globally — the same as the 1918 flu. What do you really think it is now, bottom line?

Dr. Ioannidis: In the STAT article, I discussed two hypothetical extremes for illustrative purposes, one with just 10,000 deaths in the USA and another with 50 million deaths worldwide. I said that our data are so unreliable that the truth could be anywhere between these two amazingly different extremes. Based on what we know now, we seem to be closer to the optimistic end of the range. In terms of numbers of lives lost, so far the COVID-19 impact is about 1% of the 1918 influenza. In terms of quality-adjusted person-years lost, the impact of COVID-19 is about 0.1% of 1918 influenza, since the 1918 influenza killed mostly young healthy people (average age 28), while the average age of death with COVID-19 is 80 years, with several comorbidities.

Greek Reporter: We had been told that we needed to “flatten the curve” — and we did so in the US, did we not? No health system was completely overwhelmed, not even in NYC, where they did not completely run out of ventilators.

Dr. Ioannidis: The predictions of most mathematical models in terms of how many beds and how many ICU beds would be required were astronomically wrong. Indeed, the health system was not overrun in any location in the USA, although several hospitals were stressed. Conversely, the health care system was severely damaged in many places because of the measures taken.

Greek Reporter: Finally, you had stated in March that, regarding lockdowns, they may be “bearable for a time, but how can policymakers tell if they are doing more good than harm?” if they are protracted. “School closures,” you stated, ”may reduce transmission rates” but may also “diminish the chances of developing herd immunity.” Even more important, perhaps, is this point you made — “One of the bottom lines is that we don’t know how long social distancing measures and lockdowns can be maintained without major consequences to the economy, society and mental health.

“Unpredictable evolutions may ensue, including financial crisis, unrest, civil strife, war and a meltdown of the social fabric.” Your thoughts, please, on how many of these things have indeed come to pass in this country as you had feared.

Dr. Ioannidis: I feel extremely sad that my predictions were verified. “Major consequences on the economy, society and mental health” have already occurred. I hope they are reversible, and this depends to a large extent on whether we can avoid prolonging the draconian lockdowns and manage to deal with COVID-19 in a smart, precision-risk targeted approach, rather than blindly shutting down everything. Similarly, we have already started to see the consequences of “financial crisis, unrest, and civil strife.” I hope it is not followed by “war and meltdown of the social fabric.”

Globally, the lockdown measures have increased the number of people at risk of starvation to 1.1 billion, and they are putting at risk millions of lives, with the potential resurgence of tuberculosis, childhood diseases like measles where vaccination programs are disrupted, and malaria. I hope that policymakers look at the big picture of all the potential problems and not only on the very important, but relatively thin slice of evidence that is COVID-19.

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Both scientific and medical debate continues to unfold in not only the dubious nature of what we currently identify as COVID-19, but also – and more intensely perhaps – over the ongoing global response to the virus itself.  At the same time, however, this ever-important issue of COVID lockdowns is being glossed over daily by the more sensationalized stories of racial protests. 

In many ways, the protests provide an illegitimate cover; an unfortunate distraction of sorts which diverts the public’s attention away from the shoddy and unsustainable COVID precautions which clearly deserve to be further examined. Additionally, as is the classical tactic of any divisive agenda, the racial climate that we now find ourselves in has successfully (and incredulously) served to create even further partition between individuals, communities, groups, and even the very same ethnic races that have labored to overcome the oppression that has plagued the West for so long.  Ironically, we now find ourselves regressing to knee-jerk policies that actually promotesegregation rather than protect against it.

Consequently, this new division in our society has delayed our collective resolve to soberly examine the destructive response to SARS-COV-2.  According to a Pew Research Center poll from June 29th, there is a general trend of decreasing intensity when it comes to the public consumption of news around COVID-19.  The Pew study specifically mentioned that

“the June survey, which took place as demonstrations following the killing of George Floyd were dominating headlines, shows a decrease in those paying very close attention to the COVID-19 outbreak. The 39% of U.S. adults reporting this highest level of engagement is down from 46% in late April and 57% in late March, when the outbreak was first forcing shutdowns around the country” (Pew Research Center, June 29).  Similarly, an Ipsos Reid poll from June 18^th concludes that “a majority of people in nine out of 16 major countries say there are much bigger issues to worry about than the coronavirus with all protests going on in the United States and elsewhere” (Ipsos Reid, June 18). 

I would agree that this diversion has also served to not only redirect the public focus, but by its very insistence as an urgent ‘social’ issue has also served to entrench the public’s original perceptions and beliefs around COVID-19 without any further critical thinking. 

In other words, by having to quickly readjust our concerns to the newly-created theatrics of racial demonstrations, we no longer have the time or sense of import to properly examine how the official responses to coronavirus are continuing – and will continue – to affect our civilization and our culture as a people. By default then, whatever we believed about COVID-19 before the racial unrest will simply remain our default perception, simply because we are now being encouraged to look in other directions. As such, the unspoken trend around the coronavirus at this point is that it no longer needs as much critical addressing and that we now simply need to acclimate to the “new normal.”  In the meantime, it is worth taking a fresh look at where public opinion now rests in regards to the lockdown culture.

As far as perspectives around the COVID-19 lockdown responses are concerned, I see two variations of people that make up the general bulk of the public body.

The most visible segment are those who are clearly on board with the standardized precautions that were put in place; things like social distancing, mask-wearing, hand sanitizing, business closures and sheltering-in-place.

It would also seem evident that this group is considerably the larger of the two, given the findings of a Pew Research poll from back in April 16^th.  As the poll demonstrated,

“66% of Americans say they are more concerned that these (COVID) restrictions will be lifted too quickly, while 32% say they are more concerned they won’t be lifted quickly enough” (Pew Research Center, April 16).

Within this first group of people there exists a spectrum of belief as to how much precaution is actually necessary.  Accordingly, some will rigidly adhere to whatever source of personal protection is available to them in order to avoid getting the virus, while others will appear to casually meander in and out of protective motions almost at random – donning masks when the moment “seems right” or else socially distancing from complete strangers, yet not for people that are more familiar to them. In some ways, a double-standard of protective behavior can be seen in this end of the precautionary spectrum even though, to some degree, they ultimately do believe in the risk of transmission and likewise believe that it should be avoided.

The second group of people is much less visible.  In this group, the individuals have not necessarily bought into the official narrative of COVID-19 (much less the exhaustive protective measures to avoid getting it), yet they are largely seen to go along with the proverbial flow of everyone else for the reason that there appears to be no other appropriate recourse. As it is with any social animal, many of the people within this latter group do not see the sense in disrupting the established order and, for the sake of preservation of both the group and the self, are seen to blend in with the rest of the population while quietly (if not grudgingly) adhering to protective rituals whenever the situation demands it.

Like the first group, however, this second cluster of people has its own form of spectrum as well.  On one end of the spectrum are those who, while not buying into the sensationalism around COVID-19, will nevertheless wear their masks and will keep their social distance merely to protect against disapproval from others.  On the other end of the spectrum are those who, in recognizing the severe social deficits of such protective behaviors, actually do wish to demonstrate some form of resistance to the collective prescription.  These are the individuals whose aim is specifically geared towards the education and redirection of the public’s response to the lockdown culture, and who are willing to actually speak out against it.

Regardless of where anyone happens to be on the spectrum, the underlying concern for a COVID skeptic is ultimately around the cost of social deviance and the price to be paid for visibly stepping out of line amidst the virtual tidal wave of COVID propaganda.  Putting it simply, to not be part of the mainstream corona-collective brings with it the risk of a severe social backlash – primarily in the form of being accused as a ‘deviant’ and, by extension, as being categorically responsible for exacerbating the pandemic even further.

I would also argue that this identification and targeting of social deviance is enforced even further in times of civil urgency, as a recent situation in Australia appropriately demonstrates.

In response to a recent upsurge of reported coronavirus infections in the Australian state of Victoria, Premier Daniel Andrews has been urging the public to comply with mobile COVID-testing initiatives that were recently rolled out in a few municipalities.  In a press release on June 30^th, the Premier lamented his finding that almost a thousand people had actually refused the request to be tested.  Interestingly, the suggested reasons for such refusals were labelled as “lack of understanding about the dangers of the virus, privacy reasons to feeling uncomfortable about the invasiveness of a nose or throat swab test,” according to University of NSW epidemiologist Professor Mary-Louise McLaws, who was quoted in an article published in the newspaper, The Age, later in the day.

Never mind mentioning the possibility that some of these refusals were born out of an educated principle to deliberately not comply.  Never mind the idea that some refusals were expressed specifically as a result of a citizen’s own personal research into the nature of the pandemic, and therefore had a constitutional right to refuse the test in the first place.

While the article does pay tribute to the ethical and constitutional problem of enforced COVID testing, there is an interesting caveat to this inconvenient freedom that is raised by Liberty Victoria spokesman Michael Stanton. While Stanton dutifully points to the importance of respecting people’s personal choice in the matter, he nevertheless reassures the public that the number of people who refused to be tested was pretty small by comparison, and therefore “statistically” insignificant. He added that “it would be too high a cost [on people’s personal liberties] to in effect forcibly require people to undertake a medical procedure against their will, especially when so many people are consenting.”  In other words, as long as the majority is on board with the official WHO-endorsed narrative, then it’s not worth worrying about the smaller numbers of insubordinates (The Age, June 30^th).

Unsurprisingly, the response to these acts of social deviances in the state of Victoria led to an exhibition of public shaming by the Premier himself, who essentially derided the 928 refusers as posing an irresponsible risk to the rest of the population while simultaneously praising the recent 21,000 consenters as making a “powerful contribution to our fight against this virus.”

In other words, we are watching the narrative unfold in such as to now ascribe a currency of morality to the decision of consenting versus refusing.  Simply put, the idea is being generated that you are an irresponsible person for refusing to be tested, but that you are a morally righteous person for agreeing.  Furthermore, the portrayal of urgency in Victoria is such that the public is arguably given little time to coherently reflect on the principled questions around mobile testing initiatives, and consequently have to make some pretty quick choices about it.  Human nature being what it is, one is likely to justify the personal choices they make in any given situation – even if they find that they were rushed or cornered into doing so.

The result? A society that is divided even further based on moral ascriptions that do not critique; they merely assume.

The real problem, however, lies in the rapid way in which this moral ascription becomes an entrenched norm within a society.  To be clear, it is not the social dictator or a nation’s commander-in-chief who successfully secures the public’s perspective on a matter; it is the public itself that decides its own fate.  To be sure, the civil corporation that makes up a society is wholesale complicit in the shifting of that society’s norms.  Simultaneously, any individual that chooses to resist such shifting norms is viewed as socially deviant and possibly even antisocial.

In a 2016 edition of Sociological Research, Tatyana Shipunova made the decisive point that:

“The social control of deviance, like everything connected with it (e.g., institutions, policies, government officials, specialists, professionals, strategies, methods, etc.) is given a special status because it “functions” for the betterment of society, removing (eliminating) or minimizing the harm of deviance.  In this sense, social control acts as a moral idea with ‘ideological immunity.’  It is to be accepted prima facie, before the results (effects) of its institutions are known.  Its expansion is theoretically limitless, since the variety of forms and types of behavior that may cause social discontent (‘social evil’) is infinite” (Shipunova, Sociological Research, 2016, p.32).

In short, the widespread behavior of the public in response to a new social doctrine (i.e. a warning given by “experts”) that leads to the overall shifting of a norm so that it goes from “new” to standard.  The sooner it becomes entrenched, the more quickly the former standard will be forgotten.  What may initially be regarded as an inconvenience is eventually accepted as a necessary shift in public life due to the “evils” that it is purportedly preventing. Appropriately, Shipunova observes that “it is at the micro level that social control really takes place.” 

Finally, we see how profound a role the Internet itself plays in the formalizing of such new behaviors.  Shipunova describes how the overall Internet infrastructure, “with its administrators, moderators, website owners, online communities, and individual users, controls the parameters of social sui generis reality by reflecting on this reality, modifying existing social norms, rules, and patterns of behavior that are first broadcast horizontally via virtual communication from one user to another, which then become internalized – and transforming these patterns into everyday praxis.”  If this process is successful, it ultimately serves to “significantly modify social norms.”

With these things in mind, it is easier to observe how the public perception of lockdown measures has largely found itself in a decidedly consumer-oriented mentality – particularly since a robust sense of urgency has been applied to the situation. Consequently, anyone who finds themselves in a more open-minded frame of perspective faces the ever-challenging reality of being considered a risk to the rest of the society.  Effectively, what was once considered a dystopian social practice has very quickly been adopted as “prima facie” prescriptions that carry incredible power on account of being so morally-infused, as they are.

As we find ourselves in such a rapidly-shifting global environment that appears to be hell-bent on distracting the masses, my recommendation is that we hold firm allegiance to our original sense of curiosity. We pay honorable tribute to our innate intelligence by not getting swept up in the pseudo-morality that is now so suddenly ascribed to these global events (particularly referring to the cementing of poorly-contrived COVID-consumer values through the unusual diversion to racial injustice issues).

More specifically, consider that the newly-charged racial demonstrations and behavioral modifications that are being urged on society are simply there to eliminate dissension.  At the same time, however, they provide us with a unique opportunity to observe, learn, and be informed by.  At the end of the day, it is up to us at the individual level, as to whether our learning has been fostered by an agenda of wanting to avoid deviance, or to instead search diligently for what is actually helping us move forwards as a society.

I urge us all to choose the latter.

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Brett Jordan, BSW, MSW, RSW, is a Registered Social Worker who works in a hospital ER in Metro Vancouver.  He writes predominantly on issues of spiritual, emotional and social phenomena.

Featured image is from Pixabay

Once again dishonest Democrats have engaged in another embarrassing political food fight against a lying President over an unsubstantiated “Russian bounties” story by the New York Times. Based on a report by an “intelligence operative” in Afghanistan and without any evidence, Russia supposedly has offered bounty payments to Taliban forces for killing Americans in Afghanistan. The absurdity of the story is multi-layered. While there is an ongoing movement for justice that has perplexed the weak Democrats, they found these new shenanigans are the best distraction to divert attention from the issue of police brutality to the fear of Russia, the old enemy.

Of course, President Trump, who lies constantly to line up his base; first denied seeing the report and then used the opportunity to divert the attention from the disastrous failure of the “White House Coronavirus Task Force” by playing the victim of the fake news. A fascistic-minded President Trump who had retweeted a video with the message of “White Power” for 3 hours found this attack by the Democrats a blessing for the sake of distraction! Kayleigh McEnany, White House Press Secretary (who has been making money by the number of fallacies and outright lies that she makes) in regard to the question, as to why the President doesn’t denounce the White Power video, said that “the President took down that video and that deletion speaks strongly [!]” However the fact is that President Trump purposely and knowingly inflames racial issues and intimidates minorities with his provocative tweets to divide the nation.

At the same time, the pro-war corporate media is eager to “punish” Russia swiftly for this “shocking” crime, it is unmoved about another crime that has happened not in Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan but at Fort Hood in Texas, United States.

A heinous crime against Specialist Vanessa Guillen was not “news” for the so-called News TV channels and their gimcrack “pundits”. Thanks to the Vanessa Guillen’s family determination, and rallies with the support of the Latino base organization (like LULAC and FIEL in Houston) the cover-up and reluctance of the Fort Hood authorities to investigate Ms. Guillen’s disappearance since April 23rd was exposed and got attention on a national level. On July 3rd, the fear of Guillen’s family who believed her death was linked to the sexual harassment she was enduring on base was confirmed. The gruesome details of this heinous act were revealed by FBI to the press. The report describes that Spc. Aaron David Robinson who sexually assaulted then murdered Vanessa Guillen on the base, with the help of his girlfriend, Cecily Aguilar.

Officials during a news conference at Fort Hood on Thursday told reporters that Aaron David Robinson “pulled a gun and shot himself”. Federal Prosecutors in Texas’ Western District has stated that Cecily Aguilar is in custody and “faces one count of conspiracy to tamper with evidence”. Sadly this sexual assault is not the first case at Fort Hood base. Vanessa’s younger sister, Lupe Guillen during a press conference said: “My sister was too afraid to report the harassment because no one would listen to her”. Both sisters (Mayra and Lupe) with their mother, Gloria Guillen have pleaded for justice during a powerful press conference that was held. Her mother said: “My daughter is my life, I want justice, I want justice for my little one.” Unfortunately, most cases of sexual harassment and assaults in the Fort Hood base are not fully investigated. In fact, in recent years, the number of sexual assaults at the United States military academies has risen. According to the Department of Defense Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military – Fiscal Year 2018,

“About 6.2 percent of active duty women indicated experiencing a sexual assault in the year prior to being surveyed. This rate reflects a statistically significant increase compared to the 4.3 percent for women measured in 2016.”

Now the question is, why Democratic Party Leadership, the Trump Administration, GOP and their media are not concern about this uncivilized culture that exists in the military.

Of course like any other political issue, there are some politicians (such as Congresswomen Sylvia Garcia and Tulsi Gabbard) who speak against this problem, but as always these voices will remain as minorities that look more like an illusion than a solution. But exceptional cases aside, both Democrats and Republicans tirelessly on one hand glorify the destructive role of the U.S. army around the world and on the other hand, leave the young servicemen and women defenseless. They send them to countries around the world for pointless missions to destroy countries that are incapable of attacking the United States militarily. When these soldiers who either have witnessed or participated in destroying and burning cities after cities and killing thousand innocent civilians and children return with all kinds of physical and mental trauma and injuries, the generals and politicians turn their back on them or at best they leave them with a long speech about the patriotism and empty promises. According to the American Psychological Association, “Approximately 17 U.S. veterans die by suicide every day”. Craig Bryan, executive director of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Utah says: “Nobody really knows why suicide rates continue to climb”.

The degree of hypocrisy is unbelievable; the hypocrites have dominated U.S. political life. Some personalities in the media are lost in their own “Alternative Reality”. Obsessed with anti-Russia or anti-China nonsensical arguments demand a harsh punishment against these “old adversaries”! Rachel Maddow of MSNBC is extremely mad that President Trump did nothing when (and this is Ms. Maddow’s own facts) “Putin was paying [Taliban] $100,000 cash per corpse, per dead American soldier.” On the anti-China camp, Lou Dobbs the lone wolf of Fox Business, claims that “we know that biological warfare is part of [China] military doctrine”; then based on this “fact” (!) he raises the question that “if we don’t go to war [against China] over the loss of 31,000…American lives, what do we go to war over?” However, these mad people in the media with their bizarre political analysis are not the real threat to truth and democracy in the U.S.

The real threat to millions of hard-working families in towns and rural areas, immigrants, women, youth and minorities comes from the Fascistic minded President Trump. His speech at Mount Rushmore in Celebration of 4th July was actually against the American Revolution and Democratic Rights. His focus was not to unite the nation rather intimidate those who oppose his policies and his rightwing ideology as “far-left fascism”. He talked like a tyrannical leader inciting people by saying “our great Second Amendment which gives us the right to keep and bear arms”; “we will expose this dangerous movement, protect our nation’s children, end this radical assault, and preserve our beloved American way of life”; “we are building the wall”; and gave an ultimatum to “arrest the rioters and prosecute offenders to the fullest extent to the law.” He didn’t mention or offer any solutions to the existing social, political and economical crisis not to mention the disastrous public health situation. Once again he has shown that his aim is to divide the nation into two clear camps, that of pro-Trump and anti-Trump. HE MUST RESIGN NOW! November 3rd may be too late.

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Massoud Nayeri is a graphic designer and an independent peace activist based in the United States. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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Kanye’s decision to officially run for President won’t just siphon off African-American votes from the Democrats if he stays in the race long enough to get on some states’ ballots as an Independent, but might even direct more of this demographic towards Trump in the event that he pulls out of the campaign after generating a substantial amount of grassroots support and endorses the incumbent instead, thus turning him into the party’s top enemy ahead of November and potentially dooming their White House plans.

From the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Tanzania’s President John ‘The Bulldozer’ Magufuli exposed the fraud behind the Covid-19 testing kits and criticized the mass hysteria in regards to the virus. Several mainstream media networks including Bloomberg News led an attack against Magufuli’s actions regarding how his government has responded to the pandemic. Bloomberg News reporter Antony Sguazzin published ‘Africa’s ‘Bulldozer’ Runs Into Covid-19, Claims God on His Side’, the title itself already mocks Magufuli for mentioning God when it comes to Covid-19, but Sguazzin conveniently bypasses what Magufuli actually said in his article and criticizes him to the point of hostility:

Tanzania’s maverick President John Magufuli has used his strong personality to cow corrupt civil servants and force foreign mining companies to pay millions of dollars in outstanding tax. The coronavirus may be less responsive

What a way for Antony Sguazzin to begin his propaganda piece by calling him the “maverick President”:

Last week, he became the first African leader to declare victory over the virus, even though health data haven’t been released for more than a month. He’s criticized the national laboratory for exaggerating the number of infections, dismissed health experts and discouraged the wearing of masks, all the while saying God will protect Tanzania. Restrictions on social gatherings such as weddings will be lifted from June 29, when schools can reopen

As Squazzin continued his attack by claiming that there were deaths and nighttime burials by health officials in a video published by Al Jazeera that neither confirms or denies the accusations. The video could have been filmed anywhere in the African continent where outbreaks like Ebola and other health crisis have emerged in the past. The US embassy had warned that contracting Covid-19 was “extremely high” in the main city of Dar es Salaam and that hospitals were overwhelmed despite the number of cases being reported by the Tanzanian government at 509 cases and with more than 21 deaths:

But the president’s optimism is belied by reports of deaths and nighttime burials by health officials wearing personal protective equipment. Dozens of Tanzanian truck drivers who had to undergo screening at border posts have tested positive. The U.S. Embassy warned last month that the risk of contracting the virus in the main city, Dar es Salaam, male was “extremely high” and that hospitals were overwhelmed

Sguazzin said that Magufuli’s response to activists who were detained because of their criticism towards his government of how he was handling Covid-19 pandemic was by intimidating the public:

Nicknamed “the bulldozer” for his no-nonsense approach when he was minister of works, Magufuli has made intimidation and bravado a feature of his presidency since assuming office in 2015. His campaign to fight graft — he often fired people while cameras were rolling — earned him widespread praise and elevated his authority within the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi party.

Crackdowns on the media and those who poke fun at the government mean that criticism of how Magufuli is handling the outbreak is mostly restricted to social media. Official information is limited and tightly controlled. At least 13 journalists, students and politicians have been detained since March 23 for distributing information about the virus, Tanzania’s Legal and Human Rights Centre said

The 13 journalists, students and politicians who are being held for distributing information about Covid-19 is a human rights issue and extreme to go that far if all allegations are true.

Magufuli’s government’s stance on the LGBTQ community is also extreme since they jail people up to 30 years in prison if you are convicted, but unfortunately that’s happens all over Africa and many countries around the world including in the most brutal dictatorship on the planet who is also a friend to the US is Saudi Arabia, where they execute people from the LGBTQ community but that is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media.

Since Magufuli was elected, he has slashed his own salary from $15,000 a month to $4,000 and reduced his government from 30 to 11 ministries. He also cut excessive government spending in various areas including foreign travel by government officials and canceling the World’s AIDs Day in Tanzania and decided to use the funds for AIDS medications.

Magufuli also suspended Independence Day in 2015 to declare a national cleanup day to reduce the spread of cholera and to improve the health system in the country. To increase domestic production, it was reported in 2017 that Tanzania banned exporting unprocessed ores for domestic smelting purposes.  Magufuli also amended laws to renegotiate mining contracts or even terminate them if fraud is suspected. It’s apparent that Magufuli is a nationalist. Magufuli has done some bad, but he also has done some good, especially when he exposed Covid-19 testing kits as a fraud. Now the Mainstream media is attacking his policies and what he says concerning the Covid-19 consensus. What angered the West and the mainstream media is not what Magufuli  is claiming about God, it is what he did to prove that the Covid-19 test kits were inaccurate and that’s what Sguazzin forgot to mention.  Magufuli has proved to the world that the covid-19 test kits are a fraud and what the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) claims are on the dangers of the virus is basically false.

Magufuli explains how he tested the test takers by instructing his country’s security services to send various samples to the Covid-19 testing labs that were not human:

We took samples from goats, we took samples from sheeps, we took samples from Pawpaws, we even took samples from car oil and we took samples from other different things and we took samples to the laboratory without them knowing and we even named all the samples, like the sample from the car oil, we named it Jabil Hamza, 30 years old, male, the results came back negative. When we took the sample from a jackfruit, we named it Sara Samuel, 45 years old, female. The results came back inconclusive. When we took the samples from a Pawpaw, we named it Elizabeth Ane, 26 years, female, the results from the Pawpaw came back positive, that it has corona. That means the liquid from the pawpaw is positive.” We took samples from (a bird type) called Kware, the results came back positive. We took samples from a rabbit, the results came back undeterminent. We took samples from a goat and the results came back positive. We took samples from a sheep and it came back negative and so on and so on

This is where Magufuli made his point:

So now when you see this, you have taken the samples and say they are humans and the results come back positive that they have corona, that means all the pawpaws should be in isolation also and when you take goat samples and they are also positive, that means all the goats that we have here by assumption or maybe the goat with the sample which was taken should also should also be in isolation. and when you take jackfruit (durian) and it’s also positive that liquid from the jackfruit (durian) which we named it Elizabeth, meaning Elizabeth the Jackfruit (Durian) that means all the Jackfruits (Durian) should be in isolation also so when you notice something like this, you must know there is a dirty game played in these tests

Magufuli also said that the people who work in the laboratories are most likely bought and paid for by special interests:

That there unbelievable things happening in this country, either the laboratory workers in there are bought by people with money, either they are not well educated which isn’t true because this laboratory is used for other diseases, either the samples which are brought in because even the reagents are imported, because even the swambs are also imported, so it’s a must that something is actually going on

Magufuli earned instant criticism from US and European media networks on his leadership with allegations of corruption and human rights abuses considering the imprisonment of journalists, students and politicians who criticized his government. Whether corruption in the Tanzanian government is true or not, many countries in Africa are corrupt with dictatorships. There was also regime change operations backed by Western powers including the US when they gave the CIA the green light to set up the assassination of Zaire’s President Patrice Lamumba in 1961 and in 1966, the CIA overthrew Ghana’s first president under its new independence, Kwame Nkrumah, a pan-Africanist and an anti-imperialist who authored a book titled ‘Neo-Colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism’. We must also take into account the centuries old European colonialism since the Portuguese built its trading posts in the late 15th century, followed up by US interventions in Africa during the Cold War leading up to the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) which was created under the George W. Bush regime in 2007.  The US military and intelligence apparatus currently have numerous military bases all over Africa in efforts to stop Chinese and Russian influence and to control the natural resources which has basically put the African continent at a disadvantage in comparison to the rest of the world.  In this case, Magufuli has actually stood up to the powers that be and took a stand for his people.

Western Imperialism Did Not End: Population Control, Birth Control to Experimenting with Dangerous Vaccines

In 2018, liberal media network, CNN headlined with ‘Don’t Use Birth Control, ‘Tanzania’s President Tells Women In The Country’ said that “Tanzania’s President John Magufuli has told women in the East African nation to stop taking birth control pills because the country needs more people, according to local media reports.” Magufuli was quoted in a local newspaper called The Citizen in a public rally saying that “those going for family planning are lazy … they are afraid they will not be able to feed their children. They do not want to work hard to feed a large family and that is why they opt for birth controls and end up with one or two children only.” According to CNN, “he was quoted in a local newspaper, The Citizen, as saying that those advocating for birth control were foreign and had sinister motives.”Which by all means is true.

Magufuli’s understands how the depopulation agenda works. CNN mentions Jacqueline Mahon the representative for Tanzania for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) who was present at the time at least according to The Citizen quoted Magufuli saying that “I have traveled to Europe and I have seen the effects of birth control. In some countries they are now struggling with declining population. They have no labor force.” Then of course, in an old propaganda tactic which CNN loves to use, they criticized the President on other various issues including his stance on how women lawmakers should dress:

In another development, the speaker of the Tanzanian parliament banned female lawmakers from wearing fake nails and eyelashes in parliament.  “With the powers vested in me by the Constitution of the United Republic of Tanzania, I now ban all MPs with false eyelashes and false finger nails from stepping into Parliament,” Job Ndugai said, a day after Magufuli’s comments.  The new rules also ban women MPs from wearing short dresses and jeans. Female visitors to parliament are also expected to adhere to the dress code

In September 2018, the World Economic Forum (WEF) website headlined with ‘Bill Gates has a warning about population growth’ it began with “rapid population growth in some of Africa’s poorest countries could put at risk future progress towards reducing global poverty and improving health, according to a report by the philanthropic foundation of Bill Gates.”

The site quoted what Gates had told reporters  “population growth in Africa is a challenge.” The WEF article mentioned what the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation’s own report had discovered in their research and it “found that poverty in Africa is increasingly concentrated in a few countries, which also have among the fastest-growing populations in the world.” The report claimed that “by 2050, it projected, more than 40 percent of world’s extremely poor people will live in just two countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria.” Gates was asked about growing populations and an increase of poverty in Africa and he said that access to birth control combined with investments in health and education for the younger generation was necessary. Gates said that “the biggest things are the modern tools of contraception” and “If you have those things available then people have more control over being able to space their children.”

Forbes magazine recently published ‘Bill And Melinda Gates Have Sharp Words For U.S.’ Lack Of Leadership Role In Fighting Pandemic’ on a virtual Forbes philanthropy summit with the genocidal power couple, Melinda Gates spoke on who should get the vaccines first, and they are black and the indigenous people:

There are 60 million healthcare workers [around the world]. They deserve to get the vaccine first, they’re the ones dealing with this on the front lines, trying to keep us all safe. And then you have to start to tier from there, based on the countries and the populations. Here in the United States, it’s going to be Black people who really should get it first and many indigenous people, as well as people with underlying symptoms, and then elderly people 

In other words, black and the indigenous people will be guinea pigs once again.

Forbes also reported that “The couple, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has committed more than $350 million to fight the coronavirus, plans to utilize two nonprofits—The Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance—to help equitably distribute therapeutics and vaccines to developing countries.”  There is good news in regards to Africa as Fox news reported about the Covid-19 vaccine trials in South Africa ‘Protest versus Africa’s 1st COVID-19 vaccine test shows fear’ said that “Protesters against Africa’s first COVID-19 vaccine trial burned their face masks Wednesday as experts note a worrying level of resistance and misinformation around testing on the continent” and that the “Anti-vaccine sentiment in Africa is “the worst I’ve ever seen,” the CEO of the GAVI vaccine alliance, Seth Berkley, told an African Union vaccine conference last week.” The Fox news report explains why the African people is concerned:

But the small band of demonstrators who gathered Wednesday at the University of the Witwatersrand, where the trial is based, reflect long-running fears among some in Africa over testing drugs on people who don’t understand the risks.

“The people chosen as volunteers for the vaccination, they look as if they’re from poor backgrounds, not qualified enough to understand” protest organizer Phapano Phasha told The Associated Press ahead of the event. “We believe they are manipulating the vulnerable”

The report also mentioned the controversial French doctor, Jean-Paul Mira, head of intensive care at Cochin hospital in Paris said “If I can be provocative, shouldn’t we be doing this study in Africa, where there are no masks, no treatments, no resuscitation?” comparing the corona virus to previous AIDS studies: “In prostitutes, we try things because we know that they are highly exposed and that they do not protect themselves.”

The imperial mentality by the west to control Africa’s population growth and to test Africans with vaccines has been proven time and time again to be dangerous and problematic for the African people.  Tanzania’s president John Magufuli has helped expose Western intentions in Africa especially when it comes to the Covid-19 testing kits giving false positive results.  The mainstream media quickly criticizes those who do not follow Western instituted depopulation programs from the US and Europe such as Magufuli who actually did something right in the face of Covid-19 hysteria. Magufuli is now the subject of Western media criticism and mockery not because he mentioned God, it’s because he is not following the program, it’s pretty obvious at this point.

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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from SCN

We live in tumultuous days… one could say “the end of an era”.

It is clear that there is a storm coming, however, the question is will it be the sort of storm that provides sustenance and relief to drought-stricken and barren lands, or will it be the sort of storm that destroys indiscriminately and leaves nothing recognizable in its wake?

There is such a heavy tension in the air, the buildup we are told of centuries of injustice, oppression and murder. It feels like the entire world’s burden has laid itself upon one culprit and that it is high time that that villain pay for past blood spilled.

That villain is the United States.

It is common to hear that this nation was created under the hubristic banner of “Freedom from Empire”, while it brutally owned slaves and committed genocide on the indigenous people. That the “Declaration of Independence” and the “U.S. Constitution” are despicable displays of the highest degree of grotesque hypocrisy, and that in reality the U.S. was to replace one system of empire with another and far worse.

These are weighty charges indeed, and nobody can deny that great crimes against humanity have been committed. However, it is important that we review this history in full, for if we lose sight of the forest, we will be losing sight of an ongoing battle that is still waging.

We will have abandoned the work of past heroes that has been left unfinished and will have replaced it with the false idol of anarchy, mistaking its ‘empty-promises of liberty’ as a mark of what constitutes a ‘true freedom’.

How can we avoid such ‘empty-promises’ and strive for ‘true freedom’?

There is no better account in addressing such a question as that of Frederick Douglass (1817-1895), a former slave who would become an advisor to Abraham Lincoln during the dark days of the Civil War and the Consul General to Haiti in his elder years.

A through-and-through TRUE American hero (1).

From Slavery to Freedom

Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot County, in the State of Maryland. Though it was impossible to know his exact date of birth, he gathers that the month of February 1817 is as accurate as possible. The name given to him by his dear mother was, in the words of Douglass “no less pretentious and long” than Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (Frederick’s mother was believed to be the only slave in the region who knew how to read).

Frederick recalls that in his youth

“I was just as well aware of the unjust, unnatural, and murderous character of slavery, when nine years old, as I am now. Without any appeals to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, to regard God as ‘Our Father’ condemned slavery as a crime.”

Already, by the age of nine, Frederick had set himself upon not only the idea of escape from this destitution, but was always mindful to an education wherever he could find it.

Luckily, in this unhappy state his only adult friend Miss Lucretia, (daughter of Captain Anthony the slaveholder of Frederick), arranged for Frederick, at the age of ten, to be sent away from the plantations to live in Baltimore with her husband’s brother Hugh Auld.

It was in Baltimore that Frederick would learn how to read.

Years go by and at around the age of fifteen or sixteen, Frederick is sent back to the plantations (over a family squabble), and not surprisingly is found to be wholly unfit for a life of hard-labour as an obedient slave. He is thus promptly sent to “Covey, The Negro Breaker” to lodge with for a period of one year.

For six months, Frederick was whipped and beaten on a regular basis. From the dawn of day till the complete darkness in the evening, he was kept hard at work in the fields, and was worked up to the point of his powers of endurance.

Until one day he decides finally that it is better to resist and risk the consequences than continue to live such a contemptible life as a mere brute. He decides one day to simply refuse to be treated as an animal, not to strike back but to oppose the striking.

As Frederick states

“A man without force is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot honor a helpless man, though it can pity him, and even this it cannot do long if signs of power do not arise. He only can understand the effect of this combat on my spirit, who has himself incurred something, or hazarded something, in repelling the unjust and cruel aggressions of a tyrant. Covey was a tyrant and a cowardly one withal. After resisting him, I felt as I had never felt before. It was a resurrection from the dark and pestiferous tomb of slavery, to the heaven of comparative freedom. I was no longer a servile coward, trembling under the frown of a brother worm of the dust, but my long-cowed spirit was roused to an attitude of independence. I had reached the point at which I was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a freeman in fact, though I still remained a slave in form. When a slave cannot be flogged, he is more than half free. He has a domain as broad as his own manly heart to defend, and he is really ‘a power on earth’. From this time until my escape from slavery, I was never fairly whipped. Several attempts were made, but they were always unsuccessful. Bruised I did get, but the instance I have described was the end of the brutification to which slavery had subjected me.”

The Abolitionist Cause in Light of the Preservation of the Union

“…that the fathers of the Republic neither intended the extension nor the perpetuity of slavery and that liberty is national and slavery is sectional.” – Frederick Douglass

To make a long story short, Frederick would successfully escape the South and on September 3^rd 1838, arriving in New York at the age of 21, he would finally embark on a life as a free man.

It would be only four or five months living in New Bedford before Douglass would meet William Lloyd Garrison, one of the most prominent leaders of the Abolitionist movement. It did not take long for Douglass to be invited along their speaking tours to recount his story as a runaway slave from the South.

Though Douglass would owe much of his future as a great orator and writer in thanks to his Abolitionist friends who gave him a strong start in this direction and introduced him to many important figures, Douglass would eventually distance himself from the Abolitionist “scripture”.

This distancing was caused by Douglass’ later recognition that there was in fact, no “pro-slavery” character in the U.S. Constitution as Garrison had been stating.

Douglass states,

“After a time, a careful reconsideration of the subject convinced me that there was no necessity for dissolving the union between the northern and southern states, that to seek this dissolution was not part of my duty as an abolitionist, that to abstain from voting was to refuse to exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolishing slavery, and that the Constitution of the United States not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, was in its letter and spirit an antislavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence as the supreme law of the land.”

During this time, Douglass would start his own anti-slavery newspaper called “The North Star”. Along with this new editorial responsibility, Douglass would no longer leave it to the “good advice” of his “more learned” Abolitionist friends, but would take the responsibility upon himself to seek out and come to know whether such assertions by the Abolitionists on the nature of the Republic were true.

 “My new circumstances compelled me to re-think the whole subject, and to study with some care not only the just and proper rules of legal interpretation, but the origin, design, nature, rights, powers, and duties of civil governments, and also the relations which human beings sustain to it. By such a course of thought and reading I was conducted to the conclusion that the Constitution of the United States – inaugurated to ‘form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty’ – could not well have been designed at the same time to maintain and perpetuate a system of rapine and murder like slavery, especially as not one word can be found in the Constitution to authorize such a belief…the Constitution of our country is our warrant for the abolition of slavery in every state of the Union…being convinced of the fact, my duty upon this point in the further conduct of my paper [The North Star] was plain.”

Abraham Lincoln would be elected as the President of the United States on March 4^th, 1861. To which Douglass stated of the occasion:

“It was Mr. Lincoln who told the American people at this crisis that the ‘Union could not long endure half slave and half free; that they must be all one or the other, and that the public mind could find no resting place but in the belief in the ultimate extinction of slavery.’ These were not the words of an abolitionist – branded a fanatic, and carried away by an enthusiastic devotion to the Negro – but the calm cool, deliberate utterance of a statesman, comprehensive enough to take in the welfare of the whole country…In a few simple words he had embodied the thought of the loyal nation, and indicated the character fit to lead and guide the country amid perils present and to come.”

On Meeting Lincoln

“I still believed, and spoke as I believed, all over the North, that the mission of the war was the liberation of the slave, as well as the salvation of the Union…” – Frederick Douglass

With this newly discovered orientation, Douglass not only put the preservation of the Union as something necessary and expedient but, most importantly, something that could not be sacrificed in striving for the Abolitionist cause.

Douglass would be one of the first to encourage the recruitment, through his paper “The North Star”, of black soldiers to join the Union’s war against the Confederate South. The thought was that by these men joining the war, they would prove their mettle in the cause for emancipation.

These were hard days, since black soldiers were not given equal treatment nor protection in the Union army. They also risked, if captured by the South, being enslaved, a sentence in Douglass’ words “worse than death”. Douglass had been assured that equal treatment would eventually occur, but it was too slow moving in his eyes and he refused to continue recruiting black soldiers into the Union army.

It was at this point that Douglass was invited to meet with President Lincoln to discuss his concerns over the matter.

Douglass describes his first meeting with Lincoln:

“I was never more quickly or more completely put at ease in the presence of a great man than in that of Abraham Lincoln…Long lines of care were already deeply written on Mr. Lincoln’s brow, and his strong face, full of earnestness, lighted up as soon as my name was mentioned…I at once felt myself in the presence of an honest man – one whom I could love, honor, and trust without reserve or doubt.”

One of the points of concern Douglass discussed with the President, was on the unfair treatment of black soldiers as POWs and suggested that the North should retaliate and commit the same treatment on their Southern POWs to dissuade this unequal treatment, to which Lincoln responded,

“Retaliation was a terrible remedy, and one which it was very difficult to apply – that, if once begun, there was no telling where it would end – that if he could get hold of the Confederate soldiers who had been guilty of treating colored soldiers as felons he could easily retaliate, but the thought of hanging men for a crime perpetrated by others was revolting to his feelings…Though I was not entirely satisfied with his views, I was so well satisfied with the man and with the educating tendency of the conflict I determined to go on with the recruiting.”

Douglass reflects on his decision:

“It was a great thing to achieve American independence when we numbered three millions, but it was a greater thing to save this country from dismemberment and ruin when it numbered thirty millions. He alone of all our presidents was to have the opportunity to destroy slavery, and to lift into manhood millions of his countrymen hitherto held as chattels and numbered with the beasts of the field.”

