President Donald Trump‘s National Park Service plans to finalize rules this week that will allow hunters in Alaska to kill bear cubs and wolf pups while they are in their dens, reversing Obama-era regulations meant to prevent destabilization of the state’s biodiversity.
The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) accused the administration of taking advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to push through a rule change against the advice of dozens of natural resource experts and lawmakers.
“Amid the global pandemic, the Trump administration is declaring open season on bears and wolves through its sport hunting rule on national parklands in Alaska,” said NPCA President Theresa Pierno.
Under the new rules, hunters in Alaska will be permitted to:
use bait including donuts and grease-soaked bread to draw in and kill brown bears;
use artificial lights to enter dens and kill black bears, including females and their cubs;
shoot caribou while they are swimming; and
trap and kill wolves and their pups during denning season.
Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, claimed Thursday that the new rules are a matter of “principle” and protecting states’ rights. Conservation groups expressed outrage.
“Killing has no place in our National Wildlife Refuges,” tweeted the Wolf Conservation Center.
BREAKING The Feds approved a rule that allows these atrocities in federal preserves in Alaska:
▪️ trapping/killing wolves, pups ▪️ entering dens to kill bears, cubs ▪️ baiting, snaring, aerial gunning
— Wolf Conservation Center (@nywolforg) May 21, 2020
Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke drafted the rule before resigning in 2018 in the face of 17 federal ethics investigations, and the proposal promptly drew condemnation.
Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) led more than 70 of her colleagues in demanding the rule be withdrawn.
“The proposed rule would roll back critical protections for America’s beloved, rare and iconic native carnivores, including brown bears, black bears and wolves on the approximately 20 million acres of national preserves in Alaska—land that belongs to all Americans,” wrote the lawmakers. “The rule would effectively endorse the state of Alaska’s efforts to use extreme practices to reduce bear and wolf populations in order to artificially inflate populations of prey species for sport hunting.”
More than 100 scientists, former National Park Service employees, and academics also denounced the rule, saying “extremely limited scientific evidence” was being used to justify making it easier for hunters to kill bear cubs and wolf pups.
“Interior Secretary David Bernhardt had the opportunity to halt this rule that includes baiting park bears but chose instead to ignore commonsense and opposition by members of Congress, scientists, and tens of thousands of Americans,” said Pierno. “Shooting hibernating mama and baby bears is not the conservation legacy that our national parks are meant to preserve and no way to treat or manage park wildlife.”
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Featured image: A bear and her cubs in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. (Photo: Rich Miller/Flickr/cc)
Fabricated shocks open the window to Emergency laws and emergency guidelines that would otherwise require more transparency.
The shock surrounding Covid-19 — a virus with Low Infection Fatality rates — precipitated changes to procedures and guidelines concerning the diagnosis of patients and the documentation of deaths. The changes were in large part a result of World Health Organization diktats.
Definitions were broadened. They became less “specific”. Rosemary Frei reports, for example, that,
“there are enormous implications to having overly broad definitions of symptoms and outbreaks, particularly in combination with other rules put in place at the beginning of the epidemic.” (1)
Normally, diagnoses would be more specific, and considerations given to underlying issues, but as per WHO diktats, probable Covid-19, or presumed Covid-19, or WITH Covid-19 are now recorded as (death) BY Covid-19. Furthermore, deaths are deemed “natural”, as per new rules issued by Ontario’s Chief Coroner, and so they are exempt from further investigations and post-mortems.
Additionally, Frei reports that until April 9, 2020, Death Certificates were filled out by physicians or nurse practitioners who cared for patients before they died. After April 9, that duty was delegated to the Chief Coroner.
“Covid-19” deaths in New York State are treated in much the same way — as per WHO and CDC guidelines — but apparently such deaths are not deemed “natural” because New York State performed autopsies on all “Covid-19” deaths.
Not surprisingly, as reported by Dr. John Lott, one third of those deaths classified as “Corona deaths” tested negative for Coronavirus. This, in addition to the fact that the CDC double-counted many cases, and the fact that there are financial incentives on (U.S) hospitals to inflate numbers, suggests, according to Dr. Lott, that the death toll might well be half what is recorded. (2)
If the Covid-19 epidemic had been treated appropriately, by, for example, quarantining vulnerable people and not entire populations, and by evidence-based rules and guidelines as opposed to “Emergency”-based diktats, then much harm would have been prevented.
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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.
Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.
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.
“I can’t breathe” were some of the last words of the latest victim to police terror.
Memorial Day in Minneapolis saw the echoing of the same words as Eric Garner before he was killed by police six years earlier.
For over eight minutes Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on the neck of an unarmed and handcuffed man on Monday night, killing him.
This is at least the second person Chauvin has killed behind the badge. The incident was recorded by a bystander and posted to Facebook.
Minneapolis Responds To Police Murder of George Floyd
Unicorn Riot has been covering the street protest that rallied the afternoon of May 26. Tune in:
The FBI has been called in to assist the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (MN-BCA) in the investigation of the incident.
Neither the victim, who’s said to be in his 40s, nor the multiple police responsible have been officially identified. However, after reviewing the video, seeing the officer’s name tag and cross-checking it with what a bystander said was the officer’s badge number, 1087, the officer is found to be Derek Chauvin. The victim is said to be George Floyd, from Houston, TX.
Officer Derek Chauvin, who’s been on the force for nearly two decades, has at least 10 complaints that have been filed against him. He has shot and killed at least one person and shot and wounded at least one other, in that person’s own bathroom.
During the encounter that was filmed by community member Darnella Frazier, Chauvin is seen pushing his knee into the handcuffed man’s neck as he was on the pavement of Chicago Avenue near 38th Street in front of Cup Foods. On the video, bystanders can be heard questioning why Chauvin continued to dig his knee in the man’s neck for so long.
At one point Chauvin reached for his mace to threaten the bystanders while continuing to kneel on the man. Chauvin’s partner, Tou Thao, can be heard repeatedly telling people “don’t do drugs” in response to concerns Chauvin was physically injuring the man.
The police said the man was a suspect in an alleged forgery attempt and that he resisted arrest.
In a midnight presser in front of Minneapolis Police Headquarters, Public Information Officer Jon Elder said that officers at the scene called in an ambulance when they “realized that the suspect was suffering a medical distress.” PIO Elder seems to have disregarded the video showing the man being kneeled on by his distresser.
Elder also stated the officers had body cameras on and activated, but the bystander video clearly shows Chauvin without a body camera.
Officer Chauvin shown not wearing a body camera (screenshot from bystander video)
The President of Communities United Against Police Brutality (CUAPB), Michelle Gross, said this video makes it “clear this was an outright murder“.
“The MPD has an appalling record of killing people of color and covering it up. This time, though, witnesses and video will make it a lot harder.
It’s clear this was an outright murder.
We demand an independent investigation—not the usual BCA cover up—and we demand these cops be prosecuted for murder.” — Michelle Gross, CUAPB
“He should not have died“, said an emotional Jacob Frey, the Mayor of Minneapolis, during a morning press conference with Minneapolis Police Chief Arradondo. Frey said “he was a human being and his life mattered.” Frey condemned Chauvin’s actions, saying he was “wrong at every level” and that Chauvin “failed in the most human sense.”
“Being Black in America should not be a death sentence” — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey
Mayor Frey and Chief Arradondo said the racial aspect of the incident is why the FBI was called in, to investigate civil rights violations.
A protest is planned for 5 p.m. tonight at 38th St. and Chicago Ave. in South Minneapolis. Follow Unicorn Riot for more updates.
UPDATE: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced Tuesday afternoon that four officers involved in this incident had their employment terminated.
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Dr. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center has said the recorded coronavirus death toll may be a dramatically overstated.
One America’s John Hines sat down with him to learn more.
You have looked at the Numbers.
There is a dramatic over-count. The CDC is double counting. The numbers are more than twice what they should be.
There has also been an inflation of coronavirus deaths.
Additional funds are allocated to hospitals for COVID-19 patients.
There are pressures on hospitals to categorize deaths as coronavirus. There is a substantial amount of money for the hospitals.
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Let us consider why the Donald Trump White House is currently considering detonating a nuclear weapon. It would be the first “test” of a nuke since 1992 and is clearly intended to send a message that those weapons sitting around in storage will be available for use. The testing is in response to alleged development of low-yield tactical nuclear devices by Beijing and Moscow, a claim that is unsupported by any evidence and which is likely a contrivance designed to suggest that there is strong leadership coming out of Washington at a time when the Administration has been faulted for its multiple failures in combatting the coronavirus.
The Pentagon and national security agencies directed by the White House have also been discussing the viability of engaging in war with those same two global competitors Russia and China, either individually or even simultaneously. Yes, it is true that many countries wargame certain scenarios that are unlikely ever to occur, but there is nevertheless a certain consistency in the bellicosity that comes like an endless stream out of the Trump White House.
Relations with both Moscow and Beijing are the worst they have been since the end of the Cold War. A recent interview with U.S. Special Representative for Syria James Jeffreyrevealed that American troops are staying in Syria not to confront ISIS but rather in hopes that Russia will be drawn into a “quagmire.” Meanwhile the U.S. government’s repeated attempts to demonize China for the coronavirus suggest that tension with that country will increase considerably as U.S. elections draw nearer. Both China and Russia have already been accused of planning to interfere in November’s presidential polling.
The Administration policy of intimidation and threats directed against foreign nations over their domestic and international policies has borne bitter fruit, but no one seems capable of halting the slide led by Secretary of State Pompeo and the president into an autocracy that depends on expressions and demonstrations of military power for its survival. Washington recently rejected global calls to suspend all sanctions and aggressive actions while the world struggles with coronavirus. It was the only country to do so, leading to derision from friend and foe alike and emphasizing the isolation of the Trump leadership on the world stage.
Recently the United States was threatening to intercept four Iranian flagged oil tankers that were making their way to Venezuela. The U.S., which has waged economic warfare against both countries by sanctioning oil exports and seriously degrading the standards of living of ordinary citizens, is now seeking to use military resources to enforce its completely illegal rules globally. If Trump wants to light a fire, attacking Iranian ships in international waters to enforce U.S. unilaterally imposed sanctions is a sure way to go about it. Starving Iranians and Venezuelans is in no one’s interest, not even the poohbahs who are in charge in Washington, but they seem to be oblivious to the fact that taking “action” has consequences.
The irony is, of course, that Donald Trump was elected president on a “peace candidate” margin of difference after he pledged that he would be ending “stupid” wars in Asia. Unfortunately, his assurances were little more than copies of the similar pledges made by his two predecessors, both of whom embraced business as usual for America the Exceptional early in their terms of office. Electing three faux peace candidates in a row also revealed that while you cannot fool all the people all the time you can fool most of them frequently enough to wind up in Washington.
And there is other cleverness afoot in an effort to make COVID-19 go away. Pompeo has just announced that the United States will unilaterally withdraw from the so-called Open Skies Treaty which was signed in 1992. Thirty-two signatories were, by its terms, allowed to conduct unarmed confidence building surveillance flights over each others’ territories to ensure that no one was planning a military offensive.
It is the third international security arrangement that Trump has discarded since he took office and the pretext, as in the previous cases, is that the other side is “cheating,” that Russia in particular has blocked overflights of strategic regions and military exercises while also using its flights to collect sensitive information on the United States to plan potential attacks.
America’s NATO allies, also signatories on the treaty, were not informed in advance regarding the White House’s intentions and are reported to be angry because they have found the Treaty a useful tool in maintaining mutually beneficial relations with Russia. Some Democrats and former intelligence official in the U.S. have declared the decision “insane”, both because it ignores the interests of America’s closest allies and because it further damages the prospect for establishing a reasonable modus vivendi with Moscow.
Previously Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) shortly after taking office in 2018 under pressure from his principal donor Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who is a persistent advocate for Israel. His wife Miriam has declared that there should be a new entry to the Hebrew Bible entitled the “Book of Trump.” Iran was in compliance with the agreement and it was beneficial for the United States as it would have denied Tehran the infrastructure needed to produce a nuclear weapon, but Adelson was in favor of attacking Iran, going so far as to recommend that nuclear weapons be used against it.
Trump also subsequently left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, using the same unsubstantiated argument being put forward by Administration hawks currently that Russia was not fully compliant with its terms.
This latest withdrawal suggests that there will be another departure if Trump is reelected. The New START Treaty, the only remaining nuclear-arms-control agreement between the United States and Russia, is set to expire in February 2021. New START was negotiated by the Obama administration, which would render it a prime target for rejection by Trump. It sets a cap on the number of nuclear missile warheads deployed by the United States and Russia, which is certainly to everyone’s benefit, but apparently the White House does not agree.
The trend is clear. Trump and his advisers, most notably Pompeo, are opposed to any international bodies on principle, most particularly if they are not completely supportive of U.S. policies and positions or are able to limit the White House’s freedom of action, up to an including the use of nuclear weapons. Recently Trump has cut off all funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) in spite of the globally significant coronavirus crisis. Last year, Trump cut off funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) refugee program to punish the Palestinians and express his support for the Israelis. Now, the president is clearly opposed to any attempts at arms control and is seeking to dismantle the existing international framework.
“Trump hasn’t started any new wars” say the more cogent of his supporters. That may be true, but he has attacked Syria twice based on phony intelligence and has committed a war crime by assassinating a senior Iranian government official. And he sure has worked hard to elevate constant insults and threats into a major component of U.S. foreign policy while also taking away the international instruments set up to minimize the risks of war. And it will only get worse over the next five months as the White House works desperately to shift the focus away from the fallout from the mishandled coronavirus and towards foreign enemies who will be blamed for everything going wrong in America.
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Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Comments Off on Trump the “Peace Candidate”: Contemplating War During Pandemic against Two Global Competitors. Nuclear Weapons “Tests” against China and Russia
One Turkish soldier died and another was injured in an IED attack in Syria’s southern Idlib, the Turkish Defense Ministry reported late on May 27. The incident happened while units of the Turkish Army and the Turkish-backed militant group Sham Legion were passing near Jisr al-Shughur. The killed soldier was identified as lieutenant Canbert Tatar. He become the second Turkish soldier killed in the M4 highway area since the signing of the March 5 de-escalation agreement in Moscow.
Earlier on May 27, a large explosion erupted near an HQ and a weapon depot of the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in the town of al-Gassaneyah. At least 6 members of the terrorist group died. Some pro-militant sources claimed that the explosion was caused by an airstrike by the Russian Aerospace Forces. Other sources say that the incident happened due to poor safety measures at the weapon depot.
The attack on the Turkish patrol was likely conducted by the TIP or its allies. The TIP’s main stronghold, Jisr al-Shughur, is located just inside the security zone that should be cleared from radicals under the de-escalation agreement. So, the al-Qaeda-linked group and its local allies are doing all they can to sabotage the deal.
On May 28, Idlib militant groups and pro-Turkish sources immediately blamed Russia for the casualties among the Turkish Army. According to them, the ‘aggressive actions’ of Moscow and the ‘bloody Assad regime’ are the source of the tensions. So, Turkey should continue defending al-Qaeda in southern Idlib at any cost.
The Syrian Army, the National Defense Forces, and Liwa al-Quds continue their operation against ISIS along the Palmyra-Deir Ezzor highway and in southern Raqqa. So far, they have neutralized over 20 militants, seized over a dozen vehicles and destroyed several ISIS hideouts. On May 27 and May 28, Russian airstrikes on ISIS positions were also reported.
Syrian government forces are using the Idlib ceasefire to deal with the ISIS threat in the desert. However, if the situation in Idlib escalates, the army and its allies will be forced to redeploy at least a part of their forces involved in the anti-ISIS operation to the frontline. This will give additional opportunities to any ISIS cells still hiding in the desert.
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Minneapolis May 2020. Toronto June 2010. This article was published ten years ago.
Toronto is right now in the midst of a massive government / media propaganda fraud. As events unfold, it is becoming increasingly clear that the ‘Black Bloc’ are undercover police operatives engaged in purposeful provocations to eclipse and invalidate legitimate G20 citizen protest by starting a riot. Government agents have been caught doing this before in Canada.
At the ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership’ meeting protests at Montebello Quebec on August 20, 2007, a Quebec union leader caught and outed three masked undercover Quebec Provincial Police operatives dressed as ‘black bloc’ protestors about to start a riot by throwing rocks at the security police. See the following videos documenting this event.
Stop SPP Protest – Union Leader stops provocateurs
The operation was exposed by the following picture of the undercover police wearing combat boots identical to those of the security police arresting them.
(Provocateurs in Montebello wear the same shoes as the Quebec policemen who arrest them!)
See the distinctive yellow dots on the thick corrugated soles of the boots which are the giveaway.
The Quebec Provincial Police were then forced after three days of public outrage to admit that these three men were indeed their officers operating undercover.
Fast Forward to the Toronto 2010 G20 Protest Riot
On Saturday June 26, 2010, the Globe and Mail published on their website a number of photographs taken at the afternoon riot in downtown Toronto precipitated by the ‘black bloc.’
Using these photos, I am going to show you that once again, the ‘black bloc’ provocateurs and the armoured police are wearing the exact same shoes.
Thanks to the Globe and Mail for these very helpful photos.
Starbucks Vandalised
Here an operative throws a metal chair through a Starbucks window. This man’s physique doesn’t look like a seedy ‘anarchist’ to me. Rather, this is the fit strong body of a trained soldier – somebody who puts in a lot of regular gym time. He is also wearing what is really a uniform and rather specialized equipment on his forearm and possibly his hip. Unfortunately in this picture we cannot see the shoes being worn. But we certainly can in the picture that follows, and this is where it gets interesting.
The Provocateurs’ Combat Boots
Below another operative throws what appears to be a rock at another Starbucks window.
Take a close look at the upturned boot.
This is a brand new (? recently issued) very distinctive deep black colour combat boot. Note as at Montebello, the special thick heavy corrugated soles plus what appears to be some reinforcement of the upper forefoot area. Also note the mismatched black and white socks. Is this a recognition code to their uniformed colleagues? The nice heavy shiny new belt also appears to be part of a uniform.
Here is another ‘black bloc’ operative stomping on the roof of a Toronto Police car. Where are the police? He is obviously being “allowed” to trash the vehicle to create what will become the signature media images of the event – burning police cars in Toronto. But stamping on shattered glass and plastic is pretty hard on your shoes.
But his shoes can obviously take it because he is wearing the same brand new distinctive black combat boots as the Starbucks rock throwing provocateur above (go to the Globe and Mail url to see the higher resolution original photo). Note the same thick soles with the deep corrugations visible in an enlargement as a scalloping of the front bottom outer edge of the uplifted left shoe.
The Armoured Police Boots – They Are The Same Shoes!
Now check the uniformed armoured police boots. Note once again the thick heavy corrugated soles and deep black colour.
Here is one in close-up. It is clearly the same boot as the ‘black bloc’ provocateurs are wearing. It too is brand new and shiny as in recently issued for today’s duty.
Here are more of the armoured police boots.
Below is yet a closer view of the armoured police boots. This picture shows the upper part of the shoes more clearly. The police are also wearing what appears to be an additional protective spat module which is strapped on over the shoe’s upper front forefoot area. This looks like an extra equipment add-on to, and not an integral part of, the ‘civilian’ version of the shoe, which is otherwise identical to the police shoes in design, features and colour.
And in close-up
Canadian “Bureaucratic Economizing” Exposes The Fraud
That the ‘black bloc’ provocateurs and the uniformed armoured police are wearing in Toronto (as at Montebello) the identical government issued combat boots, has at least one positive aspect. It looks as if someone in the procurement bureaucracy was at least trying to do some economizing in the spending of the one billion dollars that this G20 fiasco has wrested from the taxpayers. Very sensibly, these bureaucrats wanted to provide the same sturdy combat boots for both the uniformed police officers as well as the undercover ones. How wonderfully Canadian.
But this endearing Hobbit-like practicality has also given the game away. The ‘black bloc,’ if they ever existed as an independent entity, have clearly been thoroughly infiltrated by undercover government agents. In classic covert counterinsurgency strategy these agents manipulate the group to commit violent acts which play directly into hidden government controllers’ hands. These controllers manipulate public opinion from behind the scenes through the commission of false flag acts of violence (these are acts falsely blamed on scapegoats other than those concealed perpetrators who are actually responsible.) The psychological operation (psyop) is then accomplished through the propaganda fulminations of the completely controlled and complicit mass media. As in so many similar situations in so many other countries in the past, the goal of this combination of violent acts and lying media propaganda is to invalidate any legitimate citizen protest of the many immoral acts being wreaked upon the peoples of the world by our governments. The techniques of imperial control which have been used so successfully overseas are now being fully deployed against the people at home. Deployed against us. As far as our war-addicted governments are concerned, we are all insurgents now.
But We Canadians Can Stop the G20 Fraud in Its Tracks
As this G20 protest riot fraud continues to unfold, please use your eyes and your cameras to pay attention to small details, like everybody’s shoes! As more and more people wake up from the deceptions being perpetrated upon them, more inconsistencies in the official propaganda story will be noticed.
Evidence will tumble forward to expose the whole malignant enterprise even more. We should stop this Riot Fraud in its tracks and demand an immediate investigation.
Please forward this article as widely as you can and collectively send it to all our politicians and media to put them on notice that we will no longer allow them to participate in the Toronto G20 riot fraud of 2010.
For Canada and for what is good and right and true.
A few years ago the British medical journal, The Lancet, published a paper touting the safety of HCQ.But this was before HCQ with zinc was found effective if used earlier enough against Covid-19.Covid-19 turned HCQ’s effectiveness into a big problem for Big Pharma’s big profits.
The solution was another study by medical professionals some of whom have ties to Big Pharma and none of whom, apparently, are involved in the treatment of Covid patients.The study lumps together people in different stages of the disease and undergoing different treatments. It touts its large sample, but many of the patients in the sample received treatment too late after the virus had reached their heart and other vital organs.Most likely the people who died from heart failure died as a result of the virus, not from HCQ.
To be effective treatment has to stop the virus early. Waiting until the patient must be hospitalized has given the virus too much of a head start. Every doctor, and there are many, who reports success with the HCQ treatment stresses early treatment.President Trump used a two-week treatment with HCQ as a prophylactic as he was constantly coming into contact with people who tested positive for the virus.Many medical professionals who are treating Covid patients also use HCQ as a prophylactic.
The Lancet study was a rush job as it was essential for Big Pharma to prevent the spread of the HCQ treatment and awareness of its safety and effectiveness.The study’s authors completed the data collection around the middle of April and the study was published on May 22.As soon as it appeared, it was used to close down the World Health Organization’s clinical trial of hydoxychloroquine in coronavirus patients citing safety concerns. Most likely, the trial was aborted in order toprevent an official agency from finding out that HCQ worked.
The media, of course, used the suspended trial to cast more doubt on Trump’s judgment for recommending and using the treatment, the implication being that Trump had put himself at more risk from a heart attack than from the virus itself.
The Daily Mail, which is often somewhat skeptical of official reports, even misreported French virologist Didier Raoult’s report (see this) of his success with treating 1,061 patients with HCQ/AZ as consisting of only a small sample of 30 patients (see this). A small sample is considered to be inconclusive. Thus 1,061 people became 30.
The Lancet study claims a high mortality from HCQ treatment, reporting a death rate ranging from 5.1% to 13.8%.In response to a journalist when asked about this claim, Didier Raoult said that he and has colleagues have followed 4,000 of their patients so far.They have had 36 deaths and none from heart problems for a death rate of 0.009%.According to The Lancet study, he should have between 204 and 552patients dead from heart problems.He has zero.Raoult had more than 10,000 cardiograms analysed by rythmologists (a special kind of cardiologist) searching for any sign of heart problems.
NIH’s Dr. Fauci denies that Raoult’s hard evidence is evidence. On May 27 Fauci said, without showing shame of his ignorance or his lie, that there’s no evidence that shows the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is effective at treating COVID-19. (see this)
Perhaps what Fauci means is that no study undertaken by NIH or another Big Pharma friendly official body has been done and that only such studies constitute evidence.
When hard evidence such as Raoult’s is suppressed and misreported while “studies” doctored to produce a predetermined conclusion that serves Big Pharma profits are rushed into publication, we know that money has pushed ethics out of medical research.A number of concerned people have been telling us this for some time.We are past due to listen to them.
Private medicine is profit driven, which makes it susceptible to fraud.In long ago days fraud was restrained by the moral character of doctors and the respect for truth of researchers.These restraints, never perfect, have eroded as greed turned everything, integrity itself, into a commodity that is bought and sold.
The intent is to bury HCQ as a low cost effective treatment and to put in its place a high cost alternative whether effective or not, and to supplement this enhancement of profits with mass vaccination which might do us more harm than the virus itself.Big Pharma could care less.The only value it knows is profit.
This intent has garnered the support of the French, Belgium and Italian governments. Using The Lancet study and WHO’s termination of its HCQ trial as the excuse, the French government revoked its decree authorizing HCQ treatment. Belgium’s health ministry issued a warning against the use of HCQ except in registered clinical trials. Italy’s health agency wants HCQ’s use banned outside of clinical trials and suspended authorization to use HCQ as a Covid-19 treatment. See this.