The Emancipation Proclamation

“Since William the Silent, who was the soul of the mighty war for religious liberty against Spain and the Spanish Inquisition, no leader of men has been loved and trusted in such generous measures as was Abraham Lincoln.”

– Frederick Douglass

During the third year of the sanguinary Civil War, January 1^st 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Douglass states of the occasion: “the formal and solemn announcement was made that thereafter the government would be found on the side of emancipation…It must be the end of all compromises with slavery – a declaration that thereafter the war was to be conducted on a new principle, with a new aim.”

It was at this point that Lincoln received criticism for extending the war unnecessarily. The South was ready to make certain concessions and the North was eager to end the war. By Lincoln announcing the Emancipation Proclamation, it was thought by many to be a reckless provocation making any possibility of peace fruitless.

On this subject, Douglass would meet with Lincoln for the last time, before he would be assassinated.

“The main subject on which he wished to confer with me was as to the means most desirable to be employed outside the army to induce the slaves in the rebel states to come within the deferral lines. The increasing opposition to the war, in the North, and the mad cry against it, because it was being made an abolition war, alarmed Mr. Lincoln, and made him apprehensive that a peace might be forced upon him which would leave still in slavery all who had not come within our lines. What he wanted was to make his proclamation as effective as possible in the event of such a peace…He said he was being accused of protracting the war beyond its legitimate object and failing to make peace when he might have done so to advantage. He was afraid of what might come of all these complaints, but was persuaded that no solid and lasting peace could come short of absolute submission on the part of the rebels [the South]…He saw the danger of premature peace…I was the more impressed by this benevolent consideration because he before said, in answer to the peace clamor, that his object was to save the Union, and to do so with or without slavery. What he said on this day showed a deeper moral conviction against slavery than I had ever seen before in anything spoken or written by him. I listened with the deepest interest and profoundest satisfaction, and, at his suggestion, agreed to undertake the organizing of a band of scouts, composed of colored men, whose business should be somewhat after the original plan of John Brown, to go into the rebel states, beyond the lines of our armies, and to carry the news of emancipation, and urge the slaves to come within our boundaries.

…I refer to this conversation because I think that, on Mr. Lincoln’s part, it is evidence conclusive that the proclamation, so far at least as he was concerned, was not effected merely as a [political] ‘necessity’.”

President Lincoln would be selected to continue a second term and was inaugurated on March 4^th, 1865. About one month after the official end of the Civil War. Lincoln would be assassinated just a mere 41 days after his second inauguration.

Douglass writes, “His first inauguration arrested the fall of the Republic, and the second was to restore it to enduring foundations.” The fact that Lincoln’s leadership was savagely cut short was a tragedy for all who understood that the true foundation of the Republic was built upon the principle “liberty for all”.

In that sad moment, when the country heard of the death of their leader who was to bring them closer to this goal, Douglass states,

“We shared in common a terrible calamity, and this ‘touch of nature made us’ more than countrymen, it made us ‘kin’.”

Reflections on the Past

It is an utmost testament to the grace and nobility of Frederick Douglass’ character that an soon as the law and spirit of slavery had been broken, he made a point to no longer harbour hate and resentment for the past wrongs committed upon himself. He recognised that humanity was indeed inherently good and would ultimately strive towards goodness if left to its natural tendency… that to punish the children of those who committed crimes before them would destroy any good that ever existed in the world.

Douglass recounts,

“If any reader of this part of my life shall see in it the evidence of a want of manly resentment for wrongs inflicted by slavery upon myself and race, and by the ancestors of…[those who once owned slaves], so it must be. No man can be stronger than nature, one touch of which, we are told, makes all the world akin. I esteem myself a good, persistent hater of injustice and oppression, but my resentment ceases when they cease, and I have no heart to visit upon children the sins of their father.”

I will end here with an account of Douglass when he revisits the place where he was born a “slave” and sees his former “master” Captain Auld, upon his request on his deathbed, after his escape to the North over 25 years ago:

“But now that slavery was destroyed, and the slave and the master stood upon equal ground, I was not only willing to meet him, but was very glad to do so…He was to me no longer a slaveholder either in fact or in spirit, and I regarded him as I did myself, a victim of the circumstances of birth, education, law, and custom.

Our courses had been determined for us, not by us. We had both been flung, by powers that did not ask our consent, upon a mighty current of life, which we could neither resist, nor control. By this current he was a master, and I a slave, but now our lives were verging towards a point where differences disappear, where even the constancy of hate breaks down and where the clouds of pride, passion, and selfishness vanish before the brightness of infinite light.”

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Cynthia Chung is a lecturer, writer and co-founder and editor of the Rising Tide Foundation (Montreal, Canada).

Note

(1) This paper has used Douglass’ account of American history from his writings in his autobiography “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass”, for which the full pdf version can be found here.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

The UK’s imposition of so-called “humanitarian sanctions” against 49 individuals from Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, and Saudi Arabia that it claims are supposedly involved in “human rights abuses” is nothing more than London following its “big brother’s” lead from “across the pond” in the post-Brexit era, proving that the former superpower is well past its geopolitical prime and is increasingly turning into an American proxy instead of taking the historic opportunity to pursue a more independent foreign policy.

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Leading global human rights abuser USA is followed by Britain close behind.

Time and again, ruling authorities of both countries accuse other nations for their own high crimes — notably relating to wars of aggression they wage against nonbelligerent states threatening no one, along with their longstanding human rights abuses internally and abroad.

Cold War politics is back with a vengeance on multiple fronts.

It never went away but today it’s at a fever pitch — China, Russia, and Iran the prime targets.

Other nations are also targeted for non-submissiveness to unacceptable hegemonic US demands.

On issues of war and peace, the rule of law, and human rights abuses, the US far and away is the main offender, Britain a junior partner in its imperial project.

The politically motivated US 2012 Magnitsky Act targets Russian officials to the present day for the death of Sergey Magnitsky no evidence proves they had anything to do with.

It calls for imposition of visa bans, asset freezes, and other sanctions on Russian nationals accused of committing human rights abuses — no corroborating evidence needed, US high crimes on a global scale ignored.

At the time of enactment, Sergey Lavrov called the measure “anti-Russia.” Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov warned of tough countermeasures, calling the hostile bill “outrageous…inadmissible” extraterritorial legislation.

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement called its enactment “cynical,” adding:

“We regret that (the Obama regime’s) declar(ation) (of) its commitment to the development of stable and constructive bilateral relations was unable to defend its stated position against those who look to the past and see our country not as a partner, but rather an opponent – fully in line with the canons of the Cold War.”

Vladimir Putin denounced the measure as a “purely political, unfriendly act,” adding:

“I don’t understand why Russian-US relations should be sacrificed for some domestic political gain.”

“The (Obama regime’s) stance is to ignore crimes against Russian orphans adopted by US parents and not to punish the criminals.”

“Russian observers are not even allowed to attend such trials, and I find this unacceptable.”

The measure was and remains one of many ways the US wages war on Russia by other means — why diplomatic outreach by its officials most often accomplishes little or nothing.

Magnitsky was a Russian attorney. In 2009, he died in police custody, his death drawing international media attention.

Specializing in civil law, he did anti-corruption work, uncovering evidence of tax fraud — implicating police, judiciary figures, tax officials, bankers, and Russia’s mafia.

On issues relating to courts, taxes, fines, and civil law, he was considered the “go to guy” in Moscow.

In November 2008, he was arrested, imprisoned, and mistreated — for 11 months denied family visits.

Serious health problems developed. Inadequate treatment followed.

On November 16, 2009, he died for reasons attributed to a “rupture to the abdominal membrane” and subsequent heart attack.

Weeks later, an independent Moscow Public Oversight Commission said he was subjected to “psychological and physical pressure…”

Initially his death was blamed on medical neglect. Later claims suggested murder.

An official investigation undertaken in July 2011 ruled that Magnitsky died from medical neglect.

His mistreatment, leading to death, at the hands of prison officials was no just cause to punish Russian ruling authorities.

This action and countless others like it risk rupturing bilateral relations or potentially something worse between the world’s dominant nuclear powers.

US war by hot and other means rages against all nations it doesn’t control, world peace and the rule of law ignored in pursuit of its imperial aims.

On July 6, UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb announced new (unlawful) sanctions on Russia, citing Magnitsky legislation as unjustifiable justification.

Targeting Russia, Saudi Arabia, Myanmar and North Korea, Moscow was target No. 1 — China notably omitted.

Separately, its envoy to Britain Liu Xiaoming accused the Boris Johnson regime of unlawful “gross interference” in China’s internal affairs, adding:

“(T)he UK has no sovereignty, jurisdiction or right of supervision over Hong Kong.”

Nor does the US or any other country. Liu’s remarks were over unjustifiable US-led criticism of Beijing’s new national security law.

UK’s Rabb dubiously accused 25 Russian nationals of “involve(ment) in the mistreatment and death of… Magnitsky…”

Why the unjustifiable act was resurrected by the Boris Johnson regime to continue Britain’s war on Russia by other means was left unexplained.

Rabb defied reality, reinventing Britain as “a global force for good (sic)…commit(ted) to the rules-based international system and to standing up for victims of human rights violations and abuses around the world (sic).”

Ignored were longstanding UK high crimes of war, against humanity, genocide, and other human rights abuses in one country after another in partnership with Washington’s imperial project.

Sanctions imposed on officials of Russia and other targeted nations have no validity under international law.

The same holds for all unilaterally imposed sanctions by one nation on others.

Rabb’s announced sanctions marked the first time Britain took this action on its own, separate from other European nations — imposing financial asset freezes and banning entry of targeted individuals into the UK, as well as forbidding their involvement in business dealings in the country.

Moscow’s Investigative Committee head Alexander Bastrykin, Deputy Prosecutor General Vikotr Grin, and Deputy Minister of the Interior Ministry Alexey Anichin were three of 25 Russian officials targeted.

Earlier they were sanctioned by the US for alleged involvement in Magnitsky’s death, part of longstanding US war on Russia by other means.

These actions were and remain largely symbolic. Separately from Rabb’s Monday remarks, Britain’s Foreign Office said the following:

Sanctions on targeted “individuals and organizations are the first wave of designations under the new regime, with further sanctions expected in the coming months.”

Twenty Saudi officials were sanctioned in connection with Jamal Khashoggi’s October 2018 murder.

Ordered by crown prince/de facto ruler Mohammad Bin Salman, he was not among named individuals targeted.

Pompeo praised Britain’s unlawful action, saying the following:

“This sanctions regime marks the beginning of a new era for UK sanctions policy and cooperation between our two democracies (sic),” adding:

“The United States will continue to seek out additional allies and partners to jointly leverage all tools at our disposal to deny access to the US and international financial systems to all those who engage in serious human rights abuses (sic).”

Omitted from the US/UK sanctions list are the world’s most grievous human rights abusers — namely themselves, Israel, and other key imperial allies that are complicit in the highest of high crimes.

Russia justifiably considers Magnitsky legislation and similar US actions a breach of its obligations under international law.

No nations may legally interfere in the internal affairs of others.

Acting this way is longstanding US policy, wars by hot and other means its favored strategies.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from TruePublica

First off, this writer is simply a Socialist- not a Marxist or Trotskyite or Stalinist, Leninist or whatever flavor of left wing tastes there are.

All of them are categorically better than what we here in Amerika (and most of the industrialized world) live under. That being Corporate Capitalism On Steroids! Yes, what Adam Smith proselytized hundreds of years ago is nothing like what this current mess is all about. This is actually as close to Fascism as one can get. Not being an economist I will leave it at that for now. Let’s just say that David Korten’s 1995 book ‘When Corporations Rule the World’ explains how Neo Liberal mindsets serve not only our Military Industrial Empire, but ALL the nations that are held hostage by this way of thinking.

Is there a way out of this mess? Why not this:

Tax the Super Rich – We need to institute a ‘Millionaire Surtax’. Easy to do. Just legislate a 50% Flat Surtax on any and all income over and above $ 1,000,000 per year. Let the super rich be taxed on their first million of income as they are now. Just surtax, with NO deductions, a flat 50% of anything over that first $ million. Come on, you mean someone currently earning let us say $ 10 million a year cannot survive and prosper keeping $ 4.5 million tax free? Why not do a poll amongst those of us earning up to $ 1 million per year, and see if they think this would be fair. Imagine how much revenue our Treasury would obtain. Imagine how those extra $ billions could be used for a myriad of things, from upgrading our sagging infrastructure, offering Medicare for All, better schools, libraries ( who need books so dearly), public transportation … and on and on.

Immediate cut of 25% from Military Spending – If you ask the average citizen how much of his or her federal taxes goes toward military spending, you will most likely get answers from 10% to maybe 20%. The sad reality is that over half, 50+%,  goes down that rabbit hole! What is publicized is that over $ 700 billion per year goes for just that. Factor in the ‘Black Budget’ of funds that go for similar means AKA NSA and CIA operations, and you can see the utter contempt that this empire has for its citizens. Imagine what $175+ billion per year can do to once again MAGA (Make America Great Again) , not for phony walls at the border or more overkill WMDs.

Closure of a multitude of our 1000 foreign military bases worldwide – Bringing home the majority of our personnel and equipment will save hundreds of billions of dollars, and take our jackboot off of the 100+ countries we  currently have bases in. Then, to the joy of our Governors and business community, we can restock our domestic bases with millions of military personnel. The towns around those bases would see real economic stimulus. Everybody wins… except the empire’s handlers.

Institute an immediate UBI (Universal Basic Income) – In 2008-09 Uncle Sam just created money electronically to bail out the failed predators and scoundrels in the banking and real estate sector. As public banking and UBI advocate Ellen Brown stated many times on my radio show, a Universal Basic Income of anywhere from $1000- $ 2000 per month per citizen is not only NON INFLATIONARY, but true ECONOMIC STIMULUS. This could mean the difference, for many of us, from being out on the street… Period!! Plus, it could see mega millions of working stiffs finally being able to afford a home or apartment of their own, instead of being at the whim of Absentee Landlords. With this current pandemic crisis one would think that the sharks who own hundreds of millions of rental properties would salivate when getting paid for back rent.

In conclusion, yes there are more needed changes in our current system. I think, for the time being, these four ideas can bear the fruit we all envision. Yes, this writer is what one would call a Reformer as opposed to a Revolutionary. Alas, with the state of the sophistication level of the majority of our fellow citizens, this should suffice.

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid‘ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from Newsmax.com

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”— George Santayana

Introduction:

The term “hybrid warfare” describes a strategy that employs conventional military force supported by irregular and cyber warfare tactics. … This change now requires the U.S. and its allies to adopt a new legal, psychological, and strategic understanding of warfare and use of force, particularly by state actors.

The term “hybrid warfare” describes a strategy that employs conventional military force supported by irregular and cyber warfare tactics.

Conventional Western concepts of war are incompatible and fundamentally misaligned with the realities of conflict in the twenty-first century. The emergence of a unipolar post-Cold War world order has resulted in a significant paradigm shift.[1]

One of the tactics used to achieve Hybrid-warfare goals is Propaganda warfare. Use of mass communication for propaganda. The growth of mass communication networks offers powerful propaganda and recruiting tools. The use of fake news websites to spread false stories is an element of hybrid warfare.[2] 

The Horn of Africa region has recently been the stage for a number of international actors that aim to expand their foreign policy reach. This can be seen from Turkey’s increasing relations with Somalia, China and Russia’s (Zylac-northern united Somalia) decision to establish military bases and the United Arab Emirates’ economic, political and military activities taking place particularly in Somalia and Djibouti.

More seriously, the UAE has injected itself in current Djibouti and Somali socio-political, security, and governance issues since early 2019 and culminating this year, bringing vast amount of political slush funds in order to destabilize, create social unrest the Federal Government and FM states and funding to local proxy politicians for outright regime changes in Djibouti and Mogadishu. 

UAE debacle in Somalia

Since late 2019 when the Somali federal gov. and the breakaway region of ‘Somaliland’ which was mediated by Ethiopian PM Abiyi Ahmed, initially in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Talks between Somalia and the breakaway Somaliland region was hailed as historic, as kick-starting a political dialogue between the two to resolve their longstanding differences.

Somalia President Mohamed Abdullahi Formajo and Somaliland leader Moussa Bihi Abdi met on June 14^th, in Djibouti, their neighbor in the Horn of Africa, in the presence of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the Nobel laureate who in 2020 brought the two sides together in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.[3]

The UAE using its fast networks of local proxies and available financial resources at its disposal, has created a dangerous political, social and security discourse among the governments as well. UAE and its allies local proxies are doing all they can, to smear to derail  the Somali Transitional Federal Government’s (TFG)  progressive course, and to arrest its increasingly positive and optimistic influence in uniting all Somali factions in peace and unity.

There is an unconfirmed report that the UAE has taken steps in bringing  lots of slush money (over $700 million) in support of its geostrategic and political goals in Somalia, aiming to use its local collaborators as proxies. The Abu Dhabi administration wants to cover up its failed foreign policy in  Somalia with the illusion of  creating dissolution of  the federal Somali parliament and resignation of current government of President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo  by creating a constitutional crisis and thus a coup d’état where speakers of both (upper +lower) Hses will claim personal  insecurities and threats to their safety and seek political asylum overseas in western countries.[4] The United Arab Emirates government ratchets up its hybrid war on both Djibouti and Somalia with a war chest of $700 million dollars since mid-may, 2020, taking advantage of internal discourses and  social upheavals in both nations.[4]

Local Opposition trying to capitalize diplomatic row

Somali opposition groups are seizing on the soured relations between Abdullahi Mohamed’s government and Abu Dhabi by accusing the government of actively moving towards the Turkish-Qatari alliance and thus endangering their vital relationship with other Gulf States. Ahmed Madobe, President of the Jubaland region in Somalia, expressed his support for the UAE back in May, while criticising the diplomatic strategy of Mogadishu. Abdullahi Mohamed’s rivals will likely continue to exploit this fractured relationship as they push for increased support from Gulf States in their efforts to expand influence within Somalia. If the UAE develops more relationship with local leaders, like it has done with Puntland, then it risks calling into question the legitimacy of Abdullahi Mohamed’s government and thus provide more incentive for conflict and power grabbing.[5]

The UAE needs to be aware that it is playing with fire if it exploits these divisions. Disrupting the fragile state of stability that Somalia is slowly working towards does nothing for the UAE’s ambition to be seen as a key peace broker in the region. The same can be said over the UAE’s refusal to take responsibility for its role in militant funding in the country.[6, 7]

Conclusion

Another country recently experiencing tension with the UAE is Djibouti. The relations between these two countries soured in February 2018 with Djibouti’s decision to nationalize the Doraleh Port, which was run by the UAE-based company DP World since 2009. Following a 30-year agreement in 2006 between Djibouti and DP World, the company was supposed to operate the port at a maximum capacity. However, the Djibouti administration realized that the Doraleh Port has been operating with less than %50 of its full capacity. The Djibouti government thus argued that DP World’s main motivation to keep Doraleh port at the lowest capacity was to sustain the maximum level of activity at the Dubai port, the leading location of maritime transport in the region.

The Djibouti government also claimed that the deal with DP World in 2006 was in contrast with the national interests due to malpractices of Djiboutian officials involved at that time, and this was the main reason for the cancellation of the agreement. In the aftermath of the decision, Djibouti forces seized the Doraleh Port and suspended the activities of DP World.

It is clear that there are deepening tensions between the UAE and two strategic players in the Horn of Africa, namely Somalia and Djbouti. It can be said that there are three major reasons for that. First of all, the UAE does not respect the national sovereignty of these countries and prioritizes its interests even if they contradict  these countries’ national sovereignty. The second reason is related to the nature of the UAE activities in the region. The Somalia and Djibouti governments are not comfortable with the UAE-sponsored ports and military bases, mainly because of their long-term negative impacts on these countries. The final reason is that there are a number of emerging international actors such as Turkey, Russia and China, which have developed good relations with Somalia and Djibouti. This has caused them to reconsider their relations with aggressive actors in the region such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia.[8, 9, 10]

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Prof. Dr. Bischara A. EGAL, is Executive director & Researcher at  The Horn of Africa Center for Strategic & International Studies (Horncsis.org).

Notes

1. Hybrid Warfare From Wikipedia,( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_warfare accessed on june11, 2020)

2. McCuen, John J. “Hybrid Wars.” Military Review. Mar/Apr 2008, Vol. 88 Issue 2, p. 107-113.

3. Ball, Joshua, What is Hybrid war? Non-linear combat at the 21^stCentury(2019)https://globalsecurityreview.com/hybrid-and-non-linear-warfare-systematically-erases-the-divide-between-war-peace/(AccessedJune 11, 2020)

4. Somalia- Somaliland talks : Djibouti to mediate by and Ethiopian Govts with US, EU as facilitators ; Africanews, june 19, 2020 https://www.africanews.com/2020/06/19/somalia-somaliland-leaders-to-meet-in-djibouti-next-week//(accessedjuly2, 2020)

5. Xassan Cabdi Ceynaanshe : Soomaaliyey ogaadhe Khatarte Mucaaretka & Duulaanka Cadawga (accessed june 29, 2020) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwQcXZR1GF4&list=RDCMUCLtclOp7kgcAlSa_XG4s0rw&start_radio=1&t=738

6. Ibid      Gudoomiye –Yaasha labad Gole & Magalad –Qabiilka iyo Qaran(11june2020)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDjYevR0yLU&t=36s(accessedjune 21, 2020)

7. Deg Deg Imaaraatka & Kenya Oo Ka Shaqyenaya burburiinta Heswhiiska DF + S/Land https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG4QbiG8_Es&feature=youtu.be(accessedjune16, 2020)

8. Talci, Ismail Numan , “ From cooperation to Conflict: the UAE’s deepening Crisis with Somalia and Djibouti, April 26, 2018.https://politicstoday.org/from-cooperation-to-conflict-the-uaes-deepening-crisis-with-somalia-and-djibouti/(accessedjune 16, 2020)

9. Cold war in Somalia: Gulf States Game; Security and Influence. By Gulffutres.org. 12, 2020https://gulffutures.org/en/archives/2498(accessedjune 14, 2020)

10. https://smallwarsjournal.com/comment/47212(accessedJune 11, 2020)

11. Frank Hoffman, Conflict in the 21^stCentury: The Rise of Hybrid War, (Arlington: Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 2007), 20-22.

12. Cold War in Somalia by https://gulffutures.org/en/archives/2982

13. https://www.dailysabah.com/op-ed/2017/11/17/united-arab-emirates-plays-destructive-role-in-somalia(accessedjune 14, 2020)

14. Qaran TV- Deg Deg diidneey in nala iibsado imaaraatka Oo isku dyaya Madaxda, July 1^st, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgBt_GBti8E&feature=push-u-sub&attr_tag=ivUfMDzsim5nTL8V%3A6(accessedjuly 1^st, 2020)

15. https://www.tesfanews.net/detention-torture-air-force-pilot-ignites-djibouti-protest/

16. Somalia rejects “ridiculous” UAE incentive to join Yemen War, June 30^th, 2020 https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200630-somalia-rejects-ridiculous-uae-incentive-to-join-yemen-war/#.XwGKAapLhUE.twitter

All images in this article are from the author

Centinaia di migliaia di vittime civili, oltre 2.400 soldati Usa uccisi (più un numero imprecisato di feriti), circa 1.000 miliardi di dollari spesi: questo in sintesi il bilancio dei 19 anni di guerra Usa in Afghanistan, cui si aggiunge il costo per gli alleati Nato (Italia compresa) e altri che hanno affiancato gli Usa nella guerra.

Bilancio fallimentare per gli Usa anche sotto il profilo politico-militare: la maggior parte del territorio è oggi controllata dai Talebani o contesa tra questi e le forze governative sostenute dalla Nato.

Su tale sfondo, dopo lunghe trattative, l’amministrazione Trump ha concluso lo scorso febbraio un accordo con i Talebani, che prevede, in cambio di una serie di garanzie, la riduzione del numero delle truppe Usa in Afghanistan da 8.600 a 4.500. Ciò non significa la fine dell’intervento militare Usa in Afghanistan, che continua con forze speciali, droni e bombardieri. L’accordo, comunque, aprirebbe la via a una de-escalation del conflitto armato.

Pochi mesi dopo la firma, però, esso è stato rotto: non dai Talebani afghani ma dai Democratici statunitensi. Essi hanno fatto passare al Congresso un emendamento all’Atto di autorizzazione che stanzia 740,5 miliardi di dollari per il budget del Pentagono nell’anno fiscale 2021. L’emendamento, approvato il 2 luglio dal Comitato dei servizi armati a grande maggioranza con i voti del Democratici, stabilisce di «limitare l’uso di fondi per ridurre il numero di forze armate dispiegate in Afghanistan».

Esso proibisce al Pentagono di spendere i fondi in suo possesso per qualsiasi attività che riduca il numero dei soldati Usa in Afghanistan al di sotto degli 8.000: l’accordo, che comporta la riduzione delle truppe Usa in Afghanistan, viene così di fatto bloccato. Significativo è che l’emendamento sia stato presentato non solo dal democratico Jason Crow ma anche dalla repubblicana Liz Cheney, che fornisce il suo avallo in perfetto stile bipartisan. Liz è figlia di Dick Cheney, vicepresidente degli Stati Uniti dal 2001 al 2009 nell’amministrazione di George W.Bush, quella che decise l’invasione e occupazione dell’Afghanistan (ufficialmente per dare la caccia a Osama bin Laden).

L’emendamento condanna esplicitamente l’accordo, sostenendo che danneggia «gli interessi di sicurezza nazionale degli Stati uniti», «non rappresenta una realistica soluzione diplomatica» e «non fornisce protezione a popolazioni vulnerabili». Per essere autorizzato a ridurre le proprie truppe in Afghanistan, il Pentagono dovrà certificare che ciò «non comprometterà la missione antiterrorismo degli Stati uniti».

Non a caso il New York Times ha pubblicato il 26 giugno un articolo che, in base a informazioni fornite (senza alcuna prova) da agenti dell’intelligence Usa, accusa «una unità dell’intelligence militare russa di aver offerto a militanti talebani una taglia per uccidere soldati della Coalizione in Afghanistan, prendendo di mira soprattutto quelli americani». La notizia è stata diffusa dai principali media statunitensi, senza che nessun cacciatore di fake news ne mettesse in dubbio la veridicità.

Una settimana dopo al Congresso è passato l’emendamento che impedisce la riduzione delle truppe Usa in Afghanistan. Ciò conferma quale sia il reale scopo dell’intervento militare Usa/Nato in Afghanistan: il controllo di quest’area di primaria importanza strategica. L’Afghanistan è al crocevia tra Medio Oriente, Asia centrale, meridionale e orientale.

In quest’area (nel Golfo e nel Caspio) si trovano grandi riserve petrolifere. Si trovano Russia e Cina, la cui forza sta crescendo e influendo sugli assetti globali. Come aveva avvertito il Pentagono in un rapporto del 30 settembre 2001, una settimana prima dell’invasione Usa dell’Afghanistan, «esiste la possibilità che emerga in Asia un rivale con una formidabile base di risorse». Possibilità che ora si sta materializzando.

Gli «interessi di sicurezza nazionale degli Stati uniti» impongono di restare in Afghanistan, costi quello che costi.

Manlio Dinucci

Clashes between government forces and ISIS terrorists have continued in central Syria since July 2, when ISIS cells stormed army positions in eastern Homs. In response, the Syrians supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces launched a security operation in the desert. Sporadic clashes and airstrikes were reported in the area over the next few days.

On July 4, ISIS terrorists even ambushed a unit of the Syrian Army in eastern Homs. The military reportedly lost contact with 25 soldiers in eastern Homs. As of July 6, their fate remains unclear. It’s likely that, members of the dispersed unit are now returning to their permanent positions in the province.

Pro-opposition sources claim that over the past week, at least 20 soldiers were killed in clashes with ISIS members. Pro-government sources do not provide details regarding army casualties, but say that government forces were able to destroy 3 ISIS vehicles and neutralize up to 10 ISIS members.

As the Syrian government fights ISIS on the western bank of the Euphrates, the US-led coalition conducted a raid against the terrorist group in the town of Husayn on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

On July 5, US helicopters landed near the town and US forces assisted by members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) detained at least 4 suspects.

Meanwhile, the SDF leadership declared that it does not see a possibility to reach a comprehensive political agreement with Damascus because the government wants to restore full control over the provinces of Deir Ezozr and Raqqa in the framework of such a deal.

SDF Commander-in-Chief Abdi Şahin better known by his nom de guerre Mazlum Abdi declined such a possibility claiming that the Kurdish-led group wants to keep control of all the areas that it has seized. Abdi is a member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which seeks to create an independent Kurdish state in southern Turkey and, if it’s possible, include into it territories of northern Syria and northern Iraq. Therefore, such a position of the SDF leadership is not a big surprise.

In 2019, the Syrian Army came to northeastern Syria to rescue the SDF from the Turkish military advance when the group then abandoned by the US-led coalition needed it. However, after this, the Kurdish leadership once again turned back from the Syrian people selling its loyalty to Washington for weapons and a share of oil revenue from the US-controlled Syrian oilfields.

Infighting among Turkish-backed militant groups erupted in the provinces of al-Hasakah and Raqqa on July 3 and July 5. Tell Abyad, al-Yabisah and Ras al-Ain are the man hot points. At least 5 militants and several civilians were killed. The main source of tensions is the intra-militant competition for control of roads, agricultural lands and trade in a small chunk of area occupied by Turkey in northeastern Syria. The funding from Turkey decreased after the de-escalation of the conflict in this part of the country. So, Turkish-backed fighters are now looting the captured areas to obtain the needed financial resources.

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To drive home just how superficial and empty recent protests in America are and how little besides further division and destruction will become of them – take the fate of two fictional characters recently put in the spotlight by baying activists – PepsiCo’s “Aunt Jemima” breakfast food brand and Mars Incorporated’s “Uncle Ben’s” rice products.

Both came into the crosshairs of “woke” America. Both fictional characters will now no longer be used.

It might appear like a huge victory for “woke” America.

CNN in their article, “The Aunt Jemima brand, acknowledging its racist past, will be retired,” would claim:

Quaker Oats is retiring the more than 130-year-old Aunt Jemima brand and logo, acknowledging its origins are based on a racial stereotype.

“As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers’ expectations,” the Pepsi-owned company said in a statement provided to CNN Business.

And the London Guardian in their article, “Uncle Ben’s rice firm to scrap brand image of black farmer,” would claim:

The rice company Uncle Ben’s is to scrap the image of a black farmer the brand has used since the 1940s and could change its name, as companies react to growing concerns over racial bias and injustice.

The parent company, Mars, said Uncle Ben was a fictional character whose name was first used in 1946 as a reference to an African American Texan rice farmer.

While there is no doubt that both fictional characters represented stereotypes and are rooted in America’s racist past – “woke” America’s belief that somehow this was a priority or some form of victory begs belief. So does the fact that those opposed to expanding mobs and their “cancel culture” have crafted the most anemic counterpoints.

Some claim that the fictional characters were either inspired or portrayed by real African Americans who profited from the branding.

What neither side mentioned was the very real abuses both companies are guilty of – abuses that are both inhumane and rooted in extraordinary, inexcusable, and thus far utterly unaddressed racism.

PepsiCo and Mars Sponsor/Profit From Slavery and Mass Murder 

Both “woke” America as well as those trying to form opposition to it have entirely missed the fact that PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – two multi-billion dollar businesses – are literally engage in modern day slavery to create their products while sponsoring policy think-tanks that have engineered wars targeting African nations, leading to the deaths of tens of thousands and open-air slave markets where black people – today – are sold into bondage.

This would seem to be a much greater transgression against black people than their crude depictions in company branding and demand much more serious action than merely adjusting marketing strategies – such as demanding boards of directors to resign or full-spectrum, permanent boycotts for these businesses and their many subsidiaries and brands.

Unfortunately for “woke” America, fictional characters are a priority taken head-on all while activists blissfully munch on chocolate bars made by cocoa harvested by African slave labor and sip on drinks made by a corporation who sponsors US wars abroad in which blacks are mass murdered and enslaved.

Your Mars Inc. Chocolate Comes from Slave Labor

If you enjoy chocolate snacks like 3 Musketeers, Snickers, Mars, and Milky Way bars, the chocolate you ate most likely came from a developing nation with dismal working conditions and in many cases, child and slave labor.

Mars Inc. along with Nestle, Hershey, and many other chocolate companies, source cocoa from Africa and specially the nations of Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana.

A Washington Post article published just last year titled, “Cocoa’s child laborers,” would note:

Mars, Nestlé and Hershey pledged nearly two decades ago to stop using cocoa harvested by children. Yet much of the chocolate you buy still starts with child labor.

The article elaborated, noting:

About two-thirds of the world’s cocoa supply comes from West Africa where, according to a 2015 U.S. Labor Department report, more than 2 million children were engaged in dangerous labor in cocoa-growing regions.

When asked this spring, representatives of some of the biggest and best-known brands — Hershey, Mars and Nestlé — could not guarantee that any of their chocolates were produced without child labor.

Black children used as labor and under conditions and for wages bordering slavery to produce cocoa Mars Inc. knowingly uses in its products – and makes billions of dollars off of – seems like a much bigger issue than what is undoubtedly offensive labelling practiced by Mars Inc. through its “Uncle Ben’s” brand.

Indicative of the carefully controlled nature of ongoing protests is how the Washington Post has reported on Mars Inc.’s genuinely offensive, even criminal predation on black labor in Africa in the past as well as Mars Inc.’s offensive branding more recently, but failed to link the two in its most recent reporting – thus artfully avoiding a genuinely “woke” readership and any genuine damage real protests and boycotts would have on Mars Inc. and other corporations whose interests Washington Post regularly serves as a voice for.

Big-Biz like PepsiCo and Mars Inc. are an Affront to All

Mars Inc. – alongside PepsiCo, Nestle, and Hersey – was also involved in funding anti-labelling campaigns to prevent legislation from passing that would force food manufacturers to inform consumers their products contained genetically modified organisms (GMO).

Corporations spending money to hide dangerous ingredients from consumers endangers everyone’s health – black and white, left and right.

Mars Inc., PepsiCo, and others defend such campaigning, claiming that such legislation would be “costly” – as would ensuring  all of their ingredients are ethically procured and free of child and/or slave labor.

Yet Mars Inc., PepsiCo, and others are multi-billion dollar businesses. The Mars family which owns Mars Inc. consists mostly of family members who are billionaires – not mere millionaires – but billionaires.

Their daily “concerns” include ensuring their sprawling 82,000 acre ranches have enough water and that they receive the most lenient penalties when crashing their Porsche SUV’s into vans carrying families.

Mars Inc. and other multi-billion dollar businesses can afford to do better, simply at the cost of being slightly less well-off billionaires or perhaps even being demoted to millionaires – yet they simply and deliberately choose to profit off the backs of poorly informed consumers at home and exploited/enslaved labor abroad.

If what Mars Inc. and PepsiCo contributed too was only limited to cultivating ignorant consumers at home and using slave labor abroad it would be bad enough. And if America’s “woke revolution” was serious about justice, Mars Inc. and PepsiCo would be on the chopping block for much more than their crude, racist marketing, and would have more demanded of them.
But that is not all Mars Inc. and PepsiCo are contributing to.

Sponsoring Warmongering and Mass Murder in Africa (and everywhere else)

Both PepsiCo and Mars Inc. are sponsors of policy think tanks like the Brookings Institution whose “scholars” and “fellows” churn out the blueprints for US wars which are then rubber stamped by the US Congress and sold to the public by the corporate media.

Even as recently as Brooking Institution’s 2019 annual report (PDF) both companies – PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – are listed as sponsors as were both companies in 2011 (PDF).

Brookings and its corporate-sponsored staff worked diligently in 2011 to help sell the US military intervention in the North African nation of Libya. It was a key institution involved in creating and spreading the notion of “R2P” or the “responsibility to protect” used as flimsy cover for a long-planned US desire to effect regime change in Libya.

As early as February 2011, the Brookings Institution published articles and papers like, “United States Must Take Lead on Libya,” in which Brookings “Senior Fellows” – funded by the likes of PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – made the nascent calls for US military intervention that would eventually lead to the US arming militants openly and carrying out air strikes across the nation.

Indeed, the US armed militants in eastern Libya – a hotbed for racism and extremism and the epicenters of Al Qaeda in the country – as well as provided roving bands of armed gangs air support as they swept the nation.

When Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi was violently swept from power later that year, the estimated 2.5 million Africans from across the continent he took in, providing housing and living wages to, found themselves being hunted by US-backed militants.

To explain the blatant and explosive racism that predictably swept Libya in the wake of the US-backed war, articles like the CS Monitor’s “How Qaddafi helped fuel fury toward Africans in Libya,” would claim:

Many experts – and African migrant workers themselves – say the animosity stems from anti-African racism found throughout the Arab world. But some say the anger has been made much worse by Mr. Qaddafi’s moves to buy the loyalty of black Libyans from the south of the country as well as his decades-long efforts to build Africa-wide patronage networks at great cost to the country’s Arab majority.

In other words – the CS Monitor and the Western “experts” it cited claim Qaddafi “fueled fury toward Africans” by merely spending resources to help them. It is an oblique attempt to justify the racism-driven genocide US-backed militants carried out during their “victory lap” in Libya.

Black Africans living in Libya were either driven out of the country, across the Mediterranean and into Europe to face hardship and racism there or either mass murdered in Libya or rounded up and enslaved.

The Western media – partners with institutions like Brookings – denied this at first – or attempted to excuse it like the CS Monitor – but eventually covered the fallout US military intervention in Libya and its long-planned regime change agenda triggered.

Reuters in their article, “African workers live in fear after Gaddafi overthrow,” would admit:

Tens of thousands of foreign workers have fled Libya since the armed revolt against Gaddafi’s 42-year-rule began in February, with Africans afraid they have become targets for fighters who accuse them of being mercenaries for Gaddafi.

This antipathy appears to have spread to all Africans, leaving them vulnerable to attacks, robbery and other abuse by the gun-toting, mostly young, fighters who ousted Gaddafi.

Identity cards of nationals from Chad, Niger, Mali, Sudan and other African states have been found on the bodies of gunmen who anti-Gaddafi fighters say were paid to confront them.

The BBC in its article, “Libya migrant ‘slave market’ footage sparks outrage,” would admit:

Migrants trying to reach Europe have spoken of being held by smugglers and forced to work for little or no money.

The footage released by CNN appears to show youths from Niger and other sub-Saharan countries being sold to buyers for about $400 (£300) at undisclosed locations in Libya.

While these media sources covered the fallout of the 2011 US military intervention, they were careful not to link the fallout directly to the intervention.

The US war against Libya was a humanitarian catastrophe deliberately engineered by Western think tanks funded by big-business like PepsiCo, Mars Inc., and many others, rubber stamped by politicians in Washington – both Democrat and Republican – and eagerly sold to the public by the corporate media.

And even as recently as 2016, Brookings “Senior Fellow” Shadi Hamid in a piece published on Brookings’ site titled, “Everyone says the Libya intervention was a failure. They’re wrong,” would remain insistent in defending the US-led war and the decimated, racist, and dysfunctional Libya left in its wake.

He argues that if the US didn’t intervene, Qaddafi would have successfully eliminated the racist extremists in eastern Libya and particularly in Benghazi who would eventually carry out genocide against Libya’s black population. Hamid simply omits any mention of this or who actually was based in Benghazi and instead refers to them merely as “protesters.”

Thus, PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – alongside oil corporations and weapons manufacturers – are funding an institution that not only engineers and eagerly promotes wars, they fund an institution that is utterly unapologetic about the calamity these wars cause – including wars like in Libya ending tragically for 2.5 million black Africans.

“Woke” America needs to be conscious enough to recognize the true injustice underpinning American society. It is very likely that as protesters in America and online around the globe rail against “Aunt Jemima” and “Uncle Ben’s” many activists are eagerly enjoying many of the other products produced by and profiting PepsiCo and Mars Inc. – oblivious to the fact that the ingredients are procured through child and slave labor in Africa and the profits are directed into promoting wars that leave blacks abroad dead, displaced, or enslaved.

And as long as this is the case, nothing of any genuine substance will ever change in America or across the wider Western World.

If real justice is what Americans – all Americans – want, they need to truly wake up to this fact first.

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Tony Cartalucci is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

This article was originally published on Asia Times.

The no holds barred US-China strategic competition may be leading us to the complete fragmentation of the current “world-system” – as Wallerstein defined it.

Yet compared to the South China Sea, the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan Straits, India-China’s Himalayan border, and selected latitudes of the Greater Middle East, Central Asia shines as a portrait of stability.

That’s quite intriguing, when we consider that the chessboard reveals the interests of top global players intersecting right in the heart of Eurasia.

And that brings us to a key question: How could Kazakhstan, the 9^th largest country in the world, manage to remain neutral in the current, incandescent geopolitical juncture?  What are the lineaments of what could be described as the Kazakh paradox?

These questions were somewhat answered by the office of First President Nursultan Nazarbayev. I had discussed some of them with analysts when I was in Kazakhstan late last year. Nazarbayev could not answer them directly because he has just recently recovered from Covid-19 and is currently in self-isolation.

It all harks back to what was Kazakhstan really like when the USSR dissolved in 1991. The Kazakhs inherited a quite complex ethno-demographic structure, with the Russian-speaking population concentrated in the north; unresolved territorial issues with China; and geographical proximity to extremely unstable Afghanistan, then in a lull before the all-out warlord conflagration of the early 1990s which created the conditions for the emergence of the Taliban.

To make it even harder, Kazakhstan was landlocked.

All of the above might have led to Kazakhstan either dispatched to political limbo or mired in a perpetual Balkan scenario.

Have soft power, will travel

Enter Nazarbayev as a fine political strategist. From the beginning, he saw Kazakhstan as a key player, not a pawn, in the Grand Chessboard in Eurasia.

A good example was setting up the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building measures in Asia (CICA) in 1992, based on the principle of “indivisibility of Asian security”, later proposed to the whole of Eurasia.

Nazarbayev also made the crucial decision to abandon what was at the time the fourth nuclear missile potential on the planet – and a major trump card in international relations. Every major player in the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia knew that selected Islamic nations were extremely interested in Kazakhstan’s nuclear arsenal.

Nazarbayev bet on soft power instead of nuclear power. Unlike the DPRK, for instance, he privileged Kazakhstan’s integration in the global economy in favorable terms instead of relying on nuclear power to establish national security. He was certainly paving the way for Kazakhstan to be regarded as a trustworthy, get down to business neutral player and a mediator in international relations.

The trust and goodwill towards Kazakhstan is something I have seen for myself in my pan-Eurasia travels and in conversations with analysts from Turkey and Lebanon to Russia and India.

The best current example is Astana, currently Nur-sultan, becoming the HQ of that complex work in progress: the Syrian peace process, coordinated by Iran, Turkey and Russia – following the crucial, successful Kazakh mediation to solve the Moscow-Ankara standoff after the downing of a Sukhoi Su-24M near the Syria-Turkish border in November 2015.

And on the turbulent matter of Ukraine post-Maidan in 2014, Kazakhstan simultaneously kept good relations with Kiev and the West and its strategic partnership with Russia.

As I discussed late last year, Nur-sultan is now actively taking the role of the new Geneva: the capital of diplomacy for the 21^st century.

The secret of this Kazakh paradox is the capacity of delicately balancing relations with the three main players – Russia, China and the US – as well as leading regional powers. Nazarbayev’s office boldly argues that can be even translated to Nur-sultan placed as the ideal venue for US-China negotiations: “We are tightly embedded in the US-China-Russia triangle and have built trusting relationships with each of them.”

In the heart of Eurasia

And that brings us to why Kazakhstan – and Nazarbayev personally – are so much involved in promoting their special concept of Greater Eurasia – which overlaps with the Russian vision, discussed in extensive detail at the Valdai Club.

Nazarbayev managed to set a paradigm in which none of the big players feel compelled to exercize a monopoly on Kazak maneuvering. That  inevitably led Kazakhstan to expand its foreign policy reach.

Strategically, Kazakhstan is smack in the geographical heart of Eurasia, with huge borders with Russia and China, as well as Iran in the Caspian Sea. Its territory is no less than a top strategic bridge uniting the whole of Eurasia.

The Kazakh approach goes way beyond connectivity (trade and transport), two key planks of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to get closer to the converging vision of BRI and the Russian-led Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU): a single, integrated Eurasian space.

Nazarbayev sees the integration of the Central Asian “stans” with Russia and with Turkic-speaking countries, including of course Turkey, as the foundation for his concept of Greater Eurasia.

The inevitable corollary is that the Atlanticist order – as well as the Anglo-American predominance in international relations – is waning, and certainly does not suit Asia and Eurasia. A consensus is forming across many key latitudes that the driving force for the reboot of the global economy post-Covid-19 – and even a new paradigm – will come from Asia.

In parallel, Nazarbayev’s office make a crucial point:

“A purely Asian or Eastern answer is unlikely to suit the collective West, which is also in search of optimal models of the world’s structure. The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative clearly showed that Western countries are not psychologically ready to see China as a leader.”

Nur-sultan nonetheless remains convinced that the only possible solution would be exactly a new paradigm in international relations. Nazarbayev  argues that the keys to solve the current turmoil are not located in Moscow, Beijing or Washington, but in a strategic transit node, like Kazakhstan, where the interests of all global players intersect.

Thus the push for Kazakhstan – one of the key crossroads between Europe and Asia, alongside Turkey and Iran – to become the optimal mediator allowing Greater Eurasia to flourish in practice. That is the uplifting option:  otherwise, we seem condemned to live through another Cold War.

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Nicaragua – Virtual Reality and Human Rights

By Stephen Sefton, July 06, 2020

Ever since January 2007, the Western human rights industry has attacked Nicaragua’s Sandinista government for being undemocratic and repressive. For over a decade, Nicaragua’s social and economic development and successive democratic elections repeatedly contradicted that mendacious narrative. Frustrated by Nicaragua’s embarrassing example of undeniable, sovereign, socialist inspired social and economic progress, the US authorities, over several years, prepared, organized and finally openly supported the violent coup attempt of April 2018.

Reparations and Other Scams: Israeli Survivors Live in Poverty and Are Starving?

By Philip Giraldi, July 06, 2020

Israel and Jewish groups were major beneficiaries of the reparations and restitution programs that were created as a result of World War Two. The Luxembourg Agreement signed in 1952 committed West Germany to pay Israel a sum of 3 billion Deutsche Marks over the next fourteen years, which was at the time an enormous sum. An additional 450 million marks were paid to the World Jewish Congress. The payments that were made to the State of Israel regarded the government as the de facto heir to war victims who had no surviving family or who could not otherwise be identified. The money was mostly invested in the Israeli infrastructure and was significant in aiding in the initial development of the economy of the new state, but there were also considerable barter arrangements whereby Israel purchasing agents obtained German manufactured goods and raw materials.

Are the Democrats a Political Party or a CIA-Backed Fifth Column?

By Mike Whitney, July 06, 2020

The protests are largely a diversion aimed at shifting the public’s attention to a racialized narrative that obfuscates the widening inequality chasm (created by the Democrats biggest donors, the Giant Corporations and Wall Street) to historic antagonisms that have clearly diminished over time. (Racism ain’t what it used to be.) The Democrats are resolved to set the agenda by deciding what issues “will and will not” be covered over the course of the campaign. And– since race is an issue on which they feel they can energize their base by propping-up outdated stereotypes of conservatives as ignorant bigots incapable of rational thought– the Dems are using their media clout to make race the main topic of debate. In short, the Democrats have settled on a strategy for quashing the emerging populist revolt that swept Trump into the White House in 2016 and derailed Hillary’s ambitious grab for presidential power.

Key US Ally Indicted for Organ Trade Murder Scheme. CIA Backed Kosovo President Hashim Thaci

By Nicolas J. S. Davies, July 06, 2020

In 2008 an international prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, accused U.S.-backed Prime Minister Hashim Thaci of Kosovo of using the U.S. bombing campaign as cover to murder hundreds of people to sell their internal organs on the international transplant market. Del Ponte’s charges seemed almost too ghoulish to be true. But on June 24th, Thaci, now President of Kosovo, and nine other former leaders of the CIA-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA,) were finally indicted for these 20-year-old crimes by a special war crimes court at The Hague.

LancetGate: “Scientific Corona Lies” and Big Pharma Corruption. Hydroxychloroquine versus Gilead’s Remdesivir

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 05, 2020

There is an ongoing battle to suppress Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a cheap and effective drug for the treatment of Covid-19. The campaign against HCQ is carried out through slanderous political statements, media smears, not to mention an authoritative peer reviewed “evaluation”  published on May 22nd by The Lancet, which was based on fake figures and test trials.

The study was allegedly based on data analysis of 96,032 patients hospitalized with COVID-19 between Dec 20, 2019, and April 14, 2020 from 671 hospitals Worldwide. The database had been fabricated. The objective was to kill the Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) cure on behalf of Big Pharma.

Is Washington Provoking India into a War with China?

By F. William Engdahl, July 05, 2020

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a recent video conference suggested that the US might move some of its troops from Germany to the region around India, citing growing US security concerns in the Asian region. Given the dramatic rise in tensions between India and China over disputed borders in the region of Nepal and Bhutan where several soldiers from both sides reportedly died in hand-to-hand combat, the question is whether Washington is deliberately trying to fan fires of war between the two Asian giant powers. As unlikely as that might be at present, it indicates how unstable our world is becoming amid the ‘coronavirus economic depression’, and the perceived power vacuum of a US in retreat.

“No One Has Died from the Coronavirus”

By Rosemary Frei and Patrick Corbett, July 03, 2020

A high-profile European pathologist is reporting that he and his colleagues across Europe have not found any evidence of any deaths from the novel coronavirus on that continent.

Dr. Stoian Alexov called the World Health Organization (WHO) a “criminal medical organization” for creating worldwide fear and chaos without providing objectively verifiable proof of a pandemic.

Ever since January 2007, the Western human rights industry has attacked Nicaragua’s Sandinista government for being undemocratic and repressive. For over a decade, Nicaragua’s social and economic development and successive democratic elections repeatedly contradicted that mendacious narrative. Frustrated by Nicaragua’s embarrassing example of undeniable, sovereign, socialist inspired social and economic progress, the US authorities, over several years, prepared, organized and finally openly supported the violent coup attempt of April 2018.

During that coup attempt and ever since it failed, the North American and European human rights industry has falsely accused the Nicaraguan authorities of having brutally repressed peaceful opposition protests with disproportionate lethal violence. In doing so, reports by human rights organizations have systematically ignored numerous very serious crimes and even massacres by Nicaragua’s US supported right wing opposition and their allies. Between April 18^th and July 17^th 2018, 23 police officers were killed by opposition activists and 400 officers suffered gunshot wounds inflicted by opposition gunmen. Reports by Western human rights organizations have concealed that deliberate lethal opposition violence by systematically suppressing conventional witness testimony, documentary evidence and audiovisual material.

Conversely, no categorical evidence exists to support accusations of systematic human rights violations by Nicaragua’s government. But human rights organizations have lately sought to overcome that absence of evidence by using innovative virtual reality reconstruction. The Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) published a video on May 30^th this year resulting from a collaboration between an Organization of American States body, the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI), the EAAF itself and a New York based company called SITU Research, which has previously done virtual reality imaging for Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Ukrainian prosecuting lawyers.

The GIEI, the EAAF and SITU Research have all falsely claimed their video documentary proves that Nicaragua’s police used unprovoked, indiscriminate gunfire to kill unarmed protesters. However, their video shows no footage of police or Sandinista supporters firing on protesters and omits well known video footage by opposition media of opposition protesters carrying and using lethal firearms. It also omits essential context of armed opposition violence related to the events the video covers. Nor does it examine the strong possibility of false flag shootings similar to those that took place at Puente Llaguno in Caracas during the failed coup attempt of April 2002 in Venezuela. The video was funded with support from corporate funders including the Open Society Foundation, notorious for supporting the coup d’etat in Ukraine and other regime change movements elsewhere.

The EAAF-SITU Research video makes quasi-scientific claims attributing lethal gunfire to police or sandinista supporters making questionable use of professional analysis by Knox Associates of the sound of the shots fired. As John Perry notes in his analysis of the video, the Knox report makes clear that opposition activists with firearms were among the protesters. Even the GIEI report acknowledges this. Other readily accessible video footage shows opposition activists carrying automatic rifles and using automatic pistols in the same places and around the same times as the video claims the Nicaraguan police fired their weapons. The EAAF-SITU Research video omits this inconvenient information. Likewise, the video’s imaging material, put together by SITU Research, inaccurately confuses the distances, supplied by Knox Associates ballistics analysis, from which the shots heard in the video came.

This confusion and inaccuracy by SITU Research has antecedents in their video on the shootings in Kiev’s Maidan in Ukraine in 2014. The SITU Research video depicting some of the Maidan shootings was carefully analyzed by Ivan Katchanovski of the University of Ottawa. Katchanovksi concludes“no expert knowledge or familiarity with the Maidan massacre or Ukraine is needed to see blatant misrepresentation of elementary data in that 3D model”. Among much else, he found that SITU Research’s 3D model had moved wound locations to suit the video’s conclusions. Katchanovksi’s analysis also draws on evidence omitted by SITU Research which contradicts their claims, just as SITU and EAFF have deliberately suppressed evidence contradicting the claims of their video on Nicaragua.

With surprising frankness Brad Samuels, founding partner of SITU Research, has publicly stated:

“…it’s about not allowing these narratives to become the reason that there’s no accountability… so that you can focus on what you do know and I just I think that that’s at play in all kinds of ways more than it ever has been,… this question of competing narratives, truth claims and facts and that’s really what we’re, this work is about ”.

Still from EAAF/SITU Research video. The red radius incorrectly suggests the police were further from protesters’ barricades than they really were because the actual distances are much less than those in the graphic, which gives the false impression that the police were located at the distance which the firearms expert judged the fatal shots to have come from, which is not the case. (Research by John Perry)

Samuels here straighforwardly acknowledges that SITU Research suppresses inconvenient competing evidence contradicting the narrative on which they choose to focus. They did this in the Ukraine video and they have now done so too in the EAAF-SITU Research video about the events in Managua on May 30^th 2018. The video documentary on Nicaragua by the EAAF and SITU Research dishonestly reinforces the GIEI’s false reports used to justify attacks in the OAS against Nicaragua’s government.

Both the video documentary and the GIEI reports systematically exclude or suppress references to audio visual material available here and here, documentary evidence, witness testimony and press reports here, here, here, here, and here, and an on-the-spot report by a veteran independent journalist, all of which challenge their version of events. Nicaragua’s case is a text-book example of how genuine human rights research has been subverted so as to produce highly biased reports from organizations like the EAAF and SITU Research, supporting the political agenda of neocolonial institutions like the Organization of American States.

Western populations are practically defenseless against this kind of anti-democratic disinformation tyranny. Co-opted by corporate elites, North American and European non governmental human rights organizations work closely with their counterparts in the corporate and alternative media industry. They support broad NATO country foreign policy and purposefully corrupt the workings of international human rights institutions as needed to support that foreign policy.

In practice, this means they make frequent opportunely scheduled attacks against Western government targets like Syria and Venezuela, and correspondingly less frequent, less critical attacks on, for example, Colombia or Israel. Human rights industry reports are essential reference points for press and media foreign affairs coverage as well as often extremely aggressive messaging on social media. They are also basic inputs into international human rights legal processes, as happened most notoriously in the case of Libya in 2011.

In this way, Western human rights organizations massively extend their market reach and scope, posing falsely as unbiased interlocutors in global human rights institutions. The aura of their messaging influences an enormous number of people who never even read their reports. This messaging aura is a human rights industry product just as important as their actual research. It consolidates their institutional credibility, hugely enhancing their capacity to manipulate news and social media.

This marketing aura is more than mere inauthentic consumer advertising. It facilitates shaping international opinion in favor of the industry’s corporate and government investors’ agenda, reinforcing the power and influence of Western elites. It radically delegitimizes opposition by implicitly setting limits to opinions and arguments that will be tolerated and ones that will not. Human rights organizations and leaders achieve this control not through intellectual rigor and legitimate achievement, but by accumulating mainstream prestige via corporate and governmental acceptance expressed in grants and awards.

That corporate and government investment endows human rights organizations with money, status and goodwill, facilitating two extremely cynical fundamental strategies. Firstly, the human rights industry markets itself dishonestly, but very powerfully, as if it were driven by humanitarian concern rather than ideological bias, effectively discrediting and marginalizing legitimate criticism. Secondly, the human rights industry systematically and dishonestly excludes or suppresses evidence discrediting the pretexts for sadistic North American and European economic and military aggression against countries around the world, from Iran and Syria to Cuba and Venezuela.

The false EAAF and SITU Research video documentary on Nicaragua produced for GIEI group reporting to the OAS is the latest example of this reality. It is a pseudo-innovative, neocolonial reprise of conventional imperialist domination abandoning historical truth to favor a narrative serving Western elites. It bears out Rodolfo Walsh’s famous remark: “History ends up looking like private property whose owners are the very same people who own everything else”. How bitterly ironic that a human rights group from Argentina should collaborate in a project seeking to exonerate US government supported criminals while demonizing their victims.

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This article was originally published on Tortilla con Sal.

Featured image: Armed opposition activists outside Managua’s national Baseball Stadium in Managua, May 30th 2018. (still from a video shot by the opposition  media outlet Radio Corporación included in the video “Un Plan para Sumar” by Juventud Presidente)

The issue of reparations and other compensation has been much in the news of late, most particularly in relationship to possible payments to descendants of slaves in the United States to compensate them for their disadvantages brought about by what is claimed to be a persisting racist culture in the country. There is, of course, considerable resistance on the part of millions of non-black citizens who will have to foot the enormous bill even though they were not involved in slavery in any way, having arrived in the U.S. long after 1865, when involuntary servitude was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution.

Reparations have been around for a long time, normally being exacted by the winners in a war against the losers, who automatically are blamed as the aggressors and therefore liable for the damages. Often the compensation comes in the form of territory, witness for example the German acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine from the French after the Franco-Prussian war followed by its return to France after the First World War. The Germans also were made to endure considerable cash and in-kind payments, primarily to France, after losing the First World War. The terms of the Treaty of Versailles were so onerous that they were subsequently blamed for perpetuating Franco-German hostility, leading inevitably to the Second World War.

Israel and Jewish groups were major beneficiaries of the reparations and restitution programs that were created as a result of World War Two. The Luxembourg Agreement signed in 1952 committed West Germany to pay Israel a sum of 3 billion Deutsche Marks over the next fourteen years, which was at the time an enormous sum. An additional 450 million marks were paid to the World Jewish Congress. The payments that were made to the State of Israel regarded the government as the de facto heir to war victims who had no surviving family or who could not otherwise be identified. The money was mostly invested in the Israeli infrastructure and was significant in aiding in the initial development of the economy of the new state, but there were also considerable barter arrangements whereby Israel purchasing agents obtained German manufactured goods and raw materials.

The reparations program was modified at various points to expand those eligible for benefits and continued to operate long after the fourteen-year term initially envisioned had expired. As of 2012, when the program was 60 years old, it was still fully operational and Germany had paid the Jewish state an estimated $89 billion.

In the 1990s, Israel and Jewish groups began to go after other property that they claimed had either been sold at below market prices as Jews began to flee Germany or otherwise lost. Money trails in Swiss banks were investigated to chart the movement of funds that had originally been derived from Jewish owned property. Individual companies, mostly in Germany, were pressured by survivor groups to provide reparations to former forced laborers, leading the Berlin government in 1999 to establish a separate fund to assist survivors of the holocaust. The Swiss and Hungarians set up similar funds and The World Jewish Restitution Organization was established to organize these efforts. In America, the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission pressured Germany in 1998-9 to compensate Jewish survivors who had arrived in the United States after the war.

Israel, of course, has a vested interest in continuing the flow of Euros by making Germans and other Europeans continue to feel guilty over the war. In 2007 the Israelis pressured the German government to expand the pension program for Jewish survivors of 1939-1945 who had wound up in Israel. In 2009 Israel demanded compensation of between 450 million and 1 billion Euros ($1,120,000,000 currently) for 30,000 claimed former slave laborer-survivors. And the requirements for eligibility for a payment or pension continue to become more permissive. A Jewish survivor qualifies if he lived in “a ghetto” for 12 months as will anyone who can demonstrate that he “hid from” the Nazis for at least six months. One acceptable “ghetto” is in Shanghai China. And given the destruction of many public records, there has been considerable fraud. In 2010 auditors found evidence of a scheme to use fake identification documents to defraud the German government of more than $42 million.

And new and innovative sources of money are constantly being developed. The United States and Israel are currently pressuring Poland, which was occupied by the Germans, to compensate Jewish property owners. It is particularly difficult to do as much of Warsaw and nearly all its public records were destroyed in 1944. In August 2019, no less than 88 U.S. Senators signed a letter urging Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to “act boldly and with urgency” to compel Poland to resolve the property issue. The Poles have argued that the proceedings would be subject to massive fraud and “frivolous lawsuits” while the demands could bankrupt the country.

Meanwhile the French and Dutch rail systems, also under German control, have been forced to pay compensation to survivors because their trains were used to transport Jewish prisoners to camps.

The story of reparations and compensation is of particular interest, not only because the Second World War ended 75 years ago last month, but also because of attempts by Israel and Jewish groups to squeeze some final payments out of the remaining survivors. Quite astonishing is a “campaign” email currently being circulated by an organization calling itself LATET – Israeli Humanitarian Aid. It promotes itself as a charitable foundation with “All donations…tax-deductible in Israel, the U.S., Canada, Australia, France and the U.K.” It describes its activity as:

“Due to Covid-19, many impoverished Holocaust survivors experience an extended stay in deficient and insecure homes. MORE THAN EVER, SUPPORT URGENT HOME REPAIRS THE SURVIVORS CAN’T AFFORD. 1 in 4 Holocaust survivors in Israel lives in poverty. As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, our elders spend all their time at home, mostly alone, in run-down apartments and they have nobody to turn to. The need to eliminate all safety hazards and obstacles relating to mobility, safety and comfort has grown and dozens of survivors are waiting for urgent assistance. Latet is the only organization in Israel providing Holocaust survivors in need with a complete aid package, including monthly food boxes, social support and an Emergency Fund for crucial needs. Since 2013, Latet has carried out more than 1,200 home repairs to increase the survivors’ quality of life, at no cost to them. Everyday, 40 Holocaust survivors die. Let’s make sure they spend their last days in decent conditions.

“Donate now. Latet was founded in 1996 and is the largest Israeli NGO combating poverty. Acting as an umbrella organization, Latet provides for the basic needs of populations living in poverty and food insecurity, giving ongoing food assistance to over 200,000 people in Israel. The organization operates the leading national food bank and runs impactful aid programs. For the last 10 years it has been the only organization in Israel providing a comprehensive aid package to Holocaust survivors in need, including a monthly food box, emergency fund for medical and paramedical needs, home restorations as well as ongoing social support in the form of personal volunteers and social events throughout the year. For more information about Latet: www.latet.org.il/en/”

One should not necessarily doubt the fundamental decency of LATET and what they are seeking to do, but their solicitation raises some serious questions about the Israeli government and Jewish charities that have been the recipients of more than $100 billion obtained as “reparations” from various foreigners, mostly Germans, specifically to address the needs of the so-called “Holocaust survivors.” How can the survivors be living in terrible conditions and even starving in a socialist country with a formidable safety net, one might ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when they have been granted pensions and other compensation since 1952?

The answer would appear to be pretty simple, that the money has gone directly to the Israeli government and not to survivors of the Holocaust as well as to to major Jewish private organizations.

Unfortunately, compensating for claims of Jewish suffering is a big business. The regular annual scandalous multi-billion dollar cash flow out of the United States Treasury to fill the Israeli coffers will continue seemingly forever. American taxpayers might be delighted to learn that during the past week Congress, beset by plague, civil unrest and a crumbling infrastructure, found time to move to approve an additional $500 million to Israel for its “defense.”

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Philip M. Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer who served nineteen years overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was the CIA Chief of Base for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 and was one of the first Americans to enter Afghanistan in December 2001. Phil is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a Washington-based advocacy group that seeks to encourage and promote a U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East that is consistent with American values and interests. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Latet- Israeli Humanitarian Aid‘s Facebook page

Imagine how the US and world community would react if Chinese, Russian, or Iranian warships conducted military exercises in the Gulf of Mexico or off America’s east or west coasts.

Bipartisan hardliners in Washington and establishment media might consider this action a casus belli.

Clearly it would provoke a sharp US reaction, including possible interdiction of foreign ships by Pentagon ones, risking a possible clash that could lead to something much more serious.

Numerous times before, Pentagon warships conducted provocative drills in the South China Sea and other parts of the world where they don’t belong —their presence posing a threat to regional countries.

In response to legitimate Chinese military exercises in its own waters, the Pentagon falsely accused Beijing of “the latest in a long line (of actions) to assert unlawful maritime claims and disadvantage its Southeast Asian neighbors in the South China Sea (sic),” adding:

The US will continue to monitor Chinese military activity — in a part of the world where US forces close to its borders are a hostile presence.

Beijing strongly opposes provocative US military drills near its territory, an earlier PLA statement saying:

“Reality has proved once again that the US is the biggest facilitator of the militarization of the South China Sea, and is a troublemaker for the region’s peace and stability,” adding:

“The PLA will remain on high alert, and adamantly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, as well as the peace and prosperity of the region.”

In response last May to US Naval Institute encouragement of privately owned ships to seize Chinese merchant vessels, the PLA slammed the call as promoting “act(s) of piracy,” adding:

“These actions are criminal activities explicitly prohibited under international laws, and will absolutely receive joint opposition and a severe backlash from the international community.”

A previous article explained that for the first time since the pre-1990 Cold War ended, three US aircraft carriers with other Pentagon warships are patrolling Asia/Pacific waters.

Two US aircraft carriers, the Reagan and Nimitz, are holding large-scale military drills in the South China Sea close to its waters, along with four other Pentagon warships.

Their stated purpose is to challenge what they called Beijing’s unlawful territorial claims (sic).

Two mainland USA Barksdale air force base, nuclear-capable, B52 warplanes that refueled in Guam are involved in the exercises, a statement by US 96th Bomb Squadron commander Lt. Col. Christopher Duff, saying:

“Bomber Task Force demonstrates US capability to rapidly deploy to a forward operating base and execute long-range strike missions,” adding:

“This sortie demonstrates our ability to reach out from a home station, fly anywhere in the world, and execute those missions, rapidly, regenerating from a forward operating base and continuing operations.”

Over the weekend, a US Navy statement said Pentagon military exercises in the South China Sea aim to protect against “possible attacks by the enemy” — at a time when no US foreign threats exist, so they’re invented to justify what’s unjustifiable.

What’s going on is a provocative Pentagon show of force far distant from US territory in a part of the world where its forces don’t belong.

According to an unnamed Chinese military expert, “(t)he US is saying one thing and doing another. It is applying different standards on China’s actions than it does on its own.”

China’s Foreign Ministry earlier called US Asia/Pacific military exercises Pentagon “flexing of muscles…thousands of miles away” from its homeland.

PLA Naval Military Studies Research Institute senior research fellow Zhang Junshe called US military exercises near Chinese waters a hostile action in the name of “freedom of navigation.”

Pentagon South China Sea military exercises come at a time of greatly deteriorated Sino/US relations.

Reportedly since South China Sea arbitration in 2016, the Pentagon refrained from multiple aircraft carrier exercises in its waters — the last one in 2014 until now.

According to retired PLA naval officer Wang Yunfei,

“China’s resolve to safeguard its territorial integrity, sovereignty and maritime interests will not waver (despite) the latest threat posed by the US.”

“The Chinese military is prepared and will deal with the (the US provocation) with ease.”

China’s Global Times explained that the PLA “has a wide selection of anti-aircraft carrier weapons like DF-21D and DF-26 ‘aircraft carrier killer’ missiles,” adding:

“The South China Sea is fully within the grasp of the PLA. Any US aircraft carrier movement in the region is at the pleasure of the PLA.”

The Pentagon’s global empire of bases and provocative actions against sovereign independent nations China, Russia, Iran, and others risk increased US war on humanity than already.

Instead of being the world’s leading proponent of peace, stability, and the rule of law, the US prioritizes dominance over other nations by whatever it takes to achieve its aims.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The Taiwanese government intends to compensate for its diplomatic problems in Africa by developing a relationship with the unrecognized Somaliland. The two sides announced just days ago that they are establishing official representative agencies in their respective territories. In recent years, Taiwan has lost many diplomatic allies. Since 2016, when the current government came to power on the island that mainland China considers a “rebel province,” Taiwan has lost recognition from seven countries. Today, the only country on the continent that maintains an official relationship with Taiwan is Eswatini, known as Swaziland until 2018. Moreover, the last recognition Taiwan got was from the Caribbean country of Saint Lucia in 2007.

Somaliland separated from Somalia in the midst of the brutal Somali Civil War in 1991. Despite their declaration of independence, the separatist territory has no recognition from UN member states. Although Somaliland has established representative offices in about 20 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom and the EU, and has representative offices from eight countries, including neighboring Ethiopia, Somaliland has no official relations with China. Meanwhile, China has its first ever military base abroad in Djibouti, a neighboring country with Somaliland. In addition, Chinese ships are part of an international task force patrolling Somali waters to fight pirates that traverse the critical sea lanes.

Source: InfoBrics

On July 1, Joseph Wu, the head of Taiwan’s diplomatic mission, announced that Taiwan and Somaliland would open representative offices in each other’s capital, with the Taiwanese diplomat saying, “in essence, Somaliland is an independent country.” The two sides have maintained relations since 2009. The agreement on establishing a representative office was signed in February of this year but was only announced on July 1. Joseph Wu did not disclose details of the assistance Taiwan could provide to the unrecognized country, but he highlighted that Somaliland is rich in energy resources and other minerals.

It could be seen that Taiwan’s desire to expand its diplomatic sphere of influence with an unrecognized country is an attempt to form an alliance of unrecognized or partially recognized states. The Taiwanese government is in a complicated situation as the majority of the world recognizes mainland China as the true China. Obviously, this sense of marginalization is increasing and Taiwan pays close attention to the fate of territories that are in a similar situation.

Besides benefits to Taiwan, this will bring greater assistance to Somaliland, a territory that is plagued with international criminal organizations and Islamic extremism, albeit, to a much lower scale then the rest of Somalia. Due to its unrecognized status but having independence from Mogadishu in practice, Somaliland has become a center for laundered money made from the proceeds of crime. Somalilanders are one of the largest groups of African migrants abroad, and have a large community in Sweden. Many of them are involved in organized crime and use Somaliland as a safe base.

If Taiwan is creating a network of unrecognized and partially unrecognized states, especially as it already recognizes Kosovo, could Taipei in the near future approach the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (recognized as a part of Morocco), the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (recognized as a part of the Republic of Cyprus), South Ossetia and Abkhazia (recognized as a part of Georgia), the Republic of Artsakh (recognized as a part of Azerbaijan) and Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (recognized a part of Moldova)?

Taiwan could have success in achieving mutual recognition of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, especially since Morocco recognizes mainland China and not Taiwan. However, in the case of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Pridnestrovye, Taiwan is unlikely to find success as they are effectively Russian protectorates. Moscow would be unwilling to antagonize Beijing for the sake of Taiwan and would not allow mutual recognition between these three states and Taipei.

The Republic of Artsakh, recognized as a part of Azerbaijan but in practice is an unrecognized province of Armenia, is also unlikely to open mutual recognition with Taiwan. China is Armenia’s third largest trading partner and in 2015, Armenia signed the Memorandum on Promotion of Cooperation in Building the Silk Road Economic Belt, known today as the Belt and Road Initiative.

A potential ally could be Northern Cyprus. Despite being a protectorate of Turkey, a country that plays a critical role in the Belt and Road Initiative, Ankara is not afraid to challenge Beijing. This is seen with Turkey’s constant denouncement of Beijing’s alleged treatment of the Turkic Uighur minority in China’s western Xinjiang province. Ankara could be willing to allow Northern Cyprus to open relations with Taipei knowing that it is unlikely China will abandon Turkey as a trading partner due to its geostrategic position that is pivotal to the Belt and Road Initiative.

Although Taiwan cannot create a complete coalition of unrecognized or partially unrecognized states, it can certainly strengthen its diplomatic positioning by opening relations with territories that it can, such as Somaliland and Kosovo, and potentially the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Northern Cyprus. This does not elevate Taiwan’s ambitions for recognition with UN Member States, but it does expand its influence into new regions, especially in the Horn of Africa where China is investing heavily into neighboring Djibouti and Ethiopia. Taiwan cannot dislodge Chinese influence in the Horn of Africa, but by Taipei making its presence felt in the region will certainly antagonize Beijing.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

On June 29 the European Union (EU) slapped new sanctions against 11 Venezuelan individuals. Immediately President Nicolas Maduro responded by ordering the expulsion of the EU ambassador to the country. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned that Brussels would retaliate against Caracas over its decision and  announces that it will summon Maduro’s ambassador to the European institutions. That never happened. Instead Josep Borrell called on Venezuela to reverse its decision. On July 1 the Venezuelan government decided to rescind its decision to expel the head of the EU mission in Caracas following a phone conversation between Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and the high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, and issuing a joint communiqué.

This sequence of events gives a diplomatic victory to the Maduro government. It may be the victory of a schoolyard bullied youth who stands up after every blow from the bully. The strikes should never have taken place to start with but the cheers are for the courage and resistance shown.

The geopolitical world is not a schoolyard and the world gang of bullies strike with much more deadly blows that fists.

By all accounts Venezuela has been under overt attack since 2014 by the U.S. hybrid war short of a military invasion. Other governments have been willing participants and accomplices by imposing their own share of threats and coercive measures (sanctions) against the Maduro government.

The latest set of “sanctions” imposed by Brussels on 11 Venezuelans has an additional peculiarity – some might say contradiction – of targeting individuals that are not aligned with Maduro or his governing United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela-PSUV). For instance, Luis Parra was elected president of the National Assembly (AN) last January after being expelled from the Justice First party (Primero Justicia) headed by self-appointed “interim president” Juan Guaidó. AN first vice president Franklyn Duarte was elected for the Social Christian COPEI party. And Jose Gregorio Noriega, AN second vice president, was also expelled from the Justice First party and is in opposition to the ruling party.

What those individuals have in common is a willingness to be in dialogue and engage in democratic participation in the political life of Venezuela free of foreign interference. For that they are accused of being“Maduro-aligned” because President Nicolas Maduro has precisely the same goal. That is the real reason why they need to be punished by the EU as they were previously punished by Washington for their “actions undermining democracy”.

Nonetheless, the Council of the European Union while recognising Juan Guaidó, issued the following press release:

“The Council today [June 29] added 11 leading Venezuelan officials to the list of those subject to restrictive measures, because of their role in acts and decisions undermining democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela.” To be noticed is the same language used by the U.S. “sanctions”.

To further contradict the argument of an “undemocratic” and “dictatorial” Maduro government is the fact that it is the monolithic political group headed by Juan Guaidó that does not seem to have a large representation of diverse ideological positions. Those who do not subscribe to its ruthless main goal of ousting Maduro from the presidency by any means are summarily expelled from the party, like in the case of Luis Parra and others.

President Maduro’s assertive reaction to boot out the EU ambassador was fully justified for at least two reasons.

Heightened awareness about independence. Most Venezuelans have a deep-rooted sense of anti-colonialism based on its 209 years of independence with long oppressive periods of being a U.S. “backyard”. One of the legacies of Chavismo has been a re-awakening of that sense of self-determination that is now imbedded in the cultural makeup of most Venezuelans.

This is in sharp contrast to the equally deep-rooted sense of colonialism that pervades policies of most European countries. Maduro made this point very explicitly when he protested the EU interference in Venezuela’s internal decision about the composition of the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE). Maduro said: “Don’t mess with Venezuela anymore. [Stay] away from Venezuela, European Union, enough of your colonialist point of view!” Foreign minister Jorge Arreaza concurred in a tweet,

“[The EU] colonial heritage and reminiscence lead them through the abyss of illegality, aggression and persecution of our people.”

Intolerance towards any form of interference. The second reason related to the first one has to do with Venezuela’s intolerance towards any form of interference in the domestic affairs of the country. This is perhaps the biggest political gap between the Maduro administration that is nationalist and defender of sovereignty, and the Guaidó group that not only welcomes foreign intervention but actively invites it and is supported by it.

Venezuela abides quite fully to international law, especially to the United Nations Charter. No one can claim that Venezuela intervenes in the internal affairs of other countries. However, the U.S. blatantly circumvents international laws by issuing domestic executive orders or acts of congress that impose its extraterritorial self-appointed “right” on other nations. The numerous U.S. “sanctions” against Venezuela are enforced not only on U.S. entities but extraterritorially against non-U.S. entities often under use of threats. This is one of the most damaging form of interference aside from a military invasion. The EU and Canada are not too far behind in their interference approach.

It was equally justified that President Maduro would rescind his decision.

It has never been the intention of Chavismo and its Bolivarian Revolution to confront and reject fair, meaningful and respectful international relations. President Maduro has shown his resolve to that goal and, to his credit, has forced the EU to accept that resolve on this occasion. The joint comuniqué concludes,

“The Ministry of Popular Power for Foreign Relations of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the Foreign Action Service of the European Union … agreed to promote diplomatic contacts between the parties at the highest level, in the framework of sincere cooperation and respect for international law.”

Perhaps Venezuelans should revel on the fact that President Maduro has also scored an important victory. The EU bloc of countries has recognised self-appointed Juan Guaido as “interim president” of Venezuela last January 2019. Nevertheless, this recent diplomatic tête-à-tête has forced Brussels to implicitly admit who the legitimate government of Venezuela is and to accept Caracas terms of negotiations.

It is not clear whether the EU will rescind the latest set of “sanctions”. But that will not stop the Bolivarian process to stand up to the bullies and continue its path to make colonialism obsolete.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Nino Pagliccia is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Wikimedia Commons

How do the Democrats benefit from the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests?

While the protests are being used to paint Trump as a race-bating white supremacist, that is not their primary objective. The main goal is to suppress and demonize Trump’s political base which is comprised of mainly white working class people who have been adversely impacted by the Democrats disastrous free trade and immigration policies. These are the people– liberal and conservative– who voted for Trump in 2016 after abandoning all hope that the Democrats would amend their platform and throw a lifeline to workers who are now struggling to make ends meet in America’s de-industrialized heartland.

The protests are largely a diversion aimed at shifting the public’s attention to a racialized narrative that obfuscates the widening inequality chasm (created by the Democrats biggest donors, the Giant Corporations and Wall Street) to historic antagonisms that have clearly diminished over time. (Racism ain’t what it used to be.) The Democrats are resolved to set the agenda by deciding what issues “will and will not” be covered over the course of the campaign. And– since race is an issue on which they feel they can energize their base by propping-up outdated stereotypes of conservatives as ignorant bigots incapable of rational thought– the Dems are using their media clout to make race the main topic of debate. In short, the Democrats have settled on a strategy for quashing the emerging populist revolt that swept Trump into the White House in 2016 and derailed Hillary’s ambitious grab for presidential power.

The plan, however, does have its shortcomings, for example, Democrats have offered nearly blanket support for protests that have inflicted massive damage on cities and towns across the country. In the eyes of many Americans, the Dems support looks like a tacit endorsement of the arson, looting and violence that has taken place under the banner of “racial justice”. The Dems have not seriously addressed this matter, choosing instead to let the media minimize the issue by simply scrubbing the destruction from their coverage. This “sweep it under the rug” strategy appears to be working as the majority of people surveyed believe that the protests were “mostly peaceful”, which is a term that’s designed to downplay the effects of the most ferocious rioting since the 1970s.

Let’s be clear, the Democrats do not support Black Lives Matter nor have they made any attempt to insert their demands into their list of police reforms. BLM merely fits into the Dems overall campaign strategy which is to use race to deflect attention from the gross imbalance of wealth that is the unavoidable consequence of the Dems neoliberal policies including outsourcing, off-shoring, de-industrialization, free trade and trickle down economics. These policies were aggressively promoted by both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as they will be by Joe Biden if he is elected. They are the policies that have gutted the country, shrunk the middle class, and transformed the American dream into a dystopian nightmare.

They are also the policies that have given rise to, what the pundits call, “right wing populism” which refers to the growing number of marginalized working people who despise Washington and career politicians, feel anxious about falling wages and dramatic demographic changes, and resent the prevailing liberal culture that scorns their religion and patriotism. This is Trump’s mainly-white base, the working people the Democrats threw under the bus 30 years ago and now want to annihilate completely by deepening political polarization, fueling social unrest, pitting one group against another, and viciously vilifying them in the media as ignorant racists whose traditions, culture, customs and even history must be obliterated to make room for the new diversity world order. Trump touched on this theme in a speech he delivered in Tulsa. He said:

“Our nation is witnessing a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values and indoctrinate our children. Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our founders, deface our most sacred memorials and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities.”

Author Charles Burris expanded on this topic in an article at Lew Rockwell titled America’s Monumental Existential Problem:

“The wave of statue-toppling spreading across the Western world from the United States is not an aesthetic act, but a political one, the disfigured monuments in bronze and stone standing for the repudiation of an entire civilization. No longer limiting their rage to slave-owners, American mobs are pulling down and disfiguring statues of abolitionists, writers and saints in an act of revolt against the country’s European founding, now re-imagined as the nation’s original sin, a moral and symbolic shift with which we Europeans will soon be forced to reckon.”