Does this mean that Raoult and his team who by treating Covid patients with HCQ have achieved the remarkable low death rate of 0.009% are prohibited from using the proven cure to save lives? Will Raoult and his team be imprisoned if they continue to save lives? What about the people who will die from the three government’s prevention of a safe and effective treatment? Will France, Belgium, and Italy accept responsibility for these lost lives?
I can’t avoid wondering if the revolving door between Big Pharma and the NIH and CDC which corrupts US public health decisions also operates in France, Belgium and Italy. Are European health officials elevating themselves by climbing over the dead bodies of their victims?
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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.
The US has finally discovered whom to blame for the ongoing escalation of the conflict in Libya.
On May 26, the US African Command (AFRICOM) claimed that Russia had deployed warplanes to Libya to support the Libyan National Army of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. It said that Russia is expanding its “military footprint in Africa using government-supported mercenary groups like Wagner”.
According to the US military, “If Russia seizes basing on Libya’s coast, the next logical step is they deploy permanent long-range anti-access area denial (A2AD) capabilities.” This, AFRICOM warned, “will create very real security concerns on Europe’s southern flank”. On top of this, it declared, as might be expected, that it is the Russians who are destabilizing the situation in the country; like there was no 2011 NATO invasion that destroyed Libyan statehood and threw the country into a state of permanent chaos.
To make the fearmongering more successful, the Pentagon released shady undated photos of Russian MiG-29, Su-24, Su-34, and Su-35s flying at undisclosed locations and an image of the Al-Jufra air field in Libya with a single MiG-29.
Earlier in May, sources loyal to the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord reported that the Libyan National Army received 8 fighter jets restored thanks to Russian assistance: six MiG-29s and two Sukhoi 24s. Then, pro-Turkish sources also shared an image of the Al-Jufra air field with a single MiG-29 fighter jet to confirm their claims. Where the rest of the air fleet supposedly supplied by Moscow to Haftar forces might be remains unclear. Another interesting question is where are those hordes of Russian private military contractors that US and Turkish officials like to mention in their reports. While the presence of some Russian PMCs in the country is an open secret, photo and video evidence on the ground demonstrate that the scale of their presence is highly overestimated by mainstream media and Western diplomats. Additionally, Moscow’s actions demonstrate that it prefers to avoid a direct involvement in the conflict.
However, if Turkey and NATO member states continue sending their own military specialists, weapons and military equipment to radical, al-Qaeda-like militant groups operating under the brand of the Government of National Accord, Russia really could consider joining more directly the efforts of the UAE and Egypt, who back the Libyan National Army. Until now, Moscow has been mostly focused on providing a distant diplomatic support to them.
Meanwhile, the number of militants deployed by Turkey from Syria’s northwest to Libya to fight on the side of the Government of National Accord reportedly reached 8,000. A large part of them either sympathizes with al-Qaeda ideology or has been directly involved in cooperation with the former official branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Over the past years, the Libyan National Army has broken the backs of al-Qaeda-linked groups and cleared them from most of the country. The local branch of ISIS also lost its positions in northern Libya due to its inability to come to an understanding with pro-GNA forces and their foreign backers. But now, the growing terrorist threat is once again becoming an important factor of the conflict.
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With the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s passage of the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2020 last week, the current Congress is now poised to enact with little transparency its most far-reaching bill related to Israel at the height of a national public health emergency.
According to Lara Friedman, President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace (FMEP), the committee vote took place “without even bothering with a pretense of public discussion” and was especially egregious because the committee voted on a wholly new version of the bill which “was not made public until long after the hearing ended.”
The opacity of the committee’s vote on the bill was even more shocking considering its importance.
Ostensibly the main purpose of the bill, S.3176, is to codify in law the levels of military aid and funding for missile defense agreed to by the United States and Israel in a 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
This MOU, pledging a record-breaking $38 billion for Israel between 2019 and 2028, solidified President Obama’s legacy as the president most munificent to Israel.
However, a presidential pledge of weapons to Israel does not automatically result in their delivery. According to the constitution, Congress passes spending bills, and funds first need to be authorized and then appropriated before they can be obligated and expended by the president.
If passed, S.3176 would authorize Congress to appropriate funds for the remaining budgetary years of the MOU. However, if that were the sole purpose of the bill, it merely would be an inconsequential act of grandstanding since it is inconceivable that Congress would fail to appropriate the funds as scheduled every year.
Instead, the real purpose of the bill is to potentially boost military aid to Israel even higher and further enmesh the US-Israeli relationship in various military and economic fields.
According to the MOU, $3.3 billion per year in foreign military financing (FMF) and $500 million in missile defense was supposed to have served as a very generous ceiling for US aid. Both sides committed to “respect the FMF levels specified in this MOU, and not to seek changes to the FMF levels for the duration of this understanding.”
S.3176 would authorize $3.3 billion annually in FMF not as a ceiling, as negotiated by the Obama administration, but as a floor. The bill seeks to do so surreptitiously by amending existing statutory authorization for military aid to Israel by replacing an amount “equal to” with “not less than” $3.3 billion annually.
In other words, if this bill were to become law, then Israel could receive even more weapons at US taxpayer expense than envisaged under Obama’s MOU.
This is far from the only problematic aspect of the bill, however. It also includes a long Israeli and AIPAC wish list of other perks from the United States. Crucially, the bill would extend for five years congressional permission for the Pentagon to stockpile US weapons in Israel.
Theoretically, these US weapons are prepositioned in Israel for use in a rapid US deployment in the region. In reality, this often overlooked authority allows Israel to access certain US weapons on an emergency basis with no congressional oversight, as Israel did in its 2014 attack on the Gaza Strip and its 2006 war on Lebanon, making the United States further complicit in Israeli war crimes.
David Schenker, who serves as the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs in the Trump administration, and who previously worked for AIPAC-affiliated think tank Washington Institute for Near East Policy, stressed the importance of this stockpile in a Politico Op-Ed.
The stockpile of weapons is a “strategic boon to Israel. The process is streamlined: No 60-day congressional notification is required, and there’s no waiting on delivery,” Schenker wrote. It “is intended to meet primarily Israeli, not American, military contingencies.”
The bill would also authorize Israel to access precision guided munitions from US reserves, and also expresses a vague, non-binding sense of Congress that the United States should “assist” allies such as Israel that are “subject to direct missile threat.”
In the economic sphere, the bill would also authorize expenditures on a hodgepodge of goodies and bilateral projects designed to strengthen US-Israeli ties. These include a two-year extension of authorization for Israel to access US loan guarantees, an indirect form of aid which allows Israel to borrow money internationally at a lower interest rate than would be the case without the United States serving as a guarantor on the loans.
The bill would also authorize $2 million annually for five years for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Israel to “advance common development goals in third countries across a wide variety of sectors, including energy, agriculture, food security, democracy, human rights, governance, economic growth, trade, education, environment, global health, water, and sanitation.”
The notion that USAID and Israel would team up to export their knowledge of these issues is farcical in the extreme, as Israel’s separate-and-unequal rule over the Palestinians disqualifies it from modeling democracy, human rights, or governance, and its deliberate de-development of the Palestinian economy, including through its illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip, has pushed Palestinians to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe by making many food insecure and severely constricting Palestinian access to health, water, and sanitation.
The bill also authorizes USAID to set up programs to normalize Israel’s economic relations in the Middle East in the fields mentioned above, although no specific dollar amount is authorized for these projects. This normalization would occur through US funding for joint projects between at least one entity in Israel and at least one unspecified “regional partner.”
Finally, the bill would either encourage or authorize ten additional collaborative projects between Executive Branch agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Energy, and NASA, and Israel. For an overview of these projects, see Lara Friedman’s excellent explainer in FMEP’s legislative round-up.
The bill is now ready to go to the Senate for a vote, which is sure to happen in plenty of time for Senators to crow about it in their reelection campaigns. If passed, the Senate would then need to reconcile its version of the bill with a similar, but even more extreme, version passed by the House in July 2019 by voice vote.
The House bill, championed by Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), would create a loophole in the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) that would enable Israel to break free from the congressional oversight and limitations on the usage of US weapons stipulated in this law.
According to the text of this version, if “Israel is under an existing or imminent threat of military attack”, then the president could waive the AECA and “direct the immediate transfer to Israel of such defense articles or services the President determines to be necessary to assist Israel” in an unlimited amount.
The final version of the bill, which is sure to pass with overwhelming bipartisan support, will therefore either give Israel and AIPAC everything they want, or give them everything they want with no strings attached.
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Within a month, the U.S. oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate recorded two first-of-a-kind events. First, it fell below zero on April 20. Then, it soared up so high it is about to book its best month ever, CNBC’s Pippa Stevens noted in a recent commentary. Still, many analysts and other observers remain wary of any premature optimism.
They have a good reason to be.
WTI is now trading at close to $35 a barrel. That’s up from less than $13 a barrel a month ago. Marked improvement is one way you could frame this–an incredible rally is another. And yet this rally did not happen on its own. It followed a fast reduction in production and the gradual lifting of lockdowns across the States and elsewhere as many parts of the world concluded that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is over.
With such a significant cut in oil production and improving oil demand, it should be only a matter of time before prices rebound to pre-crisis levels of over $50 a barrel.
Or it would have been, had the situation been ordinary, which it isn’t. Demand may be improving, but it is not improving as fast as oil bulls would have liked. In fact, as Forbes’ Gaurav Sharma forecast in a recent analysis of the market, the best that the bulls can hope for in the near term is $40 a barrel, and not before the third quarter. Expectations of WTI back to $50 or $60 are currently unrealistic, therefore, but not unrealistic over the longer term. Granted, times right now are volatile. Nobody can say whether there would be a second wave of Covid-19 infections on a wider-than-regional-China scale. That’s one great uncertainty that is pressuring prices. Then, nobody can say whether there would not be a second price war within OPEC+ or between OPEC+ and other producers, notably the United States. According to energy journalist Frank Kane, another price war is just a few dollars per barrel away.
With so much uncertainty around, it is no wonder the rebound in WTI—or Brent crude, for that matter—has not been greater. Even good news on the demand side, including an increase in Chinese oil imports and plans for expanding oil storage capacity, has not been enough to push prices much higher than $30 a barrel. In fact, even a statement from the International Energy Agency’s head saying that oil demand has yet to peak has not been able to do that.
“In the absence of strong government policies, a sustained economic recovery and low oil prices are likely to take global oil demand back to where it was, and beyond,” Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, told Bloomberg earlier this week.
However, not all from the industry agree with this. BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, for instance, told the Financial Times this month that we may be nearing peak oil.
“I don’t think we know how this is going to play out. I certainly don’t know,” Looney said. “Could it be peak oil? Possibly. Possibly. I would not write that off.”
Uncertainty, in other words, is the strongest feature in today’s oil markets and likely to remain their strongest feature for a while. Meanwhile, the supply of oil may be shrinking more permanently than previously believed. If so, this would contribute to the upside potential of oil prices.
Bankruptcies in the U.S. shale patch are rising. Seventeen companies have already filed for Chapter 11 protection since the start of the year, the FT reported. Still, many more bankruptcies are on the way, with Rystad Energy estimating that as many as 73 shale drillers could be forced into bankruptcy by the end of the year.
This will limit production for longer, or until these companies’ fellow drillers become profitable again, which is when production will start to rise. If this happens before demand has firmly come back, there will be another price slump. The problem is that no one knows if or when demand will firmly come back.
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.
A spectre is haunting the United States—the spectre of a “China-centric world”. By voicing this concern President Trump pledges to “Keep America Great”. Some of the European allies echo this concern. Others remain conspicuously silent. But what exactly is this concern about?
The United States has enjoyed the status of a sole superpower for three decades. The Soviet Union, whose military parity Washington had reluctantly respected, no longer exists. After the first decade of docility, post-Soviet Russia has assumed a more independent position but faces serious economic challenges. China is a much bigger player, politically disciplined, industrially powerful, and technologically advanced.
But, in spite of often voiced fears, China does not threaten liberal democracies or a “liberal rule-based world”. Unlike Western nations with their long history of military and political intervention around the world, China has shown little interest in how other countries are governed and is not in the habit of imposing regime change. Moreover, it has learnt to benefit from peaceful conditions of free trade and globalization, both of which were promoted by the United States and the institutions it helped to create. China’s Belt and Road initiative is meant to capitalize on this success by improving inter-regional connectivity and logistics.
The reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States has exposed serious vulnerabilities of the country. But long before this public health crisis, the Americans feared China might beat them at their own economic game. This is why the U.S. government has come to resort to a variety of political measures to counter China’s industrial and technological ascendance. It has also increased military presence in China’s perimeter.
However, China will not respond symmetrically. It will not seek military bases in Canada and Mexico in order to match the presence of U.S. forces in Japan and South Korea. Rather, it is building up credible deterrence. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is regional in scope and consists of seven full members, four of them nuclear powers (China, India, Pakistan and Russia).
The spectre of a China-centric world, just as “the Red Menace” and “the War on Terror” in the past, serves the useful purpose of increasing U.S. military expenditures. Empires in decline tend to be violent. The actions of Britain in East Africa and of France in Algeria in the 1950s embody this tendency. The prospect of a military conflict with China may enthuse some people (it was the Second World War that pulled the U.S. out of the Great Depression) but remains dubious because of nuclear weapons.
In February 2020 the Munich Security Conference came up with the concept of “Westlessness”. i.e. a growing inability of the West to shape the international order in line with its values. It refers to a divided and in some parts increasingly illiberal West that seems to be retreating from the global stage. But this does not mean that “East” is about to take its place. Admittedly successful in peacetime competition, China has neither rational need nor cultural predisposition to imitate the imperialist experience of Western powers. To secure peace that has benefited it, China may use its weight to strengthen international organizations, such as the United Nations, and enhance a multi-polar world. This may be seen as a threat, but only a threat to the American ambition to dominate, often mistaken for “American leadership”. The current anti-China tantrum in Washington further undermines America’s credibility and encourages European politicians and investors alike to eye China as a more reliable partner.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought in vain to escape his mandatory appearance in court Sunday in his trial for fraud, bribery and breach of trust. At the insistence of the bench, he turned up surrounded by loyalists from his Likud bloc, adopted a defiant stance, and threatened to purge the country’s judiciary. He donned a mask before standing before the defendants bench for the 50 minute hearing, during which he announced he understood the charges he faces, plead not guilty and the schedule was fixed for he testimony of witnesses. It is unlikely that he will attend every session of the trial.
The first serving Israeli prime minister to be indicted, Netanyahu stands accused of accepting presents worth $250,000 in Cuban cigars, pink champagne and jewelry from wealthy supporters, and conspiring with media moguls to secure positive coverage of himself and his family from newspaper and television outlets. If convicted and the conviction stands up to lengthy appeals, he could face 10 years in prison.
He was indicted more than a year ago and the trial, delayed for two months due to Covid-19, could continue well after he concludes his current premiership. His is the first incumbent to go on trial although every other prime minister has been investigated for corruption over the past 20 years. Ehud Olmert, another Likudnik, resigned before indictment for bribery before he had the top job. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.
It must be remembered that Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, also stood trial. She eventually reached a plea deal in a case involving charges of illegally charging to the government $100,000 worth of meals ordered from up-market restaurants for the prime minister’s table at a time she had a full time cook. She got off lightly by paying a fine of $15,200. She has also been accused of misusing security personnel and mistreating household staff.
The ongoing trial has more than ever divided an already divided Israel between Netanyahu’s supporters, who exonerate him, and his opponents who convict him and want him out of office. On the political stage, the trial closely resembles the impeachment of Donald Trump, the current occupant of the White House who is a close ally of Netanyahu. Both men accused those investigating them of conspiring in a “witch hunt” and claimed they were innocent of charges raised against them. Both men are pugnacious, determined to remain in power, and prepared to lie and fabricate to do so. Both rely on a right-wing base of backers constituting about 30 per cent of voters. Both cultivate “culture wars” between less well-educated, rightist followers and liberal, leftist detractors.
Netanyahu promotes the Zionist agenda of Ze’ev Jabotinsky who sought to impose Israeli rule on all of Palestine at the expense of the Palestinians. Trump touts “America First” domestically by creating a “great economy” and abroad by reducing US commitments to international treaties and regulations, which he deems harmful to the country’s interests. For ideological and electoral purposes, Netanyahu pledges to annex the West Bank/Jordan Valley despite opposition from the international community. To appeal to white evangelical Christians as well as powerful-right wing members of the US Jewish community, Trump has given full support to Netanyahu’s ambitions.
Ahead of Israel’s elections, Trump gifted Netanyahu by granting US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, the shift of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, defunding of the UN agency caring for Palestinian refugees and all US aid to Palestinians, and incorporating US acceptance of Netanyahu’s annexation of the West Bank/Jordan Valley in the “Deal of the Century” peace plan of the administration. Trump’s aim was to see Netanyahu’s Likud secure a strong showing enabling him to serve a fifth term. Trump failed to boost the Likud. Netanyahu has a truncated 18-month term as premier coalition with the Benny Gantz, head of Blue and White, who takes over and serves tor the final 18 months while Netanyahu becomes his deputy.
Netanyahu is motivated by ideology as well as self-interest. His father Benzion Netanyahu served as secretary to Ze’ev Jabotinsky, a Russian Jewish scholar who was a founder of the “Revisionist” Zionist movement, which initially advocated the creation of a Jewish state on both banks of the Jordan River. He differed from his current followers, including Netanyahu, by calling for a state dominated by a Jewish majority but granting rights to Palestinians who refused to emigrate. Many Likudniks and their extreme-right wing allies seek the expulsion of the Palestinians. They already form the majority in the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
Netanyahu swears fealty to most of Jabotinsky’s ideological agenda, as he was brought up with it and it appeals to both religious and “nationalist” Israelis on the right of the political spectrum. Trump has no ideology. His agenda has been set by the right-wing “Tea Party” which has taken over the Republican Party and has been intimidated into backing every move Trump makes however destructive or absurd.
Both want to divert public attention from current challenges. Netanyahu is keen to play down his trial and less than perfect handling of the coronavirus outbreak in Israel, which has infected more than 18,000 cases and killed 280. Trump has failed to deliver on promises he made to the electorate when standing in 2016 and seeks to contain negative fall out over his failure to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus across the US and preserve its economy. At present the US has more than 1.7 million cases and 100,000 deaths. On the corona-issue, both can command the full backing of right-wing media, which does not hesitate to demonise opponents and critics and issue false reports about their successes. However, even successful populist politicians in top positions cannot fool all the people all the time.
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The geostrategic state of Nepal is in a conundrum over whether to respect the previous government’s agreement to accept a $500 million “grant” from the US’ “Millennium Challenge Corporation” despite concerns that it could permanently undermine the country’s sovereignty, but backing out of the deal several years after it was first made and especially in the context of American-backed India’s Hybrid War on Nepal would put a bullseye on its back for years to come.
Nepal In The News
Nepal’s been in the news quite a lot ever since India’s five-year-long Hybrid War on it dramatically backfired earlier this month after Kathmandu released a map claiming the entirety of the disputed Kalapani territory in response to New Delhi doing the same last November. India is rapidly merging the resultant geostrategic standoff with the one that it’s also presently engaged in with China to establish a northern front of expansionism in pursuit of its Hindu “nationalist” leadership’s plans to carve out a “Hindu Rashtra” (fundamentalist Hindu state). The situation in both Indian-provoked Hybrid Wars is very fluid and could accordingly change at any time, which is why it’s important to analyze one of the least-discussed but immensely-influential variables that could radically reshape the situation in India’s favor, Nepal’s conundrum with the US’ “Millennium Challenge Corporation” (MCC).
The MCC: Mutually Beneficial Investment Or Mischievous Puppet Plot?
The MCC is one of the US’ foreign policy agencies and is separate from its much better-known counterpart USAID even though it essentially aims to promote the same agenda of expanding American influence abroad through “soft power” means such as “economic aid”. The previous Nepalese government agreed to accept a $500 million “grant” from the MCC in 2017, which has since become one of the most controversial domestic political topics in its post-monarchical history. Proponents are pushing the narrative that the impoverished landlocked country requires these investments in energy and roadways in order to improve its people’s standard of living, whereas critics claim that the clause stipulating that the agreement takes precedence over national legislation will permanently undermine the country’s sovereignty. There are also serious concerns about being drawn into the New Cold War after a government task force concluded that the deal is part of the US’ “Indo-Pacific Strategy” which unofficially aims to “contain” China.
Seemingly Strange Bedfellows
This controversy has led to some seemingly strange bedfellows. Prime Minister Oli of the country’s communist-led government is vehemently in support of the MCC’s “grant” on the grounds that “our diplomacy will be questioned if [it] is not implemented” since “it carries the legacy of the preceding governments” and therefore wants a parliamentary vote on it as soon as possible. Even Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Hou Yanqideclared at the start of the year that “We welcome any international assistance to Nepal if it is for economic cooperation. We would like to see the ratification process of the MCC and the Nepal government take a positive decision for its interest.” One of Oli’s fellow communists, however, explained Beijing’s interesting stance by noting that “When the government has taken a position, a diplomat cannot publicly counter it. It’s a matter of decorum which the Chinese strictly follow. So diplomats won’t object openly. Her [Hou’s] statement appears conditional— ‘if Nepal agrees’.”
American Meddling
Both sides of the debate have valid points. Oli knows that backing out of the deal several years after it was first made and especially in the context of American-backed India’s Hybrid War on Nepal would put a bullseye on his country’s back for years to come. His opponents, however, don’t feel comfortable having the terms of a US-written agreement prevail over domestic law. As for China, it strictly abides by its policy of not interfering in its partners’ internal affairs except in the rare instance that it expresses concern whenever it sincerely believes that something that they’re doing might cause national security problems for the People’s Republic. Nevertheless, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Alice Wells (the same official who recently once again criticized CPEC) strongly insinuated that the deal’s communist critics are “taking diction from China”, which further confirms that the US is politicizing this supposedly apolitical initiative as part of its “Indo-Pacific” agenda to expand American influence in the region through “soft power” means such as economic “aid”.
The False Choice
In all actuality, the US is hypocritically doing the exact same thing that it always accuses China of doing. American “perception managers”, including both media representatives and government officials, have claimed that Chinese economic assistance is part of a secret plot by the People’s Republic to infringe on its partners’ sovereignty and subsequently force them to take its side in the New Cold War. That, however, is exactly what the MCC aims to do. Wells is trying to impale Nepal on the horns of a geostrategic dilemma whereby it’s forced to choose between becoming an American puppet by accepting the MCC without any amendments to protect its sovereignty or turning into the object of its Hybrid War wrath by rejecting the agreement. The former scenario would prospectively see the US manipulating Nepal to distance itself from China while the latter would likely result in full American backing of India’s unstated desire to carry out regime change in the country so that its Nepali Congress opposition proxy there could return the state to its former status as New Delhi’s historic puppet.
Escaping The Dilemma
Nepal is therefore pressed to choose between the peaceful and forceful methods of becoming an American-Indian puppet state against China (and likely also surrendering the entirety of its claims to the disputed Kalapani region to New Delhi if the latter’s proxy comes to power), but that is actually a false choice since such an outcome is by no means inevitable. Following the recommendation of the earlier mentioned government task force to amend 11 points of the agreement in order to protect the country’s sovereignty could provide the best possible escape from this dilemma, but only in the event that the US doesn’t then withdraw the agreement in protest. Should that happen, then China could very easily replace the envisaged American economic role by investing in those same types of energy and road projects, albeit in a manner which protects and actually strengthens Nepal’s independence by not demanding that the terms of its prospective agreement take precedence over its partner’s domestic legislation. In that case, however, the US and India would almost certainly intensify their increasingly joint Hybrid War on Nepal by continuing with the trend of subsuming it into their larger Hybrid War on China after falsely claiming that the landlocked state has thus become a “puppet of the People’s Republic”.
South Asia As The Central Battleground In The 21st Century’s New Cold War
This prediction changes the nature of Nepal’s dilemma from choosing between peacefully and forcefully becoming an American-Indian puppet to deciding whether it even wants either of those two scenarios or would instead prefer to defend its independence with Chinese support. It’s likely that it’ll choose the latter, which will turn it into a flashpoint in the increasingly complex New Cold War that the US and India are jointly waging against China in the midst of WorldWarC. That outcome would entail a drastic increase in HybridWar threats to Nepal and a corresponding multifaceted increase in the level of support that China provides to its partner in response. It’s uncertain whether the US-Indian alliance will seek to provoke a second civil war in the country, but in the event that it does, then Nepal could very well turn into the first “hot” proxy war between them and China that other regional “cold” ones such as their heated competition in Myanmar and Sri Lanka might soon become. The larger pattern at play is that all of South Asia is being dragged into the New Cold War as American attention shifts from the Mideast to East Asia and thus naturally transits through the South Asian space between them that’s pivotally located in the geostrategic center of the Eastern Hemisphere.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
A couple of days ago, I heard from Fort Russ News, that the US Surgeon General (equivalent of the British Chief Medical Officer) Jerome Adams is to officially dump the Bill Gates-CDC-Fauci nonsense predictions and start moving forward with… wait for it: FACTS! Real data, instead of propaganda.1
This will annoy (I hope) Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci, who have made a media tour, threatening the public that businesses may not re-open for six months to a year, or until and unless governments purchase their conveniently patented, Big-Pharma vaccines.