The statue-toppling epidemic is vastly more disturbing that the the looting or arson, mainly because it reveals an ideological intensity aimed at symbols of state power. By tearing down the images of the men who created or contributed to our collective history, the vandals are challenging the legitimacy of the nation itself as well as its founding “enlightenment” principles. This is the nihilism of extremists whose only objective is destruction. It suggests that the Democrats might have aspirations that far exceed a mere presidential victory. Perhaps the protests and riots will be used to justify more sweeping changes, a major reset during which traditional laws and rules are indefinitely suspended until the crisis passes and order can be restored. Is that at all conceivable or should we dismiss these extraordinary events as merely young people “letting off a little steam”?

Here’s how General Michael Flynn summed up what’s going on on in a recent article:

“There is now a small group of passionate people working hard to destroy our American way of life. Treason and treachery are rampant and our rule of law and those law enforcement professionals are under the gun more than at any time in our nation’s history… I believe the attacks being presented to us today are part of a well-orchestrated and well-funded effort that uses racism as its sword to aggravate our battlefield dispositions. This weapon is used to leverage and legitimize violence and crime, not to seek or serve the truth….The dark forces’ weapons formed against us serve one purpose: to promote radical social change through power and control.”

I agree. The toppling of statues, the rioting, the looting, the arson and, yes, the relentless attacks on Trump from the day he took office, to Russiagate, to the impeachment, to the insane claims about Russian “bounties”, to the manipulation of science and data to trigger a planned demolition of the US economy hastening a vast restructuring to the labor force and the imposition of authoritarian rule; all of these are all cut from the same fabric, a tapestry of lies and deception concocted by the DNC, the Intel agencies, the elite media, and their behind-the-scenes paymasters.

Now they have released their corporate-funded militia on the country to wreak havoc and spread terror among the population. Meanwhile, the New York Times and others continue to generate claims they know to be false in order to confuse the public even while the people are still shaking off months of disorienting quarantine and feelings of trepidation brought on by 3 weeks of nonstop social unrest and fractious racial conflict. Bottom line: Neither the Democrats nor their allies at the Intel agencies and media have ever accepted the “peaceful transition of power”. They reject the 2016 election results, they reject Donald Trump as the duly elected president of the United States, and they reject the representative American system of government “by the people.”

So let’s get down to the nitty-gritty: Which political party is pursuing a radical-activist strategy that has set our cities ablaze and reduced Capitol Hill to a sprawling warzone? Which party pursued a 3 year-long investigation that was aimed at removing the president using a dossier that they knew was false (Opposition research), claiming emails were hacked from DNC computers when the cyber-security company that did the investigation said there was no proof of “exfiltration”? (In other words, there was no hack and the Dems knew it since 2017) Which party allied itself with senior-level officials at the FBI, CIA, NSA and elite media and worked together collaboratively to discredit, surveil, infiltrate, entrap and demonize the administration in order to torpedo Trumps “America First” political agenda, and remove him from office?

Which party?

No one disputes the Democrats right to challenge, criticize or vigorously oppose a bill or policy promoted by the president. What we take issue with is the devious and (possibly) illegal way the Democrats have joined powerful elements in the Intelligence Community and the major media to conduct a ruthless “dirty tricks” campaign that involved spying on members of the administration in order to establish the basis for impeachment proceedings. This is not the behavior of a respected political organization but the illicit conduct of a fifth column acting on behalf of a foreign (or corporate?) enemy. It’s worth noting that an insurrection against the nation’s lawful authority is sedition, a felony that is punishable by imprisonment or death. Perhaps, the junta leaders should consider the possible consequences of their actions before they make their next move.

What we need to know is whether the Democrat party operates independent of the Intel agencies with which it cooperated during its campaign against Trump? We’re hopeful that the Durham investigation will shed more light on this matter. Our fear is that what we’re seeing is an emerging Axis–the CIA, the DNC, and the elite media– all using their respective powers to terminate the Constitutional Republic and establish permanent, authoritarian one-party rule. As far-fetched as it might sound, the country appears to be slipping inexorably towards tyranny.

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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from TUR

In late June, China’s National People’s Congress passed Hong Kong’s new national security law, later signed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The new law imposes a special security regime in the autonomous territory of Hong Kong, prohibiting foreign interference and preventing the development of terrorist or subversive political activities. Criticism was immediate across the western world, although the Hong Kong regional government itself supports the measures and recognizes their need currently. The protests against Chinese sovereignty, markedly supported by Western powers, have increased exponentially since the law was passed.

Many Western countries are already announcing measures against China because of the situation in Hong Kong. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced that if China proceeds with the new security law, millions of Hong Kong citizens will be eligible to receive the British National Overseas passport. With this passport, Hong Kong residents could enter the UK freely, without a visa, and stay in the country for six months. In addition, it would be possible for these citizens to renew their residence for twelve months, subsequently acquiring British citizenship. In other words, Boris Johnson is granting British citizenship to Hong Kong residents to affect China.

Chinese diplomats responded to Johnson’s statements by saying that the act constitutes a real diplomatic affront. The Chinese Embassy in London recalled in a public note that London in the past had already committed to not grant British citizenship to Chinese citizens of Hong Kong. The note also states:

“If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law and basic norms governing international relations. We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures. We urge the British side to view objectively and fairly the national security legislation for Hong Kong, respecting China’s position and concerns, refrain from interfering in Hong Kong affairs in any way”.

Dominic Raab, British secretary of foreign affairs, said that China can do nothing to prevent Hong Kong citizens from leaving for the United Kingdom. According to the British chancellery, London will use all its diplomatic influence to boycott Chinese law in Hong Kong and encouraging mass emigration will be one of the main tactics. Raab and the British government do not see these measures as violations of the mutual promises and terms agreed by the United Kingdom and China when both countries transferred the sovereignty of Hong Kong to Beijing. On the other hand, China sees the British attitude as a neo-colonial one, as expressed by Liu Xiaoming, Chinese ambassador to the United Kingdom, when publishing in a social network: “Hong Kong is part of China and Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs. The UK has no sovereignty, jurisdiction or right of “supervision” over Hong Kong whatsoever. Gone are the days when Hong Kong were under British colonial rule”.

While both countries faced serious diplomatic tension, protests on the streets of Hong Kong have hardened, with increasingly violent acts on the part of protesters – and, consequently, more severe responses by the police. Water cannons, tear gas, pepper spray and other mechanisms were used to contain the demonstrations, which were also marked by acts of vandalism and several illegalities.

In fact, what China is doing is not different than any other country in the world – even “Western democracies” – would do in a similar situation: fighting, with exceptional measures, secessionist demonstrations. Separatism, in any country, poses a threat to the very existence of the National State and every government has the right to introduce special measures to prevent its territories from achieving political independence, especially in situations where protests receive clear financial and material support from foreign powers, such as the protests in Hong Kong, encouraged by several western countries.

All Western democracies call for strict exceptional measures when they detect threats to national security. Exceptional measures in the United States are still in force today due to the September 11, 2001 incidents, with hundreds of terrorism suspects being imprisoned without the right to defense each year. Recently, in the face of protests for the independence of Catalonia, the Spanish police used exceptional measures, acting violently against the demonstrators and, equally, there was no international commotion. In fact, when legality and normality are not enough to guarantee order and there is a real threat to the state, appealing for the exception is the right of any government.

On the other hand, we can contemplate the new British project. Having left the European Union and being economically helpless in the face of a world in transition, the United Kingdom begins to draw new global projections. And apparently, London’s current bet is Asia. The Chinese Embassy is correct to compare British attitudes to a new colonialism, as that is exactly the British project. One must also take into account the interest in the massive entry of immigrants into the country: after all, this same mass will form a new working class of cheap and precarious labor, forming something like a new slave market in the 21st Century.

British Asian projection and Chinese sovereignty are two projects that clash each other. Only one will win this dispute. In fact, China can make the British measure fail by simply closing its borders and preventing emigration. So, when that is done, what will be London’s next step?

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Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

When President Clinton dropped 23,000 bombs on what was left of Yugoslavia in 1999 and NATO invaded and occupied the Yugoslav province of Kosovo, U.S. officials presented the war to the American public as a “humanitarian intervention” to protect Kosovo’s majority ethnic Albanian population from genocide at the hands of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. That narrative has been unraveling piece by piece ever since.

In 2008 an international prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, accused U.S.-backed Prime Minister Hashim Thaci of Kosovo of using the U.S. bombing campaign as cover to murder hundreds of people to sell their internal organs on the international transplant market. Del Ponte’s charges seemed almost too ghoulish to be true. But on June 24th, Thaci, now President of Kosovo, and nine other former leaders of the CIA-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA,) were finally indicted for these 20-year-old crimes by a special war crimes court at The Hague.

From 1996 on, the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies covertly worked with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to instigate and fuel violence and chaos in Kosovo. The CIA spurned mainstream Kosovar nationalist leaders in favor of gangsters and heroin smugglers like Thaci and his cronies, recruiting them as terrorists and death squads to assassinate Yugoslav police and anyone who opposed them, ethnic Serbs and Albanians alike.

As it has done in country after country since the 1950s, the CIA unleashed a dirty civil war that Western politicians and media dutifully blamed on Yugoslav authorities. But by early 1998, even U.S. envoy Robert Gelbard called the KLA a “terrorist group” and the UN Security Council condemned “acts of terrorism” by the KLA and “all external support for terrorist activity in Kosovo, including finance, arms and training.” Once the war was over and Kosovo was successfully occupied by U.S. and NATO forces, CIA sources openly touted the agency’s role in manufacturing the civil war to set the stage for NATO intervention.

By September 1998, the UN reported that 230,000 civilians had fled the civil war, mostly across the border to Albania, and the UN Security Council passed resolution 1199, calling for a ceasefire, an international monitoring mission, the return of refugees and a political resolution. A new U.S. envoy, Richard Holbrooke, convinced Yugoslav President Milosevic to agree to a unilateral ceasefire and the introduction of a 2,000 member “verification” mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). But the U.S. and NATO immediately started drawing up plans for a bombing campaign to “enforce” the UN resolution and Yugoslavia’s unilateral ceasefire.

Holbrooke persuaded the chair of the OSCE, Polish foreign minister Bronislaw Geremek, to appoint William Walker, the former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador during its civil war, to lead the Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM). The U.S. quickly hired 150 Dyncorp mercenaries to form the nucleus of Walker’s team, whose 1,380 members used GPS equipment to map Yugoslav military and civilian infrastructure for the planned NATO bombing campaign. Walker’s deputy, Gabriel Keller, France’s former Ambassador to Yugoslavia, accused Walker of sabotaging the KVM, and CIA sources later admitted that the KVM was a “CIA front” to coordinate with the KLA and spy on Yugoslavia.

The climactic incident of CIA-provoked violence that set the political stage for the NATO bombing and invasion was a firefight at a village called Racak, which the KLA had fortified as a base from which to ambush police patrols and dispatch death squads to kill local “collaborators.” In January 1999, Yugoslav police attacked the KLA base in Racak, leaving 43 men, a woman and a teenage boy dead.

After the firefight, Yugoslav police withdrew from the village, and the KLA reoccupied it and staged the scene to make the firefight look like a massacre of civilians. When William Walker and a KVM team visited Racak the next day, they accepted the KLA’s massacre story and broadcast it to the world, and it became a standard part of the narrative to justify the bombing of Yugoslavia and military occupation of Kosovo.

Autopsies by an international team of medical examiners found traces of gunpowder on the hands of nearly all the bodies, showing that they had fired weapons. They were nearly all killed by multiple gunshots as in a firefight, not by precise shots as in a summary execution, and only one victim was shot at close range. But the full autopsy results were only published much later, and the Finnish chief medical examiner accused Walker of pressuring her to alter them.

Two experienced French journalists and an AP camera crew at the scene challenged the KLA and Walker’s version of what happened in Racak. Christophe Chatelet’s article in Le Monde was headlined, “Were the dead in Racak really massacred in cold blood?” and veteran Yugoslavia correspondent Renaud Girard concluded his story in Le Figaro with another critical question, “Did the KLA seek to transform a military defeat into a political victory?”

NATO immediately threatened to bomb Yugoslavia, and France agreed to host high-level talks. But instead of inviting Kosovo’s mainstream nationalist leaders to the talks in Rambouillet, Secretary Albright flew in a delegation led by KLA commander Hashim Thaci (image on the right), until then known to Yugoslav authorities only as a gangster and a terrorist.

Albright presented both sides with a draft agreement in two parts, civilian and military. The civilian part granted Kosovo unprecedented autonomy from Yugoslavia, and the Yugoslav delegation accepted that. But the military agreement would have forced Yugoslavia to accept a NATO military occupation, not just of Kosovo but with no geographical limits, in effect placing all of Yugoslavia under NATO occupation.

When Milosevich refused Albright’s terms for unconditional surrender, the U.S. and NATO claimed he had rejected peace, and war was the only answer, the “last resort.” They did not return to the UN Security Council to try to legitimize their plan, knowing full well that Russia, China and other countries would reject it. When UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told Albright the British government was “having trouble with our lawyers” over NATO’s plan for an illegal war of aggression against Yugoslavia, she told him to “get new lawyers.”

In March 1999, the KVM teams were withdrawn and the bombing began. Pascal Neuffer, a Swiss KVM observer reported,

“The situation on the ground on the eve of the bombing did not justify a military intervention. We could certainly have continued our work. And the explanations given in the press, saying the mission was compromised by Serb threats, did not correspond to what I saw. Let’s say rather that we were evacuated because NATO had decided to bomb.”

NATO killed thousands of civilians in Kosovo and the rest of Yugoslavia, as it bombed 19 hospitals, 20 health centers, 69 schools, 25,000 homes, power stations, a national TV station, the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and other diplomatic missions. After it invaded Kosovo, the U.S. military set up the 955-acre Camp Bondsteel, one of its largest bases in Europe, on its newest occupied territory. Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, Alvaro Gil-Robles, visited Camp Bondsteel in 2002 and called it “a smaller version of Guantanamo,” exposing it as a secret CIA black site for illegal, unaccountable detention and torture.

But for the people of Kosovo, the ordeal was not over when the bombing stopped. Far more people had fled the bombing than the so-called “ethnic cleansing” the CIA had provoked to set the stage for it. A reported 900,000 refugees, nearly half the population, returned to a shattered, occupied province, now ruled by gangsters and foreign overlords.

Serbs and other minorities became second-class citizens, clinging precariously to homes and communities where many of their families had lived for centuries. More than 200,000 Serbs, Roma and other minorities fled, as the NATO occupation and KLA rule replaced the CIA’s manufactured illusion of ethnic cleansing with the real thing. Camp Bondsteel was the province’s largest employer, and U.S. military contractors also sent Kosovars to work in occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2019, Kosovo’s per capita GDP was only $4,458, less than any country in Europe except Moldova and war-torn, post-coup Ukraine.

In 2007, a German military intelligence report described Kosovo as a “Mafia society,” based on the “capture of the state” by criminals. The report named Hashim Thaci, then the leader of the Democratic Party, as an example of “the closest ties between leading political decision makers and the dominant criminal class.” In 2000, 80% of the heroin trade in Europe was controlled by Kosovar gangs, and the presence of thousands of U.S. and NATO troops fueled an explosion of prostitution and sex trafficking, also controlled by Kosovo’s new criminal ruling class.

In 2008, Thaci was elected Prime Minister, and Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. (The final dissolution of Yugoslavia in 2006 had left Serbia and Montenegro as separate countries.) The U.S. and 14 allies immediately recognized Kosovo’s independence, and ninety-seven countries, about half the countries in the world, have now done so. But neither Serbia nor the UN have recognized it, leaving Kosovo in long-term diplomatic limbo.

When the court in the Hague unveiled the charges against Thaci on June 24th, he was on his way to Washington for a White House meeting with Trump and President Vucic of Serbia to try to resolve Kosovo’s diplomatic impasse. But when the charges were announced, Thaci’s plane made a U-turn over the Atlantic, he returned to Kosovo and the meeting was canceled.

The accusation of murder and organ trafficking against Thaci was first made in 2008 by Carla Del Ponte (image on the left), the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTFY), in a book she wrote after stepping down from that position. Del Ponte later explained that the ICTFY was prevented from charging Thaci and his co-defendants by the non-cooperation of NATO and the UN Mission in Kosovo. In an interview for the 2014 documentary, The Weight of Chains 2, she explained, “NATO and the KLA, as allies in the war, couldn’t act against each other.”

Human Rights Watch and the BBC followed up on Del Ponte’s allegations, and found evidence that Thaci and his cronies murdered up to 400 mostly Sebian prisoners during the NATO bombing in 1999. Survivors described prison camps in Albania where prisoners were tortured and killed, a yellow house where people’s organs were removed and an unmarked mass grave nearby.

Council of Europe investigator Dick Marty interviewed witnesses, gathered evidence and published a report, which the Council of Europe endorsed in January 2011, but the Kosovo parliament did not approve the plan for a special court in the Hague until 2015. The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and independent prosecutor’s office finally began work in 2017. Now the judges have six months to review the prosecutor’s charges and decide whether the trial should proceed.

A central part of the Western narrative on Yugoslavia was the demonization of President Milosevich of Yugoslavia, who resisted his country’s Western-backed dismemberment throughout the 1990s. Western leaders smeared Milosevich as a “New Hitler” and the “Butcher of the Balkans,” but he was still arguing his innocence when he died in a cell at The Hague in 2006.

Ten years later, at the trial of the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, the judges accepted the prosecution’s evidence that Milosevich strongly opposed Karadzic’s plan to carve out a Serb Republic in Bosnia. They convicted Karadzic of being fully responsible for the resulting civil war, in effect posthumously exonerating Milosevich of responsibility for the actions of the Bosnian Serbs, the most serious of the charges against him.

But the U.S.’s endless campaign to paint all its enemies as “violent dictators” and “New Hitlers” rolls on like a demonization machine on autopilot, against Putin, Xi, Maduro, Khamenei, the late Fidel Castro and any foreign leader who stands up to the imperial dictates of the U.S. government. These smear campaigns serve as pretexts for brutal sanctions and catastrophic wars against our international neighbors, but also as political weapons to attack and diminish any U.S. politician who stands up for peace, diplomacy and disarmament.

As the web of lies spun by Clinton and Albright has unraveled, and the truth behind their lies has spilled out piece by bloody piece, the war on Yugoslavia has emerged as a case study in how U.S. leaders mislead us into war. In many ways, Kosovo established the template that U.S. leaders have used to plunge our country and the world into endless war ever since. What U.S. leaders took away from their “success” in Kosovo was that legality, humanity and truth are no match for CIA-manufactured chaos and lies, and they doubled down on that strategy to plunge the U.S. and the world into endless war.

As it did in Kosovo, the CIA is still running wild, fabricating pretexts for new wars and unlimited military spending, based on sourceless accusations, covert operations and flawed, politicized intelligence. We have allowed American politicians to pat themselves on the back for being tough on “dictators” and “thugs,” letting them settle for the cheap shot instead of tackling the much harder job of reining in the real instigators of war and chaos: the U.S. military and the CIA.

But if the people of Kosovo can hold the CIA-backed gangsters who murdered their people, sold their body parts and hijacked their country accountable for their crimes, is it too much to hope that Americans can do the same and hold our leaders accountable for their far more widespread and systematic war crimes?

Iran recently indicted Donald Trump for the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, and asked Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant for him. Trump is probably not losing sleep over that, but the indictment of such a key U.S. ally as Thaci is a sign that the U.S. “accountabilty-free zone” of impunity for war crimes is finally starting to shrink, at least in the protection it provides to U.S. allies. Should Netanyahu, Bin Salman and Tony Blair start looking over their shoulders?

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Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

On July 1^st the House Armed Services Committee voted to hinder Donald Trump’s ability to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. House Democrats on the committee teamed up with Republicans, including Liz Cheney (daughter of war-architect Dick Cheney), to pass an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act “that prohibits Congress from spending money to pull US troops out of Afghanistan without first meeting a series of vague conditions that critics said appeared to prevent withdrawal.” Without any public debate the US will now continue its occupation after the CIA claimed that Russia payed Taliban-linked groups to kill American soldiers.

What’s the evidence? General John Nicholson speculated that Russia was arming the Taliban in 2017. In April 2019, three marines were killed in an attack that the Taliban claimed responsibility for. Unnamed intelligence officials believed that the Russians may have payed militants to attack US troops. In March 2020, The CIA concluded that the Russians were paying the bounties. They cited testimony from captured militants and pointed to a Seal Team Six raid of a Taliban outpost that resulted in the recovery of a half a million in cash.

That’s it. That’s all the information that the American public is allowed to know. It’s hardly even mentioned that the NSA disagreed with the CIA’s assessment, stating “the information wasn’t verified and that intelligence officials didn’t agree on it.” Furthermore, the Department of Defense (DOD) claimed that “to date, DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports.” Americans are taking the CIA’s word as gospel.

How exactly did the CIA conclude that the half a million in cash came from Russia and not from Taliban opium trafficking operations? The US military claimed that 60% of the Taliban’s funding comes from the opium trade. Is $500,000 in cash unheard of in opium sales? Who are these captured militants that claimed that Russia payed bounties for dead American soldiers? Were these militants tortured by the CIA? The CIA has the largest torture program in the world. Is the information reliable or was the information obtained under dubious circumstances? How do we even know these militants actually made these claims?

The foundation of the assertions is also questionable. Americans are supposed to believe that the Taliban had to be prompted to attack American soldiers. The US has been occupying Afghanistan for nearly 20 years. The war in Afghanistan has resulted in over 2,400 dead American soldiers and over 38,500 dead civilians. US soldiers have been targeted by the Taliban and an assortment of other militant groups over the past 19 years. That’s the cost of occupation. If over 38,500 civilians have been killed, then there are a lot of angry Afghans that lost family members. Russia does not need to pay the Taliban or any militant group to attack US soldiers. This should not need explanation. The rush to accuse Trump of treason has made Americans lose their critical thinking skills.

More partisan liberals are upset about Trump’s inaction over unproven allegations of Russian bounties than they are by Trump’s record setting bombing campaign in Afghanistan:

“in 2019, according to figures released by Air Force Central Command, the United States ‘dropped more munitions on Afghanistan than in any other year over the past decade.’ More bombs were dropped in most months of 2019 than in any previous months since records were first made publicly available in 2009.”

These bombings led to a massive surge in civilian casualties. In one case, at least 30 pine nut farmers were killed in a drone strike that resulted in zero militants being killed. Where is the outrage over this? How many more Afghans are going to die if Trump is pressed to be even more unhinged to prove he is not a traitor? The end game is more death and more occupation.

This new scandal being pushed by the CIA also conveniently deflects from Trump’s real scandals in Afghanistan. In June, Trump signed an executive order “imposing sanctions on several individuals associated with the International Criminal Court (ICC).”

The ICC is investigating war crimes in Afghanistan. Their investigations include potential American war crimes. They may even involve Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: “Pompeo may be personally at risk for wrongdoing that the Court could uncover of CIA activities when he was the director of the agency.” The Trump administration is claiming that because the US has not ratified the Rome Statute, that the ICC has no legal basis to prosecute American war crimes. This is incorrect. The Rome Statute allows the ICC to prosecute non-party countries if war crimes are committed by that party in a country that has ratified the Rome Statute. Afghanistan has ratified the Rome Statue. That puts the US on the hook for potential war crimes committed in that region.

Needless to say, never-Trump neocons have been silent about Trump’s targeting of the ICC. Likewise, partisan liberals have not gone after Trump on this front either. The reasons are obvious. The Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations are culpable in war crimes in Afghanistan as well. The nearly two-decades long war is a bipartisan project. Furthermore, self-professed left-wingers and liberals are taking their cues from Bush-era neocons like David Frum, Bill Kristol, and an assortment of pro-war goons from the Lincoln Project Political Action Committee.

Russiagate broke partisan liberals’ brains. They are now calling for Trump to ramp up escalation in Afghanistan. They actually believe the absurd over-the-top ads put out by the Lincoln Project. Donald Trump ramped up the war in Afghanistan in 2017 when he did a 3,500-troop surge from 10,500 to 14,000 troops. Trump then increased bombing campaigns throughout his term and set records for bombings in 2019. Civilians casualties spiked. In June 2020, he targeted the ICC for having the audacity to look into US war crimes.

None of this barbarism earned Trump the ire of prominent neoconservatives and liberals. Trump is being vilified for having talks with the Taliban and taking steps towards scaling-down US troop presence. After four years of Russiagate hysteria the only explanation for Trump’s actions is capitulation to Russia. Afghan civilians be damned, Trump needs to ramp up again in Afghanistan to stop Putin or he’s a traitor! The neocon dogma pushed onto liberals by never-Trump Republicans did its job. Partisan liberals are parroting the line of the CIA. The attempt to sabotage talks with the Taliban and prevent troop withdrawals from Afghanistan worked.

“The Resistance” just helped push the continued occupation of Afghanistan to score cheap political points. The CIA thanks them for their “patriotism.”

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Ben Barbour is an American geopolitical analyst.

Featured image: MARJAH, Helmand province, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan – Corporal Mark Hickok, a 23-year-old combat engineer from North Olmstead, Ohio, patrols through a field during a clearing mission April 9.  Marines with Company B, 1st Tank Battalion, learned basic route clearance techniques from engineers like Hickok, who are deployed with 1st Combat Engineer Battalion. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. John M. McCall)

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In this new and expanded edition of Michel Chossudovsky’s 2002 best seller, the author blows away the smokescreen put up by the mainstream media, that 9/11 was an attack on America by “Islamic terrorists”.  Through meticulous research, the author uncovers a military-intelligence ploy behind the September 11 attacks, and the cover-up and complicity of key members of the Bush Administration.

The expanded edition, which includes twelve new chapters focuses on the use of 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion and illegal occupation of Iraq, the militarisation of justice and law enforcement and the repeal of democracy.

According to Chossudovsky, the  “war on terrorism” is a complete fabrication based on the illusion that one man, Osama bin Laden, outwitted the $40 billion-a-year American intelligence apparatus. The “war on terrorism” is a war of conquest. Globalisation is the final march to the “New World Order”, dominated by Wall Street and the U.S. military-industrial complex.

September 11, 2001 provides a justification for waging a war without borders. Washington’s agenda consists in extending the frontiers of the American Empire to facilitate complete U.S. corporate control, while installing within America the institutions of the Homeland Security State.

On Friday, July 3rd, the judge in the Netherlands court case against Russia as having fired a Buk missile that brought down the Malaysian Airlines plane that Ukrainian Air Traffic Control had instructed to fly over Ukraine’s civil-war zone on 17 July 2014 ruled out any consideration of evidence from Russia.

Judge Hendrik Steenhuis “refused to allow Russian military intelligence to reveal where the missile was located between 1987 and July 17, 2014, when the Dutch prosecution claims the missile was fired by a Russian military crew at MH17,” as John Helmer reported on Friday.

The Dutch prosecutor says that that Buk missile was fired by Russia’s Government, not by Ukraine’s Government, and that it was owned by Russia and had been maintained by Russia ever since having been manufactured in Russia in 1986, and the Dutch judge announced that he refuses to consider Russia’s evidence to the contrary.

Russia’s Government alleges that it can provide evidence that that missile did not, in fact, bring the airliner down, and that, instead, it was brought down by two Ukrainian Air Force jets that fired directly at and into the airliner’s pilot, but previously the Dutch court had ruled out any consideration of such evidence, though even the Dutch Government’s own investigation included and buried the following information, as I reported just a few days ago on June 24th:

The Dutch Government’s 279-page investigative findings on the “Crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17”were published in October 2015, and reported, on page 84, (under 2.13.2 “Crew autopsy”) that “First Officer Team A … During the body scan of the First Officer’s body, over 120 objects (mostly metal fragments) were detected. The majority of the fragments were found in left side of the upper torso.” Then, it reported, on page 85 (under 2.13.3) “the First Officer, from Team A, who was operating the aeroplane at the time of the crash.”

Nigeria is one of the largest by territory with population (estimated currently at 206 million) and huge economy in Africa. Situated on the southern coast on the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean, this country most often referred to as the “Giant of Africa” has never-ending multiple and complicated internal problems ranging from politics (system of federal governance) to widening economic disparity to cultural differences. The country has 36 states and it is officially called the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Early July, Kester Kenn Klomegah had the chance and interviewed Chief (Mrs) Marie Okwo, President of the Igbo Women Assembly (IWA), about the impact of the civil war, the current politics and the role of the church in Nigeria. She is one of the remaining few Nigerians who have seen Nigeria from the struggle for independence through the development of its democracy. Mrs Okwor, who is an associate of the late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, is now the leader of the Igbo Women Assembly and one-time member of Advisory Council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Established as an NGO in 2006, the Igbo Women Assembly focuses on women empowerment and the youth, it consistently encourages moral values particularly among young graduates. Headquarters in Enugu, Enugu State of Nigeria.

Here are the interview excerpts:

The Nigerian civil war (1967-70) was a bitter experience, and has also affected expected development in the Biafra State. What are your views about this, especially from women’s perspectives?

The war of 1967-1070 war was a pogrom; a war of attrition meant to wipe out a whole race for no just cause. It reminded me of the Holocaust against the Jews. Those who died of hunger starvation, bombings were numerous in number. Malnutrition killed many children who developed a disease called “kwashiokor” – medical experts explain as lack of protein in the body and the belly fills up with fluid. I feel very emotional as I speak about this.

Suffice it to say, that the war could have been avoided, had Nigeria kept her end of the agreement at Aburi, in the Republic of Ghana, which came to be called “the Aburi Accord” that was reached in 1967. This venue offered the delegates security guarantee and that meeting was billed to be the last chance of preventing all-out war. The accord finally broke down because of differences of interpretation on both sides. This led to the outbreak of the war. Markets and places of worship were not spared from bombings and strafing. As a matter of facts, one of my domestic staffs lost her mother in one of the market bombings had been hurt by a shrapnel; she bled to death since medical facilities were scarce.

The effect of the war on the State of Biafra was deplorable: So much destabilization as the seat of government had to move from place to place and so could not settle down to the business of governing the people effectively. There were so many things to worry about, such how to get arms and ammunition. There was also the issues food insufficiency. Lack of concentration on the part of the Administrators and the Biafran military officers and soldiers had adverse effects on the Biafrans. As each area fell to the Nigerian military and their superior military weapons, civilians also had to relocate to safer areas. It was really rough and tough especially for nursing mothers most of who lost their babies. So so sad an experience.

Assessing the effects of the civil war today, especially from gender perspectives, what else can you say in this regard, will women play a more critical role in the administration of a Biafran state?

Before I comment on the role women can play in the administration of a Biafran state, let me mention the important roles they played during the war. It will be recalled that most men were in war fronts fighting to defend Biafraland. Others had lost their jobs and were forced to stay idle at home. The duties of catering for the needs of the rest of the families, therefore, fell on the women/ wives.  In short, they became the bread winners.

On the roles women can play in a Biafran state, let me say, without fear of equivocation that without the contributions of women in governance, success will be difficult to achieve.  Women have great potentials that should be harnessed in order to move the state forward.

How do you look at the political governance in the country in relation to Biafra State?

The government of Nigeria is vehemently aversed to the name Biafra. Mere mention of that name makes them chilly.This government would rather have Biafrans remain under servitude of the Caliphate North. The slogan after the was “No victor, no vanquished.” That was the greatest deceit of the century. Biafrans have never been re-integrated.

The basis for unity no longer exists. Biafrans struggle for their survival without depending on any one. Since Nigerian government has refused absolutely to accept Biafrans as a component part of Nigeria, it stands to reason that they should be allowed to go and develop on their own at their own pace. It is pertinent to mention that the North contributes little or nothing to the development of the country. Rather resources from Southern Nigeria are controlled and squandered by Northern Elements.

On security in Nigeria, I wish to make it categorically clear that in Nigeria, security is at its lowest ebb. The Fulani Herdsmen are the cause of the unprecedented insecurity in  Biafraland. They move about freely with their cattle carrying sophisticated AK 47. They destroy farmlands and crops, kill farmers, gang-rape and kill female farmers in their farmlands. The resultant effect of the destruction of farms and crops will be devastating as there will be monumental scarcity of food soon, this will spell doom for the masses.

Government and the security operatives are fully aware of the perilous situations but prefer to look the other way. Sometimes the police offer to pay competitions. A few days ago, a middle-aged woman was gang-raped by Fulani Herdsmen in a farm till she went into a coma she was taken to a hospital and later pronounced dead. The insult by these Fulani Herdsmen is a great insult to Biafrans. Why will these Fulanis not allow us peace in our space? Enough is enough! When people are pushed to the wall, they have no alternative than to fight back.

Igbo Women Assembly call for a Referendum to settle the issue, once and for all. Our children have no future in Nigeria. We feel like the Israelites while in bondage under the Pharaohs of Egypt. We desire freedom to follow our own designs and practice our Christian Religion without let or hindrance.

Are people really satisfied with the current government? What, in your objective view, are some of their political mistakes?

Nigeria has never been so polarized or rancorous as it is now. There’s so much unrest which stems from oppression, corruption wrong choices of appointees to important governing bodies. Square pegs are placed in round holes indeed. The bitterness existing in Nigeria, at the present time, is unequalled. Security is non- existent. The reality is that there is unchecked anarchy. As things stand now, Nigeria may just disintegrate without gunshots.

Almost all of Nigeria’s intractable problems emanate from imposition of candidates during elections; no free, fair or credible elections are conducted. The situation gets worse with every election.

In the first place, the Constitution under which elections are held is a fraud. Far from being the “People’s Constitution.” We have faced these mistakes since the inception of presidential system of governance in Nigeria. The system under reference is wasteful, encourages corruption and dictatorial tendencies.

In spite of the flaws in the Constitution, the ruling party has ignored most of the clauses which might enhance the peaceful co- existence of the citizens. Impunity is rife with this current Administration. There is therefore an urgent need for intervention by concerned people of the entire world. Any adversity that befalls a Nation will have adverse effects on other Nations if not nipped in the bud.

This is a clarion call by the Igbo Women Assembly for assistance by all who abhor oppression and bad governance. No justice, no peace! No peace, no progress!

As a highly devout Catholic, how would you argue that the church could be a tool to fight against all injustices and state maladministration, most probably corruption in the Federal Republic of Nigeria?

The church in Nigeria, irrespective of denominations, has a vital role to play in addressing the ills of Nigeria. It is the duty of the church to do all in her power to restore the dignity and moral values of our societies.

All of a sudden, acquisition of wealth has taken precedence over ìntegrity, justice and fair play. The church has a duty to inculcate the congregations with a sense of responsibility moral values and discipline. Most criminals and corrupt members of the society are not pagans but Christians driven into such negative behavioral tendencies by the system. It is interesting to say that wrong leaderships beget wrong followers.

Unfortunately, some pastors preach the gospel of prosperity instead of salvation, thereby driving people into acquiring filthy lucre through any means whatsoever. People quickly forget that greed and avarice lead to destruction. They do not remember that whatever one has on earth cannot accompany him/her to the great beyond. Others will enjoy the ill- gotten goods. Corruption has eaten deep into the fabrics of the nation and the church must make concerted efforts to bring the menace to the barest minimum.

And the Biafra diaspora outside Nigeria, especially in the United States and Europe…are they optimistic about break away of the Biafran State?

Biafrans in the Diaspora are even more enthusiastic about an independent nation than some Biafrans at home. Any sign that a Referendum is on hand will see a deluge of Diaspora Biafrans flying back home. They will contribute in no small measure to bring rapid development to the new nation-state. Surely, this new nation will overtake Nigeria, which regards herself as the so- called largest country, in Africa. Yes! Largest in all types of vices like kidnappings, rape, sleeze oppression, abuse of human rights and so forth.

What are your recommendations here, what should or must be done under the current circumstances in Nigeria?

My perspective on the future or the way forward for Nigeria, the country has expired and cannot be revived, neither can it be reactivated.It is my well-considered opinion that any group or ethnic nationality, which wants to leave this contraption, should be granted their peace and freedom. Nigeria is too large to be one country since there are too many differences in religion, cultures and traditions, food and languages and other factors. Nigeria has never and can never be one. Unity has eluded the country.

If, however, Biafra becomes unattainable then we should go back to the parliamentary system of governance. A weak center with regional autonomy. As things are now, the country is rudderless and groping in the dark. If no positive action is taken soonest, Nigeria will take a nosedive into a deep precipice, in this case, the name will become irreversibly extinct.

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Kester Kenn Klomegah is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from the author

It’s hard to find things to celebrate right now. Between a dangerous virus and the dangerous police, the news cycle is even darker than usual. This week, Justin Trudeau and the Canadian establishment will try to interrupt that cycle and spin it into a tale of how lucky we are to be in Canada, spared the ravages and conflicts of our southern neighbour, walking a more enlightened path for the last 153 years.

Let’s not be fooled. Canada was forged in the same colonial fires that created the United States—its ruling class has forever pursued the same goals, and it is beset by the same crises (albeit on a different scale and with some variation).

Indeed, the crisis we are entering is global and it will be prolonged. Economic depression, climate catastrophe, incapacity to manage public health and safety, all hitting hardest those marginalized by their race, class, gender, and sexuality. The oppressed will continue to rise up and the ruling class will continue to crack down, and the outcome of this round of class struggle is hard to predict.

What is clear is that the world order that coalesced around the Euro-American colonial capitalist system is failing, dramatically. On the eve of Canada’s 153rd birthday, it would be instructive to consider the role Canada played in creating and maintaining that world order. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading and I should know, having recently written it all up.

Canada’s First Foreign Policy

My new book, Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination, traces the history of Canada’s relationships in the world beginning with its foundational foreign policy: its relations with Indigenous peoples. Hundreds of nations, with complex and varied political and economic systems, were actively and consciously displaced, destroyed, or irreparably diminished in order to create Canada. Genocide is an inauspicious starting point, and the fact that this origin story is celebrated as Canada Day should, itself, ring an alarm bell.

European colonialism, in what became Canada, was driven by one primary material goal: settlers wanted control of the land so that they could parcel it into private property and establish the dynamics of capitalism. This necessarily entailed removing the Indigenous people who lived on that land by a range of tactics—violence, manipulation, starvation, kidnapping children, and the establishment of police to enforce Canada’s position—and this process rested on an ideological framework of white supremacy.

Though the settlers who became “Canadian” charted a particular path through this conquest, the pattern was repeated across all of Europe’s settler colonies, including the United States. Claiming to be a superior race destined to rule, settlers stole both Indigenous land and African labour—some 14 million people kidnapped, sold, or born into slavery in the trans-Atlantic slave trade—and built a capitalist economy on this foundation. Capitalism, remember, was in its infancy. As I often explain to my students, capitalism is like a game of Monopoly, and the European ruling classes ensured that they would win that game by stealing most of the property and wealth before the first roll of the dice.

The metaphor works, but it also obscures much of the horror and inhumanity that the process entailed. In the book, I detail the barbaric behaviour of the Euro-American settlers across many generations, behaviour that remains etched in the collective psychology of North American society today. Race and racism, developed to justify genocide and slavery, remain central to the experience of living in Canada or the United States. The intergenerational trauma connected to that racism—and the systematic inequality and hardship that is maintained to this day—reverberates in every victim of settler violence (from Colton Boushie to Trayvon Martin), every marginalized community without clean water (from Shoal Lake 40 First Nation to the Navajo Nation) every pipeline built through Indigenous territory without consent (from Trans Mountain to Dakota Access), and every over-policed poor community (from Jane-Finch to Ferguson).

I can already hear a certain kind of Canadian voice starting to interject. “Yes, we made mistakes in the past, but we are trying to atone for those mistakes and build a better world. We’re not like the Americans, we even have a museum dedicated to human rights!” Canada built an image of itself in the twentieth century as an enlightened, humanitarian, and honest broker in the world. If that image rings true to you, I’m here to spoil the party.

Past and Present

In every major instance of Canadian foreign policy—from the Boer War to the Iraq War, from the Russian Revolution to the Arab Spring—Canada has been driven by the same principles on which it was founded: capitalist profits and racial hierarchies. The pattern is so consistent that I occasionally wondered whether the book might get boring. As it happens, Canada found such creative ways to adapt this pattern that it would be a marvel, if it wasn’t so gut-wrenching.

Impoverished peasants and workers rise up in El Salvador in the 1930s against a despised dictator and an electricity company charging exorbitant rates. The company is Montreal-based International Power, and its boss is close friends with Prime Minister Bennett. Canada sends a warship to support the dictator in what would be remembered as La Matanza (the massacre of thousands of people) after which Canadian General Victor Brodeur enjoys a round of golf with the dictator. International Power’s profits are restored and the Prime Minister brushes off the victims as “communist Indians.”

Congolese people in the 1950s demand their freedom after decades of craven exploitation and violence at the hands of Belgium. Canadian officials insist that the Congolese are not ready—“savagery still very near the surface,” says one—but offer to send peacekeepers when the first democratic Prime Minister, socialist Patrice Lumumba, asks for help dealing with a right-wing breakaway faction. Instead of helping Lumumba, the Canadian peacekeepers refuse to share barracks with black peacekeepers, start fights in Leopoldville nightclubs, and have to be directly ordered not to use racial slurs against the Congolese. One Canadian peacekeeper directly aids Joseph Mobutu (right-wing rebel and future dictator of the country) in the assassination of the beloved Lumumba.

The Vietnam War, crucible of American imperialism, rages into the 1970s despite anti-war upheaval and the Vietnamese peoples’ staunch opposition. Claire Culhane, Canadian nurse working at a hospital near My Lai, chains herself to a chair in the House of Commons demanding an explanation for Canada’s participation in the heinous war. Canadian Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent had mourned when the Vietnamese won their freedom from the French colonial “heroes”, but Canada agreed to help oversee the Geneva Peace Accords. Canada uses that role to spy on North Vietnam for the Americans, enforcing Geneva’s rules only when it serves American interests, and provides the American war with funding, equipment, Agent Orange, green berets, and thousands of soldiers who leave Canadian flag decals on the mirrors in Vietnamese brothels. The hospitals where Culhane works get little funding because their primary purpose is to run secret agents.

It is 2001 and George W. Bush declares a War on Terror. The Arab and Muslim world—and their diasporic communities—watch in horror as first Afghanistan and then Iraq are bombed into oblivion. The civilian death toll over the course of the wars is staggering, the destruction incalculable, the conquest complete. The intervention is expanded to encompass Libya, Syria, and Mali, and while each case is unique, there is no place where life is made better by two decades of war. Bush’s invasion leaves the once-secular, prosperous Iraq mired in poverty and religious conflict. Afghans live in perpetual fear that their weddings or funerals will be bombed by Obama’s drones. Despite decades of disaster, Trump considers expanding the war to dismantle Iran.

And at the centre of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ is Canada. Canadian troops call Afghanistan “Indian Country” and describe Afghans as “straight out of the pages of National Geographic.” Canada helps install a puppet government and then embeds its military in that government in order to oversee its lawmaking. The economy is privatized and Canadian capital gets a big piece, while misogynistic laws allowing husbands to rape their wives if they refuse sex are passed with Canadian approval. Afghan prisoners are tortured by Canadian soldiers to the point that they can’t control their bowels.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Chretien does not officially declare war on Iraq, but his military cooperates fully with the occupation and Canadian companies reap the rewards, as when Nortel wins a contract to rebuild the fibre-optic network destroyed by American bombs. As the War on Terror balloons, so does the Canadian military, its budget, and its presence in Canadian popular culture. Soldiers are lionized at sporting events, even as they forcibly overthrow a democratic government in Haiti and assume control of a police force that kills thousands of Haitians. Public buildings don “support the troops” ribbons, even as those troops drop bombs on civilians in Syria and Iraq. Tanks are displayed at street festivals to entice new recruits to join the military, as it trains and supports the fascist government of Ukraine.

Former Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King (second from left) at the opening ceremonies of the All-German Sports Competition, Olympic Stadium, June 27, 1937. Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The Making of the Modern World

In every case, and so many in between, Canada played its part in building and maintaining the world we currently live in; and that world is burning. Forest fires ravage the Amazon, the lungs of our planet, to facilitate the penetration of capital (Canada welcomed the rise of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who is behind the fires). Siberian villages record temperatures of over 100 degrees, climate change already a fait accompli thanks to the relentless burning of fossil fuels by industrial giants (Canada is one of the worst per-capita polluters in the world). Righteous flames lick the sky above the Third Precinct in Minneapolis, lit up in response to ceaseless police violence against black people and the impunity with which it is enacted (Canadian police have a similar record). I have nothing but admiration for those who sparked that fire—no justice, no peace—but it should never have come to this.

That it did come to this is a logical consequence of nearly every action Canada has ever taken on the international stage. Anytime there has been a movement of people that seemed to push in the direction of justice, equality, social welfare—in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Angola, Indonesia, or the Philippines—Canada has been there to undermine it. Whenever the forces of colonialism, or of the right and far-right, have stirred, in Germany, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, Rhodesia, Uganda, Israel, Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, or the Ukraine, Canada has been eager to work with them, speak well of them, fund them, equip them, make war alongside them, train their police or sell them billions of dollars worth of Light Armoured Vehicles.

This last example, a reference to Justin Trudeau’s weapons deal with the Saudi monarchy, echoes with the memory of Canadian arms sales to fascist Japan as it launched a brutal assault against China in the 1930s. Similarly, Chrystia Freeland’s tight relationship with Ukrainian neo-Nazis can only be a reminder of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King’s unseemly adoration of Adolf Hitler (himself an admirer of Canada’s genocide of Indigenous people). Canada’s brazen disregard for Venezuelan sovereignty is consistent with its denunciation of independence for India and Pakistan in the 1940s (a Winnipeg newspaper portrayed turbaned infants being abandoned by a British nanny). Torture scandals in Afghanistan draw an obvious parallel to the torture of a Somali teenager in 1993, but could also be placed alongside the Canadian cop who tortured Kenyans on behalf of Britain in the 1950s (John Timmerman was nicknamed “the Himmler of Kenya”).

Canada actively called for the “quarantine” of freedom movements around the world, which of course brings us back to Canada’s own segregation and containment of Indigenous peoples. Indeed, the threads that hold all of this together are to be found in that first foreign policy. Canadian Confederation itself, 153 years ago, was specifically motivated by the desire to clear all of what is now Canada of the “uncivilized” people who inhabited the lands, to make way for the “clearer northern brains” of the white race, which would bring capitalist prosperity to the few lucky enough to own land and labour. Henceforth, opponents to capitalism were considered opponents to “progress.” Racial stereotypes were mobilized against oppressed people fighting for freedom and against capitalism, at home and abroad, and Canada did everything in its power to create a world governed by the British and American empires on behalf of capital. The glue in the Atlantic Alliance, the Canadian elite staked everything on this project, and from the standpoint of its own goals, it was an overwhelming success.

Their success has left the world in flames. Surely, midway through 2020, we can recognize that humanity cannot survive these capitalist, white supremacist empires. The hell they have unleashed for the past two centuries cannot adequately be captured in words, but I do my best to document Canada’s significant role in creating those hells in Canada in the World. The problem is increasingly urgent. The world does not need more Canada, it needs a decolonized Canada, something new that will help dismantle the calamitous world order that Canada helped to build. Something we might actually want to celebrate on July 1, 2021.

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Tyler A. Shipley is professor of culture, society and commerce at the Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning and author of Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination. The book is available to pre-order now and the publisher is currently offering a 20% discount code—“defund”—which they will match with a donation to BLM Nova Scotia. Learn more about the book on Twitter and Instagram.

Featured image: Justin Trudeau applauds during the opening ceremony of the 2017 Canada Summer Games. Photo from Flickr.

Since the start of the week, the Syrian Army has repelled several ISIS attacks on its positions in the desert in central Syria.

The most recent attack took place in eastern Homs early on July 2 and became the largest one so far. Clashes lasted for several hours and Syrian troops even called for support from the Russian Aerospace Forces. Pro-opposition media claim that up to 10 soldiers were killed on injured in the encounter, but this is yet to be confirmed.

In response to this attack, the Syrian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Forces carried out a series of raids against detected positions of the terrorist group on the western bank of the Euphrates and near the US-controlled al-Tanf zone on July 2 and July 3.

According to Syrian sources, hundreds of ISIS members still hide in the desert using underground tunnels and mobile groups of fighters equipped with all that is needed to operate independently. Over the past months, the Syrian military has made several attempts to track and eliminate these units. However, it has achieved only a partial success.

On July 2, forces of Turkey’s Syrian National Army shelled a positon of the Syrian Army west of the Turkish-occupied town of Tell Abyad triggering local clashes. The most intense fighting erupted near the village of Abdi. According to pro-government sources, at least one Syrian soldier was injured and a few Turkish proxies were killed.

Turkish-backed forces continue regular ceasefire violations despite the recent military buildup undertaken by the Syrian Army near the contact line in northeastern Syria. Most likely, Turkish proxies feel a kind of impunity thanks to the direct protection of the Turkish Armed Forces. This behavior instigates military tensions in the region.

Meanwhile, Syrian forces blocked a US military convoy at the al-Dardara bridge on the road between Tel Tamr and Abu Rasin in the northern countryside of Hasaka. After a short verbal confrontation, the US convoy withdrew from the area. Recently, such incidents between Syrian and US forces in Hasakah province became something common. Apparently, the Damascus government boosted its efforts to limit the freedom of operations of the US-led coalition there.

The situation stabilized in the militant-held part of Greater Idlib. After almost a week of clashes and competing accusations by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Fa Ithbatu coalition (both groups linked with al-Qaeda), the sides reached a ceasefire deal. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham once again demonstrated that it is the most influential and militarily capable group in the opposition-held area.

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There’s no doubt that Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has had a better pandemic than her English counterpart. Sturgeon’s ratings have been consistently high throughout the crisis, with one survey revealing recently that 82% of people think she has handled it well compared with 30% who praised Boris Johnson. Facing the nation every day for the last four months, she has given consistent and clear leadership and advice to her population to see it through this difficult period. Her approach has been careful and measured, not changing the messaging as the Westminster government abruptly did, which caused widespread chaos and confusion. Nor did she hurry to lift the lockdown as was done south of the border several weeks ago. And to her credit, the slogan ‘Stay At Home’ seems to be paying off.  The country has now gone 4 consecutive days without a death from coronavirus – a real milestone after months of lockdown. England on the other hand, has not yet got on top of the pandemic, with an increase of 155 deaths recorded on Monday, and the city Leicester forced once again into lockdown.

Sturgeon was cautiously optimistic at her press briefing on Tuesday, declaring ‘I now believe we have a genuine chance to come as close as it is possible to get to eliminating this virus in Scotland’.  Professor Devi Sridhar, who advises the Scottish Government on Covid-19, recently outlined the ways in which Scotland has succeeded in overcoming the virus. Firstly, it maintained a longer lockdown than England, with a consistent ‘Stay At Home message; secondly, it implemented local tracing using public health boards instead of relying on an app, as they did down south; and thirdly, it successfully generated trust in the government. The epidemiologist said in an interview with Channel 4 News: ‘There’s a very high level of trust in government and compliance with measures and that’s what I’ve been quite amazed about’.

Sturgeon’s handling of the pandemic is already beginning to influence the independence debate. Given the success story north of the border, it has now been suggested that having an open border with England could pose a threat to Scotland’s ability to control the virus. Restrictions were placed on travel between the two nations in recent months as the pandemic unfolded, in a rare moment of division for a kingdom united since 1707. But the question is now being posed as to whether Scotland should close its border with England in the foreseeable future, or at the very least impose a quarantine on incomers from England. Prof Devi Sridhar recently admitted that the biggest threat to managing the virus in Scotland was new cases arriving from down south. She said: ‘If Scotland was an island – like New Zealand – I would say going for zero cases would be totally feasible’.

Nationalists have naturally got very excited at this prospect. Unionists have conversely got extremely agitated. Sturgeon and Johnson have both weighed in on the debate, with rather heated language expressed by both parties on the issue. The Scottish leader said on Wednesday, that given expert advice, she would not rule out quarantine as an option: ‘I would be failing in my duty not to consider it’. Johnson for his part has turned to flat out denial – stating there ‘is no such thing as a border between England and Scotland’ – a statement Sturgeon has said is ‘absurd’. The Prime Minister brandished the idea of imposing a quarantine for English incomers to Scotland as ‘astonishing and shameful’ and his Scottish Secretary accused Sturgeon of ‘reckless talk’. But the reality is that the two nations have undoubtedly grown further apart since the pandemic took hold.

Recent figures on Scottish Independence reflect this change. A new poll for Panelbase now indicates a majority of 54% support independence – the highest figure to date. The momentum is clearly with the nationalist cause, with the SNP’s Peter Wishart, on Wednesday publishing an outline for a ‘route map’ to independence.  He has said that we are at a ‘tipping point’ and if Boris Johnson continues to block further referendums on Scottish Independence, then Scotland will have to appeal to the EU to sanction it. In his plan he said we firstly need to gain a sustained majority in support of independence in the country, followed by securing a second referendum. He says that ‘the scent of decay in the union case is almost overwhelming’ and that ‘If the UK refuses to participate in an agreed referendum in the face of a majority support and a clear democratic mandate, we must presume it has decided to exempt itself from its obligations and responsibilities as a partner in the Union’.

The word ‘partner’ is however, here, misplaced. For Scotland and England have never really been ‘partners’ in the Union. Scotland was dominated by England from the outset, and its culture and language almost obliterated. The very fact that we have to gain ‘permission’ from Westminster to hold a second referendum says it all. Therefore, it is true, that in order to secure independence, Scotland’s only hope is to appeal to bodies outwith the UK, such as the EU for help in achieving autonomy. Otherwise, at this rate, we’ll still be debating this by the time the next pandemic arrives. What a thought that is…

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Dear fellow citizens,

Welcome to the ACU, the Extra-Parliamentary Corona Investigation Committee. If the Parliament does not do it, then we citizens are called upon to do it ourselves.

Extra-parliamentary Corona Committee of Inquiry, we will investigate why these restrictive measures came over our country in the wake of CoVid-19, why people are suffering now and whether there is any real proportionality to the disease actually caused by a SARS-CoV-2 virus. We have serious doubts as to whether the way in which these restrictive measures have been taken is really proportionate. This must be investigated and, as neither the parliaments, the opposition parties nor the governing parties have convened a committee and it is not even in the planning stage, it is high time that we took matters into our own hands now. We will invite and hear experts here in the Corona Spokesmen’s Circle, experts from all walks of life, from the fields of medicine, social affairs, law, the economy and much more.

Renowned experts have kindly already agreed to be present. In addition to the circle of speakers, my colleague Prof. HADITSCH and my colleague Dr. SCHIFFMANN, I would also like to introduce myself. My name is Heiko SCHÖNING, I am a simple doctor from Hamburg. My personal motivation is that I am a father, like many others in this country have children and we see that our children are suffering now, not only because the playgrounds have been closed, but because they are separated from each other. And for the adults it is even worse.

We ask ourselves, why are relatives no longer allowed to visit their parents, for example in the retirement home? Is there such a great danger of infection? Do we really have a killer virus here? Do we have rabies or do we have the plague? And we have serious doubts that we do! We do not have the plague! But honesty is something that actually helps. The famous Nobel Prize winner Albert CAMUS has already expressed this in his wonderful book “The Plague”. We want to guarantee this honesty and transparency here in the ACU, in the Extra-Parliamentary Corona Committee of Inquiry.

That is why experts from medicine like Prof. BHAKDI, from business like Prof. OTTE or from the legal system like Prof. JUNGBLUT and many others who have already confirmed their participation have come here. And of course we also invite all experts from the government, public institutes, the Robert Koch Institute and internationally. It will be made completely transparent. The statements of the experts will be broadcast live, without editing, you can watch it on the internet. We will call up a website and we will of course need more resources for this. Therefore, please support us in this citizens’ initiative, in this citizens’ initiative ACU.

What is the best-case scenario? We will see that we do not need to be more afraid, as we have been with normal flu waves in recent years, because that is exactly how it seems to be. But why have they taken these terrible measures?

For example, an internal report of the Federal Ministry of the Interior has determined that 90% of all necessary operations in Germany were not carried out, which affected 2.5 million people. And also in this report it is written that 5,000 to 125,000 patients have died as a result of the government measures. These are people, fellow men, fellow citizens who have already died or are still dying. This report had the status of 7 May 2020, which is also the reason why we are now taking this Corona Investigation Committee into our own hands, because we cannot wait any longer.

And it is more than grossly negligent that the government agencies do not expose these things in a big way and in fact it seems to be staged. Because the scientific data already show that there is no basis for these measures. So we are all asking ourselves, including in the business world of course, –

even if human lives are mainly at stake here – who benefits? We are trying to answer these questions here too. Cui bono? Who benefits?

Thank you very much, also for your support so far and we are looking forward to further resources and also your cooperation. Once again, we invite everyone, including the other side, to speak here, and it will also be transparently posted on the Internet. And of course we are also available for a press conference. We therefore ask the Federal Press Conference Association to open the rooms for us and for the international press. Thank you very much.

I now pass the floor to my colleague Dr. Bodo SCHIFFMANN.
 Yes, thank you very much Mr SCHÖNING,
 Why is the Extra-Parliamentary Corona Investigation Committee necessary?

Because we are dealing with a lack of proportionality. Governments have to take decisions and in emergency situations, such as a pandemic, they also have to take measures that may, at first sight, restrict fundamental rights. But they are also obliged to constantly review these measures and also to loosen them up again as quickly as possible in order to prevent collateral damage, as Mr SCHÖNING mentioned.

Instead, we get unrelated figures, figures that are only likely to stir up fear by simply adding up cases of illness and not showing that there is a disproportion between the number of people tested and those actually infected. Existing well-functioning structures, such as the Law on Protection against Infection, are simply suspended and replaced by something new, which is far more drastic, and the only thing that comes from the government is the constant call for vaccination for a disease of which we now know very well, through many international studies, that it is very comparable with flu diseases, that the mortality rates are no higher than with strong flu waves and that the measures cannot be justified by this. It is a frightening ignorance on the part of recognised international studies and experts from all fields, whether they be virologists, bacteriologists, epidemiologists or even economists, who are simply not being heard or are being ignored. Worse still, they are called liars, charlatans, or conspiracy theorists, which is sure to become the unword of the year 2020.

Instead, a vaccination is being advertised that can be highly dangerous, a vaccination without medical necessity, because there is no evidence for it anymore. It is no longer even the case that enough people in Germany get sick so that a vaccine could be tested on them. And it is a new form of vaccination, a so-called RNA vaccination, which, unlike previous vaccinations, is able to alter the genetic material. And can cause incalculable damage to people. And here one must also think of the medical principle “no harm”, “nil no cere”.

This is the task of the doctors and here we also hope that other doctors will participate and think about it, because we doctors must not harm the patients more than we benefit them.

My motivation is my grandparents and my parents, who taught me that if I have the feeling that fundamental rights are being restricted, that democracy is being restricted, that the press is no longer a free press, but that you get the feeling that it is propaganda, that if foreign opinions are censored, deleted, then you have to go out into the streets, then you have to become active, or you have to try to inform the public yourself, for example, as you would do with a Corona investigative committee. Because of course there is always the danger that power corrupts, and that at some point politicians can no longer see this with the right measure and aim.

I saw a danger of the loss of democracy, and I see more and more efforts every day to turn our free democratic basic order into a surveillance state, with mind control and surveillance apps and the like, under the guise of infection protection laws.

In the best case scenario, we come to the conclusion that there should be a complete legal clarification of the background to these scientifically, medically and humanly excessive measures, that those responsible should also be held accountable and that situations such as swine flu, with vaccinations that have left vaccination damage in people, for a disease for which there was no need to vaccinate, should never be repeated! And all the measures that have been taken must be scaled back, because they have been developed against a background of horror scenarios that never materialised and which are nevertheless constantly kept high to create fear among the population of a deadly disease that does not exist in this form. And the best thing that will come out of it, of course – and this must happen – is an immediate end to the lockdown, an end to the obligation to wear masks. At a time when there were no more cases of illness at all, a call was made for compulsory masks in doctors’ surgeries on May 29th of this year.

In the last few weeks – today is 20 June 2020, we had large mass demonstrations against racism in 20 German cities with more than 20,000 participants – if this virus in this form with this rate of infection were actually still rampant in Germany, then we should be able to register a massive increase in the number of infections today, but this is not the case.

And this proves that the measures can no longer be justified in any way. Thank you very much.

I would like to emphasize once again that what we are doing here is completely non-partisan, it is not about right or left, it is not about fat or thin or man or woman. It is really about life and death for many, about a great deal of quality of life for adults, but also for our children. That is our main motivation – also for future generations – to face up to the circumstances we have been exposed to in recent months ourselves.

We citizens must regain our sovereignty and we also claim the right to do so, because we have it. We stand on the foundation of the constitutional Law. In the Basic Law, which I hold in my hand here, there is a wonderful article, article 20, paragraph 4, “Everyone has the right to resist if no other measures remedy the situation”.

We can also perhaps regard this Extra-parliamentary Corona Inquiry Committee as one of the last measures and hope that those – who are in government, who have also sworn an oath not to harm people, but to help those who also defend our country, that we also remind them all of it, civil servants, officers, doctors, yes, all fellow citizens are called upon to take part in it here too, and the dire circumstances, – which we all truly experience, we see it in the streets, we experience it in our families and also personally with our friends and relatives.

We must do something about this. And I am also pleased that we not only have the German perspective, but that we can also bring an international perspective into the process. And that is why I am also pleased that we have a real expert on this subject in the circle of speakers of the ACU, the Extra-Parliamentary Corona Inquiry Committee, Professor HADITSCH from Austria.

Please.
 Yes, thank you very much and best wishes from my side.

Mr SCHÖNING, it is a great honor for me and, to be honest, also a matter close to my heart here at the ACU to take part in the Extra-Parliamentary Corona Committee of Inquiry.

If we go down to the factual level, we have to ask ourselves the questions: why is this committee of inquiry necessary at all?

This investigation is necessary because, from the outset, either grossly negligent or deliberately, without the necessary duty of care, that is to say without even the slightest consideration for collateral damage, irresponsibly inappropriate decisions have been made, which have also undermined fundamental democratic rights and trampled ethical duties underfoot.

There has obviously also been an attempt to compensate for blatant misconduct, such as the neglect of those in need of protection – and I would like to remind you of people in retirement homes – by means of draconian, untargeted measures, perhaps in order to avoid having to justify this misconduct either, or at least to divert attention from these problems.

Whether it is ultimately unintentional, i.e. based on ignorance, or intentional – that would then have been done with questionable motives – is actually irrelevant. In any case, this disqualifies the decision makers themselves.

In view of the scope of the decisions made, both options described above must necessarily be subjected to a detailed review, and this can be done again from experience with the extremely one- sided presentation by politics and state radio – or the state media, ultimately only by an independent, i.e. also extra-parliamentary, corona investigative committee.

My personal motivation for participating in this is that I am a specialist in microbiology, virology and infection epidemiology, and I am deeply appalled by the hitherto, completely unobjective approach from a professional point of view.

Some people will now ask themselves what I mean by this unobjective approach. To this I count the actually constant, in the media widespread sketching of “worst case” scenarios, fear-promoting inappropriate comparisons – one only thinks for example of this perfect, unspeakable catchword of “Italian conditions”, which was at best true for some Northern Italian regions and where actually the worse supplied Southern Italian areas coped with the whole thing relatively unproblematically.

Inadequate, blatant depictions of threatening trends, which in practice never materialized – and if one had correctly assessed it from the outset, given the quality of the health care system in Germany – could never have occurred in this way.

I am also a trained general practitioner. – However, above all as a doctor, I could no longer tolerate this contemptuous approach to health and human beings, as [it] is in stark contrast to the professional understanding and ethics for all of us. This permanent fear- or rather one could say panic mongering, the psychological and social damage that can be deduced from it, the gigantic medical and economic colloquial damage and last but not least the massive interventions in all our cultural and club life are, I believe, at least as a holistically oriented physician, reason enough and motivation enough to stand up and fight against this insanity.

In view of the disaster, which cannot be assessed at all at present, it seems necessary, with due respect, of course, but unambiguously, to press for an objective evaluation of these decisions and to call the decision-makers to account in the event of proven misconduct.

The Committee of Inquiry’s perspective is, of course, also somewhat like this: what can we expect, what is the best-case scenario?

In my view, all citizens – or at least medical colleagues – should feel committed to the Hippocratic way of thinking, namely to the slogan “nil no cere”, i.e. “not to do any harm”, and that everyone, even those outside the government line sworn media, should inform themselves, ask critical questions and carry out plausibility checks. And then one will discover that Bergamo is not Italy, Ischgli not Austria, New York not the USA and a carnival celebration in Heinsberg, an apartment house in Göttingen and some slaughterhouses, wherever they may be, are not Germany.

It should also become visible for all,

• that the German health care system has never even begun to run the risk of decompensating, i.e. being overburdened, 

• that measurements, such as the doubling rate and this unspeakable number “R 0”, were primarily intended to communicate in an unobjective and manipulative way in order to put pressure in form of fear on the population and lack of reference to the number of tests carried out, 

• that false and untrustworthy figures have been used for fatalities, misused for intimidation, 

• that the number of cases was already significantly declining well before the “lockdown”, 

• that a general mask duty ordered 4 weeks later, seriously 4 weeks later – was factually 
 unfounded, illegal and psycho-socially irresponsible,
• that the incorrigible adherence to measures and already refuted statements, i.e. against better knowledge and proven evidence in this context, is a criminal offence and 

• that ultimately a drastic change in the party-political decision-making structures is overdue because this is the only way to reliably prevent the continuation or repetition of this anti- democratic approach. 


With all my heart I wish the ACU, the Extra-Parliamentary Corona Committee of Inquiry, all the best in an objective examination of all these conflict issues. Good luck. 
Many thanks to Mr HADITSCH. 
I would like to conclude by emphasizing once again why we are already setting up this ACU, the Extra-Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry. We do not want to wait for the parliaments or others who at some point may come later in the future, because the pressure is on now, people are suffering now. People are suffering now, and a great many people have already been injured, some have even lost their lives. Just as it was [predicted] in the internal report of the Federal Ministry of the Interior. People have died because of the government measures! And that is obviously not proportionate. 


Another reason why it is so urgent that we have to take it into our own hands now, especially when no one else is doing it who might be more called upon, is a circumstance that I would like to mention again. All over the world there are always people whose heart stops to beat. Everyone has a 100% risk that at some point their heart will stop. 
The good news is: you can now also revive, reanimate and there is a guideline how to do it. And this guideline was changed internationally at the beginning of April, and in the course of time it was also changed in Germany. And this guideline, you have to imagine, says now, “because of the high risk of infection with CoVid-19 and the high damage that could be caused by it”, you should no longer give breath – imagine that – “you should now put a cloth over your mouth”.

This means that many many more people in the world will die now, because it is scientifically proven that if you press and breathe, many more people survive. And so excess mortality is produced for statistics. We have to overturn this resuscitation guideline. 
We can actually see, and we will be able to provide comprehensive proof together in this committee of inquiry, that we do not have the plague or the killer virus. That is good news! 
But we really must ask ourselves: Why is it the way [it is]? Why are these measures in place? Who benefits? 
We don’t want to wait until we ourselves and also our friends, our relatives suffer personal and also physical damage. 


We have to work together now! 
And I can only invite, because there is no corporation or media corporation behind us, no rich people, no foundations.

The better we are equipped with resources, the more professional and faster we can do this work, also internationally. We will also publish it in several languages to the best of our ability. Everyone is invited to help out here, in the best public spirit. And therefore, I thank you very very much for all the support you have given us so far. 
Thank you very much. 


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Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

This July 4^th, a larger-than-usual shadow is cast upon America which has come face-to-face with some serious historic reckonings. While the existence of an oligarchy and international “deep state” should not be ignored as a political force of history- arranging wars, assassinations and promoting economic enslavement of people and nations throughout the centuries, the guilt cannot entirely be placed on this apparatus. As Shakespeare’s Cassius once said to Brutus “our fate… is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

The mob which Shakespeare mocked as a mindless instrument of tyrants in his play Julius Caesar, has again been deployed in America where elite charities and foundations (Rockefeller, Ford, Soros, et al) have turned this social-justice beast against the very republic itself (ironically under the banner of Freedom from Tyranny” of course).

Instead of hearing calls to save America, break up the Wall Street banks or return America back to its anti-colonial heritage, today we hear only calls for tearing down monuments, and to undo the Constitution as a fraud wrapped in a lie built upon hypocrisy and white privilege with no redeeming value anywhere to be found.

I’d like to take this brief moment to do something a tad unpopular by honoring the positive traditions of the too-often forgotten America whose Father of Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, shaped not merely a revolution of 13 independent-minded colonies against the British Empire, but rather a global movement stretching from France, Russia, Poland, Ireland, Prussia, India and Africa!

Without this international array of republican-minded patriots across cultures, religions and continents, then the revolution of 1776 that established on this earth for the first time a system of government founded upon the Consent of the Governed and for the protection of inalienable rights would never have succeeded.

America’s Revolution as an International Affair

As I laid out in my last paper “Why Canada Failed the Ben Franklin Challenge of 1776”, Franklin’s sad return to the Continental Congress in New York from Quebec in May, 1776 was one of the few defeats suffered by the statesman. Franklin’s decades of work to bring the French Colony of Quebec into the independence movement was sabotaged by 1) the slavish illiteracy rampant among the peasants of the feudal system inherited from France, and 2) the rampant corruption of the Catholic clergy elite which signed a devil’s pact with the British Empire to keep the peasants locked into the empire. These factors would play into the collapse of the French Revolution in 1789 as we will see shortly.

One month after this failed effort, a four-man committee led by Franklin drafted the Declaration of Independence on July 2^nd and made public on July 4^th proclaiming:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

Although a slave owner named Thomas Jefferson is sadly given sole credit for this document (fueling the argument of those proclaiming America to be a nation built on hypocrisy), the fact is that the great abolitionist Ben Franklin guided the writing of this document from start to finish. Over 40 corrections to Jefferson’s drafts were made by the old statesman including the erasure of Jefferson’s desired wording of “property” derived from his love of John Locke for the higher Leibnizian idea of “happiness” preferred by Franklin.

Franklin had already fought to unite the colonies for over twenty years beginning with his 1754 Plan of Union at the outset of the French-Indian War adopted by the Albany Congress, but rejected by the individual colonies who were always kept divided amongst themselves. Franklin’s “Join or Die” cartoon had its origins not in 1776, but actually during the battle of 1754 and it was an open secret that the British Elite of the 18^th century collaborated closely with French oligarchical families to keep the troublesome colonialists subjugated, and underdeveloped as part of the “balance of power” game of empire.

After Franklin’s July 4, 1776 success, he knew that America’s fate hinged upon his ability to engage the international network of statesmen, and scientists whom he had organized over the course of 40 years and especially since his 1752 discovery of electricity made him an international sensation earning him the title “Prometheus of America” and immortalized in the painting by Benjamin West.

This post-1776 phase of his plan took him to France where he was made America’s ambassador in Paris. It was here, that Franklin arranged the French-American Treaty of Alliance of 1778 that turned the tide of the revolution towards the American cause which had zero chance of success before this moment.

Franklin had already organized his allies in Prussia where Friedrich the Great voiced open support for the cause and the great military strategist Wilhelm von Steuben became the Inspector General of the Continental Army providing military drills and modern military techniques to the undisciplined “citizen soldiers” of the USA. The republican Polish military engineer and colonel Tadeusz Kosciuszko served as Brigadier-General in the Continental Army and the young Marquis Lafayette who arrived illegally in America along with other French troops before the 1778 alliance treaty, made invaluable contributions to the cause. Over twenty generals of the Continental Congress were Irishmen, and many led the later efforts to create an Irish revolution in 1798-99.

In his ambassadorial station in France, Franklin met many members of the European intelligentsia- including key Russian figures. Among them included a young woman named Ekaterina Dashkova– the younger sister of Catherine the Great and president of the Russian Academy of Sciences who became friends with the elder scientist and was soon inducted into Franklin’s Philosophical Society (becoming the society’s first woman and first Russian). In turn, Dashkova made Franklin the first American member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1781. It was through these connections that Franklin played a leading role in organizing the League of Armed Neutrality under the helm of Catherine the Great which ensured that vital supplies and arms would make their way from Europe to America without being blocked by British ships. Within the first 12 months, this League grew to include the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Prussia. To this day, Russia’s league created the foundations of Maritime law.

This early alliance sewed the seeds of a larger tradition of U.S.-Russia friendship which saved both nations at existential moments and is outlined brilliantly by American University President Edward Lozansky’s recent July 4^th article.

Franklin’s French networks had deep connections into India as well, which made themselves felt in the French-Indian alliance of 1780 that saw pro-American Muslim leader Hydar Ali lead thousands of Indian soldiers on a march across Western Ghats where they attacked the strategic British Base of Fort St. George near the Port town of Madras. Ali was supported by French troops on land and sea under the command of Admiral Suffren. Hydar Ali had already defeated the British in 1760 and represented a powerful independence force in India that kept British oligarchs up at night (It would still be many years before Britain would gain control of this “Crown Jewel” of the empire). During this conflict, Hydar Ali’s forces innovated rockets which decimated British troops, and forced Britain to re-direct over 20% of their naval fleet from fighting in the Americas- this was a vital boon to the French and American forces a world away. Hydar Ali’s son Tipu Sultan even wrote a message to the Continental Congress in 1781 saying: “every blow that is struck in the cause of American liberty throughout the world, in France, India, and elsewhere and so long as a single insolent savage tyrant remains the struggle shall continue.”

America’s flagship of the Continental fleet was named the Hydar Ali in his honor.

In Morocco, the French were able to arrange an important dialogue between Emperor Sidi Mohammed and American officials which saved American shipping from the ravages of Barbary pirates who ruled the coasts of Africa and the Straits of Gibraltar. During the opening of the war, the British made sure to inform these Barbary pirates of American shipping and used these forces against American ships bound for Europe. Sidi Mohammed agreed to supply protection for America’s ships and guaranteed them safe harbor from the Tunisian and Algerian pirates. Soon the Continental Congress had passed an act which called for Franklin to lead a team of negotiators to work out a deal with Morocco and other North African countries.

Although international political chaos and the constant treachery and intrigue within America during its early years resulted in very little progress on this front, it is noteworthy that Morocco was the first nation in the world to recognize America’s independence on December 20, 1777.

Even though Franklin didn’t appear to have any direct contact with the Chinese during this period (who were busy fending off the British Empire’s lusting dogs of the East India Company who were preparing a new phase of Asiatic expansion), Chinese thought did figure prominently in the thinking of Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine. Franklin had published many writings on Confucius from 1737-1757, which shaped many points of wisdom in the Poor Richards Almanac. Writing to a friend in 1747, Franklin stated “Confucius was my example. I followed Confucius”. As Professor David Wang points out, many of his insights into civil administration and law derived from his studies of China.

While there are many more chapters to this international story, the lesson I wanted readers to come away with is that America was both more than you thought it was and also less than it was meant to be.

According to the intentions of such renaissance men as Franklin, the American cause was never meant to be a “local issue” defined by 13 rebelling colonies, but rather a new age of reason for all mankind.

Kindred spirits across Europe watched in horror as the first European nation to attempt revolution led by Lafayette and other leaders of Franklin’s network (who made the American cause a success) was overthrown by a Jacobin “color revolution”. The noble origins of the June 20, 1789 Tennis Court Oath which kick started the French Revolution were soon lost as a bloodbath (directed by British assets from the Foreign Office) channelled the rage of France’s peasant population against ALL of the elite, corrupt and noble alike, proclaiming “the revolution has no need of scientists”. The sound of the guillotine lopping off the heads of the great revolutionary astronomer/mayor of Paris Jean-Sylvain Bailey and chemist Antoine Lavoisier still resonates as a shame of France. Lafayette only saved his head long enough to end up in an Austrian dungeon for 5 years as punishment for fighting to overthrow hereditary systems and was immortalized in Beethoven’s only opera Fidelio in 1805.

The pro-humanist forces of Europe slowly came undone during the Napoleonic wars which culminated in the 1815 Congress of Vienna and Holy Alliance which re-established “peace” by banning dangerous books, teaching, and art that might awaken revolutionary feelings in the minds and hearts of Europeans. These Orwellian laws were outlined in the Carlsbad decrees of 1819 and ruined more than a few lives of great statesmen and teachers. This story was told in my paper “Kissinger’s Adoration of the 1815 Congress of Vienna”.

During this time, the British Empire came out again as a force of evil preparing a new phase of its global conquest with a crushing of the Hydar Ali spirit in India and a new age of opium wars against China.

In spite of this growing darkness, great poets who dreamed of that better age of reason produced some of the greatest and under-appreciated poetry with Percy Shelley and John Keats leading that movement in Britain, Robbie Burns in Scotland and such figures as Schubert, Heine, Schumann and Beethoven representing this spark in Vienna and Germany. Palmerston-Mazzini’s “Young Europe” anarchist mobs were periodically deployed to disrupt constructive nationalist tendencies throughout this period- laying the groundwork for “color revolutions” of the 20-21^st centuries.

Beethoven’s 1824 Ninth Symphony setting Schiller’s great poem an “Ode to Joy” to music was a celebration of that dreamed-of age of brotherhood and creative reason which Franklin devoted his life to accomplishing and which today’s multipolar alliance has again awoken as a potential alternative to an age of darkness, war and collapse facing humanity in the 21st century.

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Matthew J.L. Ehret is a journalist, lecturer and founder of the Canadian Patriot Review.

All images in this article are from SCF

The US is waging undeclared war on China by other means — aiming to undermine its growing prominence on the world stage.

Pompeo falsely calling China’s new national security law “an affront to all nations,” his endless war of words on the country, Trump’s FCC designation of Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE as “national security threats,” and other hostile US actions against Beijing are a prescription for continued deterioration of bilateral relations or something worse — possible direct confrontation ahead.

Earlier this year, Trump regime war secretary Esper threatened China, saying:

The US is engaged in a new “era of ‘great power competition,’ and that means we need to focus more on high intensity warfare going forward.”

Indicating that greater numbers of US forces will be deployed in the Asia/Pacific, he said Washington’s “longterm challenges are China No. 1 and Russia No. 2,” adding:

“(W)hat we see happening out there is a China that continues to grow its military strength, its economic power, its commercial activity, and it’s doing so, in many ways, illicitly (sic) — or it’s using the international rules-based order against us to continue this growth, to acquire technology, and to do the things that really undermine our sovereignty (sic), that undermine the rule of law (sic), that really question (its) commitment to human rights (sic).”

Omitted from his remarks was that China, Russia, and other nations on the US target list for regime change pursue world peace, stability, and cooperative relations with other countries, confrontation with none.

Their aims are polar opposite how the US operates, seeking dominance over other nations by pressure, bullying, or brute force.

It’s waging permanent wars on targeted countries by hot and/or other means.

The latter rages against China, risking things turning hot by accident or design.

What’s unthinkable between two nuclear powers is possible, a frightening prospect for what could lie ahead.

Ramping up US military forces in the Asia/Pacific to “compete with China” is a euphemism for escalating cold war that could turn hot.

In January 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping said

“(a)ll military units must correctly understand major national security and development trends, and strengthen their sense of unexpected hardship, crisis and battle,” adding:

“The world is facing a period of major changes never seen in a century, and China is still in an important period of strategic opportunity for development.”

Xi ordered stepped up military training and exercises, saying China’s armed forces must “prepare for a comprehensive military struggle from a new starting point”, adding:

“Preparation for war and combat must be deepened to ensure an efficient response in times of emergency.”

The threat to China’s national security from the US is ominously real.

Provocations by Washington could escalate to something more serious.

On July 3, Trump regime Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy director Peter Navarro falsely claimed the following:

“I want everybody right here today, as the day before America’s Independence Day, to understand where this virus started — with the Chinese Communist Party that is making us stay locked in our homes and lose our jobs (sic).”

“They spawned the virus (sic). They hid the virus (sic). They sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals over here to seed and spread the virus (sic),” adding:

“While they were preventing any domestic travel from Wuhan to Beijing or Shanghai, locking down their transportation network, they freely sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals on aircraft to go around the world” to spread the virus (sic).”

Not a shred of evidence backs Navarro’s outrageous claim.

Polar opposite it true. China helped and continues to help scores of nations combat COVID-19 outbreaks, including by supplying personal protective equipment (PPE).

A previous article suggested that the SARS-Cov-2 virus is a made-in-the-USA bioweapon.

In all its preemptive wars on nations threatening no one, the US uses chemical, biological, radiological, and other banned weapons.

In March, Pompeo called COVID-19 “a live (military) exercise.”

Was it a Freudian slip or a damning revelation? Trump reportedly responded to his remark, saying:

“I wish you would have told us.”

The Trump regime’s misnamed “Wuhan virus” most likely originated in a US biolab, Fort Detrick, MD the likely facility.

Evidence shows that the SARS-Cov-2 virus that produces COVID-19 disease originated in the US last summer.

It showed up in Europe before reported outbreaks in China last December.

US stoked tensions with China are at a fever pitch.

In late June, National Institute for South China Sea Studies president Wu Shicun said Sino/US distrust led to hundreds of “track one” intergovernmental communication channels shutting down.

A separate report indicated that communications between the Pentagon and China’s military declined markedly since 2018.

Wu noted that “the risks of conflict are rising, especially after the near-collision between the USS Decatur guided-missile destroyer and China’s destroyer the Lanzhou in September (2018) in the South China Sea.”

At the time, Beijing blamed the US for what it called “provocative actions.”

Deteriorating bilateral relations continue, mutual distrust increasing.

US South China Sea military exercises close to its waters are highly provocative.

The presence of US forces in parts of the world not its own heighten tensions.

In the South China Sea, they risk confrontation between two nuclear powers.

A breakdown in Sino/US communications increases the danger.

For the first time since the pre-1990 Cold War ended, three US carrier groups are patrolling Asia/Pacific waters.

The US Pacific Fleet said its forward-deployed submarines are conducting operations in the Western Pacific.