Doctor (actually, college drop-out) Bill Gates is now President of Planet Earth, did you notice the switch. No election. He just is. Laying the down law and telling us what to do, from the heart of arrogance and the depth of ignorance, but bolstered by a degree of self-belief that only a psychotic would demonstrate.
Gates screwed up the computing world and saddled us all with Microsoft mush. Taxed everyone with a computer (in effect), to make himself obscene billions. Now he wants to do the same with health, politics and autonomy. Microsoft grabbed your rights, freedom and intellectual property. Now he wants you, a slave to his megalomania. He’s not a doctor. He doesn’t even have a first-aid certificate!
But there are sane voices out there too:
Professor John Ioannidis is Professor of Medicine, of Health Research and Policy and of Biomedical Data Science, at Stanford University School of Medicine; and a Professor of Statistics at Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences; director of the Stanford Prevention Research Center; and co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford (METRICS).
He is also the editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Clinical Investigation. He was chairman at the Department of Hygiene and Epidemiology, University of Ioannina School of Medicine as well as adjunct professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.
In other words, this guy is no lightweight.
Ioannidis states baldly that we are getting a very distorted picture, because patients who have been tested up to now are mainly those with severe symptoms and bad outcomes.
The one situation where an entire, closed population was tested was the Diamond Princess cruise ship and its quarantine passengers. The case fatality rate there was 1.0%, but this was a largely elderly population, in which the death rate from Covid-19 is much higher.
Among normal, healthy people, the death rate is gradually falling to become about 0.1%, which is average for flu EVERY YEAR. We never locked down in the past!
There are deniers, of course, industry shills, who are paid to keep the fear-mongering going. They quote the distorted statistics for older people and try to pretend that the virus is the total cause of death, not the other 2, 3 or more pathologies which exist at the same time.
However, even some so-called mild or common-cold-type coronaviruses that have been known for decades can have case fatality rates as high as 8% when they infect elderly people in nursing homes.
In fact, as Ioannidis says:
“If we had not known about a new virus out there, and had not checked individuals with PCR tests, the number of total deaths due to “influenza-like illness” would not seem unusual this year. At most, we might have casually noted that flu this season seems to be a bit worse than average.”2
This wise interpretation is backed up by one of the only proper investigative studies, carried out in Santa Clara County, California, in which the authors estimated that the true infection fatality rate is somewhere in the range of 0.12% to 0.2%—far closer to seasonal influenza than to the original, case-based estimates.3
Michael T. Osterholm, a regents professor and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, is another voice of reason in the jungle of frenzy and fear:
Consider the effect of shutting down offices, schools, transportation systems, restaurants, hotels, stores, theaters, concert halls, sporting events and other venues indefinitely and leaving all of their workers unemployed and on the public dole. The likely result would be not just a depression but a complete economic breakdown, with countless permanently lost jobs, long before a vaccine is ready or natural immunity takes hold.
The best alternative will probably entail letting those at low risk for serious disease continue to work, keep business and manufacturing operating, and “run” society, while at the same time advising higher-risk individuals to protect themselves through physical distancing and ramping up our health-care capacity as aggressively as possible. With this battle plan, we could gradually build up immunity without destroying the financial structure on which our lives are based.4
Previously, the task force was working with predictive models, frequently criticized because of their tendency to exaggerate the possible effect of the virus on the United States. Models predicting the deaths of millions and hundreds of thousands in America appear to be overblown, as the real-time data is showing the death count much lower.
Adams said that the models usually took data from different cultures and places around the globe, but they were able to track more accurately what could happen in the United States based on real data gathered in places such as California and New York.
“We’re following this data every single day, and we’re giving that data to communities so that they can make informed and intelligent decisions about when and where to reopen,” he said.
A significant indicator for communities being allowed to reopen, Adams said, was actual testing data, not a predictive model.
“I feel confident that some places will start to reopen in May and June. Other places won’t; it will be piece by piece, bit by bit, but will be data-driven,” he said.
Real data? What’s he playing at? Oh, science, I guess, not propaganda!
I hope so…
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This year marks 250 years since the philosopher G. W. F. Hegel was born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Germany. In light of this anniversary I reassess what Hegel’s philosophy of nature can contribute to our contemporary understanding – what it has to say to us as we face a time of unprecedented environmental degradation.
We are in the midst of a mass extinction; losing species – plants and animals – somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times the naturally occurring background rate of extinction. Clearly, estimates vary widely – but there is a general consensus that anthropogenic climate change “at least ranks alongside other recognized threats to global biodiversity,” and is in all likelihood the “greatest threat in many if not most regions.”
What can Hegel’s philosophy teach us given this unfolding catastrophe? For most philosophers and scholars (not to mention scientists), if there is any area of Hegel’s thought that is antiquated and irrelevant it is his Naturphilosophie. Indeed, even in Hegel’s own day this part of his philosophy was ridiculed if not ignored, mainly because of his reliance upon a priori (as opposed to empirical) reasoning in constructing an account of the natural world. Consequently, it receives relatively little scholarly attention compared to his other monumental contributions to modern thought. This is unfortunate; for Hegel’s approach to nature is anything but a mere curiosity in the museum of ideas, even if parts of it seem dated or worse. Rather, what he has to say is centrally relevant to environmental concerns today.
The root causes of anthropogenic climate change – which has led to the endangering of countless species across the globe – cannot be adequately grasped in isolation from the technological application of modern science. While Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was certainly justified in calling upon American legislators to “unite behind the science,” neither can we overlook the culpability of science in bringing about the environmental crisis.
Alison Stone’s Petrified Intelligence (2004) offers one of the few sustained and sympathetic studies of Hegel’s philosophy of nature. She points out that the problem with the scientific approach is that it rests on inadequate metaphysical assumptions: “Empirical scientists work from a metaphysical assumption according to which natural forms cannot in any sense be considered agents whose behavior has meaning, but rather are bare things whose behavior makes up a mass of intrinsically meaningless events.”
In the Introduction to the Philosophy of Nature, Hegel writes that “The wealth of natural forms, in all their infinitely manifold configuration, is impoverished by the all-pervading power of thought, their vernal life and glowing colours die and fade away.”
This draining of nature of its inherent richness, its intrinsic qualities occurs paradigmatically in René Descartes’ famous analysis of the piece of wax in his Mediations on First Philosophy. Descartes effectively dissolves the “sensuously resplendent piece of wax into properties (extension and malleability) graspable by the mind’s eye alone.” Qualitative distinctions are replaced by quantitative ones; so that what we witness is indeed nothing less than the dematerialization of nature and its reduction to a mechanical system which can be fully articulated through the immaterial forms of theoretical mathematics.
Scientific and classical enlightenment views of nature represent it as lacking the qualities – including value qualities – which we generally understand to be present within it. Sensibility embodies a basic understanding of nature as intrinsically valuable, as having its own right and its own voice. The metaphysics of empirical science, by contrast, assumes that the behavior of natural forms is inherently meaningless and exhaustively explained by external causal factors.
Hegel wants to reenchant nature, but not by retrieving an outdated and unacceptable medievalism – rather, the approach that he favors is distinctly modern; and involves reasserting nature’s interiority or inwardness: “Matter interiorizes itself to become life,” as Hegel puts it. In terms of ethics Hegel’s conception of nature is preferable to the rival scientific metaphysics because he recognizes and insists upon the intrinsic value of every natural form. Nature’s forms and entities are intrinsically good – which is to say, they are good regardless of any human interests in or feelings regarding them. Indeed, Hegel postulates goodness everywhere in nature – not only in sounds and colors, but in chemical and electrical processes, elemental qualities, and even the passage of time and the immensity of space.
While individual natural forms have intrinsic value, they do so to varying degrees: nature is structured hierarchically, according to Hegel – and the organic is privileged over the non-organic. Hegel is also prepared to say that this hierarchy culminates in the appearance of human beings; so that one criticism of Hegel that environmental thinkers are likely to make is that he adopts a narrowly anthropocentric viewpoint. What this charge fails to appreciate however is that while humanity may represent the highest realization of Spirit (Geist), spirit is already there implicitly in the animal organism.
Animal life is, for Hegel, the truth of the organic sphere: the plant is a subordinate organism whose destiny is to sacrifice itself to the higher organisms and be consumed by them. The animal organism is the microcosm which has achieved an existence for itself, and in which the whole of inorganic nature is ‘recapitulated and idealized.’ What distinguishes the animal organism is its subjectivity – the animal is ensouled, “having a feeling of itself, whereby it acquires enjoyment of itself as an individual.” The plant lacks precisely this feeling of itself, this soulfulness.
To consider this more concretely, look at what Hegel has to say about voice, which he describes as “a high privilege of the animal which can appear wonderful… The animal makes manifest that it is inwardly for-itself, and this manifestation is voice.” Hegel draws special attention, in fact, to birdsong – for “the voice of the bird when it launches forth in song is of a higher kind; and this must be reckoned as a special manifestation in birds over and above that of voice generally in animals… birds utter their self-feeling in their own particular element… Voice is the spiritualized mechanism which thus utters itself.”
It is noteworthy that what Hegel has to say about birdsong has in fact been reiterated by more recent ornitho-musicology. Charles Hartshorne – one of the twentieth century’s great philosopher-theologians – was also an expert in birdsong. In his book, Born to Sing: An Interpretation and World Survey of Birdsong, he observes that the song “conveys no single crude emotion but something like what life is to that bird at that season.” In fact, birdsong expresses feeling, “according to principles partly common to the higher animals… That a bird sings because it is happy is not entirely foolish.”
As our knowledge of living Nature grows, we will likely find that those aspects of ourselves which we take to be most distinctly human – such as aesthetic appreciation – may be regarded as an extension and refinement of abilities already present among nonhuman animals. Hegel’s philosophy of nature may provide the basis for a more environmentally sustainable way of life, in part by helping us to see how it is our intellectual duty to view living things “within the widest of intellectual and spiritual horizons,” as the great Swiss zoologist Adolf Portmann put it.
To treat the natural world – and especially living beings – as a mere aggregate of things to be ruthlessly exploited according to our narrow interests cannot but entirely miss the deeper, genuine and philosophical comprehension which views Nature as “in itself, a living Whole.” This implies that we must view and treat the animal organism as an irreducible way of being in the world, which cannot be understood solely through the physio-chemical or molecular analysis of life.
The loss of biodiversity is not only an environmental crisis, but an ontological crisis as well – for with the extinction of a species the very interiority of Nature has been diminished, as the world is no longer experienced in the way specific to the life form in question. To avoid this catastrophe we must be prepared to draw on all the resources at our disposal, and that may well include the philosophy of nature.
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Sam Ben-Meir is a professor of philosophy and world religions at Mercy College in New York City.
Venezuela’s Central Bank (BCV) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) agreed to use part of the gold deposited in the Bank of England to acquire food and medicine to face the Covid-19 pandemic, BCV President Calixto Ortega declared on Wednesday.
On May 28, Venezuelan authorities will appear in a London court to defend the mechanism established with the UNDP in March. As Ortega said, they will claim that the Bank of England refuses to follow the instructions to sell part of the gold held by the BCV in that institution.
“The Bank of England is not complying with the contract signed with the Central Bank and is risking its prestige,” he denounced. The British entity’s only task is the custody of the gold.
#AHORA| Vicepresidenta Ejecutiva de #Venezuela@drodriven2 denuncia el robo del oro #venezolano por parte del Banco de Inglaterra "este jueves habrá una audiencia en los tribunales ingleses, nosotros esperamos que se respeten las leyes financieras mundiales"
“Executive Vice President of Venezuela denounced the theft of Venezuelan gold by the Bank of England “this Thursday, there will be a hearing in the English courts, we hope that global financial laws will be respected.”
“We agreed with the UNDP that they would receive the funds directly,” Ortega explained. “It’s not my word; it’s not that I’m saying I’m going to buy food, medicine, and medical equipment. It is the United Nations that is saying it, and they are not going to lend themselves to anything shady, anything that is not neutral, independent,” he pointed.
According to a complaint made by Executive Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, since March the Bank of England has frozen 31 tons of gold belonging to Venezuela, due to the British government’s position of not recognizing President Nicolas Maduro’s administration. She added that opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido is behind this maneuver to strip Venezuela of its assets and thus try to oust Maduro from the presidency.
Amid Covid-19 pandemic, Venezuela will also file a complaint with the International Criminal Court, for extermination and crimes against humanity. The gold retained by the British bank would be used to fight the disease, at a time when the blockade imposed by the US on the South American nation is increasing in strength.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, people in care homes have been dying in droves.
Why is this happening? Is it simply because older adults are very vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 and therefore it’s not unexpected that many would succumb?
Or do care homes deserve the lion’s share of the blame, such as by paying so poorly that many workers have to split their time between several facilities, spreading the virus in the process?
Alternatively, could medical experts and government bureaucrats, with the full knowledge of at least the top tier of government officials, have created conditions shortly after the pandemic struck that contribute to the high death tolls while engendering virtually no public backlash against themselves?
This article shows that the third hypothesis is highly plausible. The people who created the conditions may be unaware of, or oblivious to, their implications. But it’s also possible that at least some of them know exactly what they’re doing.
After all – seeing it from an amoral government’s point of view – the growing numbers of elderly are a big burden on today’s fiscally strained governments, because in aggregate they’re paying much less into the tax base than younger people while causing the costs of healthcare and retirement programs to skyrocket.
Here are three sets of conditions that collectively create a framework for enabling significantly boosted care-home deaths – and doing so with impunity – even while most of each set of conditions in isolation may appear to be purely for the benefit of everyone in society:
One. Bureaucrats develop extremely broad definitions of novel-coronavirus infections and outbreaks. This is coupled with the continuing presence, in a number of care homes scattered across each jurisdiction, of at least one nurse or physician who follows every letter of all definitions and rules. (Such individuals are always present in every discipline, but in the medical milieu their actions can be deliberate, deadly and very hard to detect.)
Two. Influential organizations and individuals produce hospital-care-rationing guidelines that recommend younger people receive higher priority than the elderly during the pandemic, by giving significant weight to how many years of life patients would have ahead of them if treatment is successful. Also, some guidelines bar care-home residents from being transferred to hospital.
Three. The chief coroner and leaders of the funeral, cremation and burial industries craft procedures that fundamentally change the way care-home deaths are documented and bodies dealt with. Their stated goal is to prevent overburdening of medical staff and body-storage areas during a surge in COVID-19 deaths.
They also put them into effect very quickly with no notice to the public; this gives those directly affected very limited opportunity for input or push-back.
Among the many radical changes is death certificates are no longer completed by people who care for care-home residents; instead, they are filled in by the chief coroner’s office.
Also, examination of the undisturbed death scene is prevented, as are all but a very few post-mortems and other sober second looks at the cause and mode of death.
In the background are the complicit ranks of public-health organizations, politicians, media and many other influential individuals. When the pandemic first strikes they focus on how new, dangerous and poorly understood the virus is. As one side effect, this scares many care-home staff so much they flee in fear, leaving their overwhelmed colleagues to cope.
After a short time, they also start to distract the public and victims’ loved ones from uncovering the three sets of conditions by focusing on other factors in the rash of deaths among institutionalized elderly – and by insisting the solution to everything is more testing and contact tracing, along with accelerated vaccine and anti-viral development.
This article shows how the three sets of conditions were put in place in Ontario, Canada.
Variations on these conditions very likely have been crafted in other jurisdictions in North America, Europe and elsewhere. An exclusive interview with the daughter of one of the dozens of people who died during an outbreak at an Ontario care home illustrates how the three sets of conditions work in practice.
Condition set one: Broad definitions of novel-coronavirus infections and outbreaks
At the start of the novel-coronavirus epidemic in Ontario, formal definitions of infections and care-home-outbreaks weren’t issued, at least not publicly.
Rather, in late March Chief Medical Officer of Health for Ontario, Dr. David Williams, and the Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Barbara Yaffe, described the criteria verbally during their daily press briefings.
An outbreak should be declared when two or three people show symptoms of infection with the novel coronavirus, they said.
Also, polymerase chain reaction testing for viral RNA wasn’t required for confirmation.
This is a loosened version of criteria used in the province prior to the novel-coronavirus epidemic. These previous criteria defined an outbreak as either: two people in the same area of a facility developing symptoms within two days of each other (making their infections ‘epidemiologically linked’) and at least one of them testing positive for viral RNA; or three people in the same area developing symptoms within two days of each other.
On March 30 the Ontario health ministry released new rules for defining and managing care-home outbreaks (with the document confusingly dated April 1). Staff at all Ontario care nursing homes were trained on the new rules via webinars two days later, on April 1.
The new rules included an even broader outbreak definition: the presence of only one person with just one symptom of a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Outbreaks were deemed confirmed when just one resident or staff member tested positive; subsequently, every resident in the care home showing any coronavirus-infection symptoms is deemed to have COVID-19.
Notably, however, there wasn’t a symptom list in the document. Dr. Williams said on April 1 during that day’s press briefing they deliberately did not include a list of infection.
This is because:
“to look for those symptoms [in the rest of the care-home residents after the initial case is identified] is a challenge, particularly in seniors,” […] “They may not mount a fever, they may have a lot of other symptoms and they may not have obvious symptoms. [Rather,] any change in their health condition really [can be considered a symptom].”
A few minutes later Dr. Williams added:
I don’t mind false alarms. [As a result of the looser outbreak criteria] the numbers [of outbreaks that] we see might be[come] quite [a bit] larger …. [But that’s because w]e want to ramp up the sensitivity. [That] means the number of outbreaks will go up, because we’ve widened the definition.”
One week later, April 8, a Provincial Testing Guidance Update was issued. It included the following list of symptoms (most of which are highly non-specific): fever, any new or worsening acute respiratory illness symptom – for example cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, runny nose or sneezing, nasal congestion, hoarse voice, difficulty swallowing – and pneumonia.
The document also listed several symptoms that are “atypical” but “should be considered, particularly in people over 65” [italics added]: unexplained fatigue/malaise, acutely altered mental status and inattention (i.e., delirium), falls, acute functional decline, worsening of chronic conditions, digestive symptoms (e.g., nausea/vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain), chills, headaches, croup, unexplained tachycardia, decreased blood pressure, unexplained hypoxia (even if mild) and lethargy.
Then on April 22 the province produced the first COVID-19-screening guidelines for care homes. It’s broadly similar to the April 8 document, except that two or more of some of the symptoms – for example sore throat, runny nose and sneezing, stuffed-up nose, diarrhea – need to be present for a person to be deemed positive.
On May 2 a new testing guidance and a new screening guide were released. Both documents concede that if a person has only a runny or stuffed-up nose, “consideration should be given to other underlying reasons for these symptoms such as seasonal allergies and post-nasal drip.”
They also narrow the definition of falls considered diagnostic of a novel-coronavirus infection in people over 65, to falls that are unexplained or increasing in number.
However, they add to the symptom list another three that are very non-specific: a decrease in sense of taste, abdominal pain and pink eye.
There are enormous implications to having overly broad definitions of symptoms and outbreaks, particularly in combination with other rules put in place at the beginning of the epidemic.
Broad definitions very likely are used in many other jurisdictions around the world, albeit perhaps masked by the use of somewhat different terms.
First, in Ontario, in every facility with an outbreak, every resident with even just one symptom is defined as being a ‘probable’ COVID-19 case. This applies whether these residents had an inconclusive or negative viral-RNA test result – or even weren’t tested at all.
Second, the cause of death of everyone who had been diagnosed with a SARS-CoV-2 infection is recorded as being COVID-19. This is a dictate of the World Health Organization and is followed throughout North America, Europe and elsewhere.
Third, COVID-19-attributed deaths are deemed ‘natural’ by new rules released by the chief coroner on April 9 (see ‘Condition Set Three,’ below). In all but an extremely small number of cases, natural deaths are exempt from any further investigations or post-mortems. (Over the last 30 years post-mortems have become rare, but to almost completely remove the possibility is another matter.)
Taken together, this may explain what the daughter of a woman who died along with dozens of others, during a COVID-19 outbreak at an Ontario care home experienced. The daughter granted the author an exclusive interview on May 13. (Under a pseudonym to shield her from possible repercussions.)
Diane Plaxton said in the interview that on April 1 she received a shocking and unexpected phone call from her mother’s care home.
“Your mother’s declining. She’s been having loose bowels and lots of diarrhea. There’s a DNR on her chart. And we’re not sending anyone to the hospital. [Likely because of ‘Condition Set Two,’ below] We’re going to have to put her on palliative care,” Plaxton recalls the head nurse telling her in a cold, uncaring voice.
Plaxton was stunned. She knew about her mother’s diarrhea: it was from bowel-cleansing meds she’d been on for about nine days, after being diagnosed with a clogged bowel. Plaxton told the nurse that if her mother seemed to be declining it probably was from the diarrhea and resultant dehydration.
She suggested to the head nurse that she give mother IV rehydration. The nurse refused, saying it would “just prolong the inevitable.”
The head nurse didn’t say the word COVID-19, nor tell Plaxton the home had been declared to have an outbreak that day.
She also didn’t mention that on March 30 the province had issued new rules on novel-coronavirus infections and outbreaks, then trained all of Ontario’s care-home staff on them via webinar April 1. As described above, the rules included very broad definitions of SARS-CoV-2 infections and outbreaks.
Therefore the nurse could well have been complying fully with the new rules by diagnosing Plaxton’s mother with a novel-coronavirus infection based on her having diarrhea alone (and without telling Plaxton any of this).
Furthermore, since transfer to a hospital was not an option (as per ‘Condition Set Two’) and since COVID-19 is deemed to be very frequently fatal in the elderly, this may be why the head nurse pushed Plaxton so hard to consent to palliative care for her mother.
Shaken but unbowed, Plaxton asked the head nurse to let her speak to the nurse who had been directly caring for her mother.
Fortunately, that second nurse was kind, and agreed that palliative care was not appropriate for Plaxton’s mother. She agreed instead to allow her to not take the bowel-cleaning meds, and to coax her to eat and drink to recover her fluids and strength. She also said she’d keep an eye on the slight fever Plaxton’s mother had.
Over the next few days this plan worked, and the nurse told Plaxton she needn’t worry.
That’s why it hit Plaxton like a gut punch when on April 10 she got a call from another nurse, who was panicking. She told Plaxton her mom was struggling to breathe and “going fast.”
The nurse said the care home couldn’t transfer her to the hospital. She asked Plaxton’s permission for the doctor to give her mother “a shot to ease her passing.”
(The nurse didn’t tell Plaxton what ‘the shot’ was. But it very likely was morphine, which is routinely used to relieve severe pain. A high enough dose of morphine slows people’s breathing and hastens their death.)
Plaxton was reeling. She immediately consulted with her sister; together they decided to give consent for the shot. Three hours later their mother was dead.
Condition set two: Hospital-care-rationing guidelines
In mid-March, not long before Plaxton’s mother died, treatment-rationing guidelines for during the pandemic started to proliferate.
For example, on March 21 the UK’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence produced its guidelines.
They’re based on a frailty score and on mortality probabilities across different age groups for pneumonia and underlying cardiovascular or respiratory diseases.
maximizing the number of patients that survive treatment with a reasonable life expectancy.”
(Interestingly, the paper’s lead author, Ezekiel Emmanuel, MD, PhD, is an oncologist, bioethicist and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The centre is secretive about its funders but according to a 2011 investigation in The Nation its supporters included dozens of giant corporations ranging from Boeing to Walmart. Today, retired general Wesley Clark and executive VP of global investment firm Blackstone Henry James are among the organization’s trustee advisory board members.)
On March 27, the equally influential Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published “A framework for rationing ventilators and critical-care beds during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The paper’s authors assert that:
[y]ounger individuals should receive priority, not because of any claims about social worth or utility, but because they are the worst off, in the sense that they have had the least opportunity to live through life’s stages.”
Ontario Health published guidelines for hospital-treatment rationing on March 28, albeit not publicly. (To this day the government hasn’t made the protocol public, nor disclosed whether or when they implemented it.)
At that time a crush of COVID-19 patients crowding Ontario hospitals wasn’t a realistic possibility for at least the short or medium terms (contrary to the pandemic-curve theoretical modelling), because all elective hospital procedures and surgeries had been cancelled or indefinitely postponed.
Toronto Star reporter Jennifer Yan obtained a copy of the Ontario treatment-triaging document and wrote in a March 29 article that:
[u]nder the triage protocol, long-term-care patients who meet specific criteria will also no longer be transferred to hospitals.”
Then on April 10, the Canadian Medical Association adopted all the recommendations by Dr. Ezekiel and his co-authors in their New England Journal of Medicine paper, and advised Canadian physicians to follow them.
The Canadian Medical Association statement (whose authors were not listed) asserted that “the current situation, unfortunately, does not allow for” the time for Canadian experts to create their own recommendations.