On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that USS aircraft carriers Reagan and Nimitz, along with four other US warships, are holding “some of the (Pentagon’s) largest exercises in recent years in the South China Sea,” beginning July 4.

Citing US officials, their purpose is “to challenge what they called Beijing’s unlawful territorial claims (sic).”

It’s the first time since 2014 that two US carriers and other warships conducted South China Sea drills close to Chinese waters.

USS Ronald Reagan strike-force commander Admiral George Wikoff said the following:

“We’re really operating at a higher tempo and simulating a higher end of combat power than we would typically do in a shorter length exercise,” adding:

“We’re flying around the clock, hundreds of sorties a day in a 24-hour period.”

Reportedly Chinese military officials haven’t met with their US Indo/Pacific Command counterparts since 2017.

While it’s unclear where things are heading, the risk of a clash between two nuclear super-powers is ominously real.

Instead of stepping back from the brink in the Asia/Pacific, the US continues to heighten tensions — risking confrontation with a nation able to hit back hard if attacked.

A Final Comment

Addressing the issue of whether Sino/US trade ties can avert hot war last May, China’s Global Times said the following:

“(I)n light of relentless hostility from Washington, there is…a sobering realization among many in China that the bilateral relationship with the US has reached a point of no return from which rivalry and confrontation will overtake constructive engagement as the US’ desperation to cling onto its remaining global strength and influence will only intensify with the rapid rise of China.”

Whether this causes continued political, economic, technological, and trade rivalry alone or heads toward military confrontation ahead remains unknown.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

No nation in world history more strongly professes support for democratic values and the rule of law while more egregiously breaching its proclaimed principles than the US.

It’s been this way throughout the country’s history, fleeting moments alone when positive developments occurred — never long-lasting.

On major issues mattering most, there’s virtually no difference between both right wings of its one-party state.

They’re indistinguishable on matters of permanent war on humanity at home and abroad, corporate favoritism, intolerance of equity and justice, abhorrence of the rule of law, and police state toughness on nonbelievers.

Unlawful US wars on nations free from its control are all about wanting them transformed into vassal states.

Its wars by other means are all about making their economies scream, wanting maximum pain and suffering inflicted on their people — a high crime against humanity.

All of the above are what the scourge of imperialism is all about, enforced by rage for dominance and use of chemical, biological, radiological and other banned weapons in all US wars.

This is America’s true face, never beautiful, hugely destructive, intolerant of anything standing in the way of its rage for unchallenged global dominance — a prescription for endless wars by hot and other means against invented enemies.

The Trump regime is going all out to starve Syrians, North Koreans, Cubans, Iranians and Venezuelans into submission, a genocidal high crime gone unpunished because the world community fails to unite against its humanly destructive agenda.

Iran shipped five tankers of fuel to Venezuela, its legal right, pledging regular shipments to follow.

Trump regime hardliners want deliveries illegally blocked.

In response to his regime’s lawsuit without legal merit, US District Judge James Boasberg issued a warrant that unlawfully orders the seizure of over 1.1 million barrels of fuel onboard four Iranian tankers en route to Venezuela.

Reportedly more Iranian vessels carrying fuel are heading to the Bolivarian Republic.

If Iranian tankers engaged in lawful international trade are interdicted at sea, their cargo seized, the Trump regime and/or its agents, including Judge Boasberg, will be guilty of maritime piracy under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

It strictly forbids:

“(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:

(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;

(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;

(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;

(c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b).”

UNCLOS mandates that all nations are obligated to act against pirate actions.

They have universal jurisdiction on the high seas to seize pirated vessels, arrest responsible parties, and detain them for prosecution.

The US is guilty time and again of virtually every form of predation and other high crimes imaginable.

Trump’s civil forfeiture lawsuit was based on the phony claim that Iranian fuel to Venezuela is what it calls “a source of influence” for the IRGC — Iran’s military involved solely in national defense of the state.

Yet Trump regime hardliners falsely designed it a terrorist organization — a flagrant perversion of its legitimate mission and operations.

A statement by US attorney for the District of Columbia Zia Faruqui falsely claimed that payments for Iranian fuel shipments to Venezuela “support the IRGC’s full range of nefarious activities (sic), including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery (sic), support for terrorism (sic), and a variety of human rights abuses, at home and abroad (sic).”

Judge Boasberg shamefully accepted the above falsified claims — despite no credible evidence supporting them, making him complicit with Trump regime war on Iran and Venezuela by other means, a flagrant UN Charter breach.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “Iranian businessman Mahmoud Madanipour” is operating as a middleman in arranging for “ship-to-ship (high-seas) transfers” of Iranian fuel for Venezuela, as well as “deliveries to China and Malaysia.”

The Journal falsely referred to legitimate Iranian shipments to Venezuela and other nations as “illicit business dealings (sic),” quoting Trump regime prosecutors.

Unilaterally imposed US sanctions on Iran, Venezuela and other nations are flagrantly “illicit.”

What the Journal should have explained it ignored.

Under international law, Iran may engage in legitimate trade with any other nations — what fuel to Venezuela is all about.

No governments may legally intervene to stop it.

Taking this action is a UN Charter breach that forbids intervention by any nations in the internal affairs of others.

It’s what the US does repeatedly and gets away with it because the world community fails to hold it accountable for criminal offenses too grievous to ignore.

A Final Comment

Press TV reported that “the hashtag #GraciasIran (Thank You Iran) has become the number-one Twitter trend in Venezuela as Iranian tankers start delivering their cargos,” adding:

On arrival, “Venezuelans stormed Twitter to express gratitude towards Tehran for the shipments” — their Twitter-storm gratefulness ignored by Western establishment media.

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Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image: The photograph shows a meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on October 22nd, 2016. 

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a recent video conference suggested that the US might move some of its troops from Germany to the region around India, citing growing US security concerns in the Asian region. Given the dramatic rise in tensions between India and China over disputed borders in the region of Nepal and Bhutan where several soldiers from both sides reportedly died in hand-to-hand combat, the question is whether Washington is deliberately trying to fan fires of war between the two Asian giant powers. As unlikely as that might be at present, it indicates how unstable our world is becoming amid the ‘coronavirus economic depression’, and the perceived power vacuum of a US in retreat.

Speaking to a virtual Brussels German Marshall Fund Forum on June 25, Secretary of State Pompeo was asked about recent statements that the US military planned withdrawing a contingent of its forces from Germany. He replied that the Chinese threat to India and Southeast Asian nations was one of the reasons America was reducing its troop presence in Europe and deploying them to other places. He cited unspecified recent Chinese actions as “threats to India, threats to Vietnam, threats to Malaysia, Indonesia and the South China Sea challenge,” adding, “We are going to make sure the US military is postured appropriately to meet the challenges.”

The Radcliffe Line

The borders between China and India and Pakistan are one of the most complex and arguably most sensitive regions for potential conflict ever since in 1947 British Viceroy Lord Mountbatten partitioned the British Indian Empire into a dominantly Muslim Pakistan and a dominantly Hindu but secular India.

That partition was opposed by Gandhi and other political leaders in India, who argued instead for a unified federal India with majority Muslim states or Hindu states retaining significant autonomy within a unified India. Mountbatten instead unveiled the secretly-drawn borders of a new Pakistan and India in a manner that fed a devastating slaughter between Hindu and Muslim as 14 million people were suddenly displaced based along the so-named Radcliffe Line that arbitrarily split the Punjab and Bengal provinces of British India between the new Pakistan and India. At the same time, as Mountbatten went back to England, he deliberately left the status of Jammu and Kashmir unresolved. That insured a permanent tension and potential war trigger between the two former parts of British India. Radcliffe, who had never before been in India, was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1948 for his service.

Now we turn today to the unresolved region which has been a constant point of friction since the British partition, namely Kashmir.

Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh

In 1972 both countries, India and Pakistan, agreed on a provisional line of control in Kashmir which ceded Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to Indian administration, and the Northern Areas to Pakistan. Since the 1962 Sino-India War, China has claimed the northeastern part of Ladakh. Here is where we have the intersection of China, China’s major Belt, Road Initiative partner Pakistan, and India, which has remained steadfastly outside the BRI project. All three are nuclear powers as well.

Until 2019, Ladakh was a region of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Then in August 2019, the Parliament of India passed an act by which Ladakh became a union territory of India on 31 October 2019. That did not meet with applause in Beijing. Because Ladakh is part of the strategic Kashmir region the Indian Army maintains a strong presence there.

China charged India with illegally building defense facilities across the border into Chinese territory in the Galwan Valley region of Ladakh. The PLA responded by building its presence in the region. Beijing claimed that India was also planning an airbase in Ladakh, something regarded as a strategic threat, as India has a military agreement with the USA which could allow US access to that airbase in a war situation. At that point reportedly, China began moves to block Indian plans in Ladakh.

Despite the fact Modi and China’s Xi Jinping agreed to talks to de-escalate matters, on June 13 the situation in Ladakh exploded into deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese PLA soldiers with numerous dead on both sides in hand-to-hand combat. That was the context in which Pompeo declared, “The PLA (People’s Liberation Army) has escalated border tensions with India, the world’s most populous democracy. It’s militarizing the South China Sea and illegally claiming more territory there, threatening vital sea lanes.” At the same time as tensions between Beijing and Washington escalate, three US aircraft carrier strike groups have been deployed in the Indo-Pacific zone, and there are plans to deploy American missiles in Asia, including India, as Washington looks to establish more bases in the Indo-Pacific region.

Indian journalists say that India’s Darbuk–Shyok–DBO Road infrastructure project in Ladakh is seen by the Chinese as a tool by India to offset the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor of the BRI. They claim that China attempted to capture the Galwan Valley as a pre-emptive measure to stall this DBO Road infrastructure project in Ladakh. According to this report, “China wants to stall the construction of the winding 255-km Darbuk-Shyok-Daulat Beg Oldie road that would give the Indian army easy access to the last military post south of the dominating Karakoram Pass. The Indian side is, however, determined to complete construction of the entire stretch by this summer including the 60-metre bridge across the Galwan rivulet or nallah near the point of its confluence with Shyok river. “ The legacy of the British partition of 1947 today is stark.

India’s ‘Chicken Neck’

As the clashes in Ladakh between China and India were still fresh, reports emerged that Chinese construction of key facilities inside the India-claimed disputed territory of Arunchal Pradesh, in the far northeast of India bordering China, was underway. According to a BJP member of Indian Parliament, Tapir Gao from Arunchal East, Chinese workers from the PLA were building concrete bridges, hydro-electric projects, helipads some 12 kilometers inside the Indian side of the demarcated McMahon Line of Arunachal Pradesh in an area once occupied by the Indian Army.

In recent years India has also accused China of making illegal encroachments on its perimeter in Bhutan and Nepal, further straining relations. Nepal, historically a predominantly Hindu buffer country between Imperial China and British India, underwent a ten-year bloody civil war led by the Communist Party-Maoist of Nepal. In 2007 the Nepal monarchy officially ended and a secular republic was established in 2008.

In recent years China has initiated a number of economic projects in Nepal. During a 2018 visit to Beijing, Nepal Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, from the Communist Party-Maoist, signed a Memorandum of Understanding for construction of a railway linking Shigatse in Tibet with Kathmandu. Oli also signed on to Beijing’s Belt Road Initiative. That marked a major departure for Nepal which previously was considered by China as India’s sphere of influence, separated from China by the high mountain barrier. The same year China also agreed to allow Nepal use of four Chinese ports to end the country’s trade dependence on India. Under Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, relations with India have deteriorated as Oli’s ties to Beijing have strengthened.

Bhutan is another strategic buffer state between India and China. In 2017 India and the Royal Bhutanese Army accused China of constructing a road in the disputed territory towards Doklam plateau. India intervened then, supporting Bhutan’s stand and asking China to halt its construction work. As one Indian analyst describes it, “The valley holds strategic significance for India, China as well as Bhutan. India sees it as a dagger pointed towards its so-called ‘chicken’s neck’ sector in the Northeast and rapid Chinese road construction in Tibet could make things difficult for India.”

As seen from New Delhi, the combined actions of China around its perimeter bordering Tibet in China ominously reminds them of the 1950 declaration by Mao that considers Tibet to be China’s right hand palm, with five fingers on its periphery: Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Arunachal Pradesh, and that it is China’s responsibility to “liberate” these regions. This, known as the Tibet Five Fingers Policy, one never appearing in print apparently, is causing considerable tension in Indian strategic circles.

Seen from Beijing, as relations with Washington become more overtly hostile in recent years and as India and the US appear to be drawing closer together, Chinese actions along India’s perimeter from Kashmir to Arunachal Pradesh seem to be prudent steps to secure Chinese borders as well as China’s strategic BRI corridor in Pakistan from any future Indian threat. Into this nuclear minefield now, the US Secretary of State has hinted at increasing military support for India, hardly a peace-making move. By contrast, Russia, who enjoys constructive relations both with China and with India has offered to mediate. The crisis on the Indian sub-continent looks primed to continue.

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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 NEO

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Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl

ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2

Year: 2007

Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

The other night I watched PBS NewsHour with Judy Woodruff. The report on the annexation (do I need to qualify or explain “annexation”? What other country has or is likely ever to declare its impending annexation of someone else’s land to the world?) came at the end of the hour on June 30th. It was appalling, and reminded me of co-founder of The Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah’s almost daily letters to NPR (his ‘Bitter Pill’) pointing out bias about its reporting from Jerusalem. But that was years, no decades, ago! Nothing has changed since then.

Somebody, something is controlling the Palestine/Israel news in the mainstream media. The reaction of anyone interested enough in alternative reporting on Palestine/Israel who happens to come across this statement is, “duh” — or perhaps the word “control” would trigger long harangues about anti-Semitic tropes and take us off the subject.

But how well do we really know about this ungodly control? There is a story to be told about it that deserves to be on Netflix or Amazon as much as the story of the control and political orientation of Fox News, The Loudest Voice, a TV 2019 mini-series, does. We need a dramatization!

How likely are you to see such a story on your movie entertainment screens? Zero. If you wonder why not, someone will sooner or later tell you, “it’s complicated.”

How complicated is it to question, if only with a raised eyebrow, the premise that Jewish settlers had a RIGHT to rob and dispossess Palestinians? In giving “both sides” equal time and implying that the annexation was a “security issue,” Nick Schifrin’s reporting on PBS NewsHour (which also implicates Woodruff) is a shameful disgrace.

The Jewish colony of Efrat has over 10,000 Jews squatting on Palestinian land. These Jews, like their government, believe that it is their God-given right to seize it from Palestinians, “displace” them or drive them off into oblivion, if necessary, and Nick Schifrin reports on their rapaciousness and outright supremacism as follows:

“But after decades of failed peace attempts, Mayor [Oded] Revivi of the Efrat settlement is pushing a plan that he says gives legitimacy to settlements.”

Missing from the PBS NewsHour report is anything that, even remotely, challenges the Jewish supremacist narrative, and instead, presents it simply as “the other side,” frustrated by the failure of the so-called peace effort.

Danny Seidemann, “a longtime [Israeli] activist and expert on Jerusalem’s geography and history,” according to the report, compares the annexation of parts of the West Bank being discussed with Israel’s illegal 1967 annexation of Jerusalem, saying: “There will probably be some Palestinians [on the annexed lands, as ethnic cleansing is never 100% efficient], and we will turn them into stateless people, just like we have with the Palestinians of East Jerusalem.”

Breaking news (from me not PBS NewsHour): The Jewish state turned the Palestinians into a stateless people way back in 1948 upon the violent establishment of Israel on approximately 78 percent of Palestine.

In The Wrong Story, Greg Shupak, who teaches Media Studies at the University of Guelph-Humber in Ontario, confronts, challenges and exposes the systematically deceptive frameworks and narratives in English-language mainstream media regarding Palestine and the Palestinian people. The titles of his chapters alone could be an education to Schifrin and Woodruff:

Chapter One: Not “Both Sides”
Chapter Two: Extremists and Moderates
Chapter Three: Israel Does Not Have a Right to Defend Itself

In the conclusion to his book, Shupak writes:

The outlets covering Palestine-Israel are embedded in a system of global imperialist capitalism built around U.S hegemony of which Israel is an important characteristic. The overall functioning of the international capitalist system of which the commercial media are a part is guaranteed by the US military and, as I have shown in Chapter Two, American sponsorship of Israeli settler-colonial capitalism is a key part of US planners’ strategy for dominance of the Middle East. The millionaire and billionaire owners of media outlets and of the advertisers that fund them are unambiguously part of the ruling class. The same is true, at least in the case of major national or international news organizations, of editors and often, as Hirji points out, journalists themselves who “belong to a societal elite” and “contribute, however, unconsciously to reinforcing existing notions about the way the world is.” One could add that such ideological administration also involves shaping beliefs about how the world should be and is capable of being. The stories of Palestine-Israel examined in these pages suggest that elites involved in the news making process believe that the violent oppression of Palestinians and the permanent consigning of them to the status of refugees and stateless persons is no great injustice, and that American stewardship of the Middle East is necessary and desirable.

Missing from the above persuasive and astute analysis is any mention of one other complication to the wrong story — the one that insulates a Jewish supremacist ideology from righteous attack or confrontation.

In addressing “the Palestinian side,” Nick Schifrin tells us: “Palestinian leaders say that’s not good enough, and call the plan immoral.” We then hear Hanan Ashrawi, whom he describes as “a longtime Palestinian leader who says the U.S. is not an honest broker,” say: “It’s not a question of how much they will annex. The whole issue is annexation itself. You cannot be a little bit pregnant. You cannot be a small thief or a big thief. Theft is theft. It’s illegal.”

Talk about greater or lesser annexations harks back to the same Jewish-state problem Palestinians faced when the world Jewish Zionist movement succeeded in dismembering Palestine and forming an entity that continued to grab more land, including Jerusalem, to push for more suppression, displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, to form a greater and greater Jewish state.

In this PBS NewsHour report, we are presented with three voices spinning Israel — Trump’s voice puffing about his “vision” of annexation, a Jewish Israeli activist’s voice lamenting the moral failures of his government, and a “settler” voice loudly pushing Jewish supremacy — and, on “the other side,” a lone Palestinian voice.

Recently, I came across an online article by a young journalist, Davide Mastracci, titled, “Uncovering Canadian Media’s Devastating Pro-Israel Bias,” and exposing the bias as being “enforced at every level of the [Canadian] media, from editorial boards all the way to ownership.” He concludes with the following:

Israel is a settler-colonial state built on the murder and dispossession of Palestinians, who are now subjected to an apartheid system. Israel is in flagrant violation of international law at many levels. It is set to annex major chunks of the West Bank, effectively completing the destruction of Palestine. The media working to enforce a pro-Israel bias now is the equivalent of them defending South African apartheid… Crucially … This means that journalists are failing to do justice by the oppressed, but also effectively falling in line with their government’s foreign policy stance, leading to an abdication of responsibility internationally and at home. This coverage also plays a role in dissuading the public from working to hold Israel to account.

The PBS NewsHour coverage of Israel’s annexation scandal on June 30th, 2020 is an abdication of its journalistic responsibility.

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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Capture from a Facebook Middle East Monitor video clip titled “Jewish settlers protest West Bank annexation plan”

In a joint statement issued on July 2, Minister of Popular Power for Foreign Relations of Venezuela, Jorge Arreaza, and the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell agreed “on the need to maintain the framework of diplomatic relations, especially at times when cooperation between both parties can facilitate the paths of political dialogue,” according to a joint statement. Consequently, “the Venezuelan Government decided to nullify the decision made on June 29, 2020, whereby Ambassador Isabel Brilhante Pedrosa, Head of the Delegation of the European Union in Caracas, had been declared persona non grata.”

Due to the recurrent interventionist policy of the EU in the affairs of Venezuela, Ambassador Brilhante Pedrosa had been given 72 hours’ notice by President Maduro to leave the country.

The following is the full text of the joint communiqué:

“Joint communiqué after the phone call between EU High Representative Borrell and Minister Arreaza.

Brussels, 02/07/2020.

The Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the European Union’s External Action Service inform the international community that today, the Venezuelan Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs, Jorge Arreaza, and the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, held a phone conversation in which they agreed on the need to maintain the framework of diplomatic relations, especially at times when cooperation between both parties can facilitate the path of political dialogue.

Consequently, the Venezuelan Government decided to rescind the decision taken on June 29, 2020, by which Ambassador Isabel Brilhante Pedrosa, Head of the Delegation of the European Union in Caracas, was declared persona non grata.

They both agreed to promote diplomatic contacts between the parties at the highest level, within the framework of sincere cooperation and respect for international law.”

In an interview with Caracas-based news network TeleSur, Arreaza said he held a “very frank, very sincere and at the same time very cordial” conversation with Borrell on Wednesday. Arreaza said the joint communique “is a clear sign of recognition, in diplomatic terms,” of the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

The Trudeau government has worked very closely with the EU in its joint efforts for regime change in Venezuela by recognizing the U.S. appointed Juan Guaidó as so-called interim president. This was based on the false and unconstitutional premise that he was president of the National Assembly. For example, on June 3, 2019:

“the foreign ministers of Canada, Chile and Peru—members of the Lima Group—together with the High Representative of the EU and the foreign ministers of Portugal and Uruguay—members of the International Contact Group—met today at the United Nations in New York to discuss the situation in Venezuela. They reiterated their backing for the democratically elected National Assembly and affirmed the need to fully restore and respect its powers, as well as to release all political prisoners.”

Thus, given this tradition of working in lock-step with the EU, will Canada now follow its lead and, in the words of the Venezuela-EU joint statement, promote diplomatic contacts between the parties at the highest level, that is to say, Canada and Venezuela?

This demand is even more pertinent since June 17, 2020 when the Trudeau government lost its bid for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seat. The general consensus has been that the Trudeau government’s defeat resulted from being far too close to the Trump administration’s foreign policy on all issues. Among the many bones of contention leading up to the vote were Palestine and Venezuela. In conjunction with other organizations, it was the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute which spearheaded the successful #NoUNSC4Canada campaign and it is now calling for public discussion, reassessment and a #ForeignPolicy Review.

The news about the mutual diplomatic “thaw” between the EU and the Venezuelan government puts a similar softening on the agenda for Canada-Venezuela relations, which should follow suit. It is an opportunity for PM Trudeau to mend his post-UNSC ways by showing that he wants to be part of the public debate on foreign policy, and is part of the solution rather than the problem. Of course, taking note of this EU-Venezuela “détente” and acting on it would entail Trudeau standing up to Trump. So, be it. In any case, this was the issue in the UNSC elections when Canada lost its pro-Trump “mandate” both in Canada and internationally. Trudeau must now react appropriately.

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This article was originally published on The Canada Files.

Featured image is from Alberto News / Google Images

They’ll be shooting off the fireworks, eating and drinking like ‘ Ants at a picnic’ and sending ‘Social Distancing’ out the window. Why not? It’s July 4th once again, a time to celebrate. Celebrate what? This pandemic is showing its teeth once again, the economy that Trump needs to be vibrant (for his biggest ‘ Deal’) going down the tubes once more, and rents and mortgage payments are soon to be due. So what will this emperor with no clothes choose to do? Will he get his Republican minions in Congress to create an extended rent/mortgage moratorium ( We know the ‘ We feel your pain and kneel with you’ Democrats will go along) and send out another dog biscuit of $1200? Folks, we are on the precipice of a long recession/ depression. Only a matter of time…

So, keep firing up those grills, shoot on the burgers and chicken (steak for you One Per centers), pop open a Bud and celebrate! NO time for the ‘Trump Thumpers’ to begin questioning the lunacy of this administration and its Republican Party. As more of their numbers get ill and many die, will they understand the criminal behavior of this gang running things?

No time for that loyal Democratic base to question why their party elders (Schumer and Pelosi et all) aren’t pushing for the ONLY solution for the immediate future: A Universal Basic Income from $1000 to $2000 a month for all citizens. After all, why should those corporate controlled Demoncrats and Repugnantins care about those peanuts? They got more to be concerned with . The far right wing of this Two Party/ One Party scam needs the Market to be vibrant, and will do anything to make that occur, even if it means cutting social services even more than before. The Neo Con Center/Right Dems want to keep the natives scared  of Trump and his crew. African Americans crew in the streets protesting police brutality. Pander to them so long as they don’t go further in their demands for real change… Duh, like a Socialist one?

Bernie Sanders and other (so called) progressive Dems are now calling for a 10% cut in military spending. So, even if they succeed, that means only 40+% of your taxes will go down that rabbit hole. This writer, for years, was part of a movement to demand a 25% cut from this obscene military spending. I even spoke to my local city council, mentioning the other cites that signed on to this resolution. As one can figure, it got nowhere. Now, years later (and with even higher amounts spent) the radicals want 10% cut. Go figure. We have a pandemic of monumental proportions, whereupon $ billions more are needed for health coverage, emergency care for the infected, materials for our caregivers, housing and food for the poor and ‘Working poor’. Yet, no one wants to point the finger at the Less than 1% of us who are worth mega millions, even billions! NO, this is Independence Weekend. Isn’t the election right around that corner?

It sure is! This is why the hundreds of millions of us who still think that voting will solve everything need to wake up! If only those working stiff Trump Thumpers who get their ‘ marching orders’ from Fox and other far right outlets, and working stiff Dem supporters who ditto their info from NPR and MSNBC, would pause a bit. Shovel those cheeseburgers and fries to the side. Put the beer down. Think! Think some more! For those religious adherents, remember the passage from the New Testament: ” Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get to heaven.” This pandemic, viral and economic, is really ALL about Class! If we had working stiffs running things we would have seen lots of relief by now from the virus and the economic slowdown. 20th Century Corporate Capitalism does not work!! THAT is what all the protests should be centering on!

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This article was originally published on Countercurrents.

Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, Countercurrents.org, and Off Guardian sites. He is the son and grandson of Brooklyn NYC longshoremen and a graduate of Brooklyn College, class of 1974. Since the 2000 election debacle Philip has written over 400 columns on the Military Industrial Empire and other facets of life in an upside down America. He is also host of the ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ radio show, co produced by Chuck Gregory. Philip can be reached at [email protected].

Featured image is from Countercurrents

First published on July 3, 2019

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”— Thomas Paine, December 1776

It’s time to declare your independence from tyranny, America.

For too long now, we have suffered the injustices of a government that has no regard for our rights or our humanity.

Too easily pacified and placated by the pomp and pageantry of manufactured spectacles (fireworks on the Fourth of July, military parades, ritualized elections, etc.) that are a poor substitute for a representative government that respects the rights of its people, the American people have opted, time and again, to overlook the government’s excesses, abuses and power grabs that fly in the face of every principle for which America’s founders risked their lives.

We have done this to ourselves.

Indeed, it is painfully fitting that mere days before the nation prepared to celebrate its freedoms on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the City Council for Charlottesville, Virginia—the home of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration—voted to do away with a holiday to honor Jefferson’s birthday, because Jefferson, like many of his contemporaries, owned slaves. City councilors have opted instead to celebrate “Liberation and Freedom Day” in honor of slaves who were emancipated after the Civil War.

This is what we have been reduced to: bureaucrats dithering over meaningless trivialities while the government goosesteps all over our freedoms.

Too often, we pay lip service to those freedoms, yet they did not come about by happenstance. They were hard won through sheer determination, suffering and sacrifice by thousands of patriotic Americans who not only believed in the cause of freedom but also had the intestinal fortitude to act on that belief. The success of the American revolution owes much to these men and women.

In standing up to the British Empire and speaking out against an oppressive regime, they exemplified courage in the face of what seemed like an overwhelming foe.

Indeed, imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials.

Imagine that in this very same country, you’re watched all the time, and if you look even a little bit suspicious, the police stop and frisk you or pull you over to search you on the off chance you’re doing something illegal.

Keep in mind that if you have a firearm of any kind (or anything that resembled a firearm) while in this country, it may get you arrested and, in some circumstances, shot by police.

If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong.

However, the scenario described above took place more than 200 years ago, when American colonists suffered under Great Britain’s version of an early police state. It was only when the colonists finally got fed up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant’s fetters.

No document better states their grievances than the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson.

A document seething with outrage over a government which had betrayed its citizens, the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, by 56 men who laid everything on the line, pledged it all—“our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor”—because they believed in a radical idea: that all people are created to be free.

Labeled traitors, these men were charged with treason, a crime punishable by death. For some, their acts of rebellion would cost them their homes and their fortunes. For others, it would be the ultimate price—their lives.

Yet even knowing the heavy price they might have to pay, these men dared to speak up when silence could not be tolerated. Even after they had won their independence from Great Britain, these new Americans worked to ensure that the rights they had risked their lives to secure would remain secure for future generations.

The result: our Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

Imagine the shock and outrage these 56 men would feel were they to discover that 243 years later, the government they had risked their lives to create has been transformed into a militaristic police state in which exercising one’s freedoms—at a minimum, merely questioning a government agent—is often viewed as a flagrant act of defiance.

In fact, had the Declaration of Independence been written today, it would have rendered its signers extremists or terrorists, resulting in them being placed on a government watch list, targeted for surveillance of their activities and correspondence, and potentially arrested, held indefinitely, stripped of their rights and labeled enemy combatants.

The danger is real.

We could certainly use some of that revolutionary outrage today.

Certainly, we would do well to reclaim the revolutionary spirit of our ancestors and remember what drove them to such drastic measures in the first place.

Then again, perhaps what we need to do is declare our independence from the tyranny of the American police state.

It’s not a radical idea.

It has been done before.

The Declaration of Independence speaks volumes about the abuses suffered by early Americans at the hands of the British police state.

Read the Declaration of Independence again, and ask yourself if the list of complaints tallied by Jefferson don’t bear a startling resemblance to the abuses “we the people” are suffering at the hands of the American police state.

If you find the purple prose used by the Founders hard to decipher, here’s my translation of what the Declaration of Independence would look and sound like if it were written in the modern vernacular:

There comes a time when a populace must stand united and say “enough is enough” to the government’s abuses, even if it means getting rid of the political parties in power.

Believing that “we the people” have a natural and divine right to direct our own lives, here are truths about the power of the people and how we arrived at the decision to sever our ties to the government:

All people are created equal.

All people possess certain innate rights that no government or agency or individual can take away from them. Among these are the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The government’s job is to protect the people’s innate rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The government’s power comes from the will of the people.

Whenever any government abuses its power, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish that government and replace it with a new government that will respect and protect the rights of the people.

It is not wise to get rid of a government for minor transgressions. In fact, as history has shown, people resist change and are inclined to suffer all manner of abuses to which they have become accustomed.

However, when the people have been subjected to repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the purpose of establishing a tyrannical government, people have a right and duty to do away with that tyrannical Government and to replace it with a new government that will protect and preserve their innate rights for their future wellbeing.

This is exactly the state of affairs we are under suffering under right now, which is why it is necessary that we change this imperial system of government.

The history of the present Imperial Government is a history of repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the intention of establishing absolute Tyranny over the country.

To prove this, consider the following:

The government has, through its own negligence and arrogance, refused to adopt urgent and necessary laws for the good of the people.

The government has threatened to hold up critical laws unless the people agree to relinquish their right to be fully represented in the Legislature.

In order to expand its power and bring about compliance with its dictates, the government has made it nearly impossible for the people to make their views and needs heard by their representatives.

The government has repeatedly suppressed protests arising in response to its actions.

The government has obstructed justice by refusing to appoint judges who respect the Constitution and has instead made the Courts march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.

The government has allowed its agents to harass the people, steal from them, jail them and even execute them.

The government has directed militarized government agents—a.k.a., a standing army—to police domestic affairs in peacetime.

The government has turned the country into a militarized police state.

The government has conspired to undermine the rule of law and the constitution in order to expand its own powers.

The government has allowed its militarized police to invade our homes and inflict violence on homeowners.

The government has failed to hold its agents accountable for wrongdoing and murder under the guise of “qualified immunity.”

The government has jeopardized our international trade agreements.

The government has overtaxed us without our permission.

The government has denied us due process and the right to a fair trial.

The government has engaged in extraordinary rendition.

The government has continued to expand its military empire in collusion with its corporate partners-in-crime and occupy foreign nations.

The government has eroded fundamental legal protections and destabilized the structure of government.

The government has not only declared its federal powers superior to those of the states but has also asserted its sovereign power over the rights of “we the people.”

The government has ceased to protect the people and instead waged domestic war against the people.

The government has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, and destroyed the lives of the people.

The government has employed private contractors and mercenaries to carry out acts of death, desolation and tyranny, totally unworthy of a civilized nation.

The government through its political propaganda has pitted its citizens against each other.

The government has stirred up civil unrest and laid the groundwork for martial law.

Repeatedly, we have asked the government to cease its abuses. Each time, the government has responded with more abuse.

An Imperial Ruler who acts like a tyrant is not fit to govern a free people.

We have repeatedly sounded the alarm to our fellow citizens about the government’s abuses. We have warned them about the government’s power grabs. We have appealed to their sense of justice. We have reminded them of our common bonds.

They have rejected our plea for justice and brotherhood. They are equally at fault for the injustices being carried out by the government.

Thus, for the reasons mentioned above, we the people of the united States of America declare ourselves free from the chains of an abusive government. Relying on God’s protection, we pledge to stand by this Declaration of Independence with our lives, our fortunes and our honor.

That was 243 years ago.

In the years since early Americans first declared and eventually won their independence from Great Britain, we—the descendants of those revolutionary patriots—have through our inaction and complacency somehow managed to work ourselves right back under the tyrant’s thumb.

Only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making: the American Police State.

The abuses meted out by an imperial government and endured by the American people have not ended. They have merely evolved.

“We the people” are still being robbed blind by a government of thieves.

We are still being taken advantage of by a government of scoundrels, idiots and monsters.

We are still being locked up by a government of greedy jailers.

We are still being spied on by a government of Peeping Toms.

We are still being ravaged by a government of ruffians, rapists and killers.

We are still being forced to surrender our freedoms—and those of our children—to a government of extortionists, money launderers and corporate pirates.

And we are still being held at gunpoint by a government of soldiers: a standing army in the form of a militarized police.

Given the fact that we are a relatively young nation, it hasn’t taken very long for an authoritarian regime to creep into power.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan coup that laid siege to our nation did not happen overnight.

It snuck in under our radar, hiding behind the guise of national security, the war on drugs, the war on terror, the war on immigration, political correctness, hate crimes and a host of other official-sounding programs aimed at expanding the government’s power at the expense of individual freedoms.

The building blocks for the bleak future we’re just now getting a foretaste of—police shootings of unarmed citizens, profit-driven prisons, weapons of compliance, a wall-to-wall surveillance state, pre-crime programs, a suspect society, school-to-prison pipelines, militarized police, overcriminalization, SWAT team raids, endless wars, etc.—were put in place by government officials we trusted to look out for our best interests and by American citizens who failed to heed James Madison’s warning to “take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties.”

In so doing, we compromised our principles, negotiated away our rights, and allowed the rule of law to be rendered irrelevant.

There is no knowing how long it will take to undo the damage wrought by government corruption, corporate greed, militarization, and a nation of apathetic, gullible sheep.

The problems we are facing will not be fixed overnight: that is the grim reality with which we must contend.

Frankly, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we may see no relief from the police state in my lifetime or for several generations to come.

That does not mean we should give up or give in or tune out.

Remember, there is always a price to be paid for remaining silent in the face of injustice.

That price is tyranny.

As Edmund Burke, the eighteenth-century British statesman and author who supported the American colonists warned, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

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This article was originally published on The Rutherford Institute.

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  is available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected]. 

The level of India’s economic boycott against Chinese imports will depend on how the two countries resolve their border conflicts and if Indian industry is capable of offsetting the shortage of Chinese goods entering the country. Although the call to stop trading with China is strong in India, it appears that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not as enthusiastic knowing the limitations of India’s industry.

Although Modi is not as enthusiastic as others in his country to stop trading with China, some have already gone ahead without any directives from the government. The New Delhi Hotel and Restaurant Owners Association banned its members from working with Chinese guests. The ban applies to 75,000 rooms in three- and four-star hotels. The association also called for reducing use of Chinese products. It is known that hotel and restaurant business activities in the Indian capital has been seriously affected by the coronavirus quarantine. Tourism recovery is yet to be ascertained. Therefore, not allowing Chinese guests in their hotels and businesses is just a cheap attempt of populism after several Indian soldiers were killed in clashes with the Chinese military in the disputed border region between the two countries.

Each new crisis in Sino-Indian relations has resulted in an increased call to boycott Chinese goods in India. Usually, this is due to the massive deficit as a huge proportion of goods entering India come from China while very little flows into China from India. Nationalist forces in India continue to condemn and criticize Chinese goods, as well as Chinese shops and companies operating in India. As India was humiliated in last month’s border dispute, efforts are being made to attack Chinese economic activity in India. Refusing to serve Chinese guests in hotels is an act of economic inexpressibility, especially at a time when the international tourist industry has been decimated by the pandemic.

Cooperating with China promotes industrialization and employment in India, something it majorly lags behind in despite being far more infrastructurally developed compared to China when it achieved independence from the British. Actions of boycott are economic suicide that destroys the business environment in India at a time when there is not only a pandemic, but also difficulties in the world economy and international political upheaval.

Therefore, such actions are only determined by political populism and actually harm India. This is especially apparent when only recently the Indian media reported that a supporter of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that Modi belongs to, threatened to break the legs of anyone buying Chinese goods in Mumbai. However, the call to boycott is not supported by the central government and are backed instead by parties and individuals trying to gain political points. This means that the call to boycott Chinese goods is a local initiative. Even a local initiative can have a powerful impact, especially as Indians identify as being nationalist in their hundreds of millions and could follow calls to boycott.

The trade war between China and the United States is a great opportunity for India to enter the Chinese market to replace American-made goods. India’s trade deficit with China is estimated to have narrowed to $48.7 billion during the last financial year – the lowest in five years – compared with $53.6 billion a year ago, as imports from across the border dropped over 7% to $65 billion in 2019-20, the Times of India reported. But such calls for boycott only weakens India’s opportunities to further narrow the trade deficit with China. From the viewpoint of the central government, India is interested in increasing trade with China – therefore, this trade is as controlled as possible.

If the border issue is resolved, the hostilities will inevitably ease and the boycott will gradually become futile. A successful boycott depends on how well Indian industry can fill the gap in the market created by the lack of Chinese goods. The inevitable reality is that India needs Chinese goods as it cannot meet all of this demand. It also needs Chinese materials to produce goods and India is interested in Chinese investment. Therefore, any restriction on cooperation with China is a clear conflict with India’s national interests.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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Talk by Alison Bodine at the United National Antiwar Coalition National Conference held from February 21–23, 2020, at the People’s Forum in New York City.

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To begin, I hope everyone has been able to see actions across Canada in solidarity with the people of Wet’suwet’en media and social media lately, footage and their hereditary chiefs who are standing against a fracked gas, or what they call a “natural” gas pipeline, up in northern British Columbia. This struggle is part of my talk today, however, the focus of what I wanted to say is about the importance of bringing the anti-war movement and the climate justice movement together or anti-war organizers and the climate justice movement together.

The Devastating Human and Environmental Impact of War & Occupation 

I want to start with just three short examples of the impact of war on the environment that I think are very important to remember. 

On January 24th, over a million people protested in Iraq. The streets were full in Baghdad of people demanding the U.S. Out of Iraq Now! It was incredibly inspiring.

Iraq is a country that has been devastated for 17 years by U.S. led war and occupation. Over a million people have been killed, not to mention the millions who were killed before the war began in 2003 when the U.S. and the United Nations Security Council imposed severe sanctions between 1991 and 2003. Iraq is a devastated country where the U.S. has set up 500 big and small military bases throughout 17 years of occupation, and deployed countless bullets, bombs, chemical weapons, depleted uranium and burn pits filled with toxic plastics, heavy military machinery and shells of weaponry.

No wonder people in Iraq were demanding U.S. Out of Iraq Now! Because of the devastation that has been brought upon them. But I wanted to further centre our discussion on climate justice by talking about one example of what climate devastation and climate justice means to people in Iraq.

In 2010, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health wrote an article where they reported a 38-fold increase in leukemia, a tenfold increase in breast cancer, and an infant mortality rate eight times higher than in neighboring Kuwait, following what had then been seven years of U.S. war and occupation in Iraq. A big cause of this could be linked to the chemical weapons used, and especially to depleted uranium, which has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. According to a 2007 report by the U.N. Environment Program, between 1000 and 2000 metric tons of depleted uranium were fired into Iraq.

The city of Nagasaki is shown as a teeming urban area, above, then as a flattened, desolate wasteland following the detonation of an atomic bomb, below. Circles indicate the thousands of feet from ground zero.

Now I will bring it back home to the U.S. and Canada. In Canada, an Indigenous Dené nation community in the Northwest Territories became known as the “Village of Widows” because men of the population died of cancers that they developed when mining for uranium. This was the same uranium that was used in the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As well, the radium and the uranium mines in the community released tailings into the lake and landfills. The devastating effects of this are still experienced in the community today.

That brings us to what has been said many times, importantly, in this conference already, which is that the U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest polluter. We are talking about 1.2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases emitted annually. That is the equivalent of 257 million cars on the road for a year.

In Canada, the Department of National Defence also makes an enormous contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. A portion of this is through the fueling of the warplanes of Canada and other imperialist countries. The government of Canada is often claiming that they are not participating in U.S.-led wars, but then refueling all the jets that are dropping the bombs. The Canadian military provided 65 million pounds of fuel to refuel aircraft used in the bombing of Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2019. This is incomparable, of course, to the fuel consumption of the vehicles that any of us here in this room drive.

The Department of Defense in the United States is the largest institutional consumer of fossil fuels. In Canada, the Department of National Defence is the largest consumer of petroleum and Canada’s largest landholder.

This is added to the continued environmental and human impact of chemical and radioactive weapons such as Agent Orange and depleted uranium. Also, the military bases of the United States and its allies around the world persist in poisoning and in polluting.

Another topic to talk about that is important to the discussion about environment and war is military emissions, because specific sources of greenhouse gases are excluded from federal reduction targets due to their important role in “ensuring the national safety and security of all Canadians” — as Canada’s previous environment minister, Catherine McKenna, justified why the declared emissions of the Department of National Defence in Canada has never been counted in Canada’s emission reduction targets.

Military emissions are explicitly stated as excluded in the targets set by the 2015 United National Paris agreements. Under these agreements, countries are “required,” as much as the Paris agreements can “require” anything, to report on their military emissions. Still, countries are not obligated or encouraged to do anything to reduce them. In the international climate agreements that proceeded with the Paris agreement, the Kyoto Accords, military emissions were not even part of the discussion. Military emissions continue to be considered a so-called necessary expense for our planet.

Then, there is the issue of military budgets. For example, the world’s biggest military budget ever has been passed yet again in the United States recently. Instead of being spent on human and environmental destruction, this money could go towards climate justice, meaning health care, education, jobs, public transit, and more.

As Martin Luther King Junior said, and I think this is a good quote for us to use when talking about the environment and war,

“Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

So, where is the technology that we need to save our planet earth now? 

The War at Home: Wet’suwet’en & the Struggle for Indigenous Rights 

The wars abroad by imperialist countries such as the U.S. and Canada are also carried out against people at home. And I think every once in a while, there are these escalated times when that reality can shake oppressed people and their very foundations. And that has happened with Indigenous people in Canada over the past few weeks.

There is a war against Indigenous people in Canada. There has been since the colonisation of Indigenous land. The Canadian state has the same roots as the United States of genocide, residential schools, and reservation systems. This history and the current reality of colonization are reflected in the mobilization of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en today. 

It is important to understand that one year ago, the RCMP -the Canadian national police- first invaded the territory of the Wet’suwet’en people, and they kept a detachment there for an entire year. Then this January is when things escalated again because the RCMP moved further into the territory and cleared people off of a road to make way for the development of the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which is in violation of the demands of the Wet’suwet’en people. British Columbia is an unceded territory. No treaties, in 92 percent of the land, were ever signed. So hereditary chiefs and their system of governance are law in those unceded territories. 

The Coastal GasLink pipeline is fracked gas. There has been a lot of talk, specifically in the Province of British Columbia about how the Coastal GasLink pipeline is going to “replace coal for the world,” and at the same time, not have a big impact on greenhouse gas emissions. However, the impact of “natural gas” emissions can only be considered minor when you ignore the methane and poisons that are released when it is extracted and considering that when it is burned, Canada does not have to count those emissions targets. 

It is Time to Unite the Antiwar and Climate Justice Movement

That brings me to my final point, which is about bringing together the anti-war movement with the climate justice movement. One way to do this is by making sure “self-determination for oppressed nations, including Indigenous nations!” is always part of our demands. This has always been part of our demands within Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) and MAWO has consistently brought this demand to the cross-border movement that we would like to strengthen and build together, including with this conference. 

I think there are four strategies and demands that we need to bring into our antiwar, anti-pollution, and anti-imperialist movement. The first is that we must build a movement that is against imperialist war and occupation. Today, we live in what we in MAWO call “the new era of war and occupation,” which is the never-ending wars that started in 2001, that we are all coming together to organize against. This era is characterized by a campaign to regain hegemony in the Middle East, North Africa, and Latin America by capitalist countries that are facing a grave economic crisis and a rapid falling rate of profit. These countries are on the war path to gain new markets and resources, which means more killing of our planet. 

Secondly, self-determination for oppressed nations, as I said, must be part of our work, from Indigenous and Black people, to oppressed countries under attack and occupation. This important demand calls on us to have strategical unity against any occupation, domestic or international. We cannot just be talking about the U.S. occupying other countries but also what it means when there are oppressed nations within the U.S. and Canada borders.

Thirdly, we need to fight for a world without NATO and U.S. military bases, because of the environmental pollution and also because of the way that the United States uses these bases to increase their wars and occupations and consequently further ecological degradation.

Lastly, I think the environmental struggle ties into the movement against sanctions and blockades, which are war. These attacks do not allow countries to develop their economies or to use their resources for the good of their people. Sanctions and blockades enforce the hegemony of the world’s biggest corporations, which are also the world’s biggest polluters.

If we combine these four pillars, which bring together the war at home and abroad, this is how we can build an anti-imperialist movement, how we can move from just being against war to also being against imperialism. I think we cannot build an effective anti-war movement without centralizing and emphasizing the slogan of self-determination for all oppressed nations.

I will say that I think this slogan of self-determination for all oppressed nations is as important as “Workers of the world unite,” from Marx and Engels.

People of oppressed nations face war and occupation and the denial of self-determination, which unites them in the fight against imperialism. The common struggle that unites workers is their exploitation by the capitalist class and the denial of their rights.

Within the antiwar and the climate justice movement, we must also emphasize that we are building an international movement, one that is also internationalist in character. The struggles of people against massive resource extraction projects are similar in Standing Rock in North Dakota or the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. The struggle for a sustainable world requires international cooperation between oppressed people. It requires solidarity and, more importantly, unity across borders to become powerful and effective. 

There are many opportunities for antiwar activists to bring the antiwar movement to the climate justice movement. There were massive protests around the world in September 2019; over 9 million people participated in global climate strike actions. And I think we need to continue to take advantage of that mobilization on the streets. We need to strategically bring the antiwar movement and the environmental movement together. Fighting against war is fighting against the degradation of the environment and fighting for climate justice is fighting against war and occupation. We are in an era of history that these two causes have become two struggles for one purpose, to save our lives and the planet.

I think we are now facing the opportunity to build a better and sustainable world. We must not feel inactive or depressed about the climate crisis or endless wars and occupations around us. In the face of this devastation, we have no choice but to take up the call and fight back.

People marching on the streets today against climate change can also be very capable of understanding that it is not just a clean planet we are fighting for. It will not matter if we have a clean planet if the earth is still full of poverty and human suffering and wars and occupations. The antiwar and climate justice movement now more than ever has one cause: Save the planet.

United we will win!

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First printed in Fire This Time Newspaper Volume 14, Issue 3–5: www.firethistime.net

Alison Bodine is a social justice activist, author and researcher in Vancouver, Canada. She is  the Chair of Vancouver’s peace coalition Mobilization Against War and Occupation (MAWO) and a central organizer with the grassroots climate justice coalition Climate Convergence in Vancouver, Canada. Alison is also on the Editorial Board of the Fire This Time newspaper. 

Featured image is from The Grayzone

The Syrian Army and the National Defense Forces have put their forces on high alert in response to the new round of aggressive actions by the Turkish Army and its proxies in northeastern Syria.

Several convoys of government forces, including several T-62M battle tanks and a number of trucks equipped with heavy machine guns, deployed to the countryside of Ayn Issa after intense Turkish artillery strikes on positions of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and the army near al-Nuyhat in northern al-Hasakah and Hushanah in northern Raqqah. Another group of government troops deployed near the town of Tell Tamr.

According to local sources, the recent Turkish strikes led to no casualties among civilians or military personnel. Nonetheless, regular Turkish attacks on these areas in fact turned a large part of the territory located relatively close to the Turkish-occupied area into a no man’s land. Syrian state media also reported that Turkey set up a new training camp for its proxies northwest of Tell Tamr.

While the chances of an open full-scale military confrontation in northeastern Syria between Turkey and the Syrian Army remain low, the military stalemate with regular ceasefire violations clearly does not contribute to any kind of peace process.

Meanwhile, the US troops, which the Trump administration had supposedly mostly withdrawn from Syria some time ago, have been expanding their military infrastructure there. Recently, they set up a new airfield approximately 8km south of the town of al-Ya’rubiyah in the province of al-Hasakah. Local sources report that US forces are actively deploying new equipment and materials there, building up barracks and erecting concrete barriers. Units of the Syrian Democratic Forces are also allegedly involved in securing the perimeter of the airfield.

At least one soldier was killed and 3 others injured in an attack by gunmen on a checkpoint in the town of Talfita in the western part of the Qalamun region, near the border with Lebanon. Following the attack, the army and security forces deployed additional units to the area in order to find and neutralize the attackers. Hezbollah is reportedly also involved.

Such attacks in Western Qalamun are an uncommon development due to the strict security measures employed. A previous notable incident of this kind happened in December 2019, when gunmen stormed an army checkpoint in the town of Rankos in Eastern Qalamun. Then, all the attackers were tracked and neutralized in a series of operations within a few weeks of the incident.

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Since the beginning of June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to annex the West Bank, even calling on the armed forces to prepare for an invasion. Netanyahu’s plan, he said, was to annex the territory of the West Bank partly, first annexing Jewish settlements in the region and then the entire Jordan Valley, totaling a 30% takeover of the West Bank. The project envisaged the beginning of Israel’s operations on July 1, fulfilling the date set in the “Deal of the Century” – agreement proposed by Washington to Tel Aviv to end the conflict in Palestine with an Israeli regional hegemony. However, as we can see, the annexation did not happen.

Since the beginning of the Israeli project, Netanyahu has received a lot of criticism from the most diverse countries around the world. In the Middle East, Jordan and Saudi Arabia interceded trying to stop the annexation plans, saying it would cause terrible and unprecedented damage to the peace of the region. In Europe, the Belgian Parliament has formally asked the European Union to impose sanctions on Israel, should the annexation occur. In addition, a document with the signatures of more than 1,000 parliamentarians from 25 different European countries was published requesting the same. In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson issued an alert to Israel, classifying the annexation as “illegal”. In contrast, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State for the Trump administration, said that the decision on the annexation rests solely with Israel, ignoring the views of the international society.

Before July 1, the scenario showed a somewhat uncomfortable situation for Israel. The country saw itself alone in its annexation project, relying exclusively on American support. For its part, Washington is dealing with a devastating pandemic and a serious political, social and economic crisis. The worst-case scenario for the US now would be the involvement in another war. If Israel continued with its plans, it could trigger a situation of intense regional conflict, where the lack of external support could lead to a serious defeat for the Zionist State.

Perhaps all these factors were taken into account so that, at the end of June, Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, would act in opposition to Netanyahu, saying that the July 1 date was not “sacred”, indicating that there could be changes in the plan and a possible delay in annexation. Gantz points out that July 1 was something like an estimate and that the date could be changed. So, considering that the annexation did not happen yesterday, Israel would not be renouncing the attack, but planning to invade on another, unknown date, raising more tensions and concerns.

Some experts suggest that Israel has not yet received a real authorization to carry out the operation. Despite public pronouncements in favor of Tel Aviv, the White House has not given a real carte blanche for the annexation to take place. The act would be the sole responsibility of the Israeli government, which would have to deal not only with its military consequences (reactions from the Palestinians and Iranian reprisals), but also with its legal and economic ones, facing severe sanctions from several countries. So, it is simple to understand that, without this final carte blanche from Washington, Israel does not want to act alone.

Anyway, the reactions have already started. Multitudes of Palestinians yesterday occupied the West Bank territory that was planned to be annexed. The aim was to form a great barrier against the Israeli army through a mass protest. Even though the operation has not been carried out, the Israeli armed forces can see a small harbinger of the strong resistance they will face with the Palestinians. In fact, it is impossible to carry out the annexation without the cost of many lives, increasing the delicacy of the case.

While Tel Aviv awaits a carte blanche, Palestinians are mobilizing in demonstrations and the world is drawing up sanctions against Israel, there is no alternative to Netanyahu but to postpone his plan secretly. The new date indicated for the annexation will remain a state secret among the Israeli military – if there really is a date. In the meantime, a question remains: will the American carte blanche really come? If not, will Israel intervene in the same way, acting sovereignly and unilaterally, or will it retreat and permanently cancel the annexation? Certainly, the second decision would be the most desirable for the peace in the Middle East, but the scenario is full of uncertainties and it is impossible to predict what the next steps will be.

If Washington’s carte blanche happens, it is likely that it will not go public, just as it is unlikely that the Israeli armed forces will reveal the day of the invasion in advance, avoiding further protests like those that took over the West Bank this week. Soon, from all points of view, tensions will continue, and the conflict will not end anytime soon.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Lucas Leiroz is a research fellow in international law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

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For this piece, we have to enter the official world (of the insane)—where everyone is quite sure a new coronavirus was discovered in China and the worthless diagnostic tests mean something and the case numbers are real and meaningful. Once we execute all those absurd maneuvers, we land square in the middle of yet another scandal—this time at our favorite US agency for scandals, the CDC.

The Atlantic, May 21, has the story, headlined, “How could the CDC make that mistake?”

I’ll give you the key quotes, and then comment on the stark inference The Atlantic somehow failed to grasp.

“We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus…The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral [PCR] and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.”

“Several states—including Pennsylvania, the site of one of the country’s largest outbreaks, as well as Texas, Georgia, and Vermont—are blending the data in the same way. Virginia likewise mixed viral and antibody test results until last week, but it reversed course and the governor apologized for the practice after it was covered by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Atlantic. Maine similarly separated its data on Wednesday; Vermont authorities claimed they didn’t even know they were doing this.”

“’You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Ashish Jha, the K. T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told us when we described what the CDC was doing. ‘How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess’.”

“The CDC stopped publishing anything resembling a complete database of daily [COVID] test results on February 29. When it resumed publishing test data last week [the middle of May]…”

First of all, the CDC’s basic mission is publishing disease statistics on an ongoing basis. Reporting partial data flies in the face of what they’re supposed to be all about.

But the big deal, of course, is combining results from two different tests—the PCR and the antibody—and placing them in one lump.

I’ve read the Atlantic article forwards, backwards, and sideways, and it appears the experts believe only PCR viral tests should be used to count the number of COVID cases.

So here is a takeaway I find nowhere in the Atlantic article: COMBINING THE TWO TESTS WILL VASTLY INFLATE THE NUMBER OF CASES.

I’m not talking about categories like “rate of infection” or “percentage.” I’m talking about plain numbers of cases.

Some PCR tests will indicate COVID and some antibody tests will indicate COVID, and adding them together will pump up the number of cases. You know, that big number they flash on TV screens a hundred times a day.

“Coronavirus cases jumped up again yesterday, and the grand total in the US is now…”

THAT number.

The number media and government and related con artists deploy to scare the people and justify lockdowns and use to stop reopening the economy.

The brass band circus with flying acrobats and elephants and clown numbers.

Therefore, I’m not characterizing what the CDC is doing as a mistake. They’ve managed to create the illusion that absolute case numbers are higher than they should be.

Somehow, these “mistakes” always seem to result in worse news, not better news. The “errors” are always on the high side rather than the low side.

Case in point: the computer prediction of COVID deaths in the UK and US made by that abject failure, Neil Ferguson, whose track record, going back to 2001, has been one horrendous lunatic exaggeration after another. His 2020 projections of 500,000 COVID deaths in the UK and two million in the US were directly used to justify lockdowns in many countries.

The CDC, back in 2009, stopped reporting the number of Swine Flu cases in the US—while still claiming that number was in the tens of thousands. I’ve written in great detail about the scandal, which was exposed by then-CBS investigative reporter, Sharyl Attkisson. The CDC stopped counting cases, because the overwhelming percentage of tissue samples from patients was coming back from labs with no sign of Swine Flu or any other kind of flu. And yet, in a later retrospective “analysis,” the CDC claimed that, at the height of the “epidemic,” there were 22 MILLION cases of Swine Flu in the US.

Going all the way back to 2003 and SARS, the CDC and other public health agencies around the world hyped the dangers to the sky; the final official death count, globally, when the dust cleared? 800.

There is a tradition of lying on the high side, blowing up figures in order to create the illusion of destruction.

CDC? Mistake? The agency is certainly incompetent. But that’s just the beginning of the story.

The only time they say there is no danger is when they’re lying about the effects of vaccines.

My headline for the Atlantic article would read: SO HOW MANY COVID CASES SHOULD WE SUBTRACT TO GET THE ACTUAL NUMBER?

And the first paragraph would go this way: “Just when governors are trying to reopen their economies, a gigantic case-counting deception at the CDC is taking the wind out of their sails. The millions of Americans suffering financial devastation could be pushed back into a hole. Who is screaming to high heaven about THAT on the nightly news? No one. Why not?”

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Sources

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/

https://banned.video/watch?id=5efd0c2a672706002f3a8501 (video: “CDC Admits Mistakes in Covid Case Numbers,” 7/1/2020)

https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/tag/neil-ferguson/

https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20091112/over-22-million-in-us-had-h1n1-swine-flu#1

There is no doubt that, since Ben Gurion, the Zionist ideology adheres to the principle of superior strength, harassing and seizing opportunities to surprise the enemy, exploiting the opponent’s weaknesses and assessing the enemy’s position before striking. But there are many indications that Israel cannot conduct a war on Lebanon, at least not this summer, and likely not until after the white smoke reveals the identity of the resident at the White House for the next four years.

A tempest in a teapot ensued in Lebanon when Israel announced its third offshore bidding round for oil and natural gas exploration of “Block 72”, previously known as “Alon D”, located along the border with Lebanon in “Block 9” disputed water. President Michel Aoun said the Israeli decision is “a very dangerous matter” and that Lebanon “will not allow the violation of internationally-recognised territorial waters”. Lebanese MP Qassem Hashem said the decision resembles “a declaration of war”.

However, the Israeli announcement does not constitute a breach of the regional water borders that Lebanon claims. The Lebanese condemnation is a reminder to Israel that Lebanon is on alert and shall not allow any encroachment of its maritime borders. Throughout the last decade, the US sent several official envoys to Beirut to push Lebanon towards an indirect dialogue with Israel to draw mutually recognised borders, to no avail.

The geopolitical animosity between Lebanon and Israel had frozen the exploration of “Block 72” for 6 years. The two offshore companies, “Noble Energy” of the US and Israel’s Delek Energy, who had won concessions for oil and gas exploration signed in 2009, found their licence ended in 2016 without having been able to conduct any exploration. The news of the Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz reopening the tender caused a superficial media sensation for several reasons.

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The US government is seeking to economically drown Venezuela and Iran by wanting to seize fuel that Tehran is sending to Caracas. This is part of a sustained aggressive and illegal policy against both countries. The US Attorney’s Office requested before a court on July 2 to embargo Iranian fuel that is being exported to Venezuela. It is an aggression that goes beyond the legal borders of the US, meaning the embargoes are extraterritorial and violate international law.

District of Columbia prosecutor Zia Faruqui accused Iranian businessman Mahmoud Madanipour of organizing the fuel shipment from Iran to Venezuela through fictitious firms registered in the United Arab Emirates to circumvent Washington’s extraterritorial sanctions against both countries. In this sense, the US is provoking a deepening of the economic crisis in Venezuela and Iran, largely caused by American sanctions. Washington intends to deepen what it created, that has not only triggered an economic crisis in Venezuela and Iran, but also a humanitarian one. Very few international shipowners dare to challenge US threats and have therefore mostly severed their relations with Venezuela.

In late May and early June, Iran sent fuel to Venezuela on five ships as part of the energy cooperation between the two nations. Venezuela bought fuel from Iran so it can deal with the shortage in its country. A few weeks later, Washington imposed sanctions against the five captains of the Iranian ships that brought gasoline to the South American country.

However, US sanctions against Venezuela and Iran can be seen as a sign of desperation as Washington is failing in its plans to topple the governments in Caracas and Tehran through economic pressure. These measures demonstrate a great despair for Washington as the world is far different from the US-dominated unipolar world that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. As the US loses its place as the world’s leading country, it can only enact its aggressive ambitions via economic pressures knowing that it is overextended to be able to engage in an invasion of either Venezuela or Iran like it did with Iraq in 2003.

Despite US sanctions, Iran has said it will continue to send fuel to Venezuela, which demonstrates the strengthening of diplomatic relations between Caracas and Tehran. By sending the first five ships, Iran has showed that it will not abide by illegal US demands that violates international law and that it will act with Venezuela within the framework of fair-trade relations. The US has launched pressures and aggression against not only both states, but also individuals and investors who dare develop commercial relations with Venezuela.

In May, the US warned foreign governments, seaports, shipping companies and insurers that they could face severe sanctions if they help the Iranian flotilla carrying fuel to Venezuela. The shipment of Iranian tankers to Venezuela caused tension between Tehran and Washington. Washington threatened to attack them and in response Iran warned that it would not tolerate problems caused by the US against oil tankers sent to Venezuela. Faced with US threat, the Venezuelan government provided a military escort to the ships once they entered their own territorial waters.

Washington’s measures against Venezuela have intensified in the last four years with the aim of removing President Nicolás Maduro from power. In 2017, the sanctions reached the country’s main industry, Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), initially preventing financing and later prohibiting any company or person to make transactions with the state-owned company. These measures have limited PDVSA’s ability to acquire spare parts for its refineries, additives to produce gasoline, and even the purchase of fuel, generating a critical situation in the country.

On repeated occasions, the US and the Venezuelan opposition have assured that sanctions are directed only at Maduro and officials of his administration, but the fuel shortage has seriously affected the transportation and supply of essential goods and services to the population. Such measures demonstrate, once again, the criminal nature of Washington, which is capable of appropriating the immense wealth and resources belonging to the Venezuelan people. But such measures truly show desperation as Washington is working hard to destroy the two countries and prevent them from cooperating with each other.

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Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.

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Security Council, General Assembly Never Held Israel Accountable for Violations of UN Principles

By Michael Jansen, July 03, 2020

There is little doubt that some countries emerging from the death and devastation of World War II at least temporarily meant to commit to these principles. But, commitments did not for long stand the test of time. The four permanent members, the US, UK, France and Russia, had interests which assumed paramountcy over principles and conflicted with the Charter.

Palestine is, of course, the most dramatic case. Western actions have consistently violated the UN Charter and international law. Despite the intervention of five Arab countries, Palestine was denied independence because of the determination of Britain, the US and France to partition it between the two-thirds Palestinian Arab indigenous population and the one-third Jewish colonists.

Israel’s Annexation Plans Explained in Nine Questions

By Daniel Hilton, July 03, 2020

What would happen to the Palestinians?

Unlike residents of East Jerusalem and the Golan, Palestinians in the West Bank will not be offered Israeli citizenship or permanent residency.

Instead, Netanyahu told pro-government newspaper Yisrael Hayom, the Palestinians will live in isolated communities ruled by the Palestinian Authority, surrounded by territory considered Israeli.

Zionist Political Violence: Patterns and Motives

By Dr. Zuhair Sabbagh, July 02, 2020

This attempt to tackle the issue of Zionist political violence will not constitute a quantitative and historical research, but will seek to explore the patterns and to analyze the motives behind the violent political practices carried out by the Zionist movement in Palestine over a period of more than a hundred years.

Before embarking upon this complex task, there is a need to shed some light on the phenomenon of general violence and its diverse patterns. This will be done by giving some internationally accepted definitions of violence in general and political violence in particular.

Israel Guilty of Crimes against Humanity, Genocide against the People of Palestine

By Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 02, 2020

Israel is currently in the process of implementing the illegal annexation of Palestinian lands. The issue of “illegality” must be put in context. We are dealing with a broader issue: Crimes against Humanity and Genocide against the People of Palestine.

Annexation is a crime against Humanity.

And the Western governments which support Israel’s actions or turn a blind eye are complicit. Donald Trump has given the Green Light to Netanyahu. Trump is responsible for supporting and endorsing an illegal and criminal undertaking.

Remembering the Handover of ‘One Palestine, Complete’

By Jehan Alfarra, July 01, 2020

Marking 100 years since the handover of Palestine, the receipt signed by Herbert Samuel for “one Palestine, complete” has been included in a panel on the Palestinian History Tapestry, which tells the story of the indigenous people of Palestine through skilled, traditional Palestinian embroidery.

“The real lesson of the story of ‘one Palestine, complete’,” says Palestinian author and patron of the Tapestry project Dr Ghada Karmi, “is the light it throws on Zionism’s influence over the development of British policy, as early as 1920.”

Stop Treating Israel as a State Above the Law and End Annexation

By Saeb Erekat, June 26, 2020

Trump and his team have dismissed international law and UN resolutions as tools for peacemaking and have instead endorsed some of Israel’s most hardcore views. For the advocates of annexation, this is their historic moment and their short-term goals are clear.

November’s US election is pushing this camp to say: “It’s now or never.” The messianic cohort represented by US Ambassador David Friedman deeply feels that this moment will mark their legacy.

UN Security Council Members Slam Illegal Israeli Annexation Scheme

By Stephen Lendman, June 25, 2020

Israeli settlements breach international law, an indisputable fact.

The UN Charter bans use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, as well as forcible acquisition of territory not its own.

Chokehold on Diplomat Exposes Israel’s Special Type of Apartheid

By Jonathan Cook, June 23, 2020

Israel continues to view these Palestinians – its non-Jewish citizens – as a subversive element that needs to be controlled and subdued through measures reminiscent of the old South Africa. But at the same time, Israel is desperate to portray itself as a western-style democracy.

So strangely, the Palestinian minority has found itself treated both as second-class citizens and as an unwilling shop-window dummy on which Israel can hang its pretensions of fairness and equality. That has resulted in two contradictory faces.

Annexation of Palestine or “Uneventful Occurrence” — What Do You See?

By Rima Najjar, June 16, 2020

When you visualize it, as I try to, what does Israel’s forthcoming annexation of parts of the West Bank look like to you? I mean, what images do you expect to see when Israel makes its declaration, as is expected, in July? Do you perhaps imagine scenes of violence, terror and incitement to play out on social media and on the few seconds of mainstream TV that will be devoted to the announcement?

Click here for further reading on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Seventy-five years ago, 50 countries signed the UN Charter at a conference in San Francisco in ceremonies attended by 3,500 delegates and 2,500 media representatives and observers from non-governmental organisations. Representing 80 per cent of the world’s population, the signatories vowed to set up an organisation which would preserve peace and promote equality, the rule of international law, and social justice and freedom. The Charter entered into force on October 24 of that year.

There is little doubt that some countries emerging from the death and devastation of World War II at least temporarily meant to commit to these principles. But, commitments did not for long stand the test of time. The four permanent members, the US, UK, France and Russia, had interests which assumed paramountcy over principles and conflicted with the Charter.

Palestine is, of course, the most dramatic case. Western actions have consistently violated the UN Charter and international law. Despite the intervention of five Arab countries, Palestine was denied independence because of the determination of Britain, the US and France to partition it between the two-thirds Palestinian Arab indigenous population and the one-third Jewish colonists.

After Britain declared its intention of ending its rule of Palestine, pressure politics brought the issue before the UN General Assembly in November 1947 after months of investigations and wrangling. A straw vote conducted on the 22nd revealed that 24 countries supported partition, 16 opposed and the rest abstained or were undecided. This vote fell short of the two-thirds needed to adopt the proposed partition resolution. On the 26th, when a second vote was taken in committee the result was 25 in favour to 13 against.

Instead of proceeding with a vote in plenary, under pressure from the Zionist lobby, Washington proposed a recess for the US Thanksgiving holiday on the 27th. The Zionists and their US allies went all out to exert their influence direct and indirect via Washington on the anti-partition governments of Haiti, Liberia, the Philippines, China, Ethiopia and Greece to vote for partition or abstain. All but Greece capitulated and the partition resolution was adopted on the 29th by 33 votes in favour, 13 opposed and 10 abstentions. The resolution, ineluctably, led to war and the conquest by the well armed, well prepared Zionist underground army of 78 per cent, 23 per cent more than the 55 per cent allocated in the partition plan, and the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes. To make it certain that they would not return their towns and villages were bulldozed.

Resolution 194, adopted by the Assembly on December 11, 1948, towards the end of the war and after the assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte by Israeli extremists, attempted to restore Palestinian rights. It resolved that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live in peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible”. Of course this was never implemented and the failure to carry through remains a large black blot on the record of the UN. This demonstrates the organisation’s inability to hold accountable powerful governments which protect Israel no matter what it does.

It must be pointed out that General Assembly resolutions are recommendations only and do not pack the punch of Security Council resolutions which are meant to be mandatory. Of  course, the partition resolution was taken seriously while the resolution designed to regain Palestinian rights was not.

In November 1967, the Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 242 which called for withdrawal of Israel from “territories” occupied in the June war in exchange for peace. Thanks to pressure from the US, a major ambiguity was introduced into the text. Instead of “the territories” (as in the French version), which would have meant the whole lot, the resolution referred only to “territories”, leaving room for Israel to claim and keep conquered land.  This contradicted the preamble to the resolution, which referred to the principle of the “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”.

The resolution also put forward the “land for peace” formula which has dominated Arab/Palestinian negotiations since 1967 and secured Egypt’s demand for the return of all its territory occupied by Israel as the price of a peace treaty. After Palestinians and Israelis signed the 1993 Oslo Accord, Jordan also signed a peace deal with Israel in the expectation that a Palestinian state would emerge at the turn of the century. This did not take place because Israel illegally had colonised the Palestinian occupied territories with the aim of scuppering “land for peace” basis of a settlement. Although in flagrant breach of not only 242 and international law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibit settling Israeli citizens in conquered territory, the Security Council did not call upon Israel to “cease-and-desist” and impose sanctions to punish Israel for refusing to halt colonisation. Instead, the UN and its members, knowing full well what Israel was doing, simply stuck to “land for peace” as an empty slogan.

On December 23, 2016, the Security Council plucked up courage to adopt by 14 votes with, for the first time the US abstaining, a resolution reaffirming that Israel’s colonies in occupied Palestinian territory, including in Jerusalem, had no legal validity and constituted a flagrant violation under international law. The Council pledged not to recognise changes in the June 1967 ceasefire lines unless negotiated by the sides. This resolution was, unfortunately, adopted after Israel’s best friend ever, Donald Trump, was elected to occupy the White House. He scrapped all the shelved resolutions adopted with good intentions but without the will to challenge Israel by forcing Israel to implement them.

Over the past week UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, UN Human Rights Commissioner Michelle Batchelet, and other UN officials have condemned as illegal Israel’s plan to annex some or all of Israel’s West Bank colonies and/or the Jordan Valley. Israel already has the blessing of the Trump administration for this project and does not care what the US or other governments say or do. Why should it? The Security Council and General Assembly have never held Israel accountable for its flagrant violations of the principles on which the UN was founded.

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In a stunning development in the ongoing controversy over proposed military bombing range expansion in Nevada, the Democrat-led House Armed Services Committee today approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would give the U.S. Air Force jurisdiction over 850,000 acres currently managed as a wildlife refuge.

The Air Force has been seeking to expand its Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) bombing range for several years, proposing to take over 1.1 million acres of the adjacent Desert National Wildlife Refuge. Today’s amendment came from noted public lands opponent Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) but was approved on a voice vote by the Democratic majority committee.

Desert National Wildlife Refuge is the largest refuge in the lower 48 states, comprising 1.6 million acres of pristine Mojave Desert habitat, home to Nevada’s state mammal, the desert bighorn sheep, and the threatened Mojave desert tortoise. It is visible from the Las Vegas strip and many southern Nevadans consider it their back yard.

“It’s appalling that Democrats on the House Armed Services committee would betray the people of Nevada by giving away our beloved Desert National Wildlife Refuge to the Air Force,” said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Nevadans from all walks of life, Republicans and Democrats, Native American tribes, veterans and civilians, hunters and wildlife watchers, have all come together to oppose this proposal. It’s a slap in the face for this amendment to go through.”

The Air Force’s proposal to seize the Desert Refuge generated enormous public outcry and a national campaign to save the refuge, under the banner #DontBombTheBighorn. Over 32,000 people submitted comments to the Air Force opposed to the expansion. The Nevada legislature approved a resolution opposed to the expansion in 2019 with a bipartisan 58-3 vote.

Notably, in late 2019, the entire Nevada delegation introduced legislation which would have eliminated most of the Air Force’s takeover proposal while designating much of the refuge as wilderness. As a result of their advocacy, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted last month not to allow any expansion of the Air Force bombing range in their version of the National Defense Authorization Act.

“It defies belief that the Desert Refuge could make it safely through Republican Senator Inhofe’s Senate Armed Services Committee only to be put on the chopping block by Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee,” said Donnelly. “We’re grateful to representatives Horsford, Titus and Lee and senators Cortez Masto and Rosen for their advocacy for our beloved Desert Refuge. We stand by them and with the people of Nevada and will continue our fight to stop the military from dropping bombs on wildlife refuges.”

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The United Kingdom’s High Court has blocked the Venezuelan government’s effort to recover 31 tons of the nation’s gold held by the Bank of England (BoE).

In a ruling handed down on Thursday, the court said it “unequivocally recognised opposition leader Juan Guaidó as president,” rejecting the Maduro government’s right to repatriate the gold belonging to the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV).

The BCV vowed to immediately appeal the “outrageous” decision, accusing the High Court of “trying to deny the Venezuelan people of the gold urgently needed to face the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Since late 2018, the BoE has refused to return the gold in its vaults, which is valued at an estimated US $1.2 billion.

On May 14, Caracas filed a lawsuit to access the reserves, which it plans to sell and transfer the proceeds to the United Nations Development Programme in order to import food, medicines and healthcare equipment. While Venezuela has not been hard hit by COVID-19 so far, analysts warn that the country’s healthcare system – battered by years of under-investment and US sanctions – is ill-prepared to face the pandemic.

Lawyers for the Venezuelan government argued that while the UK recognized Guaido as head of state last year London still recognizes Maduro de facto, maintaining regular consular relations with Caracas. According to the Venezuelan legal team, the court ruling ignores “the reality of the situation on the ground” in which President Nicolas Maduro’s government is “in complete control of Venezuela and its administrative institutions.”

For his part, Judge Nigel Teare stated that 10 Downing St. had “unequivocally” recognized Guaido as “interim president” and that under the “one voice” doctrine the judiciary was bound to the government’s position.

Guaido proclaimed himself “interim president” of the South American country in January 2019 and was recognized by the US and several dozen of its allies.

The Trump administration subsequently moved to block Venezuelan state assets abroad, including millions of dollars held in bank accounts as well as Veneuzelan state oil firm PDVSA’s US-based subsidiary, CITGO.

Washington has also imposed crippling economic sanctions aimed at toppling the Maduro government, including a sweeping trade embargo with secondary sanctions targeting third party actors like Russia’s Rosneft.

The US government has pressed its allies to comply with the unilateral measures. In his newly released memoir, former White House National Security Advisor John Bolton revealed that in January 2019 he coordinated with UK Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt, who he said was “delighted to cooperate on steps [the UK] could take, for example freezing Venezuelan gold deposits in the Bank of England.”

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New data shows Britain’s Royal Air Force trained Saudi personnel in 2019 on fighter jets used to bomb civilians in Yemen – a country on the brink of famine – while UK soldiers coached other forces in the Saudi-led coalition at nearly a dozen army bases in Britain.

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Hundreds of Saudi military personnel received training at Royal Air Force (RAF) bases in the UK in 2019 – the same year a court banned new exports of British-made weapons to Saudi Arabia over human rights concerns in the Yemen war.

Data obtained by Declassified UK from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) shows that 310 Saudis trained at six RAF sites in England and Wales last year. Some training for Saudi pilots is still under way, with courses lasting up to four years.

The data shows that 90 Saudis received “Typhoon training” at RAF Coningsby air base in Lincolnshire, eastern England, during 2019. The MOD refused to clarify how many of the 90 were pilots or ground crew.

Saudi Arabia’s fleet of 72 Typhoon fighter jets – made by British arms giant BAE Systems in a deal worth £20-billion – have played the central role in aerial bombardments in Yemen which have involved repeated attacks on food supplies.

Yemen endured more than a thousand airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition, directed against the country’s Houthi movement last year, resulting in 785 civilian casualties, including 77 child fatalities, according to the Yemen Data Project.

The UN’s World Food Programme says 20 million people in Yemen are at risk of starvation, and 360,000 children under the age of five are suffering from “severe acute malnutrition”. Declassified can also reveal that 180 Saudi personnel were trained at RAF Cosford’s Defence College of Technical Training in Shropshire, western England, last year.

The MOD refused to specify which courses the Saudis received at Cosford, but it is known that they have previously attended aerosystems engineering courses for the Tornado fighter jet, which Saudi pilots also use to bomb Yemen.

Courses for Saudi students at Cosford have continued despite two Saudi cadets being arrested in 2016 over an alleged rape near the base.

In July 2019, Wing Commander Jim Thorley stood down as head of Technical Training at Cosford in order to “take up a post in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia”, according to a post by the RAF on Facebook.

Three Saudi air force officers graduate from an aerosystems engineering course at RAF Cosford in June 2015, during the Yemen war. (Photo: RAF / Facebook)

Declassified has also found that 10 junior Saudi pilots were put through “elementary flying training” at RAF Cranwell and RAF Barkston Heath in Lincolnshire and RAF Wittering in Cambridgeshire, north of London, during 2019.

Meanwhile, another 30 Saudi pilots learned how to fly fast jets at RAF Valley in Anglesey, North Wales, last year. BAE Hawk aircraft of the type used by both the UK and Saudi militaries are used for training purposes at Valley, where BAE employs 78 people – a sign of the close relationship between the arms company and the militaries it supplies.

Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) spokesman Andrew Smith said the findings exposed “the extent of the collusion” between London and Riyadh.

“The war in Yemen has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world,” Smith commented. “The UK government has been utterly complicit in fuelling the crisis. UK-made fighter jets have been crucial to the bombardment, and it would seem many of the personnel flying them were trained by UK forces.”

He added:

“This training is symptomatic of the cozy and immoral political and military relationship between the UK government and the Saudi regime. We are always told that the UK promotes human rights around the world, but it is arming, supporting and collaborating with one of the most authoritarian dictatorships in the world.”

The Israeli government has suggested that plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank could be revealed from 1 July.

Such a move has been condemned by Israel’s allies and rivals alike as a dangerous escalation that could destabilise the Middle East.

Middle East Eye answers some key questions about what Israel is seeking to do, and what could happen next:

What does the Israeli government want?

Unclear. Broadly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has said as much as 30 percent of the West Bank could be annexed, including blocs of illegal settlements, the strategic Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea.

Expectations that such a large-scale annexation will be announced at once should be tempered, however.

Officials have hinted to the Israeli media that annexation could be applied in stages in an attempt to placate neighbouring Jordan, whose King Abdullah II warned it could lead to “massive conflict” and has reportedly refused Netanyahu’s calls.

What are the possible scenarios?

Several possible plans have been mooted, all of them disastrous for the Palestinians.

The first would annex all of the West Bank’s Area C, the part fully controlled by Israel under the Oslo Accords. That would include all illegal settlements, which hold some 400,000 Israeli settlers, and the Jordan Valley.

A second plan would see only the Jordan Valley claimed by Israel. Resource rich and highly strategic, the Jordan Valley currently holds 56,000 Palestinians and 11,000 Israeli settlers.

In the third scenario, Israel would annex the major settlement blocs of Maale Adumim, Ariel and Gush Etzion, which together have a population of around 85,000 Israelis. Maale Adumim sprawls between occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Gush Etzion lies over the holy Palestinian city of Bethlehem and Ariel sits in the middle of the territory, overlooking Nablus.

Annexation of these areas would sever many parts of the West Bank from Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and create Israeli enclaves in the heart of any future Palestinian state.

The third option is currently the most likely.

When could annexation happen?

According to the coalition agreement signed by Netanyahu and his rival-turned-defence minister, Benny Gantz, annexation legislation could be proposed as early as Wednesday.

That would just be the beginning of a legislative process, however, with the draft going through various committees and readings before being presented to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

Significant changes to the draft plan could be made in that process, which could take weeks, though it is likely that any proposal would have been agreed by enough parties in the government to see it go through parliament without too much trouble.

Is annexation legal?

Absolutely not. Unilateral annexation of occupied territory is illegal under international law. The Israeli government prefers to term it as “applying sovereignty”, though that makes little difference legally. Legality hasn’t stopped Israel from annexation before, however.

Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has annexed occupied East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights in moves never recognised by the international community.

Essentially, any Israeli annexation would not change the territory’s status as militarily occupied.

What would happen to the Palestinians?

Unlike residents of East Jerusalem and the Golan, Palestinians in the West Bank will not be offered Israeli citizenship or permanent residency.