This is tendentious. Canadian healthcare providers and researchers have access to as much information about COVID-19 as do others around the world. In addition, many had direct clinical experience with a close cousin of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV, in 2003.
Indeed four Canadians co-authored an ethical framework for guiding decision-making during a pandemic that was based on their experience with SARS and published in 2006. They made no mention of age as a criterion for treatment triaging in that framework.
On April 17 the Canadian federal government released information to guide clinicians in rationing healthcare resources during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic. Unlike at least some other COVID-19-related guidelines issued in the same period, it was not accompanied by a press release; therefore it has flown under the public radar.
The document includes an emphasis on age-based rationing. It also explicitly discourages transfer of care-home residents to hospitals:
Long term care (LTC)[care-home] facilities and home care services will be encouraged to care for COVID-19 patients in place and may be asked to take on additional non-COVID-19 patients/clients to help relieve pressure on hospitals”
This is underlined in another place in the document:
If COVID-19 does develop in LTC facility residents, they should be cared for within the facility if at all possible, to preserve hospital capacity.”
Prohibiting transfer to hospital drastically narrows the treatment options available to care-home residents.
There have been transfers of care-home residents to hospitals in Canada during the COVID-19 crisis, but until very recently they have been by far the exception.
(Instead, starting in mid-March as part of the clearing out of hospitals to make room for a putative surge in COVID-19 patients, thousands of elderly people were transferred from hospitals to care homes. This likely also contributed to the care-home death toll. More than one journalist has compared care homes to the Diamond Princess cruise ship: virus incubators with people trapped inside.)
All of this may well be why Plaxton was told by nurses at the care home that her mother couldn’t be transferred to hospital.
This also has played out at other care homes.
The medical director of the Pinecrest nursing home in Bobcaygeon, two hours’ drive northeast of Toronto, strongly advised residents’ family members against considering hospital transfer.
The Globe and Mail reported on March 29 that Dr. Michelle Snarr wrote families on March 21 (which was the day after three of the home’s residents tested positive for SARS-CoV-2) and raised the spectre of significant suffering and possible death if the elderly people were put on ventilators.
Once we heard it was COVID, we all knew it was going to run like wildfire through the facility […] The reason I sent the email was to give them a heads-up that this is not normal times. Under normal times, we would send people to the hospital if that was the family’s wishes, but we knew that was not going to be possible, knowing that so many people were going to all get sick at once and also knowing the only way to save a life from COVID is with a ventilator. And to put a frail, elderly person on a ventilator, that’s cruel.
[In another interview Dr. Snarr said they weren’t outright refusing hospital transfers.]
The last death attributed to COVID-19 at Pinecrest occurred on April 8; by then, 29 of the home’s 65 residents had perished.
“I’ve never had four deaths in a day at any nursing home I’ve worked at,” Dr. Stephen Oldridge, one of the physicians working at the home, was quoted as saying in the March 29 Globe and Mail article. “You feel helpless. Because there’s nothing you can do other than support them, give them morphine and make them comfortable.”
Dr. Oldridge told CBC a similar narrative on April 1:
“There is no vaccine, we have no effective treatment other than supportive care for these folks, and obviously there’s no cure. So when the infection takes hold in their lungs, in this elderly population we can just make them comfortable.”
Still other media reports indicate that care-home residents’ families in Canada have denied the option of transfer to hospital during the pandemic even if the residents are relatively young, do not have a DNR, and both they and their families want the option of a transfer. Instead, they are pressured to put DNRs in place. This also is happening elsewhere, such as in the UK.
Hugh Scher, a Toronto lawyer who’s been involved in some of Canada’s highest-profile end-of-life cases, strongly opposes this. He told the author in a telephone interview:
The notion that long-term-care-home or nursing-home medical directors can tell residents and their families that they can’t or shouldn’t be transferred to hospital if they need treatment for COVID or anything else – I don’t agree with that.
[…]
[But unfortunately] there’s now an aggressive push to say, ‘Granny’s already ninety-five … and sending her to hospital for a cough or a runny nose isn’t going to improve her underlying condition. And so she should be made comfortable and left to die.’
Condition set three: New rules surrounding death certificates and removal and disposition of bodies
On April 9 the Chief Coroner for Ontario, Dr. Dirk Huyer, released rules for an ‘expedited death response’ in handling and disposition of bodies of people who die in care homes and hospitals.
The stated goal was to prevent infection spread, overburdening of medical staff, and overfilling of hospital morgues and body-storage areas in care homes in the event of a surge in deaths during the pandemic.
The new procedures were created jointly by Dr. Huyer’s office, the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services and the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (the province’s funeral-home, cremation-services and cemetery self-regulatory body).
They are a drastic sea change in the way deaths are handled in the province. Yet they were launched extremely rapidly with the only “surge” in sight one in mathematical models, and a significant body-storage-space problem based on hard data nowhere on the horizon (and still a low probability).
The new procedures went into effect immediately on April 9. Then over the next three days (the Easter long weekend), Dr. Huyer and the registrar of the Bereavement Authority of Ontario led webinars on them for staff of hospitals and care homes across the province.
“We pushed it [writing and releasing the new rules] a little more quickly than maybe was necessary because it’s a brand-new process and there’s thousands of people involved,”Dr. Huyer toldToronto Star columnist Rosie DiManno in explaining the haste.
As part of the new rules, the chief coroner’s office now completes the death certificates of every person who dies in long-term-care homes. The office also completes some death certificates of people who die in hospitals. Up until April 9, and for good reason, death certificates in Ontario were filled in by the physicians or nurse practitioners who cared for the people before they died.
In addition, as also noted in ‘Condition Set One’ above, COVID-19-attributed deaths are deemed ‘natural’ by the new rules. And all “natural” deaths are virtually exempt from any further investigations and post-mortems.
(Dr. Huyer was quoted in a May 18 Globe and Mail article as saying “a number” of COVID-19-attributed death investigations have been started – including that of a man whose daughter believes he died because of neglect at a care home and who asked the coroner’s office to investigate – but that he doesn’t know what that number is.)
Dr. Huyer said, in a phone interview:
“All of these things were added during this period of time to allow not only a timely approach but also an efficient approach to be able to ensure that people proceed to burial or cremation in a timely way without requiring extra storage space,”
Yet it was only 10 months ago that the official report on the high-profile Wettlaufer inquiry was released. It calls for many more checks and balances surrounding care – and more rather than less time and transparency in determining and documenting the causes of death.
Just 18 of the report’s 91 recommendations have been implemented. (The inquiry probed the killing in southwestern Ontario by nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer of eight people, attempted murder of several others and aggravated assault of two more. All but two of the victims were LTCH residents.)
Moreover, the April 2020 rules also dictate that families must contact a funeral home within one hour of a hospital death and within three hours of a care-home death. The bodies are to be taken to the funeral home extremely rapidly, and from there to cremation and burial as quickly as possible.
This journalist wrote about the rules in a May 11 article.
Diane Plaxton found and read online the May 11 article. She suddenly understood more of what took place before and after her mother’s April 10 death.
She and this journalist connected, and the May 13 interview ensued.
Plaxton related, in that interview, that three hours after she got off the phone with her dying mother on April 10, a nurse called and matter-of-factly said her mother was dead. She asked Plaxton to call a funeral home.
And about an hour later, while Plaxton was still reeling, another nurse called and again told her to contact a funeral home.
“I got off the phone. That’s when I flew off the handle,” she told the author in the May 13 interview. “It’s like they’re treating her [body] like a piece of garbage: ‘Get her out of here! Ger her out of here!’”
As if that wasn’t enough trauma, at the funeral home four days later she saw COVID-19 listed as the cause of her mother’s death. Plaxton believes what really killed her mother was the combination of dehydration and chronic diseases including asthma; her shortness of breath on April 10 may have been an asthma attack, Plaxton surmises.
Making matters even worse, the funeral director told her she couldn’t take a copy or photo of the ‘Cause of Death’ form. He said she’d have to request a copy from the government and it could take months to arrive.
But the funeral director also commiserated with Plaxton. He was incredulous that her mother had gone from dehydrated to dead so fast. He also was bewildered by the requirements such as bodies having to be picked up in haste and arrangements for cremation and burial also having to be made extremely quickly.
“I’m just taking orders from the top down,” Plaxton recalls the funeral director telling her.
That’s the third of the three sets of conditions that can enable high death rates in care homes.
The three sets are the work of officials, experts and bureaucrats who – while being seen to serve the public interest and who could be unaware of, or oblivious to, the implications of the conditions – may in fact have hidden intentions.
Even if the latter is true, there’s little chance the perpetrators will be caught or punished.
On May 19 the Ontario premier announced that an independent commission will probe why so many people have died in the province’s care homes. This journalist believes it’s very unlikely the commission’s mandate will include scrutinizing the sets of conditions described in this article.
Perhaps the most elegant element of all is that just one or two people working at any given care home can suffice to translate the sets of conditions into actions – or inaction – that can be deadly for residents. And they’d probably be the only ones held responsible in the unlikely event any of this ever comes to light.
It’s all as simple as one, two, three.
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The coronavirus pandemic has not only created contradictory information on the best ways to deal with it, on whether there are cures and vaccinations, or whether there will be a second wave, but they are also contradictory on how the world will look after we overcome the pandemic. Two supranational ideological tendencies have emerged – those who support globalization and think it will continue to function as if the pandemic never occurred, and those who think it is inevitable that coronavirus has sped up the inevitable end of a U.S.-led globalized world.
It was only on Monday that European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrelltold a gathering of German ambassadors on Monday that “analysts have long talked about the end of an American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century. This is now happening in front of our eyes.” Although the EU supports a globalized world, it predicts that with the end of the coronavirus, the power centers of the world will shift from the West to the East.
The new head of the World Bank, Carmen Rainhart, had a slightly differing position to Borrel and told Bloomberg in an interview that:
“Without being melodramatic, Covid-19 is like the last nail in the coffin of globalization. The 2008-2009 crisis gave globalization a big hit, as did Brexit, as did the U.S.-China trade war, but Covid is taking it to a new level.”
Every economist, think-tank and journalist are coming to their own conclusions, usually not based on facts and data, but rather based on their own political-economic ideology of how they believe the world should be, and not how it actually is. The governments of each country, whether they are major powers or small states, must decide what to prepare for and what future they want in the post-coronavirus world. The colossal differences between globalist and anti-globalist rhetoric are evident and emerging.
The World Economic Forum is one such example and has aggressively defended the U.S.-led globalized order. Only days ago went with the headline “Coronavirus won’t spell the end for globalization – but change is unavoidable,” where they argued “Nobody can predict the next crisis. But the most reliable and efficient insurance by far is to build a strong international cooperation network.”
Supporters of globalization argue that blocking people at borders can deprive society of talented and needed workers and that there is a better chance of responding to the challenges and threats of globalization if with collective action we can address the risk of disease and climate change, cyber-attacks, nuclear proliferation, terrorism and other problems.
In another article by the World Economic Forum from earlier this year before the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic, they argued that “Discontent with globalization is a key factor behind the temptation to advance policy goals through unilateral actions rather than by working together.” The article continues their argument by saying that “although improving international cooperation is an urgent task, it is equally important to acknowledge that there are always trade-offs between qualities such as national sovereignty, democratic legitimacy, effectiveness and speed of decision-making.”
The coronavirus pandemic has shown that in times of crisis, even the most ardent backers of globalization, like the U.S. and the EU, contract to protect their own interests first. Although the EU now regrets this course of action and is attempting to amend it, it has only confirmed in the minds of potential new EU members that multilateralism is a mythology that only serves the interests of powerful states who are not willing to reciprocate the trust in times of crisis.
So American unilateralism, that is, the use of maximum geopolitical egocentrism, as well as economic and military violence against countries that do not want to submit to Washington’s demands any way, is part of today’s global reconfiguration. However, deglobalization will be a difficult task as countries will have to reindustrialize and reconfigure their economies and work forces.
Interestingly, even within the ranks of globalists, there are those who are arguing the end of globalization is near. This was especially galvanized after a Foreign Policy column argued on March 9 that “Globalization is headed to the ICU,” while The Economist’s May 14 issue asked whether COVID-19 had killed globalization. Time magazine hit back arguing that “Globalization is here to stay. It’s a horse that left the barn 30 years ago, when the Soviet Union fell.”
However, this is an admission from Time magazine that it does not believe that a multipolar world is emerging in the aftermath of the failed U.S.-led unipolar system that came into existence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. This is devoid of all reality as China continues to expand its economic and transportation network across the world and major regional powers have appeared around the world, such as Russia, who can defend their interests in their own neighbourhood. There is little doubt that the U.S. was on a global hegemonic decline before the emergence of the coronavirus, but the pandemic has only accelerated this inevitability, and no amount of debates by think tanks and media publications can change this fact.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
African Americans continue to be systematically profiled and executed by law-enforcement agencies and bigoted whites creating a volatile situation across the United States
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Four Minneapolis police officers have been terminated from their jobs in the aftermath of the videotaped exposure of the blatant killing of George Floyd.
This act of police violence which has no justification is by no means an isolated incident.
A white officer was seen in the video taken on a cell phone applying pressure from his knee on the neck of Floyd. The victim said repeatedly that he could not breathe yet the policeman continued to carry out the behavior while another officer was captured looking on and taking no action to restrain the one doing the choking.
The killing of Floyd marks a continued program of intimidation, violence and execution levelled against African Americans for centuries. The government in Washington, D.C. has given state approval to target, seize and liquidate anyone deemed a threat to the status quo of racism and national oppression.
During the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and prior to the outbreak during early and mid-March, African Americans have been systematically targeted by law-enforcement agencies as well as racist armed individuals and organizations for harassment, arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, serious injury and death. The pandemic which has disproportionately impacted the African American people in urban, suburban and rural areas has not lessened the lethal force policies of the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state.
Immediate denunciations of the police killing of Floyd took place around the U.S. and internationally. In Minneapolis itself, large crowds gathered outside the police station to protest the death of Floyd along with demanding the detention and prosecution of the police officers involved. (See this)
On the evening of May 26, police wearing riot gear launched tear gas against the demonstration which had surrounded the public safety headquarters. Activists angered by the Floyd killing blocked traffic to bring attention to the plight of African Americans subjected to the deadly force that is routinely justified by the legal system.
During the course of the confrontation several police cars were damaged by angry demonstrators from the community. Although Mayor Jacob Frey and police chief Medaria Arradondo have attempted to distance themselves from the killing of Floyd, their statements do not convince a significant element within the city which has witnessed such extra-judicial executions for decades.
Minneapolis police have been the focus of mass demonstrations for many years due to brutality and deadly force utilized against African Americans and even one Australian woman. The police throughout the U.S. are given wide discretion in exercising the use of weapons and tactics which often result in death.
One of the first executive orders issued by the administration of President Donald Trump was to nullify all of the consent decrees instituted by the Justice Department related to police misconduct. These federally-supervised consent judgements and decrees grew out of similar incidents which resulted in the unjustified killings of African Americans, people of Latin American descent and other oppressed communities in the U.S.
Despite the weaknesses of the consent decrees, the administration sought to send a signal to law-enforcement that excessive and lethal force was endorsed at the highest levels of the federal government. In this election year, where the Trump regime is desperate for its very own political survival, the administration is fostering racism and other forms of intolerance to shore up its own base.
Vigilante Racism in Georgia: The Brutal Death of Ahmaud Arbery
Prior to the police killing of George Floyd, the case of Ahmaud Arbery drew the attention of the public when a video of his brutal killing was finally released on social media. Arbery had been jogging in the vicinity of his neighborhood when he was pursued by two white men and shot to death. Two white men, a father and son, were arrested in May and charged with felony murder in the case.
The third person in the vehicle videotaping the incident has now been arrested and charged with murder as well. Although the third person says that he had no role in the shooting death of Floyd, this individual did absolutely nothing to restrain the father and son carrying out the killing.
It would take several weeks for the fate of Arbery to receive national and world attention as a direct result of the failure to disclose details of the actual incident by the local authorities. Since the revelation about the unjustified shooting death large demonstrations have occurred demanding justice for Floyd.
A hearing for the three white men is scheduled for next month. A report published by ABC News says:
“The three Georgia men charged in connection with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery have been scheduled for a preliminary hearing on June 4. Arbery, 25, was shot and killed Feb. 23 as he was jogging through the Satilla Shores, Georgia, neighborhood, but charges weren’t filed until last month. Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, were charged with the felony murder of Arbery on May 7, and William Bryan, 50, was charged May 21.”
Georgia was the center of national attention in 2018 when charges of voter suppression were made during the gubernatorial election involving Democratic candidate and former Minority Leader in the State House of Representatives Stacey Abrams and Republican Brian Kemp, who was serving as Secretary of State at the time. Even though there was clear evidence of deliberate disenfranchisement of African Americans in Georgia, the courts refused to declare Abrams the winner.
Kemp was recorded earlier in the year saying he was not aware that asymptomatic COVID-19 patients could transmit the virus to others. The Georgia governor has attempted to maintain his alliance with the Trump administration by neglecting many of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and White House Task Force guidelines related to containing the pandemic.
No Knock Raid on Wrong Address in Louisville Results in African American Woman’s Shooting Death
It has been more than fifty years since the police raid on the Chicago residence of Black Panther Party Chairman Fred Hampton on December 4, 1969. Hampton and his comrade Mark Clark of Peoria, Illinois, were murdered by several police officers assigned to the raid by the-then Illinois State’s Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan.
Several other members and supporters of the BPP were wounded, arrested and falsely charged on felony counts. The police were never held accountable in the assassinations of Hampton and Clark. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had planted an informant in the Chicago Chapter of the BPP whose job was to provide detailed information to the government and to discredit the organization. The informant turned over the floor plan to the Panther apartment and later on the night of the raid, drugged the occupants of the residence so they would be incapable of defending themselves against the police.
On March 13, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was asleep in her bed when a “No Knock” drug raid was carried out by Louisville, Kentucky police. The police had conducted the operation at the wrong address. Taylor died after being shot eight times. Her partner, Kenneth Walker, discharged his firearm during the raid and was arrested by police. Charges against him have subsequently been dropped. (See this)
The family of Taylor is demanding justice in the horrendous law-enforcement action. The police chief has since announced his retirement yet none of the officers have been terminated or charged with murder. A reef laying at Taylor’s home and a rally to demand justice for the slain woman were held on May 25-26. (See this)
Repression Will Escalate During the Current Period
The magnitude of police brutality including beatings, false arrests and killings appear to be increasing over the last few years. Statistics on the number of people killed by the police indicate that law-enforcement agents took the lives of more than 1,000 people in 2019. African Americans were 24% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population. (See this)
Another source which monitors lethal force by police noted that: “Sadly, the trend of fatal police shootings in the United States seems to only be increasing, with a total 228 civilians having been shot, 31 of whom were Black, as of March 30, 2020. In 2018, there were 996 fatal police shootings, and in 2019 this figure increased to 1,004.” (See this)
Irrespective of whether there is a Democratic or Republican administration in Washington, the relationship between African Americans and the police remains unchanged. The principal role of law-enforcement within a racist capitalist society is to protect private property and the state. Since Black, Brown and other oppressed communities are the most exploited under the existing system, they often suffer the brute force of the repressive apparatus.
Demonstrations and all forms of resistance against police misconduct require greater coordination on a national and international scale. In the final analysis it will take a movement of millions to effectively end police violence against the people along with many other forms of state repression.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: George Floyd killed by Minneapolis police; all images in this article are from the author unless otherwise stated
Netanyahu’s impending annexation of the Judaized parts of the West Bank (he says July 1st) is a transformative event for Palestinian politics, and the Palestinian people, who have long been reined in by impositions that accept Zionist myths and outright falsehoods and pay only lip-service to the clear historic record of the Nakba — the unconscionable story of how the Jewish state of Israel was created in Palestine by Zionist Jews and their Western allies.
The transformative nature of this most recent outrage on Israel’s part is evident in the tenor of the commemorations on social media of the 72nd anniversary of the Nakba — in the newly-exposed and disseminated historic images and the strength and directness of the message. So much so, in fact, that Facebook has just hired the former director-general of Israel’s justice ministry as a member of its new oversight board!
To observers like Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian American writer and political activist, this move is “in preparation for Israel’s planned theft of a massive swath of more Palestinian land, they’re making sure we’re duly muzzled.”
The social-media discourse on Palestine during the commemoration of the Nakba this year has emphasized to the world three basic truths:
Justice and peace in Palestine are predicated on the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
Jews worldwide must refrain from emigrating to Israel from their countries of origin and Palestinian refugees/exiles must return to their homeland and property there.
Palestine, from the river to the sea, belongs to its original inhabitants of all religions, not to Jews worldwide.
More clearly and boldly than ever before, the record of what really happened in Palestine in 1947–48 is being restored, as in this exchange on Facebook:
Roshan Hill:The issue is Jews who have left don’t get to come back by throwing out people who live there and have since time in memorial.
Rima Najjar: Roshan, the issue is not “Jews who have left”. Rather, the issue is Jews who were never there to begin with — colonizers from Eastern Europe who would have been happy to colonize and make a “homeland” out of anybody else’s homeland if they could.
Netanyahu’s impending annexation signals, as many people have long been saying, the official death of the two-state proposal — i.e. the partition of historic Palestine into two states, a Jewish state and a Palestinian state for non-Jews — and moves inexorably toward a unitary political construct, as envisaged in the political program of the Campaign for One Democratic State in Historic Palestine, whose first tenet is:
A Single Constitutional Democracy. One Democratic State shall be established between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River as a state belonging to all its citizens, including the Palestinian refugees. All citizens will enjoy equal rights, freedom and security. The State shall be a constitutional democracy, the authority to govern and make laws emanating from the will of the people. All its citizens shall enjoy equal rights to vote, nominate candidates for any post and take part in the country’s governance.
What Netanyahu’s impending annexation has done is open up an opportunity to widen the support for one state among Israelis and Palestinians alike, an opportunity that involves revolutionary resistance, both in Israel and among the Palestinian populations outside Israel. It is no longer tenable to maintain the kind of muddled attitude that one Israeli activist and BDS supporter, Tom Pessah, recently expressed on Facebook as a “pet peeve”:
Pet peeve: today Netanyahu declared there is a date for his annexation plan (July 1). I don’t exactly know how we can resist this, but at least it would be helpful if people stopped spreading misinformation. There is *no* plan for annexing the entire West Bank or of extending direct Israeli rule to millions of Palestinians. The plan is to annex rural areas near settlements, rather than the densely populated cities. What this means is that the value of land in these areas will now increase, creating an even bigger financial incentive to drive these Palestinians off of their land. Israel already has the infrastructure and plenty of experience to do this. The villagers will be encouraged to move to the cities, or face violence. It’s almost certain that this would lead to an increase of violence that they’ll face … Being for a future one state isn’t an excuse to disregard the situation of regular people in the West Bank in the present, and this situation is about to get dramatically worse after July 1. When people spread a false dramatic scenario of full annexation, anything else that will happen will pale in comparison. If Hebron or Nablus aren’t annexed, the fate of villagers near Ariel will seem relatively insignificant. And that is exactly what Netanyahu would want us to think.
I don’t know a single person who believes “the fantasy” that one state is “around the corner” or is happy to disregard the “fate of villagers” living near Jewish colonies. Visualizing one state, however, and acting to widen the support for this proposition is, in fact, the resistance activists should be adopting, because there is no averting what Netanyahu is about to do. The one-state campaign is just beginning to get off the ground and it behooves all of us to support it in the ways open to us — through disseminating the information that the “fantasy” can and will be turned into reality.
In ‘Using Trump’s “Vision” to Break Free of Past Frameworks’, Yara Hawari, Senior Palestine Policy Fellow of Al-Shabaka, writes:
Many mainstream political ideas about the future of Palestine are primarily concerned with the containment of indigenous Palestinians and security for the Israeli settler state … Trump’s vision — effectively dictated by the Israeli right — does not radically break from what has previously been presented to Palestinians as possible futures … The Palestinian leadership has responded weakly, continuing to adhere to a political line that has led the Palestinian people to their most vulnerable point in history since 1948.
Resetting the Palestinian political agenda and strategy is imperative, and, for all we know, it is happening as we speak. As the following Al Jazeera report says, Palestinians have been trying to regain Palestine since the thieving bastards forced us out, and we are not likely to give up now.
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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.
Prior to and since the June 2016 referendum, the politics of Brexit has been accompanied by two recurrent (and seemingly contradictory) narratives: first, the narrative of Brexit as ‘taking back control’ for those voters ‘left behind’ by the twin forces of globalisation and multiculturalism; and second, the narrative of ‘Global Britain’ – that is, Brexit as an opportunity for the UK to reclaim its historical role as a champion of global free trade, unencumbered by the EU’s supposedly inward-looking, protectionist leanings. In this blog, Tony Heron explores some of the tensions and contradictions between these two themes through the prism of food and agriculture – arguably the sector most defined by EU membership – in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Simply put, what impact, if any, will the current crisis have on the political choices the government will be forced to confront in its trade negotiations with the EU and US.
COVID-19 and the resilience of the UK food system
In 2008, the sight of Northern Rock customers queuing to withdraw their savings from the stricken high street bank became one of the first and – most enduring – images of the global financial crisis. Today, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the analogous imagery is provided not by banks but supermarkets with incidents of panic buying and hoarding by consumers worried about impending food shortages. Yet, unlike in 2008 with the banks, the food retail sector has shown itself to be surprisingly resilient in the face of the COVID-19 shock with supermarket shelves, for the most part, remaining well-stocked.
Parallels are often made between Brexit and two other seismic episodes in British political history: the repeal of the Corn Laws (1846) and the Tariff Reform debate (1903-6). Like Brexit, these prior episodes are noted for the ways in which they divided the ruling Conservative Party between its nationalist-protectionist and metropolitan-liberal wings, ultimately leading to a formal rupture of the party in the first case and landslide electoral defeat in the second. These historical comparisons are also relevant for the ways in which each episode involved the politicisation of food. In an election poster from 1905, for instance, the strapline read: ‘we plead for the women and children, which will you have? Free trade or protection?’ The two choices were represented in the poster as two loaves of bread, a large ‘free trade’ loaf and a considerably smaller ‘protection’ loaf. In other words, the humble loaf was designed to cut through the technical details of trade and comparative advantage to appeal directly to working-class voters as ‘citizen-consumers’.
In the present setting, the idea of a ‘Brexit dividend’ in the form of cheap food has been a constant theme of the pro-leave prospectus. It is notable, however, that relatively few in government have been willing to make the case for ‘cheap food’ explicitly. The possible exception to this is Liam Fox during his time at the Department for International Trade (DIT), though his pronouncements were usually oblique and highly coded. For instance, when in government, Fox was fond of saying that ‘there will be no lowering of UK food standards’, while also remarking that US food standards are not ‘lower’ than those of the EU, just ‘different’.
Outside of government, the case for cheap food has largely fallen to right-wing think tanks like the Legatum Institute. Other voices, such as Tim Wetherspoon, the maverick chairman of the Wetherspoons pub chain, MP Jacob Rees Mogg and John Longworth, the former head of the British Chambers of Commerce and director of the Leave Means Leave lobby group, have reiterated the same message: that ‘Brexit means cheaper food’.
Although few of these voices have made the point explicit (though see Bottle et al. 2018), the implication of the ‘cheap food’ policy, if implemented, is that it would have hugely disruptive effects on British farming, which currently meet around half of the country’s food needs. As noted by Michael Gove while he was Environment Secretary, British farming is noted, not primarily for its international competitiveness but for its high standards and commitments to animal welfare. Pointedly, the speeches and pronouncements which Gove made during his tenure at DEFRA rarely, if ever, mentioned ‘cheap food’.
In a speech to the National Farmers Union (NFU) in November 2018, Gove spoke positively of increasing public scrutiny of the circumstances in which food is produced and the need to make healthy food choices. ‘This scrutiny’, Gove said, ‘only strengthens the hand of British farmers. A demand for higher standards, for more sustainable production, for high standards in animal welfare and more nutritious choices can only mean a demand for more high-quality British produce rather than the alternative’. Although Gove did not go on to elaborate on what the ‘alternative’ referred to precisely, we can infer he meant cheaper imported food, presumably produced to lower standards and with less concern for animal welfare or the environment.
What’s on the menu?
The government’s steadfast refusal to countenance an extension to the Brexit transition period, coupled with the relaunch of free trade talks with the US, is fueling speculation that Boris Johnson’s government is intent on radically transforming the UK’s model of political economy. Applying this logic to food and agriculture, Brexit provides an opportunity to leave the EU’s regulatory orbit, including the Common Agricultural Policy, so as to reclaim and re-design a UK food policy from scratch. Yet, COVID-19 is a stark reminder of just how deeply the nation’s food security is dependent on the EU.
More significantly than this, Boris Johnson’s government seems reluctant to actually make the argument explicitly for the radical shake-up of the agricultural sector, even though this implicit in the ‘Global Britain’ prospectus. Indeed, if anything, protecting the UK’s farmers seems to be hardening into something close to a negotiating ‘red line’ – to the obvious disappointment of some Brexiteers. Of course, a more tumultuous outcome cannot be ruled out, especially given the (quite high) prospects of a disorderly Brexit in which the UK’s relatively weak bargaining position vis-a-vis the US and other potential trade partners would be further exposed. But, for now, it is perhaps best to follow the old adage: never order the cheapest dish on the menu.
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Tony Heron is Professor of International Political Economy, Department of Politics, University of York.
The US under both right wings of its war party represents an unparalleled threat to world peace, stability, democratic values, and the rule of law.
As long as the world community fails to uphold UN Charter principles and other core international law, global war 3.0 might be just a matter of time.
In the thermonuclear age, the threat of potential armageddon looms large.
On Wednesday, Pompeo lashed out against Iran and China, his latest outburst against both countries.
When the Trump regime abandoned the JCPOA two years ago, breaching international law, the US unilaterally reimposed illegal sanctions on Iran — ignoring the unanimous International Court of Justice (ICJ) order against reimposition.
At the same time, the Trump regime granted waivers to several countries, including Iraq to import gas, electricity, and food products from Iran — as long as not bought with US dollars.
On Wednesday, Pompeo announced “the end of the sanctions waiver covering all remaining JCPOA-originating nuclear projects in Iran (sic).”
Iran’s “nuclear projects” have no military component, a reality well known to the world community, including the US.
Countries involved with Iran commercially have 60 days to wind down their activities, according to Pompeo.
He announced sanctions on two Iranian officials connected to its legitimate nuclear program, falsely accusing them of “engaging or attempting to engage in activities that have materially contributed to, or pose a risk of materially contributing to, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (sic).”
No such activities exist. In its annual assessment of potential global threats, the US intelligence community refutes the notion of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
Often it uses language to the effect that it doesn’t know for sure that one doesn’t exist, while stating that no evidence suggests it.
Without credible proof, claims otherwise are groundless. Virtually all Trump regime accusations against Iran and other nations on the US target list for regime change have no basis in fact.
Charges against them are invented, not real.
Pompeo also announced a separate 90-day waiver for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant “to ensure safety of (its) operations.”
His latest outburst is all about wanting a stake driven through the JCPOA’s heart by the Trump regime, wanting the landmark agreement eliminated — pre-JCPOA sanctions reimposed by the Security Council, an arms embargo on Iran maintained.
Russia and China strongly oppose the diabolical Trump regime aim.
Separately, Pompeo escalated Trump regime war on China by other means.
He told Congress that “Hong Kong does not continue to warrant treatment under United States laws in the same manner as US laws were applied to Hong Kong before July 1997,” adding:
The Trump regime “stands with the people of Hong Kong (sic) as they struggle against (Beijing’s) denial of the autonomy that they were promise (sic).”
Under the 1992 US-Hong Kong Policy Act, the city is treated separately from mainland China on matters relating to trade — its status likely to be revoked by the Trump regime on the phony pretext of Beijing’s new national security law.
Heading for enactment in June, the measure is all about protecting China against threats to its national security that include secession, sedition, treason, and other subversive activities, as well as foreign interference and terrorism.
The measure’s purpose is similar to legislation enacted by other countries, including the US.
Under the House and Senate unanimously adopted 2019 Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (sic), signed into law by Trump, the US breached the UN Charter by illegally meddling in China’s internal affairs.
At the time, China’s Global Times called the measure the “Support KH Violence Act,” siding with thuggish rioters against the rule of law and rights of all city residents, opposing efforts by Hong Kong authorities to restore order, adding:
The bill “trampl(es) (on) the basic norms of international law and international relations,” escalating US “cold war with China,” what Beijing won’t tolerate.
Its authorities may respond to the measure by “sanction(ing) (US officials who proposed the bill), restrict their entry into China, and investigate their interests in China.”
Beijing may also “enact a ‘blocking statute,’ warning US authorities not to abuse or enforce the bill.”
According to the measure, the White House must decide annually whether Hong Kong deserves special status separate from mainland China.
Pompeo’s Wednesday announcement suggests likely harsh Trump regime actions ahead against Hong Kong, similar to its war on mainland China by other means.
The country’s GDP today is around 40-fold greater than Hong Kong’s, the city far less important economically than when returned to Beijing control in 1997 as a special administrative region under a one-country, two systems arrangement.
China’s new national security law leaves its local autonomy unchanged, the measure aimed at protecting the entire country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity from internal and external jeopardizing actions — the latter notably by the US.
China’s Washington embassy issued a statement, saying the following:
The new national security law “targets a very narrow category of acts.”
It will have “no impact on Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong residents, or the legitimate rights and interests of foreign investors.”
“Hong Kong affairs are China’s internal affairs and allow no external interference.”
“As for foreign meddling in Hong Kong affairs, we will take necessary countermeasures in response.”
Illegal Trump regime sanctions on Hong Kong and its authorities are likely coming, along with the threat of secondary sanctions against nations, entities, and individuals not abiding by what no one should accept.
If Trump regime war on Hong Kong by other means occurs in response to China’s national security law, Beijing will likely shift city financial operations to Shanghai and encourage enterprises operating in the city to follow suit.
On Wednesday, China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet stressed that new national security legislation is “a matter of national sovereignty that allows no external interference.”
The principle is supported by the UN Charter and other international law — what the US throughout the post-WW II period breached time and again.
Note: On Thursday, China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) adopted the new national security law.
The measure heads to a Standing Committee to prepare its actual details, a process likely to be completed in June.
A Final Comment
Far and away, the US is the world’s leading human rights abuser at home and abroad — by its preemptive hot wars, illegal sanctions wars, state terrorism, homeland police state laws, its world’s largest global gulag prison system, along with killings and brutality against Black youths and other people of color by militarized state and local cops.
Yet on Wednesday, based on the phony US concern for human rights, congressionally approved legislation that calls for (unilaterally imposed illegal) US sanctions on China was sent to the White House for enactment into law.
The so-called Uighur Human Rights Act by a nation at war on Islam in multiple theaters, as well as immigrants of the wrong color or nationality, passed the House Wednesday with one dissenting vote.
In mid-May, it passed the Senate unanimously without a roll-call vote.
China’s People’s Daily slammed the measure, saying it “exposed the evil intention of the US…by distorting the facts (to contain) the development of China under the disguise of religion and human rights protection” the US doesn’t give a hoot about.
“Such malicious attack on Chinese government’s Xinjiang policies and the unethical practices of distorting facts seriously violates international law and basic norms governing international relations, and grossly interferes in China’s internal affairs.”
“Xinjiang-related issues are not about human rights, ethnicity or religion, but about fighting violence, terrorism and separatism.”
The US invents pretexts to target nations it doesn’t control, China clearly in the eye of its generated storm.
Bilateral relations are likely to worsen ahead, increasing the possibility of confrontation between two nuclear powers.
Canada is a virtual appendage of US foreign policy. On Wednesday, a Canadian judge ruled in favor of extraditing Chinese tech giant Huawei’s chief financial officer Sabrina Meng Wanzhou to the US — despite baseless Trump regime charges against her and the company.
Bowing to its pressure, Canadian authorities unlawfully arrested and detained her in December 2018 on phony charges.
After release from detention, she’s been confined under house arrest, pending whether Canada would or would not extradite her to stand kangaroo court trial in the US — a guilt by accusation system against targeted individuals
The action against her and Huawei is all about wanting China’s technological development undermined by the US, Canada allying with its agenda.
If Meng is unlawfully extradited to the US and prosecuted for the crime of successfully competing with US firms, China will no doubt retaliate in its own way at a time of its choosing.
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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.”
“We have informed both India and China that the United States is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute.”
He ignored longstanding US efforts to drive a stake through China/India relations, aiming to transform both countries into mortal enemies.
The US is no mediator. Hegemons seek conflicts and instability to advance their agenda.
Peace, stability, and cooperative relations among nations defeat their imperial agenda.
Since the US recognized Israel in May 1948, established on stolen Palestinian land, it’s involvement in “mediating” the conflict between them one-sidedly supported Jewish state interests at the expense of fundamental Palestinian rights.
To this day, notably under Trump, the US winks, nods or approves of continued Israeli land theft.
It’s in DJT’s no-peace/peace plan, showing his disdain for long-suffering Palestinians, the same true for his predecessors.
The US and Israel partner in each other’s wars of aggression against non-threatening states, including three wars on Gaza since December 2008.
Whenever undertaken, so-called US “mediation” is all about serving its imperial interests at the expense of victimized nations, their people, democratic values, and the rule of law.
For decades, China and India disagreed about a line of control that separates one country from the other.
In 1962, both countries fought a month-long war over the border dispute, what neither one wants repeated.
The earlier conflict followed border incidents in the wake of the CIA backed Tibetan uprising after which India granted asylum to the Dalai Lama.
China and India share one of the world’s longest borders (2,167 miles), referred to as the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
Parts of it are disputed, notably at Aksai Chin and India’s Arunachal Pradesh state.
In 2013, a three-week standoff between forces of both countries ended when they signed a border defense cooperation agreement.
In 2016, Obama regime consul general in Kolkata (Calcutta) Craig Hall supported India’s claim for territory China claims as its own.
At the time, Hall called for US/India joint infrastructure development, along with increased bilateral trade at China’s expense.
His remarks supported Obama’s Asia pivot, a diabolical scheme to advance Washington’s military footprint in a part of the world not its own — part of US policy to weaken, contain and isolate China in the Indo/Pacific and worldwide.
Supporting India’s territorial claim in its dispute with China is part of the US plot, wanting the Indo/US relationship strengthened as a counterweight to Beijing’s growing political, economic, industrial, technological, and military prominence on the world stage — a major challenge to US hegemonic aims.
At the time, Beijing slammed US interference in its dispute with India, a Foreign Ministry statement saying:
“The boundary question between China and India bears on China’s territorial sovereignty and Chinese people’s sentiment.”
“All third parties must respect the history and reality concerning the boundary question, respect efforts by China and India to solve territorial disputes through negotiations, not get involved in the disputes or take sides on issues relating to the ownership of disputed territory.”
“Sound negotiations between China and India on the boundary question as well as peace and tranquility in the border areas over recent years have created favorable conditions for the growth of bilateral relations and their respective development.”
The US under Trump has gone all-out to undermine China’s development.
A new Cold War threatens to rupture relations. It risks direct confrontation between two nuclear powers if Washington pushes things too far.
Last July, Indian President Narendra Modi dismissed Trump’s offer to mediate on the Kashmir issue, saying he never asked the US president for help.
India rejects third-party involvement in one of the world’s most intractable issues.
On Wednesday, China’s envoy to India Sun Weidong said that the situation along the disputed border with India is “stable and controllable,” adding:
“China and India pose no threats to each other. We need to see each other’s developments in a correct way and enhance strategic mutual trusts.”
“We need to correctly view our differences and never let differences shadow overall situation of bilateral cooperation.”
Both countries “should be good neighbors of harmonious coexistence and good partners to move forward hand in hand.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said
“(w)e have been following the important consensus reached by the two leaders (about) strictly observing the agreements between the two countries.”
His remark referred to two President Xi Jinping/Modi discussions, both leaders agreeing to pursue more confidence building measures to maintain peace and stability along their border.
At the same time, both countries reinforced their military positions along the LAC.
Despite their longstanding border dispute, neither nation seeks military confrontation with the other.
The US is hostile toward all countries it doesn’t control, notably China because of its growing prominence on the world stage.
Confrontation between Beijing and New Delhi would serve its interests.
Trump’s mediation offer is a smokescreen fooling no one, notably not China.
It rejects unacceptable US interference in its internal affairs, what Trump’s so-called offer is all about.
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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.”
2) Deaths in Italian health care workers by age group (ISS, May 20)
3) Covid-19 infection fatality rates based on models
Covid-19 IFR based on epidemiological models or predictions. These values are often somewhat higher than the actual values based on serological antibody studies (see above).
These studies determine the actual prevalence of recent or current Covid-19 infections in a population or region. In most cases, they find that Covid-19 is much more widespread than previously assumed, with most people showing no or only mild symptoms.
Example: Death rate by age group in Massachusetts (Source)
7) Hospitalization rate
Initial estimates based on Chinese data assumed a very high 20% hospitalization rate, which led to the strategy of ‘flattening the curve’ to avoid overburdening hospitals. However, population-based antibody studies (see above) have since shown that actual hospitalization rates are close to 1%, which is within the range of hospitalization rates for influenza (1 to 2%).
The US CDC found that Covid-19 hospitalization rates for people aged 65 and over are “within ranges of influenza hospitalization rates”, with rates slightly higher for people aged 18 to 64 and “much lower” (compared to influenza) for people under 18.
In local hotspots like New York City, the overall hospitalization rate based on antibody studies is about 2.5% (19.9% or 1.7 million people with antibodies and 43,000 hospitalizations by May 2).
The much lower than expected hospitalization rate may explain why most Covid-19 ‘field hospitals’ even in hard-hit countries like the US, the UK and China remained largely empty.
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8) Percentage of Covid-19 deaths in care homes per country
In many countries, deaths in care homes account for 30 to 60% of all additional deaths. In Canadaand some US states, care homes account for up to 80% of all “Covid19-related” deaths.
Even in countries without a lockdown, the epidemic reached its peak within a few weeks of the outbreak. However, many media showed cumulative deaths per day of report (left) instead of dailydeaths per day of death (right), falsely implying an ever escalating situation.
Cumulative deaths per day of report vs. daily deaths per day of death. (OWD/FOHM; April 24)
Cumulative deaths per day of report vs. daily deaths per day of death. (OWD/FOHM; April 24)
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US President Donald Trump is much taken with the bombastic and the exaggerated. In an interview with the Associated Press in April 2017, he spoke of his infamous if somewhat less than successful wall project on the US-Mexican border. Ever happy to stretch the record on costs, he took issue with those “opponents talking $25 billion for the wall. It’s not going to cost anywhere near that.” Resembling that noisy relative who boasts about getting a cheaper deal for you on anything from car insurance to white goods, the president was confident: “I think $10 billion or less. And if I do a super-duper, higher, better, better security, everything else, maybe it goes a little bit more.”
In the year of an election, things are not looking rosy at the White House, neither super, let alone duper, but that is hardly an excuse not to embark on ego trips of extravagant optimism. Amidst the rising death toll in the United States due to coronavirus, military matters still have to be tended to. The signing of the 2020 Armed Forces Day Proclamation provided a chance for the Trump administration to reveal the flag for the US Space Force. “We’ve worked very hard on this and it’s so important from a defensive standpoint, from an offensive standpoint, from every standpoint there is.”
For the White House, the deep blue and sharp white colours of the flag represented the “vast recesses of outer space”. It was unfurled and ready, raised against those dastardly adversaries who, according to Secretary of Defence Mark Esper, had “weaponized space” and “made it a war fighting domain.”
The flag had caused a tittle of offence with its approval in January this year. New York Times reporter Sopan Deb lost his bearings on Twitter, shouting about its resemblance to the Starfleet logo of Star Trek. Actors such as George Takei, who featured in the original show run, saw little merit in the flattery of such theme-pinching inspiration. “Is nothing sacred?” (He promptly turned his thespian head to more earthly matters: royalties might be in order.)
The president also claimed during the ceremony that the United States was developing an exhilarating, novel weapon. “I call it the ‘super-duper missile’. And I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now.” Not exactly solid on his avionics, the president observed that Russia “has five times, and China is working on five or six times”. (What times? Sound?)
In February, Trump was also very much enchanted by the speedy missile theme. “We have the super-fast missiles,” he explainedto governors visiting the White House, “tremendous number of the super-fast. We call them ‘super-fast,’ where they’re four, five, six and even seven times faster than an ordinary missile. We need that because, again, Russia has some. I won’t tell you how they got it.” Not being able to restrain himself, Trump continued to explain. “They got it, supposedly, from plans from the Obama administration when we weren’t doing it. And that’s too bad.”
Trump might not have been briefed by the more specific advances made by the Russian military in this field. In December 2018, Russia supposedly tested the Avangard hypersonic vehicle, which claimed to go to speeds up to 27 times the speed of sound. “The Avangard,” Russian President Vladimir Putinboasted, “is invulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective weapon defence means of the potential adversary.” The Kinzhal design, with a speed greater than Mach 10, is said to be even more agile.
Trump loathes the burdens of the technical, preferring the simplified language of the MBA (mediocre-but-ambitious) set. Such missiles are better known as hypersonic weapons, which have been preoccupying US officials for some time. “Our goal is, simply,” in the frank observation of Mark Lewis, the Pentagon’s director of defense and research engineering for modernization, “to dominate future battlefields.” The Pentagon’s budget for the 2021 financial year for all research related to hypersonic weaponry is $3.2 billion, with $206.8 million specifically dedicated to hypersonic defence programs.
The line between sensible defence and testosterone strutting is a hard to discern in military matters. New weapons are often developed to reassure the tribal establishment of their necessity. Others have them and so must we. The ego’s urges must be pacified. “We have no choice,” contends Trump. “We have to do it – with the adversaries we have out there.”
The hypersonic weapon tickles the tribe in various ways: it is ferociously fast and highly manoeuvrable. Being hard to detect, such vehicles are a challenge to destroy. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former Commander of US Strategic Command General John Hyten sees their value in enabling “responsive, long-range, strike options against distant, defended, and/or time-critical threats [such as road-mobile missiles] when other forces are unavailable, denied access, or not preferred.”
The critics, who tend to be muffled in their assessments of such programs, suggest that having such weapons is an expensive exercise in futility. In the words of a Congressional Research Service report, they “lack defined mission requirements, contribute little to US military capability, and are unnecessary for deterrence.”
Certain military obsessives feel that Trump is on to a good thing. Ryan P. Burke of the US Air Force Academy has snootily dismissed the mockers and the knockers. “Between the Twitter jokes and the media’s fixation on missile development and soundbites, the public narrative is missing the point: The super duper missile is a super duper necessity to deal with the super duper Russian threat in the Arctic.”
To develop such weapons is, according to Burke, “important for a country in third place in the hypersonic race.” He leaves us with no reason why that should be so, other than the fact they have it. As with any such analysis, the feeling of being second, let alone third, is monstrously unedifying. It reduces strategists to panic attacks and prolonged periods of sobbing anxiety. Inadequacies must be underlined to increase budgets for the needless. Burke proceeds to earn his keep at the academy by opening the door to binges on weapons acquisition or, as he puts it, the attainment of “weapons parity”. Despite accepting the premise that conventional deterrence is questionable as a principle in an age of mutually assured destruction, he draws from the 2018 National Defense Strategy as a justification. Super-duper stupidity will get you far in this game.
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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]
Every year in the U.S. more than 1,000 poor working people of all races and ethnicities are killed by police.
While President Trump and GOP encourage and glorify police brutality, the Democratic establishment and their functionaries with their racialist politics, distract working people from the actual problem: class oppression.
Today, the United States is politically charged with waves of social unrest and at the same time new organizations and alignments among the subjugated and oppressed working people are forming.
During this time of Corona crisis, the only way that working people can end police brutality is to organize themselves in their communities independent of all capitalist parties.
By the author
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The Covid-19 pandemic has brought out many disturbing features of our society. Misinformation, or perhaps more accurately, disinformation, abounds in the service of agendas ranging from those who interpret the virus as a useful ploy for the construction of a police state, to Big Pharma and its allies who are moving us toward mass vaccinations, to the narcissistic views of those who would sacrifice the elderly and ill rather than to be inconvenienced by being denied access to bars and beaches.
Every aspect of the pandemic, including Trump’s own use of HCQ, is being used against the President of the United States.
Despite proof of reinfections, some bleat on and on about how the “lockdown” prevented “herd immunity” and made us less safe.Others make the false claim that Sweden with no lockdown fared no worse than others. In fact Sweden’s economy was de facto locked down by the nonparticipation of Swedes who on their own used the same measures as in other countries, and Sweden still has a higher mortality rate, for which the government has apologized to the elderly. Still others dispute that the lockdown reduced the infection rate, while others claim any reduction in Covid deaths was offset by higher suicides caused by “lockdown depression.”
To put these claims in perspective: two months ago the US had 100 known Covid cases; today the US has 1.5 million.The difference is not accounted for by an increase in testing.The US has 100,000 deaths blamed on the virus—twice the deaths of US soldiers in the long Vietnam war.Some claim that the deaths were caused by preconditions, not by the virus—but the people didn’t die until they got the virus. Others point out that economic incentives cause an over-reporting of Covid deaths.There is little doubt about that, but over-reporting does not account for 100,000 deaths. It remains to be seen whether the reopening will result in a jump in infections and deaths.
At a time when accurate information is essential, the waters are instead muddied by disinformation in the service of political, ideological, and profit agendas.The irresponsibility of those putting their self-interests first is extraordinary.It indicates that the social bond between people that made America a country has been dissolved by greed, multiculturalism, and Identity Politics.America has become a country without a common interest. It is a narcissistic state.