Instead, Netanyahu told pro-government newspaper Yisrael Hayom, the Palestinians will live in isolated communities ruled by the Palestinian Authority, surrounded by territory considered Israeli.

Were the Jordan Valley to be annexed, he said, the city of Jericho will remain under nominal PA rule, while other Palestinian towns and villages will live under Israeli security control.

Is the Israeli government in agreement?

No. Though Gantz has been vocally supportive of annexation, he has done so with several caveats.

On Tuesday, the defence minister said annexation will be delayed until the coronavirus pandemic has been overcome. Israel’s coalition government was ostensibly formed as an emergency administration to tackle Covid-19, after all.

Netanyahu has retorted that it’s not up to Gantz whether draft legislation will be presented or not, which is true. However its chance of getting off the ground is minimal without the support of Gantz’s MPs.

The defence minister has said any annexation must be done with the coordination of Israel’s international allies and partners, chief among them the United States.

Where does the US stand?

Washington is holding its cards close to its chest. Annexation was a key element of Donald Trump’s so-called “deal of the century” scheme to address the Israel-Palestine conflict. However, it was only to be carried out alongside moves towards creating an “independent” Palestinian rump state.

From the outside, it appears there are conflicting ideas within the Trump administration. David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, is staunchly pro-settler and has pushed hard to green light large-scale unilateral annexation. But this would effectively kill off Trump’s much-maligned but much-publicised deal, which was only revealed in January.

US officials were expected to make a statement outlining their position after consultations last week, but have so far held off from doing so.

Is the Israeli public supportive of the plan?

Annexation was a key manifesto pledge in Netanyahu’s last election campaign in March. It helped him win the most Knesset seats, but the prime minister fell short of a majority nonetheless, opening the door for his agreement with Gantz.

But even among Israelis who support annexation there are significant differences. The idea of a Palestinian state is anathema for Israeli settler leaders and other ultra-nationalists, who see all the land between the Mediterranean and Jordan River as Eretz Yisrael, Greater Israel.

That means gradual or reduced annexation alongside the implementation of Trump’s plan would be rejected by some quarters of Netanyahu’s voter base.

Opinion polls on the matter have been somewhat contradictory. One published on 7 June said 41.7 percent of the public oppose annexation as opposed to 32.2 percent in support. Yet an earlier poll suggested half of Israelis support the plan, though were divided about whether to do so without the backing of the US.

What has the Palestinian reaction been?

The Palestinian leadership and public have roundly and angrily rejected annexation.

President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) in May said it is cutting all agreements and understandings with Israel and the US. Though security coordination has largely been maintained, other bureaucratic ties have been severed, with deadly results. Medical transfers between the besieged Gaza Strip and Israel have been paralysed, and two critically ill infants died earlier this month, unable to get the treatment they needed.

The PA has also suggested it will tear up the Oslo Accords and declare independence in the event of any annexation.

In Gaza, Hamas officials have touted annexation as evidence that the Oslo process pursued by its rival Fatah has failed. Israeli security and military chiefs are concerned annexation could spark another war with armed factions in Gaza, though analysts told Middle East Eye that Hamas will likely wait to see how the PA reacts before making any moves itself.

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Featured image: Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 [Nurphoto]

In January during an address to Russian lawmakers, Vladimir Putin proposed long overdue changes to the country’s out-of-date Constitution.

They include what Sputnik International called “a heavy focus on social and organizational/governance issues” — notably guaranteeing a living wage and indexation of pensions in line with inflation.

Other amendments include a presidential advisory State Council to “ensur(e) the coordinated functioning and interaction of state authorities, as well as determining the main directions of domestic and foreign policy.”

There’s much more, including how key Kremlin officials are chosen, the lower house State Duma and upper house Federation Council to be involved in the process.

The Constitutional Court’s powers are expanded — to sign off on the constitutionality of laws before taking effect.

Dual citizenship is prohibited for government officials.

Sputnik explained that this amendment “forces…officials (with dual citizenships) to make up their minds as to whom they serve and compels them to choose their loyalties accordingly,” adding:

The amended Constitution “aim(s) to protect Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, prohibiting any attempts or calls to alienate part of its territory.”

Putin may seek two more terms as president, potentially permitting him to remain in office until 2036.

While presidential terms are limited to two consecutive ones, time in the nation’s highest office up to now is excluded, Putin able to run again two more times if he wishes.

Currently age-67, he’d be 84-years-old if remains in office until 2036.

Russia’s current Constitution was adopted in 1993, following the Soviet Union’s December 26, 1991 dissolution.

Heavily influenced by Western advisors, it’s out-of-date and inappropriate for today’s Russia, why amending it significantly was long overdue.

The newly adopted Constitution is a modern-day Russian declaration of independence, according to its amended highest body of laws.

In polar opposite fashion to how the US Constitution was adopted — by its ruling class exclusively, ordinary Americans with no say — Russians voted by national referendum on whether to adopt the new amendments up or down, how democracy is supposed to work.

According to Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) on Thursday with all ballots tabulated, an overwhelming 77.92% of voters backed the amendments — a significant endorsement of what Putin proposed months earlier.

A statement by CEC head Ella Pamfilova said

“(t)here is no doubt that (results are) legitimate, but this will be officially confirmed at a CEC session that will take place very soon.”

On Wednesday, she said turnout was almost 65%, the process completed with little evidence of irregularities.

According to Main Directorate for Political-Military Affairs of the Russian Armed Forces head Andrey Kartapolov, “more than 1.5 million military people voted,” a turnout of over 99%.

Clearly they were “encouraged” to vote.

European Parliament legislator Helene Laporte observed the process, saying the following:

“…I can say that the voting here meets all the democratic requirements,” adding:

“The right to vote has been granted to absolutely everyone, even disabled persons and those who cannot get to a polling place can vote at home” online.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The latest scandal, like others before it, is based on scant testimony by anonymous officials and has had the effect of pushing liberal opinion on US foreign policy into a far more hawkish direction.

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Based on anonymous intelligence sources, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal released bombshell reports alleging that Russia is paying the Taliban bounties for every U.S. soldier they can kill. The story caused an uproar in the United States, dominating the news cycle and leading presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden to accuse Trump of “dereliction of duty” and “continuing his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin.” “This is beyond the pale,” the former vice-president concluded.

However, there are a number of reasons to be suspicious of the new reports. Firstly, they appear all to be based entirely on the same intelligence officials who insisted on anonymity. The official could not provide any concrete evidence, nor establish that any Americans had actually died as a result, offering only vague assertions and admitting that the information came from “interrogated” (i.e. tortured) Afghan militants. All three reports stressed the uncertainty of the claims, with the only sources who went on record — the White House, the Kremlin, and the Taliban — all vociferously denying it all.

The national security state also has a history of using anonymous officials to plant stories that lead to war. In 2003, the country was awash with stories that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, in 2011 anonymous officials warned of an impending genocide in Libya, while in 2018 officials accused Bashar al-Assad of attacking Douma with chemical weapons, setting the stage for a bombing campaign. All turned out to be untrue.

“After all we’ve been through, we’re supposed to give anonymous ‘intelligence officials’ in The New York Times the benefit of the doubt on something like this? I don’t think so,” Scott Horton, Editorial Director of Antiwar.com and author of “Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan,” told MintPress News. “All three stories were written in language conceding they did not know if the story was true,” he said, “They are reporting the ‘fact’ that there was a rumor.”

Horton continued:

“There were claims in 2017 that Russia was arming and paying the Taliban, but then the generals admitted to Congress they had no evidence of either. In a humiliating debacle, also in 2017, CNN claimed a big scoop about Putin’s support for the Taliban when furnished with some photos of Taliban fighters with old Russian weapons. The military veteran journalists at Task and Purpose quickly debunked every claim in their piece.”

Others were equally skeptical of the new scandal.

“The bottom line for me is that after countless (Russiagate related) anonymous intelligence leaks, many of which were later proven false or never substantiated with real evidence, I can’t take this story seriously. The intelligence ‘community’ itself can’t agree on the credibility of this information, which is similar to the situation with a foundational Russiagate document, the January, 2017 intelligence ‘assessment,’” said Joanne Leon, host of the Around the Empire Podcast, a show which covers U.S. military actions abroad.

Suspicious timing

The timing of the leak also raised eyebrows. Peace negotiations between the U.S. and the Taliban are ongoing, with President Trump committing to pulling all American troops out of the country. A number of key anti-weapons of mass destruction treaties between the U.S. and Russia are currently expiring, and a scandal such as this one would scupper any chance at peace, escalating a potential arms race that would endanger the world but enrich weapons manufacturers. Special Presidential Envoy in the Department of the Treasury, Marshall Billingslea, recently announced that the United States is willing to spend Russia and China “into oblivion” in a new arms race, mimicking the strategy it used in the 1980s against the Soviet Union. As a result, even during the pandemic, business is booming for American weapons contractors.

“The national security state has done everything they can to keep the U.S. involved in that war,” remarked Horton, “If Trump had listened to his former Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, we’d be on year three of an escalation with plans to begin talks with the Taliban next year. Instead Trump talked to them for the last year-and-a-half and has already signed a deal to have us out by the end of next May.”

“The same factions and profiteers who always oppose withdrawal of troops are enthusiastic about the ‘Bountygate’ story at a time when President Trump is trying to advance negotiations with the Taliban and when he desperately needs to deliver on 2016 campaign promises and improve his sinking electoral prospects,” said Leon.

What kind of monstrous country would fund and recruit fighters to attack occupying troops from an adversary country? It's an unprecedented breach of international ethics in all cases, but it's especially morally grotesque to do it against a foreign military in Afghanistan.🇺🇸🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/D6XdzMONaZ

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 28, 2020

If Russia is paying the Taliban to kill Americans they are not doing a very good job of it. From a high of 496 in 2010, U.S. losses in Afghanistan have slowed to a trickle, with only 22 total fatalities in 2019, casting further doubt on the scale of their supposed plan.

Ironically, the United States is accusing the Kremlin of precisely its own policy towards Russia in Syria. In 2016, former Acting Director of the C.I.A. Michael Morell appeared on the Charlie Rose show and said his job was to “make the Russians pay a price” for its involvement in the Middle East. When asked if he meant killing Russians by that, he replied, “Yes. Covertly. You don’t tell the world about it. You don’t stand up at the Pentagon and say, ‘We did this.’ But you make sure they know it in Moscow.”

Like RussiaGate, the new scandal has had the effect of pushing liberal opinion on foreign policy to become far more hawkish, with Biden now campaigning on being “tougher” on China and Russia than Trump would be. Considering that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently set their famous Doomsday Clock — an estimation of how close they believe the world is to nuclear armageddon — to just 100 seconds to midnight, the latest it has ever been, the Democrats could be playing with fire. The organization specifically singled out U.S.-Russia conflict as threatening the continued existence of the planet. While time will tell if Russia did indeed offer bounties to kill American troops, the efficacy of the media leak is not in question.

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Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, Common Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary.

Transcript: July 1, 2020 – Canada Day

Interview with Nurse Luba, Parliament Building Ottawa, On Canada

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Excerpts of Interview 

Mark: I am here in front of the House of Commons, Parliament building, Ottawa, a lot of great signs here, a lot of people who oppose the lockdown, oppose the fake science, oppose fear mongering and division, a lot of people here support the truth and the real science. I have with me a Canadian nurse. Could I ask your name please?

Nurse: Luba

Mark Taliano: Could you explain to me your experiences as a nurse in this country?

Nurse Luba: Yes, have worked [as a nurse] in Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Canada. You know what’s going on, from the beginning when we didn’t have data, we saw the awful scare video from China, we didn’t know what was going on, we were very scared, scared to get Covid, get sick, but up to now we have other data, we have statistics, recovery rate, of actually people who got sick, its 99% more than 99% more of the people who dying actually, being diagnosed, be positive with Covid, they have a lot of degenerative diseases.

Mark: They have co-morbidity?

Nurse Luba: Yes exactly

Mark: If I could interrupt for a second, I read CDC and FDA both said, both admitted in writing, but this of course was buried, no doubt, the PCR test are not meant for diagnostic purposes, can you comment on that, are these good tests or no?

Nurse Luba: Yes, yes exactly. I heard about this, I saw interview, and you know what I now heard and saw interview with famous guy, Dr Buttar.

Mark: Yes Dr. Buttar

Nurse Luba: people who were vaccinated for flu shot before, that they can probably will be positive.

Mark – yes

Nurse Luba: like positive, it’s not like you sick and can be positive, many, many people you don’t need to say all new cases, new cases coming and Buttar did tv.

Mark: – Can I ask the question, why do you think, we know, you and I know that these PCR and a lot of people know and the CDC admits it and so does the FDA that PCR tests are not suited for diagnostic purposes, why do you think government and media are stressing new cases, new cases, new cases what do you think is the agenda behind that?

Nurse Luba: You know, it’s because of lots of money, money going to every patient who is positive coming from actually, I don’t know Bill Gates I think, from all his people who are under, on top of him. Bill Gates, you know Bill Gates said, you can see lying, there is so much population now and we can deal with this, something like that, with vaccine, vaccine will help, so vaccine guys, a lot so much toxins inside.

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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.

Featured image is from the author

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Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

Voices from Syria 

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-1-6

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The “news service” of multi-billionaire Bloomberg echoes the New York Times lie that Russia paid the Taliban to kill US occupying troops:

“Lawmakers from both U.S. political parties demanded President Donald Trump hold Russia accountable over allegations it offered cash bounties for the killing of American troops. Trump has denied reports by several major news organizations that he was briefed on the matter; he has not demanded an investigation of the allegations; and he has yet to even threaten Moscow with retaliation should the reporting be confirmed. Trump’s lack of action has reignited concerns that the Republican is more interested in maintaining cordial relations with Vladimir Putin than defending American interests—including its troops.”

Notice all the innuendos in this dishonest report:  “Trump has denied,” “he has not demanded an investigation,” “he has yet to even threaten Moscow,” ‘Trump’s lack of action,” “more interested in cordial relations with putin than defending American troops.”

The claim itself is so absurd that it indicates the media regard Americans as completely stupid. The US and Taliban have been killing each other since October 2001 when the Cheney/Bush regime illegally attacked Afghanistan. For 19 years the Taliban has known who its enemy is and does not need Russian bribes to kill US occupiers.

To me, it is extraordinary that the New York Times and the proprietor of Bloomberg News are so devoid of integrity that they make up out of thin air false allegations for the sole purpose of convincing Americans that their president is a Russian agent more concerned with getting along with Putin than protecting US soldiers.  This latest lie from NYTimes/Bloomberg is an effort to resurrect the Russiagate hoax. 

Here is what happened. Some Democrat or anti-Trump member of the military/security complex planted a lie on the New York Times.  The NY Times knew it was a lie, did not investigate, and quickly published the lie for which the NY Times had no evidence.  Indeed, it is possible that the NY Times simply made up the story itself.

Once the lie is published, the rest of the presstitutes, such as Bloomberg, quickly spread the lie. Democrat and even Republican politicians start agitating for explanations and investigations of why Trump took no action against Russia.  

The Department of Defense issues a statement that there is “no corroborating evidence” to support the New York Times’ fake news.  But the Democrats, presstitutes and liberal pundits dismiss the DOD statement as covering up for President Trump.  Once again an obvious lie is being turned into a proven fact.  

The New York Times is supposed to be a newspaper, “the paper of record,” and Bloomberg is supposed to be a news service.  But both are propagandists dispensing lies in order to help the American Establishment get rid of Trump who represents the working class.  In American politics, representing the working class is no longer permissible. 

The liberals, the progressives, and the left are the actual forces aligned against America.  They are far more dangerous to ordinary Americans than are North Korea, Iran, China, and Russia. They are dangerous to all races that comprise the US Tower of Babel, because they are bringing America down in a spasm of disinformation and hate. 

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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 FAIR

This attempt to tackle the issue of Zionist political violence will not constitute a quantitative and historical research, but will seek to explore the patterns and to analyze the motives behind the violent political practices carried out by the Zionist movement in Palestine over a period of more than a hundred years.

Before embarking upon this complex task, there is a need to shed some light on the phenomenon of general violence and its diverse patterns. This will be done by giving some internationally accepted definitions of violence in general and political violence in particular.

Definition of Violence

In addition to the complex socio-political nature of the phenomenon of violence, and the large ideological charge it carries in its fold, we find many different definitions. Therefore, there is no single comprehensive definition that researchers and writers can adopt, because the class biases of those who developed these definitions dominate their social consciousness, therefore their thinking affect the concepts and definitions they produce.

However, I will present some definitions, adopted by international bodies, and others employed by some writers, which can give us somewhat clear definitions and a relative scientific credibility.

An internationally acceptable definition of violence is that of the World Health Organization. In one of its World Reports, the WHO defined violence as:

“… The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation.”[1]

Moreover, political violence is some kind of collective violence that could be perpetrated by groups, as well as, by states and thus be called state violence. Consequently, it includes “…economic violence … such as attacks carried out with the purpose of disrupting economic activity, denying access to essential services, or creating economic division and fragmentation…”[2]

American philosopher Hanna Arendt, distinguished between violence and power by arguing that “… Violence can be justifiable, but it never will be legitimate. Its justification loses in plausibility the farther its intended end recedes into the future…”[3]

Arendt found that violence and racism are interconnected and interrelated. She asserted that “…Violence in interracial struggle is always murderous, but it is not “irrational”; it is the logical and rational consequence of racism, by which I do not mean some rather vague prejudices on either side, but an explicit ideological system…”[4]

Hannah Arendt pointed out the differences between the two phenomena by asserting that,

… Power is indeed of the essence of all government, but violence is not. Violence is by nature instrumental; like all means, it always stands in need of guidance and justification through the end it pursues. And what needs justification by something else cannot be the essence of anything… Power needs no justification, being inherent in the very existence of political communities; what it does need is legitimacy.[5]

Political violence, in its various forms and to varying degrees, is used in settler colonial states as a tool to: plunder the rights and wealth of indigenous peoples, to neutralize their resistance to the settlement colonial project, to strengthen the process of ethnic segregation within the settlement colony, to sabotage the conditions of class conflict, and to divide the ranks of the vulnerable elements within the settler colonial working class.

Although the phenomenon of political violence can be seen as a hallmark of the Zionist movement and its practical applications in Arab Palestine, some Zionists, writers and politicians, have developed ideological concepts that give Zionism some exceptions, such as the slogans of “purity of arms”, “self-defense”, “self-restraint” and “hatred of violence”. By formulating these slogans, they sought to paint a different picture of the practices of the Zionist movement. The following is an analysis of the concept of “purity of arms” which have developed by Zionist settlers in the 1930s.

The Myth of the Purity of Arms

The concept of “purity of arms” is one of the symbols of Zionist military culture, which was developed during the British colonial period 1919-1948. The Israeli military wanted this concept to mean that the weapons used by the Zionist soldier will not be used against the innocent and therefore will remain pure.

According to Zionist writer Anita Shapira, it was during the 1936 Palestinian revolution in Palestine, that Zionist settler colonialists promoted,

“… [s]elf-image of Jews as a people who hate violence, as opposed to the image of Arabs as a bloodthirsty people… In exchange for the bloodthirsty image of the son of the desert, the moral image of a Jew who does not harm the innocent has been developed …”[6]

The ideological, political and psychological aspects of the use of political violence were developed by the Zionist movement and were used as a successful tool in recruiting settlers and making them a monolithic bloc. This act transcended the class conflict within the settler community and justified the looting, violence and terrorism that were employed against the Palestinian indigenous population.

Patterns of Zionist Political Violence

Zionist author Ian Lustick attributes to Zionist violence defensive motives and other social and ideological motives. He elaborated his ideas by stating that,

… the fight of Jews and their revenge against the Palestinian villages and Bedouin tribes, were motivated not only by self defense, but also by the desire to prove individual self-worth through the use of successful violence. This strives for the collective crystallization of an inspiring example of physical prowess and Jewish heroism in Palestine. It also provides Diaspora Jews with legitimacy which is another dimension of Zionist ideology.[7]

Zionist writer Anita Shapira elaborated that the ideology of so-called “restraint” and “self-defense” of the Zionist military has been adapted to offensive tactics and aggressive practices, and it was expressed in this most obvious position: “We will not harm innocent people, and our weapons will remain clean.” But we will strike gangs** and their bases in the villages …”[8]  She continued by stating that “… more than once, and by necessity, innocent people have also been harmed…”  Here we will present patterns of Zionist military operations that Shapira wants to include under the classification of “compulsive form” to give it exceptional status and show it as if it occurred without prior planning but inadvertently and accidentally.[9]

The Myth of Self-Defense

Razan al-Najjar, the 21 year old Gaza medic killed by an Israeli sniper on June 1, treating an injured man, undated photo from Palestine Live on twitter.

This self-image developed by the Zionist settlers of their soldiers appears to be inconsistent with the military practices that have taken place on the ground. In 1936-1939, Zionist military organizations Hagana, Etsel and Lehi carried out series of military operations against Palestinian civilian communities, causing many Palestinian civilian casualties. The operations varied and included: indiscriminate shooting of civilians passing by, shooting at: house residents, bus and train passengers. In addition, grenades were thrown at civilian gatherings, inside cafes, restaurants and cinemas. There was frequent use of temporary explosives, mines, car bombs and barrel bombs that were placed inside Palestinian city neighborhoods.[10]

It is worth mentioning here that the Zionist military organizations were the first to blow up cars in Palestine, and the first to use barrel bombs filled with booby-trapped explosives, which was a distinctive Zionist innovation. These barrels were known as “Jewish barrel bomb technique”[11]. They were used in the occupation of the city of Haifa, and during the ethnic cleansing of the city in 1948. The “barrels” were stuffed with explosives. They were rolled from the top of the Carmel Mountains to the lower Arab neighborhoods. They were electronically built so as to explode the moment they collided with the houses of Palestinian civilians.[12] Moreover, barrel bombs were also used by Zionist terrorists against Palestinian civilians in the cities of Jaffa and Jerusalem.[13]

These operations can only be described as terroristic, because the victims were always innocent Palestinian civilians and they bore Zionist political objectives. In order to better understand such Zionist practices, we need to shed some light on the phenomenon of terrorism, which was used as a functional tool for achieving political objectives.

According to George Lopez, an expert on the issue of terrorism,

Terrorism is a form of political violence… Terrorism is not violence without thinking. It reflects a detailed strategy that uses extreme violence to make people feel vulnerable and can be hurt many times … In the long run, the terrorists seek to employ this fear to serve real political objectives.[14]

In response to claims by the Zionist writers that Zionists were forced to use violence and force because of violent operations carried out by the Palestinians against Zionist settlers, American writer Norman Finkelstein showed that Zionism “did not use … [v]iolence in spite of it. The use of force was not circumstantial. The use of force was integral in the goal of transforming Palestine, which has an overwhelming Arab majority, into a Jewish state.”[15]

In his analysis of the myth of “the purity of arms”, Israeli academic and researcher Dan Yahav pointed out that,

Terrorism has coincided with Jewish settlement since the beginning of agricultural and urban settlement in Israel at the end of the 19th century, when security problems for individuals and property emerged. Many violent acts and accompanying reprisals have been carried out against the backdrop of numerous territorial disputes…[16]

Moreover, Zionist violence and terror did not start with the ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948-1949, but preceded that in a number of years. For example, at the beginning of the 1936 general strike in Palestine, three members of the Hagna military organization threw two grenades inside an Arab café located in the Rumema neighborhood of Arab Jerusalem. Three Palestinians were killed and six others were wounded in the blast. In November 1940, three ships carrying 3,642 illegal Jewish settlers sailed to the port of Haifa. Their mission was organized with the approval of the Gestapo. Being illegal, they were arrested by the British mandate authorities, who prevented their entry into Palestine and decided to deport them to Mauritius. The British authorities transferred a number of illegal immigrants to a French ship called Patria. The leadership of both the Jewish Agency and the Hagana, decided to sabotage Patria to prevent it from sailing to Mauritius. On November 25, 1940 a mine was smuggled in and planted into Patriato be later detonated. The blast created a large hole and water began to enter the ship. As a result, the ship tilted on its side, throwing to the sea water a large number of Jewish illegal immigrants and drowning 267 of them.[17]

Yahav’s book is full of many examples of terroristic practices that were perpetrated by the Zionist military organizations. Therefore, “The purity of arms”, “self-defense”, “hatred of violence” and “restraint” were ideological symbols and legends that were developed by Zionist settlers from the military, political leaders and writers. The aim behind their development was to conceal the truth, to conceal the atrocities and war crimes that were committed against the indigenous Palestinian population, and to show some sort of a fake morality of Zionist colonialist settlement.

In addition, Zionist practices included violence against property and psychological violence. Actually, the employment of violence is an ongoing process and constitutes an integral part of the development of Political Zionism.

If compared with other settler colonial projects that have evolved in the Third World, certain features give the Zionist settlement project a special form and specificity. The Zionist colonial project aimed at replacing the indigenous people of Palestine with settler colonial immigrants. This replacement was carried out by ethnic cleansing through the use of pure violence, aggression, terrorism and massacres, of which 110 massacres[18] were committed in 1948-1949. Therefore, we can call the Zionist project a colonial settlement that sought to colonize by replacement.

Israeli Violent Society

There are many testimonies of scholars and writers in the world who confirm the violent and aggressive nature of Israeli settler colonial society. But few Israeli intellectuals recognize this, or are willing to admit it. However, there are exceptions. In an interview with the evening economic Israeli newspaper Globes, former Israeli Minister of Education, Shulamit Aloni, described Israeli society in the following terms.

We are an uncivilized society. Violence and cruelty here are appalling. Is pride in violence not present in the military? How many people have come out of the army, since the first intifada, and were completely insane? All of this is caused by the occupation, which is rooted here in a beautiful place. Occupation is corrupt because it allows the theft of their land and allows them to be abused and looted. The 14-year-old boy comes out with a knife that he knows is allowed, he knows very well what is happening, and he also wants to defend himself. They are watching the strongest, most ethical and their practices. If in the past they were cursing, they are now beating. If in the past they were beating, they are now stabbing. We are people who scream all the time, and that is part of the violence. They didn’t teach us to speak quietly, to listen. We became violent by shouting, talking and acting as well.[19]

It is worth mentioning that Israeli prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip has been accompanied since 1967 with settler colonies that were established illegally inside the Palestinian territories. Thus Zionist rule inside these territories encompasses all the features of settler colonialism, and military occupation is one feature that was used as a tool to implement the Zionist settler colonial project.

As a precondition to the practice of Zionist political violence, Zionist leaders employed zoological language in the description of Palestinian indigenous peoples. The use of zoological language was the environment into which two psycho-sociological processes, that of substitution and dehumanization, evolved prior to the practice of political violence.

(e) Racism and Zoology

Over the years, terms, expressions and titles have been developed and used only by Jewish Israelis when they speak or write about Arab Palestinians. These terms are used in the media (written, visual and audio), in public spaces, by military personnel, politicians, intellectuals and even by children. I will present some of these titles here and then analyze the motive behind their use in Israeli and Zionist discourse.

There are special terms that are used in Israel to describe Palestinian demonstrations such as “assafsoof”- mobs, “shelhoov yetsareem” – alerting instincts, “hamon moussat”- an incited gathering, and “heshtoliloot”- meaning insane behavior. In addition, when the Israeli army attacks a Palestinian position, they use the term “tihoor kenay mihableem”- clearing nests of saboteurs, as if Palestinian fighters were nothing but harmful insects that should be sprayed with chemical pesticides. All these titles are circulated in various Israeli media.[20]

The use of these racial slurs is not limited to the Zionist period of settler colonialism. Other racial slurs were also used during the period of Jewish non-Zionist settler colonialism. In his essay “The Truth from the Land of Israel”, spiritual Zionist writer Ahad Ha’am mentioned in 1891 that “We are accustomed abroad to look at Arabs as wild barbarian animals who live in the desert and as a people who are similar to donkeys…”[21]

Zionist leaders frequently used racial slurs. The Zionist right-wing theorist, Vladimir Jabotinsky, described the Palestinians as “a group of half-savages.”[22] Tivankin, one of the leaders of the left-wing Zionist party Ahdoot Havoda, described Palestinian demonstrations as “masses of savages”, “Arab thieves”, and “an instigated mob”[23], while the Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion told a meeting of his party Mapai in 1931, “They also have the right to human beings, but they are savages,”[24] and a number of Zionist intellectuals, such as the writer Abba Ahimeir and the national poet Ori Tsvi Greenberg, did not see the Arabs as human beings, but regarded them rather as “desert savages” and “herds of Arab wolves.”[25]

During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin called the Palestinian Arabs “animals on two legs”[26], while former northern commander General Yanush Ben-Gal described Palestinians, in the Galilee region in northern Palestine, as “cancer in the body of the state.”[27] The former commander of the Israeli army, general Rafael Eitan, described the Palestinians as “drug-sedated cockroaches in a bottle”[28], and one of the settler leaders in the West Bank, lawyer Elyakim Ha’etsni, described the Palestinians as “rats”[29]. General Ehud Barak described the Palestinians as “crocodiles”[30], while Rabbi Ovadia Yusuf, rabbi of the Eastern Jews and spiritual leader of the Shas party, described the Palestinians as “snakes”[31] which symbolized evil.

The frequent use of racial slurs for the Palestinian Arabs that come from the world of animals and insects does not stop with these leaders, but is employed by some Israeli intellectuals, like writers in literature and children’s stories and researchers. For example, Israeli writer Or Paz, who wrote a novel entitled “Ants”, described Palestinians as “people” composed of ants, that are damaging the upper storey of a couple of Israelis who are meant to symbolize the Israeli people.[32] Israeli university lecturer Benny Morris described Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as “wild animals” and “barbarians”. He recommended that something like a cage has to be built for them. He also depicted the Arab world as a “barbarian world”. [33]

In 1985, Israeli researcher Adir Cohen studied and analyzed 1,700 Israeli children’s books written by a group of Israeli children’s book writers. In many of these children stories, Adir Cohen found that the authors have depicted the Palestinian Arabs with racial slurs that included “poisonous snakes, foxes, wolfs, donkeys, frogs, and predators.”[34]

At least two right-wing ex-ministers, have openly used racial slurs against Palestinian Arabs. In 2013, the then deputy defense minister MK Eli Ben Dahan, depicted the Palestinian Arabs by saying: “To me, they are like animals, they aren’t human”[35]. And in 2014, the then Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked, called Palestinian Arabs “little snakes”.[36]

The phenomenon of using racial slurs to depict the indigenous populations is not limited to the Israeli settler colonizers, but has also appeared among other European settler colonizers. Frantz Fanon has pointed out that French settler colonizers in Algeria have also used similar racial slurs in depicting the indigenous Algerian Arabs.

…In fact, the terms the settler uses when he mentions the native are zoological terms. He speaks of the yellow man’s reptilian motions, of the stink of the native quarter, of breeding swarms, of foulness, of spawn, of gesticulations. When the settler seeks to describe the native fully in exact terms he constantly refers to the bestiary…[37]

The use of zoological racial slurs is psychological self-deception used by the settlers to ease their “collective conscience”. They implement this self-deception through replacement and dehumanization.

The Process of Replacement

In order to carry out all settler heinous crimes, the settler colonialist uses violence and terror because he faces continuous national resistance from the indigenous population. He cannot convince the indigenous population to voluntarily give up their lands, resources, freedom and homeland.

Instead of normally having guilt feelings and uneasy conscience, the settler colonialist possesses the very opposite, a deep seated hatred. In order to understand this abnormal behavior, we need some sort of socio-psychological analysis.

British psychologist R.D. Laing confirms that “[w]e attribute to them exactly what we do against them, because we see ourselves within them, but we don’t know that. We think they’re others, but they’re actually us.”[38]

Therefore, negative and despicable traits such as cruelty, racial hatred, looting and theft, which, as Laing asserts, are attributed to the colonized victim.

In his analysis of this psychological phenomenon, Israeli psychiatrist Yiftah Sokhinbar[39] affirmed that every human being has a “natural sense of justice towards his or her likes.” But aggression also produces a sense of guilt. Guilt also leads to self-hatred among some persecutors.[40]

Sokhinbar confirms that the persecutor “develops, before meeting with the persecuted, an aggressive view. He sees himself as an aggressor, and he regards the world as an aggressor. His aggressiveness increases the fear within him, and puts him in a closed circle. An appropriate ideology evolves around it.”[41] Moreover, “… For the majority of persecutors, self-hatred and guilt are eliminated by dropping them on the victim, which exacerbates the persecutor’s aggressiveness.”[42]

The presence of these colonial imperative features was confirmed by Tunisian psychiatrist Albert Memmi, who indicated that any colonial settler with a true human conscience is totally unfit to be a good settler.[43]

But, in order for the settler to hate them, his hatred needs to be adequately justified. The settler justifies his racist hatred and gives it some kind of fake legitimacy in his eyes, by assuming racial superiority towards the indigenous peoples. In his view, they become degenerates, dirty, and have animal features. Therefore, they are not worthy of the ownership of the land, wealth, homeland and freedom, and they do not deserve human treatment, but only contempt and hatred.

The settlers use animal racial slurs to dehumanize the indigenous people in order to become, in their view, subhuman, mere animals that one should not harbor any guilt feelings towards them. The process of dehumanizing the indigenous population serves the settler psychologically. When the indigenous people are transformed into animals, especially harmful and predatory animals, the settler can despise and hate them and consequently can easily direct his aggression towards them.

The Process of Dehumanization

The process of developing stereotyped ideas must be preceded by a psychological process that can be called a process of dehumanization.

This process frequently takes place in confrontational relations, especially in relations of exploitation and hegemony. In order to be able to direct our aggression towards another being, we must depreciate his value beforehand, thus making aggression against him look legitimate and justified…[44]

In his introduction to Albert Memmi’s book “The Colonizer and the Colonized”, Jean Paul Sartre pointed out the following observation.

… No one can treat a human being like a dog without first considering him a human being. The inability to abhor the humanity of the persecuted becomes the alienation of the persecutor… Since he denies humanity in others, he regards it — everywhere — as his enemy. In order to manage this, the colonizer must take extreme cruelty and adopt the immunity of the stone. In short, he must, also, depreciate his own humanity.[45]

Concluding Remarks

• Zoological racial slurs are used to dehumanize the Palestinian indigenous population by giving fake legitimacy to the looting of their homeland, and to the deprivation of freedom and wealth thus allowing the launching of colonial aggression against them under various pretexts.
• Zionist colonial consciousness produces a colonial ideology that prepares the settler and provides him with a psycho-intellectual readiness to attack the Palestinian indigenous population.
• Deep-seated hatred and racist ideology are aimed at legitimizing looting, subjugation, colonial settlement and apartheid. Political violence and colonial oppression are employed as two tools in the achievement of the stages of the Zionist settler colonial project.
• Zionist violence, aggression and terrorism against the Palestinian indigenous population constitute structural phenomena related to the Zionist colonial structure.
• Finally, the Zionist state is not violent because it is a “Jewish state”, it is neither violent because its violence is “in self-defence”, nor is it violent because of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Zionist state is not violent for “security reasons” or “in reaction to Palestinian Arab violence.” The Zionist state is violent because of its political, ideological, socio-economic structures. All colonial states have historically been violent, aggressive, terroristic and their violence has been structural, persistent, not partial, or accidental, or exceptional.

*

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Dr. Zuhair Sabbagh teaches sociology at Birzeit University in the colonized West Bank. He is a resident of Nazareth, Israel. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Manchester and is author of a number of books and research articles.

Notes

[1] Krug, Etienne G. and others (ed.) (2002) World report on violence and health, https://apps.who.int

[2] Ibid.

[3] Arendt, Hannah (1970) On Violence, z-lib.org. Retrieved on 15-6-2020

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Shapira, Anita (1992) Land and Power- in Hebrew (Tel Aviv: Am Oved Publishers Ltd) p. 324

[7] Lustick, Ian , “Changing Rationales  for Political Violence in the Arab-Israeli Conflict”, Journal of Palestine  Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1, Autumn 1990, p. 54-79

[8] Shapira, Anita, op. cit., p. p. 324

[9] Ibid.

**The Zionists use this demeaning term to describe Palestinian military resistance groups and organizations (ZS).

[10] Shahhak, Israel – Edited ( No year of publication) The Book of Zionist Terrorism- A Collection of Documents – In Hebrew – (Jerusalem: Published by Israel Shahhak).

[11] Wikipedia, “Barrel bombs in Palestine and Israel”, https://en.wikipedia.org, Accessed on: 22-6-2020

[12] Shahhak, Israel, op. cit.

[13] Wikipedia, “Barrel bombs in Palestine and Israel”, op. cit.

[14] Valkh, Yehuda (2000) Atlas Carta, p. 24. As quoted in Yahav, Dan (2002) The Purity of Arms – Myth and Reality- in Hebrew (Tel Aviv: Tamooz Publication House), p. 16

[15] Finkelstein, Norman, “Shattering a Zionist Myth: “Defensive Ethos or Mission of Conquest”, Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 15, No. 3, Summer 1993, p. 119

[16] Yahav, Dan (2002)The Purity of Arms – Myth and Reality- in Hebrew (Tel Aviv: Tamooz Publication House), p. 18

[17] Steiner, Gershon (1964) Patria(Tel-Aviv: Am Oved Publication House) p. 205. And Karta Atlas 2000, pp. 42-45, 152, 153, 154, 155. As quoted by Yahav, Dan, op. cit.,pp. 34-35

[18] Erlich, Guy, “Not Only Deir Yassin”, Ha’irWeekly, 6-5-1992. As posted by www.jewwatch.com, 3-6-1996

[19] Aloni, Shulamit, Globusin Hebrew, 12-3-2009. As quoted by Al-Mash-had, “Shulamit Aloni: Barak is the most dangerous person in Israel”, www.madarcenter.org, 20-1-2010.

[20] I have been a keen observer of Zionist media for the last 50 years. These slogans and concepts have been frequently used in the printed media, as well as, on radio and television news bulletins. The Zionist media repeatedly employ them to this very day (ZS)

[21] Ha’am, Ahad (1891) “The Truth from the Land of Israel”, as quoted by: Ben Ezer, Ehud, The Arab Question in our Literature, the first interview with Ehud Ben Ezer, Shidamote Magazine, issue number 46, Spring 1976, p. 16

[22] Haolam Hazeh monthly – in Hebrew, 15-8-1983

[23] Tevet, Shabatai, (1985) Ben Gurion and the Arabs of the Land of Israel– in Hebrew (Tel-Aviv: The Shukin Publication House) p. 77. As quoted by Gulomb, Naftali (2001) Prepared Table– in Hebrew (Tel-Aviv: Lemudan Publication House Ltd) p. 102

[24] Ibid.

[25] Anita, Shapira, op. cit., p. 273

[26] Yedi’out Ahronoot  Daily– in Hebrew, 13-4-1983 

[27] Ibid.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Haaretz Daily– in Hebrew, 1-6-1984

[30] Barak, Ehud, Reported in the Jerusalem Post, www.jpost.com, August 30, 2000

[31] Strasler, Nehemia, “So is it okay to kill me, too?”, Haaretz Online, www.haaretz.com. Accessed on 11-3-2005

[32] Paz, Ori, The Ants  (a play). As it was analyzed in “The Arab Question in our Literature” – in Hebrew. A second interview with the writer Ehud Ben-Azar, the Shadmote magazine, issue 47, Summer 1976, p. 42

[33] Shavit, Ari, “Survival of the fittist”, Haaretz Online, www.haaretz.com. Accessed on 14-1-2008

[34] Cohen, Adir (1985) An Ugly Face in the Mirror– in Hebrew (Tel-Aviv: Reshafim Publication House) p. 90

[35] Turley, Jonathan, “They have to die”, https://jonathanturley.org, 17-7-2014

[36] Pileggi, Tamar, “New deputy defense minister called Palestinians ‘animals’”, https://www.timesofisrael.com, 11-5-2015

[37] Fanon, Frantz (1963) The Wretched of the Earth(New York: Grove Press) p. 42

[38] Laing, R.D. “The Obvious”. As in Cooper, David , ed. (1971) Dialectics of Liberation(London: Penguin Books Ltd), pp 28-29

[39] An Israeli psychiatrist of Persian origin. Sukhinbar and some of his colleagues founded the “Imut” organization during the first intifada of 1987-1990. This organization aimed at conducting studies on the psychological effects of the conflict and its various projections (ZS).

[40] Rom, Sarit, “The psychology of the colonized”, interview with Dr. Yiftah Sokhenbar, Ha’olam Hazehmonthly – in Hebrew, 25-4-1990, p. 23

[41] Ibid.

[42] Ibid., p.23

[43] Memmi, Albert (1969) The Colonizer and the Colonized(Boston: Beacon Press), p. 47

[44] Hijazi, Mustafa (1976) Social Backwardness – An Introduction to The OppressedHuman Being – in Arabic (Beirut: Arab Development Institute) p. 361-362

[45] Sartre, Jean-Paul “Introduction”, as in Memmi, Albert (1965)  The Colonizer and the Colonized(Boston: Beacon Press), pp. xxvii-xxviii

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