This article is limited to the campaign against HCQ.HCQ—hydroxychloroquine—has been in use for 65 years for the prevention or treatment of malaria, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis.It is officially labeled a safe drug.Many doctors treating Covid patients have found and reported HCQ, when used early enough together with zinc and the antibiotic azithromycin to be an effective and safe treatment.
I have reported and made available many of the reports of HCQ’s efficacy and safety.See for example, this, this, this, this and this.
Despite 65 years of safe use, HCQ is alleged to be dangerous and to cause heart attacks.Its use is officially approved only for “adolescent and adult patients hospitalized with COVID-19.” Generally, by the time a patient is hospitalized the virus has progressed to a later stage in which treatment is less successful.Studies of HCQ’s effectiveness, such as the VA one and apparently the more recent one reported in The Lancet, are limited to later stage hospitalized patients and seem to exclude the essential zinc component of the HCQ treatment.In other words, the studies seem to be designed to exclude from official approval the treatment that doctors have found most effective. It is not easy for a layperson to know what the studies actually say as the media report the studies in an anti-Trump manner.For the media, what is most important is criticism of Trump, not the effectiveness of a treatment.
In contrast, the untested investigational antiviral drug, Remdesivir, which has no record of safe use and is extraordinarily expensive compared to HCQ, has been given the same clearence for use. The media is not interested in the effectiveness and safety, or lack of, of this new and untested drug. Trump isn’t taking it, and it is a potential profit-maker for Big Pharma. If Remdesivir fails, the failure will be used to dispose of the hope for cures and to focus on vaccination.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that HCQ/zinc is being sidelined in order to clear the way for a profitable vaccine and a vaccination mandate.But the vaccines are not panning out. The Moderna vax touted by Bill Gates and Dr. Fauci caused severe illnesses in one-fifth of the test recipients.
The other fast-tracked vaccine developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group proved ineffective. The vaccine produced insufficient antibodies to prevent Covid-19 infection. See this.
It will be instructive to see what reopening brings.Bay county (Panama City Beach) and Walton county (Seaside, Rosemary Beach) quickly closed spring break and the beaches, restaurants, bars, vacation rental houses and condos, and non-essential businesses.Consequently, the two Florida counties had hardly any Covid cases. People were able to go about without masks as if there were no pandemic.
These two counties are blessed with “America’s most beautiful beaches,” and host millions of visitors.Panama City Beach has 13,975 permanent residents and 17 million annual visitors. See this.
With the reopening, tourists will be coming in from infected locations.If they bring the virus with them, the counties will find that the Covid-19 virus is real after all. Other locations spared by the lockdowns might find reopening brings the virus.
If so, and there is a second closedown, we will be led by fear and be vaccinated regardless of the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness against the virus.Did those protesting the closedown think about this?
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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.
Connectivity is one of the key trends of the 21st century, which Russia is fully embracing with its Greater Eurasian Partnership (GEP) in order to counteract the chaotic processes unleashed throughout the course of the ongoing systemic transition from unipolarity to multipolarity. This outlook sets forth the grand strategic task of integrating with some of the former countries of the erstwhile Soviet Union through the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and then further afield with the other regions of Eurasia in order to benefit from the growing cross-supercontinental trade between Europe and Asia.
President Putin declared during the second Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) Forum in April 2019 that this Chinese-led project “rimes with Russia’s idea to establish a Greater Eurasian Partnership” and that “The five EAEU member states have unanimously supported the idea of pairing the EAEU development and the Chinese Silk Road Economic Belt project”.
It naturally follows that the pairing of the EAEU with BRI would involve Russia improving its connectivity with the latter’s flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in South Asia, thereby endowing Pakistan with an important role in the GEP. The rapidly improving relations between Moscow and Islamabad, as well as the peacemaking efforts undertaken by those two states and other stakeholders in Afghanistan across 2019, raise the prospect of a future trade corridor traversing through the countries between them and thus creating a new axis of Eurasian integration that would complete the first envisaged step of bringing the EAEU and BRI closer together. In pursuit of this multilaterally beneficial outcome, it’s important to explain the policymaking and academic bases behind it so as to prove the viability of this proposal.
Memories are like those fireflies that sparkle your vision on a deep hot summer night. They entice you with their sudden appearance and just as sudden departure. So it is with this baby boomer’s mind, transversed back so many decades until… 50 years appear as if it was today. This brings tears to your tired eyes within this pandemic hibernation.
As I write this piece I have the Animals’ great song ‘ Sky Pilot’ sung by the irrepressible Eric Burden, that little tiny giant of blues rock. Suddenly I am transported back in time to the summer of ’70, the greatest summer of this writer’s life. My cousin Mick and I were staying in Virginia Beach, Virginia for the summer. This was the first time we two twenty year olds had ventured away from our parents’ homes for any lengthy period of time. We were your normal college kids who were happy as shit to not be drafted, thanks to our student deferments. Recently I had just been baptized into anti war activism when myself and a herd of fellow students closed down the Brooklyn College campus two months earlier.
The Kent State massacre of four students by National Guard troops the same age as them, coupled with Nixon’s illegal and immoral ( aren’t they all?) bombing of Cambodia, shut down many college campuses.
We all played songs like ‘ For What it’s Worth’ by Buffalo Springfield ( With Stephen Stills and Neil Young) , ‘ Eve of Destruction’ by Barry McGuire and Edwin Starr’s ‘ War, What is it Good For?’ Getting high on good pot and hashish was our ticket to any repose from the insanity of Vietnam, or ‘ The Shit’ as returning veterans referred to it.
So, here I was, having the greatest time of my life down in Virginia Beach. We rented an apartment and each found part time jobs. We had brought down a nice stash of white opiate hash, which lasted us for two weeks, instead of for the whole summer, it was too easy to enjoy. We both worked in the evenings, Mick as a short order cook, me as a barker at the basketball shooting game by the arcade. We slept late each morning, ate big breakfasts of bacon and eggs and then off to the beautiful beach. Running by the shore barefoot, and throwing around the football each day got the two of us in probably the best shape we had ever been in. Of course, the girl chasing was our primary goal each day. As I eluded to, this was the best summer I ever had, up until then and up till NOW! Let us leave it at that.
One day I ran into this guy who called himself Huck, who was just out of the Army and of course Nam. He still had the Army style haircut, which he was quickly growing, along with the moustache you saw so many military guys wearing. I think he said he was from Ohio and had rented a whole house not too far from the beach ( we lived much further away, paying less rent ). Huck told me that he let this ‘ Hippie Dippy ‘ bunch, as he put it , crash at his place. ” Lots of good looking chicks along with the guys. Safe bunch. All they wanna do is listen to music and get high.” He then informed me that they all had gotten onto their ‘ Hippie van’ and went to Atlanta for a Johnny Winter concert. ” Why don’t you come by. I got some really far out shit we can smoke.”
As Mick and I had used up all our stash, and were paranoid of buying anything down in Virginia, I said I’d be by later that afternoon. It was Sunday, my day off, so I had plenty of time. My cousin was at work, so I hustled over to Huck’s place. I can never forget just sitting in his living room, smoking his really top shelf weed with him. Huck put on this Animals LP and ‘ Sky Pilot ‘ came on. He said the guys back in Vietnam just played this song over and over. I sat there, mesmerized by the lyrics and the pot. It was as if I was right under the plane from the song, as it roared above the troops on its way to dealing death and destruction on the Vietnamese. Huck told me some of the experiences he had in the bush, and how it never really escaped him. After a bit, I invited him over to my place for some steaks that Mick and I liberated from the supermarket. He took down my address and we planned to meet up in two hours.
Huck never showed up. I walked by his house the next day, but no one was there. OK, I thought, the guy just came back from the ‘ Shit’ so I cut him some slack. A few weeks went by and I finally met up with Huck one afternoon near the main drag. ” Man, you must have stepped in shit ” he said. ” Not more than twenty minutes after you left, the hippy dippy van pulled up. My pad crashers had just returned from Atlanta. Within a few minutes the whole house was surrounded by a ton of cops! They arrested all of us for drug possession, and those hippies had a shit load too!” He then told me that with the new laws in Virginia, he was forced to stay there for at least a year on probation. Some of his guests had to go to trial for drug dealing, facing stiff prison sentences. ” Man, you sure stepped in shit! Those cops were out there in the woods by my house when you visited. They were waiting for those hippies to return.” It turns out that Virginia did have really draconian laws on the books then, even for simply marijuana. I would have been stuck there for at least a year too.
That summer of ‘ 70 was my epiphany as an anti war /anti empire thinker. Each time I hear that Animals’ song, or any of the other songs of that Vietnam era, I cry.
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]
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in a joint statement on the weekend said that EU-led dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo must restart as soon as possible and that shortcuts and quick fixes are excluded from the European plan towards a final deal. The sudden weekend request from France and Germany for the immediate continuation of dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, under the leadership of the EU, was euphorically welcomed in Pristina, because, unlike the U.S. one, it offers no dead line for a solution. The EU does not want a repeat of the Dayton Agreement for Kosovo as it has been a catastrophic failure for Bosnia and the EU was only a passive observer when Bosnia was divided.
For Belgrade, there are several elements that it has to face. First of all, the battle between the EU and the U.S. for supremacy in leading the Kosovo process is underway. In that, the joint letter from Paris and Berlin requests dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina to begin as soon as possible but for the dialogue to be patient, while Washington is also on a diplomatic offensive with the aim to end the process as soon as possible.
The EU has been silent on this issue for a long while, which the U.S. used to activate and engage in dialogue in the absence of European influence. Knowing the traditional position of Washington on the Kosovo issue, Belgrade should prevent the U.S. from taking a lead position in any negotiations because they have always been on the side of a Kosovo independent of Serbia.
With Berlin and Paris, as the leading members of the EU, showing greater interest in resolving the issue between Serbia and Kosovo, they are showing their return to the process in a demonstration of their increased influence in the region. It is important for the Europeans to indicate in some way that they are still interested in having the main influence in the dialogue. If we observe this from Serbia’s side, this could be in its favour as the EU still has member states that do not recognize an independent Kosovo and will defend this position.
However, Pristina is also looking forward to European mediation in the process and it is not only due to the fact that they are beginning to give up on the U.S., but for the fact the Europeans are not putting pressure for the negotiations to end by a certain time frame. The U.S. wants a quick solution, while Germany and France, although they are looking for an efficient dialogue, are more inclined to a slower pace for reaching a solution and do not set deadlines. This suits Pristina at the moment because of the political crisis and disagreements between Albanian leaders on this issue. So, they need to put their own house in order before being pressured to making agreements with Serbia.
One of Belgrade’s obligations in the accession negotiations with the EU is a final solution to the Kosovo issue under the auspices of the EU. This goal of EU accession however is mostly at the behest of the Serbian political class and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the people. None-the-less, Berlin and Paris want to say that they will not be just observers as the EU continually seeks ways to become more sovereign and independent of U.S. foreign policy.
Although Germany is rigid, it will not want a change of borders in Kosovo. However, the EU is not only Germany, as much as it wishes it to be. Europe is to formally provide a service and to serve as a mediator between Belgrade and Pristina in order to reach a legally binding agreement between Belgrade and Pristina. It would be completely normal for Europe to solve this problem, because it is on the European continent and not the North American one. However, the fact is that at this moment we actually have two negotiating parties that provide various potential solutions. Therefore, there is no doubt that the EU is seeking to take over negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo from the U.S., and it appears that both parties are happy for this to occur.
The head of the Governmental Coalition in Israel, Mickey Zohar, revealed that the measures to legislate the process of imposing Israeli sovereignty on all Jewish residential communities in the West Bank will begin in early July.
The Likud MP said in a radio interview today, that the government will approve the draft law on this, and then it will be submitted to the Knesset for approval, expecting that these measures will continue for only a few weeks.
Representative Zohar announced that the concerned authorities are currently working on mapping in order to reach understandings with the American administration about the areas that Israel will impose their sovereignty over in the West Bank.
In response to a question about whether the White House would insist on the establishment of a Palestinian state in exchange for the annexation, the head of the government coalition said: “He opposes this demand, expressing his conviction that Israel will not give up the annexation in any case.”
He stressed that the government would also not agree to freezing construction work in isolated residential compounds in the occupied West Bank, but was ready to freeze construction in places not close to those that would be imposed on Israeli sovereignty.
The Palestinian leadership has already rejected this planned annexation, as the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, withdrew from all agreements with the U.S. and Israel over this contingency.
Featured image courtesy of Almasdar News: Houses are seen in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Karmel, near Hebron May 24, 2016.
The U.S. assassination of Qassem Soleimani in January touched off a new wave of disinformation about the top Iranian major general, with Trump administration allies branding him a global terrorist while painting Iran as the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism. Much of the propaganda about Soleimani related to his alleged responsibility for the killing of American troops in Iraq, along with Iran’s role in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.
But a second theme in the disinformation campaign, which has been picked up by mainstream outlets like the Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio, was the claim that Soleimani deliberately unleashed al-Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s campaign to kill Shiites in Iraq. That element of the propaganda offensive was the result of the 2017 publication of “The Exile,” a book by British journalists Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, which spun a new version of the familiar U.S. propaganda line of a supposed Iranian terror alliance with al-Qaeda.
Levy and Scott-Clark introduced the theme of secret collusion between the two open adversaries with an article in the The Sunday Times in early 2018, dramatically entitled “Tehran in devil’s pact to rebuild al‑Qaeda.” Soleimani, they claimed, “first offered sanctuary to bin Laden’s family and al-Qaeda military leaders,” then proceeded to “build them a residential compound at the heart of a military training center in Tehran.”
But those two sentences represented a grotesque distortion of Iran’s policy toward the al-Qaeda personnel fleeing from Afghanistan into Iran. Virtually every piece of concrete evidence, including an internal al-Qaeda document written in 2007, showed that Iran agreed to take in a group of al-Qaeda refugees with legal passports that included members of bin Laden’s family and some fighters and middle- and lower-ranking military cadres – but not Zarqawi and other al-Qaeda military leaders — and only temporarily and under strict rules forbidding political activity.
The crucial fact that Levy and Scott-Clark conveniently failed to mention, moreover, was that Iranian officials were well aware that al-Qaeda’s leadership figures, including military commanders and with their troops, were also slipping into Iran from Afghanistan, but Iranian security forces had not yet located them.
Keeping the legal arrivals under closer surveillance and watching for any contacts with those illegally in the country, therefore, was a prudent policy for Iranian security under the circumstances.
In addition, having bin Laden’s family and other al-Qaeda cadres under their surveillance gave Iran potential bargaining chips it could use to counter hostile actions by both al-Qaeda and the United States.
Al-Qaeda documents undermine narrative of cooperation with Iran
Careful study of the enormous cache of internal al-Qaeda documents released by the U.S. government in 2017 further discredited the tall tale of Iranian facilitation of al-Qaeda terrorism.
Nelly Lahoud, a senior fellow at the New American Foundation and former senior research associate at the West Point Combating Terrorism Center, translated and analyzed 303 of the newly available documents and found nothing indicating Iranian cooperation with, or even knowledge about the whereabouts of Zarqawi or other al-Qaeda military leaders prior to their detentions of April 2003.
Lahoud explained in a September 2018 lecture that all actions by al-Qaeda operatives in Iran had been “conducted in a clandestine manner.” She even discovered from one of the documents that al-Qaeda had considered the clandestine presence of those officials and fighters so dangerous that they had been instructed on how to commit suicide if they were caught by the Iranians.
Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark were well aware that those al-Qaeda operatives living in Tehran’s military training center were under severe constraints, akin to a prison. Meanwhile, senior figures like Zarqawi and Saif al-Adel, the head of the al-Qaeda shura council, were far away from Tehran, planning new operations in the region amid friendly Sunni contacts. These plans included Zarqawi’s campaign Iraq, which he began organizing in early 2002.
Nevertheless the authors declared, “From [the Iranian training center], al-Qaeda organized, trained and established funding networks with the help of Iran, co-ordinated multiple terrorist atrocities and supported the bloodbath against Shi’ites by al-Qaeda in Iraq….”
Anti-Iran think tanker Sadjadpour jumps on the conspiracy bandwagon
Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a reliable fount of anti-Iran spin, responded within days of the Soleimani assassination with an article in the Wall Street Journal’s right-wing editorial section that reinforced the budding disinformation campaign.
Entitled “The Sinister Genius of Qassem Soleimani,” Sadjadpour’s op-ed argued that in March 2003, before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, “Soleimani’s Quds Force freed many Sunni jihadists that Iran had been holding captive, unleashing them against the U.S.” He cited “The Exile” as his source.
Levy and Scott-Clark did indeed spin a tale in the book of Zarqawi’s troops — and Zarqawi himself — being rounded up and locked to the same prison as those al-Qaeda members who entered with passports in March 2003. The authors claimed they were released within days. But the only sources they cite to support their claims were two people they interviewed in Amman, Jordan in 2016.
So who were these insider sources? The only identifying characteristics Levy and Scott-Clark offer is that they were “in Zarqawi’s group at the time.” Furthermore, neither of these sources is quoted to substantiate the claim that Zarqawi was arrested and then released from prison, and they are mentioned only in a footnote on the number of Zarqawi’s troops that had been sent to the prison.
Sadjadpour offered his own explanation — without the slightest suggestion of any evidence to support it — of why Soleimani would support an anti-Shiite jihadist to kill his own Iraqi Shiite allies. “By targeting Shiite shrines and civilians, killing thousands of Iran’s fellow Shiites,” he wrote, “Zarqawi helped to radicalize Iraq’s Shiite majority and pushed them closer to Iran—and to Soleimani, who could offer them protection.”
In late January, on National Public Radio’s weekly program “Throughline,” Sadjadpour pushed his dubiously sourced argument, opining that Soleimani had figured out how to “use the al Qaeda jihadists of Zarqawi … to simply unleash them into Iraq with the understanding that you guys do what you do.”
The BBC promotes “The Exile” as the book’s narrative crumbles
In a BBC radio documentary broadcasted in late April, titled “Iran’s Long Game” (an allusion to Iran’s alleged long-term plan for domination of the entire Middle East), Cathy Scott-Clark told a story intended to clinch the case that Iran had helped Zarqawi: Other prisoners “heard conversations in the corridors” in which Iranian authorities allegedly assured Zarqawi, “You can do whatever you want to do … in Iraq.”
That story does not appear in her book, however. Instead, Adrian Levy and Scott-Clark related a comment by Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, a spiritual adviser to bin Laden, on hearing about the arrest and subsequent release of Zarqawi from another prisoner who eavesdropped by tapping the pipes leading into his room.
That narrative had already been definitively contradicted long before, however, in an account provided by Saif al-Adl, the most senior member of the al-Qaeda top leadership in Iran. Al-Adl had fled with Zarqawi from Afghanistan across the border into Iran illegally in late 2001 or early 2002 and was apprehended in April 2003 — weeks after the alleged events portrayed in al-Mauritani’s story.
In a memoir smuggled out of Iran to Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein, which Husayn published in 2005 in an Arabic-language book (but available online in an English-language translation), Saif al-Adl described an Iranian crackdown in March 2003 that captured 80 percent of Zarqawi’s fighters and “confused us and aborted 75 percent of our plan”.
Because of that round-up, al-Adl wrote, “[T]here was a need for the departure of Abu-Mus’ab and the brothers who remained free.” Al-Adl described his final meeting with Zarqawi before his departure, confirming that Zarqawi had not been caught prior to his own apprehension on April 23, 2003.
Levy and Scott-Clark cited Saif al-Adl’s memoir on other matters in “The Exile,” but when this writer queried Scott-Clark about al-Adl’s testimony – which contradicted the narrative that underpinned her book – Scott-Clark responded, “I know Fuad Hussein well. Most of his information is third hand and not well sourced.”
She did not address the substance of al-Adl’s recollections about Zarqawi, however. When asked in a follow-up email whether she challenged the authenticity of Saif al-Adl’s testimony, Scott-Clark did not respond.
Months of violence and vandalism in Hong Kong last year were orchestrated.
Any pretext will do for the US to wage wars on other nations by hot and/or other means — directly by terror-bombing and/or use of proxies, financed and trained to do Washington’s bidding.
Last August during US orchestrated violence and vandalism in Hong Kong, commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s Hong Kong garrison, Chen Daoxiang, warned that PLA forces in the city are prepared to protect and defend it against hostile actions that threaten its stability.
At the time, he noted “a series of extremely violent incidents happening in Hong Kong” — US dirty hands all over them, my comment, not his, adding:
“This has damaged the prosperity and stability of the city, and challenged the rule of law and social order.”
“The incidents have seriously threatened the life and safety of Hong Kong citizens, and violated the bottom line of ‘one country, two systems.’ ”
“This should not be tolerated and we express our strong condemnation.”
“We resolutely support the action to maintain Hong Kong’s rule of law by the people who love the nation and the city, and we are determined to protect national sovereignty, security, stability and the prosperity of Hong Kong.”
If PLA intervention is needed to restore order, actions taken will adhere to the city’s Basic Law and Hong Kong Garrison Law, Chen stressed.
China won’t let the city be transformed into a US nerve center for undermining the mainland.
In response to China’s announced new national security law, Chen expressed support for the measure, saying:
It “will contribute to containing and punishing any attempt to sabotage the national unity or split the country…”
It will “help deter all kinds of secessionist forces and foreign forces attempting to interfere (in China’s internal affairs), and demonstrates our resolute will in safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
A statement by China’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong warned that elements engaged in violence and vandalism, along with dark forces from abroad backing them, “not to underestimate the central government’s rock-firm determination to uphold national sovereignty, security and development interests and to safeguard Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability and Hong Kong compatriots’ fundamental interests.”
Without changing China’s one country, two systems policy, its new national security law aims to prevent pro-US 5th column elements from controlling Hong Kong and using the city as a platform for undermining mainland development and aims.
US war on China by other means rages, a country the Trump regime considers a “strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea (sic).”
Beijing is responding to its hostile agenda. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) said President Xi Jinping is focusing more on domestic over export-led growth.
His “strategic shift” includes preparing for a “worst case scenario.”
Xinhua quoted him saying “(f)or the future, we must treat domestic demand as the starting point and foothold as we accelerate the building of a complete domestic consumption system, and greatly promote innovation in science, technology and other areas.”
According to economist Hu Xingdou, he’s preparing for possible “decoupling with the United States and even the whole Western world” if East-West hostility reaches boils over.
China seeks self-sufficiency in a changing world, triggered by COVID-19, economic collapse, disrupted international trade and investments, and hostile US actions that aim to undermine its development.
By no means will Beijing close itself off from the outside world it’s a major part of for its imports and exports.
It seeks multilateralism, “openness and inclusiveness,” said Xi.
Economist Raymond Yeung believes his strategic shift is over concern that export demand won’t recover for several years.
According to China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet, Beijing will counter Trump regime sanctions when imposed, including because of its new national security law.
A statement by China’s Foreign Ministry said
“(i)f the US insists on hurting China’s interests, China will definitely take all necessary measures to firmly fight back.”
Last weekend, White House national security advisor Robert O’Brien said the US will likely impose sanctions on China if it enacts its national security law.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian stressed that “Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong.”
“Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs. What legislation the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region makes, and how and when (it’s implemented) are entirely within China’s sovereignty.”
“The US has no qualification to point fingers and interfere.”
Under core UN Charter and other international law that’s also US constitutional law, no nation may interfere in the internal affairs of others for any reasons other than self-defense if attacked.
Even then, the Security Council has sole authority over this issue — not nations on their own, their leadership, legislators or courts.
It’s unclear how far the Trump regime may go to challenge China’s authority over its own territory.
It’s increasingly likely that Beijing will respond appropriately to hostile US actions if and when they occur.
A Final Comment
According to an SCMP article published by Global Research.ca, the US “slapped sanctions on 33 Chinese companies and institutions, putting them on two so-called entity lists as it dials up the hostility during the lowest point in US-China relations in decades.”
Clearly, China will respond in its own way at a time of its choosing.
All nations should refuse to tolerate what the scourge of US imperialism is all about.
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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.”
Surveillance firms around the world are licking their lips at a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cash in on the coronavirus by repositioning one of their most invasive products: the tracking bracelet.
Body monitors are associated with criminality and guilt in the popular imagination, the accessories of Wall Street crooks under house arrest and menace-to-society parolees. Unlike smartphones, de facto tracking devices in their own right, strapped-on trackers are expressly designed to be attached to the body and exist solely to report the user’s whereabouts and interactions to one or more third parties; they don’t play podcasts or tell you how many steps you took that day to sweeten the surveillance.
But a climate of perpetual bio-anxiety has paved the way for broader acceptance of carceral technologies, with a wave of companies trying to sell tracking accessories to business owners eager to reopen under the aegis of responsible social distancing and to governments hoping to keep a closer eye on people under quarantine.
Take AiRISTA Flow, a Maryland-based outfit that helps corporations track their “assets,” breathing or not. In an April 21 press release, the company announced it would begin selling Bluetooth and Wi-Fi trackers to be worn on an employee’s wrist like a Fitbit — or around their neck like a cowbell. “When people come within six feet of each other for a period of time,” the company wrote in a press release, “the device makes an audible chirp and a record of the contact is made in the AiRISTA Flow software system.” But the tracking goes far beyond audible chirps: AiRISTA’s platform allows employers to continuously upload a record of close encounters to a corporate cloud, providing an up-to-date list of presumed social distancing violators that would double as a detailed record of workplace social interactions.
The company’s marketing language is explicit in talking up the nonviral benefits of tracking your workers’ every move: By helping companies “Locate people and things in real time” (the two are seemingly treated interchangeably), they can expect a “Reduction in unplanned downtime,” “Improved asset utilization rates, [and a] reduced need for spares.”
In a press release published just a day after AiRISTA Flow’s, Boston-based Redpoint Positioning Corporation, another player in the business of tracking workers and inanimate objects, announced that it was taking its own “cutting-edge technology … already used by leading companies worldwide in third-party logistics, auto manufacturing, mine operation” and repackaging it for social distancing. Like AiRISTA, Redpoint offers companies the ability to “tag” their equipment and employees using ultra-wideband radio signals, a wireless positioning technology only recently added to the most advanced iPhones. Redpoint boasted in the announcement of its ability to use these tags to “track the location of people and equipment with extremely high accuracy, even in complex industrial environments,” now with a coronavirus-specific augmentation: “If social distancing parameters, such as a 1- or 2-meter radius, are violated between workers, the tag alarm will alert them to the hazard.” The company will also collect a history of employee interactions: “If an infection does occur, historical data from the system will allow for highly accurate contact tracing, as records can show the individuals who were near the infected party.”
A Redpoint spokesperson did not answer when asked if the company has any policies dictating or constraining how their technology can be used by clients.
While the AiRISTA and Redpoint trackers merely evoke the aesthetics of a police state in the workplace, Israeli surveillance outfit SuperCom is literally repackaging as a Covid-19 “solution” technology previously used on incarcerated or criminally convicted people. The security company has customers in 20 countries, including the U.S., and claims decades of experience with what it calls in a press release “secured boundaries projects,” like border crossings and home confinement. It’s the house arrest expertise that the company is now marketing as PureCare, described on the SuperCom website as a “state-of-the-art solution for quarantine and isolation monitoring to aid government efforts in containing and limiting the reach of infectious diseases” and, incredibly, as “a non-intrusive patient friendly system that constantly tracks patient location within buildings, vehicles and outside.”
SuperCom Americas President Ordan Trabelsi declined to tell The Intercept where the company’s ankle bracelets are currently being used for quarantine enforcement, but it named Central America as the location of one pilot deployment, and referenced a second pilot program in some other, unspecified region, in an April 6 press release announcing a “Coronavirus (COVID-19) citizen quarantine and containment tracking technology.” The company announced separately, on April 27, that it had begun selling tracking devices for prisoners released from an unnamed “United States of America correctional facility due to COVID-19.”
In the same press release, SuperCom claimed to see a spike in interest from “government agencies looking to restrict the spread of COVID-19 among their general population” and envisioned “additional potential industry demand for electronic monitoring services coming from the incarcerated American population.”
One might think that a company like SuperCom would shy away from proposing that those exposed to the novel coronavirus be in any way treated like literal criminals. But in a recent promotional YouTube interview, Trabelsi makes a point of stressing that it’s precisely the company’s work with criminal elements that makes its Covid-19 “solution” superior. “In the past, we have spent a lot of our time focusing on very accurate and state of the art tracking of offenders,” he said in the video. “Many customers and potential customers around the world asked us if we could use that same platform to do, you know, Covid-19 home quarantine tracking and compliance. And we thought, of course we can because it’s exactly what we do in the offender tracking space. But now we’ll just be tracking people that are not essentially offenders but unluckily were exposed to the virus.”
When asked in the YouTube interview about the privacy implications of SuperCom’s ankle bracelets, Trabelsi demurred — though he did note that the hardware is “very comfortable and goes underneath their sock.” He went on to say that how the company’s customers use the technology is their call, not his. “We leave it to them to make their decisions on rules and privacy,” he stated.
In an interview with The Intercept, Trabelsi said interest in SuperCom’s coronavirus product has been “mostly government” so far. Should any of these intrigued governments decide to use SuperCom bracelets to enforce quarantines, Trabelsi said it’s up to them to do so responsibly. “Everyone has their own rules,” he told me. “Some countries share that they want to put everyone who comes into the country into quarantine for 14 days, some want to put it onto people who are sick, or who have a confirmed case; it depends what [that government’s] regulations are. They define the rules exactly as they want. We just provide them with technology to track people.”
A laissez-faire approach to privacy and accountability will do little to persuade those who see SuperCom’s strategy as a cynical attempt to push lucrative police technology into the civilian world during a period of widespread social crisis. Leonard Rubenstein, a human rights attorney and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, told The Intercept that SuperCom’s stance has the distinction of being both dangerous and useless. “I found the ankle monitor and other tracking methods described [by SuperCom] highly inappropriate and detrimental to a public health response in being unreasonably and unnecessarily coercive,” he said, “a serious invasion of privacy without any safeguards, and promoting an adversarial relationship to public health authorities when the relationship should be built on trust.”
Rubenstein, who is affiliated with the school’s department of epidemiology, said that an invasive technology like a tracking bracelet imposes “limitations on human rights to serve public health ends” and must be held to particularly high standards to determine if it’s worth the trade-off.
Jennifer Granick, an attorney specializing in surveillance and cybersecurity technologies at the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Intercept that SuperCom’s Covid-19 marketing efforts put a public health gloss on a police technology and thus helps it to “be normalized among the general population for medical reasons. … This should trouble us all.”
To Rubenstein, even SuperCom’s most humane use case for tracking bracelets, allowing temporary release of incarcerated people to spare them from a coronavirus prison outbreak, doesn’t pass muster. “In the case of released prisoners, less restrictive means are also available,” he said. An always-on surveillance bracelet might be defensible only “where there was an individualized determination that the person poses a high public safety risk upon release in the absence of monitoring/tracking,” he added.
Responding to these concerns, Trabelsi told The Intercept that despite the company’s own emphasis on monitoring criminals, its products shouldn’t be understood as intended only for that purpose. “The product vision [is] to track the location of people to verify they are following the rules in order to protect themselves and our society,” Trabelsi wrote via email. “The product wasn’t necessarily developed for offenders. The technology also tracks patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other issues that require monitoring for their own safety.” Trabelsi argued that tracking bracelets could allow people to avoid being confined to a hospital or “government controlled facility” while under quarantine. “This technology would give these individuals the option to be at their homes instead and be monitored to reduce the risk of causing harm to others,” he added.
When asked if SuperCom had consulted with any public health experts during the design or sale of its tracking hardware, Trabelsi was unsure — “In the past we probably have, I’m not certain.” But he also seemed to push back on the notion, perfectly framing Granick’s worry, that this is even a public health technology to begin with: “The technology is essentially for tracking people. It’s not a health solution. It can just tell you where people are. It’s not going to keep you from getting sick. It’s not going to heal you.”
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Featured image is by Dalbert B. Vilarino for The Intercept
A news website created by Tibetan exiles in India, Phayul, has featured an article on a bill (H.R. 6948) introduced in the House of Representatives by United States Congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) that promotes Tibetan separation from China.
The bill would “authorize the President to recognize the Tibet Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China as a separate, independent country, and for other purposes.”
Other purposes? That the US was running geopolitical intrigues in Asia (and throughout the world) is well known. That the US CIA was running schemes in Xinjiang and Tibet was written about by Thomas Laird in his Into Tibet: The CIA’s First Atomic Spy and His Secret Expedition to Lhasa.
It is farcical for Americans to push for purported liberation of lands for other peoples. Why? Because if one grouping of people is entitled to country status in a delimited territory, then that same principle must apply to all peoples in similar circumstances. The US would have to recognize Palestinian statehood in historical Palestine. The same would apply to the Kurds, the Kashmiris, the Basques in France and Spain, the Catalans in Spain, etc. National liberation can not be seriously considered as just a pick-and-choose principle among peoples seeking liberation in a homeland.
Even worse, not only is it farcical, it is hypocritical for Americans. If Americans (and let’s be specific to certain Americans because here we are mainly discussing Americans derived from European migrants) are to be regarded as earnest and sincere in advocating the liberation of peoples elsewhere, then one should first look in one’s own backyard before calling for an overhaul of a neighbor’s backyard. To express fidelity with H.R. 6948, the US would have to turn over Puerto Rico to Puerto Ricans, Guam to the Chamorros, the Chagos archipelago to the Chagossians (yes, Britain lays claim, but the Chagossians were expelled at the request of the US military), and others.
The fact is that the entirety of the US landmass is a landmass stolen from the Original Peoples. [1] The occupation continues to this very day.
Nonetheless, that the US would endorse and practice the subjugation of a people would not mitigate China’s alleged subjugation of Tibetans nor usurping control over the Tibetan plateau. Given the CIA’s penchant for instigating coups and installing governments kindly disposed to the US, and given US manipulation of the Tibetan opposition to gain influence into Tibet, and given the key role that the “Roof of the World” has for the security of the Chinese state and its peoples, encompassing Tibet under the wing of the Chinese dragon is understandable. And contrary to propaganda that alleges China has been oppressing Tibetans, debasing their culture, language, and religion, China has been a boon for the Tibetan economy and ways of life. Newsweek even saw fit to chime in a 2012 headline that “China Is Good for Tibet.”
Now suppose what the American reaction would be if the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress were to promote a law whereby the government of China would recognize the colonized state of Hawai’i as a separate, independent country, and for other purposes.
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Kim Petersen is a former co-editor of the Dissident Voice newsletter. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Twitter: @kimpetersen.
Note
1. See e.g., Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, review and David E. Stannard, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World.
If all nations operated like Iran and Venezuela, world peace and stability would replace endless wars of aggression against nations threatening no one.
If countries worldwide refused to subordinate their sovereign rights to US interests, its imperial scourge would be in the dustbin of history where it belongs.
For the first time since WW II ended, humanity would be able to exhale.
As long as most nations operate as US colonies, subservient to its will, world peace, equity, justice, and adherence to the rule of law won’t exist.
A permanent state of war on invented enemies will continue that could destroy planet earth and all its life forms if pushed too far.
When the scourge of Nazism and imperial Japan were defeated in 1945, a time in world history I remember vividly and the brief interregnum of peace that followed, who could have imagined that devastation and human misery would repeat endlessly in multiple theaters to this day.
There’s no end of it in prospect, just the risk of things exploding to global war 3.0 with super-weapons in the hands of belligerent USA able kill us all if unleashed.
The UN Charter’s preamble pledge “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind” proved empty words based on how things turned out since the mid-20th century.
The world at war rages because that’s how the scourge of imperialism operates.
Today it’s wrapped in the American flag, both right wings of the US war party pretending its mission is noble, wanting all nations remade in its own image by brute force if that’s what it takes, the human cost considered irrelevant.
Megalomania defines Washington’s imperial agenda — defined by Merriam-Webster as “a delusional mental illness that is marked by feelings of personal omnipotence and grandeur.”
Like his predecessors, Trump was co-opted to serve the nation’s privileged class by exploiting most others.
His regime’s National Defense Strategy (NDS) is a blueprint for global dominance — endless wars by hot and other means, along with other hostile actions its favored strategies, trillions of dollars spent in pursuit of them at the expense of vital homeland needs gone begging.
His National Security Strategy (NSS) is much the same, a call to arms for endless preemptive wars.
It pretends normality is unattainable without US global control.
It maintains the fiction of barbarians at the gates, the necessity to confront them to protect and defend the nation’s security at a time when no threats exist, just invented ones as a pretext for militarism and endless wars.
US new millennium NSS calls for first-strike use of nuclear weapons against any adversary, invented or real, nuclear armed or not.
It’s a prescription for possible global immolation if a US president squeezes the nuclear trigger to advance the nation’s imperium.
Today’s brave nuke world can kill us all by accident or otherwise.
The scourge of US imperialism threatens everyone everywhere. It threatens planet earth and all its life forms.
If these weapons of mass destruction aren’t eliminated, one day they may eliminate us.
Iran and Venezuela refuse to bow to Washington’s will, free trade between them as international law allows an example of their sovereign independence, a model for other nations to follow.
US war on both nations by other means defies the rule of law. Nations obeying a higher power in Washington are complicit with its criminality, harming themselves at the same time.
Refusal to accept its bullying tactics is the most effective way to neutralize them.
The US needs allies to cow nations into submission to its will. Without them in enough numbers, it’s powerless.
If growing numbers of world community nations follow the example of Iran and Venezuela by exercising their sovereign rights, consider what’s possible.
Swords can be transformed into plowshares. Peace may break out all over.
National wealth can be freed up for vital homeland needs, a constructive agenda replacing a destructive one.
Militarism and invented enemies are the stuff that endless wars are made of.
Perpetual wars risk self-destruction. If a way isn’t found to end them, they may end us.
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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)
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In a conversation with Richard Verma, who served as the U.S. ambassador to India for the 2014-2017 term, she pointed out the similarities between growing skirmishes in the Himalayas and Chinese actions in the South China Sea. Alice Wells called China’s activities on the border with India and in the South China Sea an ongoing effort to change the rules and the status quo. The U.S. diplomat spoke out against China’s actions, both in the South China Sea and on the border with India, as well as in the Indian Ocean. Wells said that China’s growing military presence on the border with India, where clashes were not uncommon, had become a cause of concern for New Delhi. According to her, the problem is becoming more serious as China strives to shirk responsibility and spread false information.
Washington’s latest initiative is likely to anger Beijing at a time when relations between the world’s two largest economies are already fraught with tensions over the US-China trade war, and now the anything but certain Chinese legislation that will outlaw secessionist and subversive activities as well as foreign interference and terrorism in Hong Kong.
The US Senate, on 14 May passed bill on the mistreatment of Uyghur minority in China. The bill demands President Donald Trump to sanction Chinese officials who partake in the violating rights and freedoms of Uyghur community in the northwestern region of China. Some American experts accused the US of conducting ethnic and nationalist separatism in other countries.
The idea that China is a threat to Americans’ security is baseless: China hasn’t threatened to attack America, while the US has a massive military presence in the Asia/Pacific region. The Pentagon, with bipartisan support, wants to engorge that menace with a $20 billion budget increase, and with offensive weaponry such as land-based Tomahawk cruise missiles that had been banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty until the US abrogated the deal. China, meanwhile, has no military installations anywhere close to the United States.
Last May, the Trump regime blacklisted Chinese tech giant Huawei and its 70 affiliates from the US market on the phony pretext of preventing the company from “potentially undermin(ing) US national security.”
At stake is the race to roll out 5G technology in Western and world markets, Huawei way ahead of competitors.
In the past two months, instead of focusing on handling the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump and his team have insisted on blaming China by using all kinds of excuses – from hyping conspiracies of the virus’ origin, to accusing China of covering up the virus.
For a long period the Chinese regime has vacillated between seeking accommodation with the U.S.-led imperialist forces to ‘do business’ with the western world, and defending itself against the attempted economic, political, and military encirclement and strangulation of China by those same imperialist forces.
On Memorial Day yesterday, Americans were called upon to remember the American soldiers who have been killed in America’s many foreign wars. U.S. interventionists should have also used the day to apologize not only to the families of those veterans but also to the families who lost loved ones as a consequence of U.S. interventionism in their countries.
Let’s begin with the obvious. Ever since interventionists turned America toward empire and foreign control and domination in the Spanish American War in 1898, there has been no nation-state that has invaded the United States. There is a simple reason for that: No nation-state in Europe, Africa, and Asia has the money, armaments, personnel, equipment, supplies, or even the interest in crossing the ocean and invading the United States. Moreover, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, the same holds true for Canada and Latin American countries.
While U.S. interventionism includes Latin America, America’s deadliest foreign wars have been waged “over there” — in countries thousands of miles away from American shores. Since none of them involved an invasion of the United States, none of them can be said to be have been waged in “self-defense.” They were all based on foreign interventionism.
What about the much-ballyhooed World War II, the big one waged by the so-called greatest generation?
Oh sure, Japan attacked U.S. battleships at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and U.S. troops in the Philippines, but let’s put things into context, something that interventionists are loathe to do.
Japan had no interest in going to war against the United States. What would have been the point in doing so? Japanese military forces had invaded China and had their hands filled attempting to subjugate that giant country. Why would Japan want to fight a two-front war, especially against a nation as powerful as the United States? Just for the fun of it?
Of course not. Japan attacked those battleships at Pearl because President Franklin Roosevelt maneuvered and cornered them into doing so. Even though Roosevelt had assured the American people, who were overwhelmingly opposed to entered World War II after the horrific debacle of World War I, that he would never send American boys into another foreign war, the fact is that he was lying. In fact, he was doing everything he could to get the United States into the conflict.
This was a time, however, when U.S. presidents were still complying with the Constitution’s declaration of war requirement. FDR knew that owing to the overwhelming opposition among the American people to getting involved in another foreign war, he had no chance of securing a congressional declaration of war, unless he could get Germany or Japan to fire the first shot, in which he could say, “We’ve been attacked! We are shocked by this act of infamy! Now, give me my declaration of war.”
After failing to get Germany to take the bait, FDR shifted his focus to the Pacific, figuring that if he could get Japan to fire the first shot, that could give him his entry into the European war. Even though Japan and the U.S. were not at war, FDR initiated an oil embargo on Japan that proved remarkable effective in threatening Japan with insufficient oil supplies to sustain its military occupation in China. At the same time, FDR illegally froze Japanese bank accounts in the United States. When Japan tried to settle differences with the U.S. without war, FDR issued settlement terms that he knew would be highly humiliating to Japanese officials.
Moreover, FDR’s code-breakers had broken the Japan’s diplomatic codes and possibly also its military codes, which enabled him to read Japan’s secret preparations for war. While FDR craftily removed U.S. aircraft carriers from Pearl, he left the battleships there. He did the same with U.S. troops in the Philippines, a nation 5,000 miles away from the continental United States that the U.S. government had acquired by conquest in the Spanish American War.
When Japan attacked Pearl and the Philippines, it was not with the aim of invading the United States. It was with the limited aim of knocking out the U.S. Pacific fleet so that it could not interfere with Japan’s acquisition of oil in the Dutch East Indies. Thus, if FDR had never engaged in his interventionist antics, Japan would never have attacked those battleships and those U.S. troops in the Philippines because there would have been no reason to do so.
Following World War II, the U.S. government was converted into a national-security state, a totalitarian form of government structure consisting of the Pentagon, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and the NSA. The justification for abandoning America’s founding governmental system of a limited-government republic was that the U.S. could now wage a decades-long “cold war” against America’s World War II partner and ally, the Soviet Union and its “godless” communism.
Combining a national-security state with an interventionist foreign policy proved to be a disaster for the American people in terms of a never-ending series of foreign wars — wars that had nothing to do with defending the United States from an invading power.
The Korean War. The Vietnam War. The Grenada War. The Panama War. The Iraq War. The Afghanistan War. The Somalia War. And more. All with the consequence of placing American soldiers, who were made to believe that they were “defending” America, in a position of killing foreigners or being killed by them.
At the same time, the CIA engaged in a never-ending series of regime-change operations, many of which were based on state-sponsored assassinations of foreign leaders. Iran. Guatemala. Cuba. Chile. Brazil. Congo. Nicaragua. Iraq. And more.
It’s worth mentioning that all that interventionism in faraway lands ended up destroying the liberty and privacy of the American people, especially with the perpetual “war on terrorism” that interventionism has produced.
Okay, let’s keep Memorial Day as a way to honor those veterans. But how about adding ApologyDay the day after Memorial Day, when all U.S. interventionists would be asked to fall down on their knees, apologize to all the American and foreign families to whom they have brought death and suffering through foreign interventionism, and seek forgiveness from them?
“We are witnessing a new plan of occupation and annexation by Israel that threatens Palestinian sovereignty and is contrary to international law,” Erdogan said in a video addressing US Muslims on Sunday evening.
“We will not allow the Palestinian lands to be offered to anyone else.”
He claimed Turkey is the “only voice” defending the Palestinians.
“The world order has let down the Palestinians, and has not successfully brought peace, justice, security and order to this part of the world,” he added.
Erdogan added that Jerusalem and Temple Mount – the ruins of the ancient Jewish temple on which al-Aqsa mosque is situated – are “holy to three religions” and are “a red line for all Muslims in the world”.
The Turkish leader went on to address the suffering of the Syrian people, Haftar’s “putschist” forces in Libya, and Islamophobia against Muslims in the West.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated his plans to begin annexing settlements and the Jordan Valley in July, following the formation of the country’s unity government – which he will lead for 18 months.
The annexation project has been harshly condemned by an increasing number of countries, including neighbouring states such as Jordan and European nations including France and Germany.
At his first cabinet meeting on Monday, Netanyahu reaffirmed his commitment to the July date outlined in the coalition agreement for taking the first step towards extending sovereignty to West Bank areas.
The move will be carried out in coordination with the US, as stipulated by President Trump’s peace plan for Israel-Palestine, which gave Israel the green light to illegally impose sovereignty on around 30 percent of the West Bank.
The peace plan in its entirety was rejected by the Palestinians, who have long demanded the West Bank as the territory of its future state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
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On the eve of a holiday weekend and during a global pandemic, the Trump administration last week approved a new oil well and pipeline in Carrizo Plain National Monument. It would be the first well drilled in the monument since it was established in 2001.
The Bureau of Land Management originally approved the well and pipeline two years ago but withdrew that approval in July 2019 after Los Padres ForestWatch and Center for Biological Diversity filed objections. The conservation groups cited the well’s potential harm to wildlife, views and the climate.
“While many of us are worried about basic needs during a time of crisis, the Trump administration is busy catering to the oil industry at the expense of people and the planet,” said ForestWatch Executive Director Jeff Kuyper. “The Carrizo Plain National Monument is one of our region’s most precious wild places and deserves better than this.”
The oil well and pipeline would harm threatened and endangered wildlife and mar scenic views. This fossil fuel development would violate several laws, including the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act, as well as the monument’s resource-management plan.
The proposed well site is located at the base of the Caliente Mountains, inside the western boundary of Carrizo Plain National Monument. The area is home to several protected species, including threatened San Joaquin antelope squirrels, endangered San Joaquin kit foxes and a threatened flowering plant called the Kern mallow. Endangered California condors also visit this area with increasing frequency as they continue to expand into their historic range.
“The Trump administration’s irrational decision to approve oil drilling in this spectacular place ignores climate change, imperils rare wildlife, and contradicts the monument’s conservation purpose,” said Lisa Belenky, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Instead of expanding oil and gas drilling, we need to keep dirty fossil fuels in the ground and turn to renewable energy sources.”
The oil well would be drilled on an existing oil pad that hasn’t produced oil since the 1950s. In 2016 the BLM approved the oil company’s request to formally abandon the pad and remove an old well, pipelines and other equipment from the site. The company also pledged to recontour and reseed the pad and a half-mile access road leading to it, restoring the area to natural conditions. The work was never done, and now the BLM is attempting to backtrack on these abandonment plans by approving further development.
The new well is located on an existing oil lease that was “grandfathered” in under the monument proclamation signed by President Bill Clinton in 2001, but new development is supposed to comply with more stringent standards.
The well would be drilled in the Russell Ranch Oil Field, which covers approximately 1,500 acres of the monument and adjacent private land. In 2018 the field produced only 128 barrels of oil per day ― 0.03% of the state’s total oil production and one of the lowest-producing oilfields in the state. The field is reportedly nearing the end of its useful life.
When the California BLM withdrew its original approval of the well last year, it directed its Bakersfield Field Office to substantially revise its environmental assessment and consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. But the BLM’s new decision continues to disregard significant environmental impacts and potential harm to the conservation values of the monument.
About the Carrizo Plain
Carrizo Plain National Monument is a vast expanse of golden grasslands and stark ridges known for their springtime wildflower displays. Often referred to as “California’s Serengeti,” it is one of the last undeveloped remnants of the southern San Joaquin Valley ecosystem.
The Carrizo Plain is critical for the long-term conservation of this dwindling ecosystem, linking these lands to other high-value habitat areas like the Los Padres National Forest, Salinas Valley, Cuyama Valley and Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in western Kern County.
Honoring the area’s high biodiversity, limited human impacts and rare geological and cultural features, the Carrizo Plain was declared a national monument in 2001. It includes more than 206,000 acres of public lands ― perhaps the largest native grassland remaining in all of California.
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Featured image: Inside the western boundary of Carrizo Plain National Monument, in the area where the Bureau of Land Management has approved an oil well and pipeline. Photo credit: Los Padres ForestWatch.
The US’ planned withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty represents yet another rubbishing of the international arms control regimes that helped maintain strategic stability after the end of the Old Cold War, with this dramatic move and the others like it being part of the Trump Administration’s risky renegotiating gamble intended to get Russia to bring China on board a broader system of replacement regimes in the New Cold War.
Closing Down The Formerly “Open Skies”
The Trump Administration recently announced its intention to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, which had hitherto allowed the over 30 signatory states to conduct unarmed flights over one another’s territories under special conditions in order to build confidence and reduce the odds of a war breaking out by miscalculation. The US accuses Russia of violating this agreement by limiting American flights over Kaliningrad and near its state borders with Abkhazia, Georgia, and South Ossetia, and exploiting this pact to secretly fine-tune its cruise missile targeting capabilities. Russia, meanwhile, accused the US of unspecified violations in kind but confirmed its commitment to keep the treaty in force with its other members for the sake of maintaining strategic stability.
Trump’s Risky Gamble
The larger pattern at play here is that the US once again rubbished yet another international arms control regime that helped bring predictability to the post-Old Cold War world order after pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) last summer. Critics are extremely concerned that the US is single-handledly dismantling the mechanisms that are partially credited with helping to avoid a nuclear war with Russia, thus further worsening the global international security situation during these unpredictable times in the midst of the New Cold War and WorldWarC. That’s veritably true to a large extent, but it should be recognized that the Trump Administration isn’t doing this just for the sake of causing more chaos at the worst possible time but as part of its risky renegotiating gamble to get Russia to bring China on board a broader system of replacement regimes.
Special Presidential Envoy Marshall Billingslea said as much during his remarks at last week’s videoconference hosted by the Hudson Institute think tank. In his own words about the call that he recently had with his counterpart Russian Deputy Minister Sergey Ryabkov, he said that “I emphasized the crucial roles that verification and compliance play in making arms control effective, but above all, I made perfectly clear that it is our expectation that Russia help us to bring China to the negotiating table, just as the deputy minister himself said needed to happen.” He also provocatively boasted about his country’s prospects in the event of a three-way arms race between itself, Russia, and China, saying that “We know how to win these races. And we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion. If we have to, we will, but we sure would like to avoid it.”
The “New Arms & Space Races”
As the author wrote in February 2019 when analyzing the US’ announcement that it planned to withdraw from the INF Treaty half a year later, “Trump’s Baiting Russia Into an Arms Race, But Putin Won’t Bite“. The reason why Russia has thus far avoided falling into this trap is because of its hypersonic missile advances over the past two years that the author also touched upon in his related piece a month later about how “Russia’s Hypersonic Missiles Didn’t Surprise America But They Awed The World“. Complementary to the New Arms Race is the US’ similar intentions to trigger “A New Space Race For A New Cold War“, which have together combined to create an unprecedentedly uncertain state of strategic affairs across the world, exactly as Trump planned. This doesn’t mean that Russia will go bankrupt racing to catch up, but just that it is indeed being pressured to invest more.
“What The US Really Wants From Russia” is for it to slow down the pace of its strategic partnership with China, hoping to repeat the Kissingerian strategy of “triangulating” between these two Great Powers for the purpose of weakening both of them. Just like Nixon enjoyed his celebrated “Opening of China” as his administration co-opted the country against the USSR in the Old Cold War, so too does Trump hope to clinch a “NewDetente” with Russia that would do something similar vis-a-vis China, albeit not in as tense of a manner as his earlier predecessor did but in a more indirect way that would still serve America’s geostrategic agenda. To be clear, the “New Detente” doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing since it could end up being to Russia’s benefit so long as Moscow ensures that there isn’t any anti-Chinese angle to it, but it still unsettles Beijing to even think about.
There are no realistic prospects of returning to the heated Old Cold War-era rivalry between Russia and China despite their publicized disagreements with one another over some aspects of their COVID-19 containment measures as explained by the author in his piece on the topic last month titled “Rare Wrinkle Or Growing Rift?: Russia & China Exchange Criticisms Over World War C“. Nor, for that matter, does the US truly believe that it’s capable of provoking such a scenario in the first place despite its best efforts at trying. Rather, what Washington is really aiming for is to manipulate the strategic security context in such a way that Moscow feels compelled to “lean on” Beijing in order to “convince” it to join the US’ proposed trilateral arms negotiation frameworks, with the US knowing very well that Russia stands little chance of succeeding in this respect.
Russia’s Tricky Task
“It’s Too Early To Include China In Trump’s Nuclear Weapons Proposal” because the country’s capabilities still pale in comparison to the US and Russia’s so any reductions on its part would simply amount to formalizing its junior status relative to its primary American competitor. There’s a chance that this might not matter much so long as the country can succeed in developing and deploying its own hypersonic missiles, but even then, the US might pressure it to include these weapons systems in any forthcoming reductions as well as part of a “complete package”. As for Russia, its national interest lays in renegotiating these pacts with the US, though America said that it won’t sit down at the table unless China participates too, which presses Moscow to at the very least probe Beijing’s willingness to do so behind closed doors.
The task at hand is therefore very tricky since any “excessive insistence” on China’s participation could be interpreted by Beijing as “Russian pressure”, which might weaken their unprecedentedly close and trust-based relationship. Nevertheless, as the saying goes, “there’s no harm in asking”, so it should be assumed that Russia will continue to “gently” “lean on” China to this end. It’s unlikely to succeed for the previously mentioned reason, however, which might then predictably result in the indefinite absence of any serious strategic security agreements with the US. That outcome is extremely troublesome since it would by necessity compel Russia to continue to invest its resources in competing with the US (the “New Arms & Space Races”) despite the difficult economic conditions brought about by World War C.
Concluding Thoughts
As it stands, the US and China have the financial and political wherewithal to engage in a costly competition with one another, so Russia should regard the New Arms & Space Races as a fait accompli even though it would prefer for this scenario not to unfold. Moscow should continue to “encourage” Beijing to join it in trilateral negotiations with Washington but should also understand how counterproductive it would be to “press” it too hard on this issue. Instead, Russia should prepare to double down on its research into cost-effective solutions such as more advanced hypersonic missiles and whatever it deems necessary to defend its interests in space. In both of these races, Russia isn’t the primary player but it’s nevertheless compelled to defend its interests in these related competitions despite never having wanted to participate in them to begin with.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
“The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support.”—Étienne De La Boétie, The Politics Of Obedience
Don’t pity this year’s crop of graduates because this COVID-19 pandemic caused them to miss out on the antics of their senior year and the pomp and circumstance of graduation.
Pity them because they have spent their entire lives in a state of emergency.
They were born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks; raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity and compliance; saddled with a debt-ridden economy on the brink of implosion; made vulnerable by the blowback from a military empire constantly waging war against shadowy enemies; policed by government agents armed to the teeth ready and able to lock down the country at a moment’s notice; and forced to march in lockstep with a government that no longer exists to serve the people but which demands they be obedient slaves or suffer the consequences.
It’s a dismal start to life, isn’t it?
Unfortunately, we who should have known better failed to maintain our freedoms or provide our young people with the tools necessary to survive, let alone succeed, in the impersonal jungle that is modern America.
We brought them into homes fractured by divorce, distracted by mindless entertainment, and obsessed with the pursuit of materialism. We institutionalized them in daycares and afterschool programs, substituting time with teachers and childcare workers for parental involvement. We turned them into test-takers instead of thinkers and automatons instead of activists.
We allowed them to languish in schools which not only look like prisons but function like prisons, as well—where conformity is the rule and freedom is the exception. We made them easy prey for our corporate overlords, while instilling in them the values of a celebrity-obsessed, technology-driven culture devoid of any true spirituality. And we taught them to believe that the pursuit of their own personal happiness trumped all other virtues, including any empathy whatsoever for their fellow human beings
No, we haven’t done this generation any favors.
Given the current political climate and nationwide lockdown, things could only get worse.
For those coming of age today (and for the rest of us who are muddling along through this dystopian nightmare), here are a few bits of advice that will hopefully help as we navigate the perils ahead.
Be an individual. For all of its claims to champion the individual, American culture advocates a stark conformity which, as John F. Kennedy warned, is “the jailer of freedom, and the enemy of growth.” Worry less about fitting in with the rest of the world and instead, as Henry David Thoreau urged, become “a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.”
Learn your rights. We’re losing our freedoms for one simple reason: most of us don’t know anything about our freedoms. At a minimum, anyone who has graduated from high school, let alone college, should know the Bill of Rights backwards and forwards. However, the average young person, let alone citizen, has very little knowledge of their rights for the simple reason that the schools no longer teach them. So grab a copy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and study them at home. And when the time comes, stand up for your rights before it’s too late.
Speak truth to power. Don’t be naive about those in positions of authority. As James Madison, who wrote our Bill of Rights, observed, “All men having power ought to be distrusted.” We must learn the lessons of history. People in power, more often than not, abuse that power. To maintain our freedoms, this will mean challenging government officials whenever they exceed the bounds of their office.
Resist all things that numb you. Don’t measure your worth by what you own or earn. Likewise, don’t become mindless consumers unaware of the world around you. Resist all things that numb you, put you to sleep or help you “cope” with so-called reality. Those who establish the rules and laws that govern society’s actions desire compliant subjects. However, as George Orwell warned, “Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they rebelled, they cannot become conscious.” It is these conscious individuals who change the world for the better.
Don’t let technology turn you into zombies. Technology anesthetizes us to the all-too-real tragedies that surround us. Techno-gadgets are merely distractions from what’s really going on in America and around the world. As a result, we’ve begun mimicking the inhuman technology that surrounds us and have lost our humanity. We’ve become sleepwalkers. If you’re going to make a difference in the world, you’re going to have to pull the earbuds out, turn off the cell phones and spend much less time viewing screens.
Help others. We all have a calling in life. And I believe it boils down to one thing: You are here on this planet to help other people. In fact, none of us can exist very long without help from others. If we’re going to see any positive change for freedom, then we must change our view of what it means to be human and regain a sense of what it means to love and help one another. That will mean gaining the courage to stand up for the oppressed.
Refuse to remain silent in the face of evil. Throughout history, individuals or groups of individuals have risen up to challenge the injustices of their age. Nazi Germany had its Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The gulags of the Soviet Union were challenged by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. America had its color-coded system of racial segregation and warmongering called out for what it was, blatant discrimination and profiteering, by Martin Luther King Jr. And then there was Jesus Christ, an itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist, who not only died challenging the police state of his day—namely, the Roman Empire—but provided a blueprint for civil disobedience that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him. What we lack today and so desperately need are those with moral courage who will risk their freedoms and lives in order to speak out against evil in its many forms.
Cultivate spirituality, reject materialism and put people first. When the things that matter most have been subordinated to materialism, we have lost our moral compass. We must change our values to reflect something more meaningful than technology, materialism and politics. Standing at the pulpit of the Riverside Church in New York City in April 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. urged his listeners:
[W]e as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motive and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
Pitch in and do your part to make the world a better place. Don’t rely on someone else to do the heavy lifting for you. Don’t wait around for someone else to fix what ails you, your community or nation. As Mahatma Gandhi urged: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”
Stop waiting for political saviors to fix what is wrong with this country. Stop waiting for some political savior to swoop in and fix all that’s wrong with this country. Stop allowing yourselves to be drawn into divisive party politics. Stop thinking of yourselves as members of a particular political party, as opposed to citizens of the United States. Most of all, stop looking away from the injustices and cruelties and endless acts of tyranny that have become hallmarks of American police state. Be vigilant and do your part to recalibrate the balance of power in favor of “we the people.”
Say no to war. Addressing the graduates at Binghampton Central High School in 1968, at a time when the country was waging war “on different fields, on different levels, and with different weapons,” Twilight Zonecreator Rod Serling declared:
Too many wars are fought almost as if by rote. Too many wars are fought out of sloganry, out of battle hymns, out of aged, musty appeals to patriotism that went out with knighthood and moats. Love your country because it is eminently worthy of your affection. Respect it because it deserves your respect. Be loyal to it because it cannot survive without your loyalty. But do not accept the shedding of blood as a natural function or a prescribed way of history—even if history points this up by its repetition. That men die for causes does not necessarily sanctify that cause. And that men are maimed and torn to pieces every fifteen and twenty years does not immortalize or deify the act of war… find another means that does not come with the killing of your fellow-man.
Finally, prepare yourselves for what lies ahead. The demons of our age—some of whom disguise themselves as politicians—delight in fomenting violence, sowing distrust and prejudice, and persuading the public to support tyranny disguised as patriotism. Overcoming the evils of our age will require more than intellect and activism. It will require decency, morality, goodness, truth and toughness. As Serling concluded in his remarks to the graduating class of 1968:
“Toughness is the singular quality most required of you… we have left you a world far more botched than the one that was left to us… Part of your challenge is to seek out truth, to come up with a point of view not dictated to you by anyone, be he a congressman, even a minister… Are you tough enough to take the divisiveness of this land of ours, the fact that everything is polarized, black and white, this or that, absolutely right or absolutely wrong. This is one of the challenges. Be prepared to seek out the middle ground … that wondrous and very difficult-to-find Valhalla where man can look to both sides and see the errant truths that exist on both sides. If you must swing left or you must swing right—respect the other side. Honor the motives that come from the other side. Argue, debate, rebut—but don’t close those wondrous minds of yours to opposition. In their eyes, you’re the opposition. And ultimately … ultimately—you end divisiveness by compromise. And so long as men walk and breathe—there must be compromise…
Are you tough enough to face one of the uglier stains upon the fabric of our democracy—prejudice? It’s the basic root of most evil. It’s a part of the sickness of man. And it’s a part of man’s admission, his constant sick admission, that to exist he must find a scapegoat. To explain away his own deficiencies—he must try to find someone who he believes more deficient… Make your judgment of your fellow-man on what he says and what he believes and the way he acts. Be tough enough, please, to live with prejudice and give battle to it. It warps, it poisons, it distorts and it is self-destructive. It has fallout worse than a bomb … and worst of all it cheapens and demeans anyone who permits himself the luxury of hating.”
The only way we’ll ever achieve change in this country is for people to finally say “enough is enough” and fight for the things that truly matter.
It doesn’t matter how old you are or what your political ideology is: wake up, stand up, speak up, and make your citizenship count for something more than just voting.
Pandemic or not, don’t allow your freedoms to be curtailed and your voice to be muzzled.
It’s our civic duty to make the government hear us—and heed us—using every nonviolent means available to us: picket, protest, march, boycott, speak up, sound off and reclaim control over the narrative about what is really going on in this country.
Mind you, the government doesn’t want to hear us. It doesn’t even want us to speak. In fact, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the government has done a diabolically good job of establishing roadblocks to prevent us from exercising our First Amendment right to speech and assembly and protest.
Still we must persist.
So get active, get outraged, and get going: there’s work to be done.
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We bring to the attention of our readers this important article by author William Walter Kay. The article raises two fundamental issues:
The first pertains to the deplorable heath care conditions (and the lack of personnel) affecting patients in Quebec’s nursing homes and geriatric wards which inevitably have an incidence on mortality. And that mortality has nothing to do with COVID-19.
The second relates to the outright manipulation of the statistics pertaining to the causes of death in the Province of Quebec. Patients are either diagnosed by a medical doctor, and/or “tested” for COV-19 with the standard antibody test plus respiratory tract specimen. Neither of these procedures prove unequivocally the incidence of COVID-19. Moreover, in many cases patients are arbitrarily categorized as COV-19 without a test or diagnosis.
Once the patient is categorized as COVID-19 (“presumed”, with or without tests) COVID-19 will be included as “a cause of death” (on the death certificate) irrespective of the actual health condition of the elderly patient who has passed away in the nursing home.
And then this mortality data (based on COVID-19 as a cause of death) will be tabulated and entered into the COVID-19 data banks of the Province of Quebec and Canada. And these data are then transmitted to the WHO, which will then integrate them into the global COVID-19 data bank.
In all probability, the majority of the terminally ill patients in the nursing homes did not die of COVID-19.
These recorded death statistics (arbitrarily assigned to COVID-19) will then be used to sustain the illusion that the coronavirus in Quebec is increasing at an alarming rate, thereby providing a justification to maintaining the lockdown and social distancing.
It’s a big lie. And the medical personnel and Quebec politicians know it. Yet it is not being reported by the media.
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, Montreal, Qc, May 19, 2020
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Quebec’s 8.5 million residents constitute 22.6% of Canada’s population (37.6 million).
Quebec’s 3,483 COVID-19 deaths constitute 62.5% of the Canadian total (5,595).
Ontario, population 14.6 million, reports 1,858 COVID-19 deaths.
The rest of Canada (pop 14.5 million) reports 345 deaths.
In terms of COVID-19 deaths-per-million citizens: Quebec registers 409; Ontario registers 127; and the rest of Canada: 24.
Four million Quebecers reside in Greater Montreal. Another 2 million reside within a 100-kilometre radius of Montreal. This combined area witnessed 90% of Quebec’s C-19 fatalities partly because this area hosts most of Quebec’s 2,600 long-term care facilities (“nursing homes”). Said facilities are run both by the provincial government as well a private health companies.
Officially, 75% (2,601) of Quebec’s COVID-19 fatalities occurred inside nursing homes. There is clear evidence of under-counting of nursing home fatalities. Nursing home plus geriatric ward fatalities exceed 90% of all fatalities.
Official figures do transpose nicely upon reported ages of COV-19 fatalities. Almost 40% of fatalities were aged 80 to 90. A third were over 90.
Quebec reported its first C-19 death on March 18. Six of Quebec’s first 9 fatalities happened in nursing homes. By March 27 nursing homes were obvious biohazards.
On April 1 officials revealed that 519 nursing homes harboured at least one COVID-19 case.
On April 8 news broke that 115 of 250 residents of a Laval nursing home were COVID-19 positive. Thirteen residents there had perished.
On April 10 ambulance crews discovered residents malnourished, dehydrated and covered with feces at Dorval’s Residence Herron. Crews found corpses Herron’s staff were unaware of. A dispute erupted between provincial health officials and the ambulance service over how many body-bags had been dragged from Herron and over how many of those bags contained COVID-19 fatalities. Herron, which averages 4 deaths per month, had 31 deaths in 14 days. One hundred-fifty residents and staff tested positive.
On April 13 authorities noted a government-run home in Lasalle had 26 COVID-19 fatalities and 351 cases.
At an April 14 presser Quebec’s Director of Public Health stated that he had originally operated on the assumption that asymptomatic C-19 carriers were not contagious. This derriere covering arrived just as news outlets dropped bombs like:
“…as in Italy and Spain, Quebec focussed on freeing up hospital and ICU capacity, and in some cases preventatively transferred seniors out of hospitals into care facilities. At the same time, it established recommendations to those care facilities restricting the transfer of residents back to hospitals should they fall ill. The result has been a humanitarian disaster of still undetermined proportions…”
Health authorities knew intimately where they were sending and confining these patients. Problems at Quebec nursing homes have been studied ad nauseam. Many homes have crowded communal dining rooms and narrow hallways. Many have wards with multiple beds per room and shared toilets. Most have residents incapable of following elementary hygiene protocols meandering about the building. Staff often work at more than one home and continued to do so during the pandemic.
Also amidst the pandemic, nursing home staff earning little more than minimum wage were expected to buy their own personal protective gear. By April’s end thousands of nursing home staff had contracted C-19 or had walked off the job. One home had 2 staff attending to 60 bedridden patients.
On April 30 the government reported 6,603 C-19 cases among nursing home residents.
Quebec’s elderly C-19 sufferers were sent to and/or confined in circumstances approaching the opposite of quarantine. The contagious were not isolated and well-tended. They were herded into cloistered proximity with the most vulnerable, then abandoned.
Quebec has 9,280 C-19 cases aged over 70. Quebec is only treating 1,763 COVID-19 sufferers in hospital (many of whom caught COVID-19 whilst in geriatric wards). Hence, thousands of C-19 patients continue to languish inside bio chambers alongside tens of thousands of elderly neighbors.
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Featured image: The private Herron nursing home in a Montreal suburb lost 31 patients to COVID-19 after their caregivers fled the premises (Photo by Eric THOMAS/AFP)
Alarming COVID-19 death statistics from seniors’ facilities continue to be in the spotlight in Ontario and elsewhere.
However, all is not as it seems in the mainstream-media reports of those statistics.
Procedures that came into effect in Ontario one month ago for dealing with deaths in long-term-care homes (LTCHs) and hospitals are contributing to exaggeration of the numbers of COVID-19 deaths — and preventing the true causes of many of those deaths from ever being uncovered.
This makes it an opportune time to cast an objective eye on procedures that came into effect in Ontario one month ago for dealing with deaths in long-term-care homes (LTCHs) and hospitals. They differ drastically from both Ontario’s previous regulations and other jurisdictions’ procedures.
In the name of efficiency and safety during the COVID-19 epidemic, the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario (OCC) and members of the province’s funeral-home industry established the new rules and implemented them on April 9. The rules apply to almost every death in the province, not just those attributed to COVID-19.
The new approach is focused on speeding up transfer of the deceased from where they died to a funeral home and then to the place of burial or cremation. The stated goal is to prevent overburdening of medical staff and overfilling of hospital morgues and body-storage areas in long-term-care homes (LTCHs) if there’s a surge in deaths from COVID-19.
However, there are highly problematic parts to this. For example, the new ‘expedited death response’ takes the critical and sensitive task of completing the Medical Certificates of Death (MCODs) out of the hands of the people who know and care for the residents and patients.
Instead, the chief coroner and his staff now have the exclusive right to complete MCODs for people who die in LTCHs. The new rules also give the OCC the power to complete hospital patients’ MCODs. This is despite the members of the OCC very rarely seeing the bodies of LTCH residents and hospital patients, much less meeting them before they die.
“Seeing the body doesn’t actually tell you a lot about the cause of death,” the Chief Coroner for Ontario, Dr. Dirk Huyer, said in an April 20 telephone interview when questioned about this.
Other aspects of the new procedures contribute to the well-documentedinflation of the number of COVID-19-linked deaths and they also prevent autopsies from ever being performed on virtually all people designated as having died from COVID-19 (see below).
This author contacted the offices of chief coroners and chief medical examiners for most other Canadian provinces and several American states, and found none have revamped their death-handling processes for LTCH residents or for hospital patients the way Ontario has.
The new Ontario procedures were disseminated April 10 through April 12 via webinars to staff and administrators of LTCHs, hospitals and funeral homes.
According to the OCC’s Q&As for LTCHs and hospitals, the new rules “allow front-line staff to rapidly resume direct patient care.” Also, having the OCC complete the MCODs reduces the number of people who touch the bodies and therefore lowers the potential for virus transmission, the documents assert.
The procedures are based on the supposition that a surge in coronavirus infections and deaths could quickly overwhelm the province’s healthcare capacity.
“We’re really contemplating making sure that we transfer people into funeral-service care by providing some changes that will add – and these words are terrible because this is about people… who have died and families who are suffering … – but it’s [shortening] the timelines, so it’s making things happen quicker. And it’s also increasing efficiencies in the process,” Dr. Huyer said during the April 20 interview.
However, there are no hard data that point to an imminent surge in Ontario. Only the mathematical modelling based on broad assumptions and released on April 3 did so. (Indeed, new modelling released on April 20 showed that cases had peaked.)
There are many other sweeping changes enshrined in the new rules in addition to the ones outlined above.
For example, those closest to the deceased must contact a funeral home within one hour of the death if it took place in a hospital, and within three hours of a death in an LTCH. No one but staff are allowed to be with the person when they die or touch their bodies in the LTCH or hospital.
The remains then are removed very rapidly. To ensure this happens, funeral homes have quickly hired more staff and now can pick up bodies any time 24/7. Also, staff from the LTCH or hospital put the bodies in body bags and bring them to the waiting funeral-home vehicles. This is the only aspect of the new rules that has received considerable media coverage.
Burial or cremation follows as soon as possible. The BAO reportedly is recommending cremation over embalming.
The new rules also adhere to the World Health Organization’s guidelines. Thus all deaths of people who had previously tested positive for the novel coronavirus are recorded as having been caused by COVID-19. Also deaths are attributed to the novel coronavirus of people who were never tested for the virus but were assumed to be infected because either they had some symptoms suggestive of COVID-19, or others in the LTCH or hospital where they died had tested positive. This significantly inflates the numbers of COVID-19 deaths.
Furthermore, the new Ontario procedures deem all COVID-19-related deaths to be natural deaths. Therefore no autopsies are conducted for these deaths — even though they could reveal whether the people in fact died from COVID-19 or from another cause. The rules also appear to preclude the opportunity for removal of tissue or fluid samples for potential future examination.
Much of this runs contrary to recommendations released just nine months ago as part of the formal report on the Public Inquiry into the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-term Care Homes System.
Colloquially known as the Wettlaufer inquiry, the high-profile probe focused on causes of foul play and potential preventive measures after registered nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer was given a life sentence for murdering eight people, attempting to kill several others and committing aggravated assault against another two. All but two of her victims were LTCH residents. The incidents took place in southwestern Ontario between 2007 and 2016 and only came to light when Wettlaufer disclosed them, unprompted, to a psychiatrist in September 2016.
Among the report’s recommendations relevant to carefully documenting the circumstances of death are 50 to 61. These call among other things for the replacement of the standard one-page, 10-question (‘Yes’/‘No’) Institutional Patient Death Record (IPDR) with an evidence-based resident death record. These would be filled out by the staff member who provided the most care to residents just before they died. Physicians, nurses and personal support workers who cared for the person would have input, as would family members.
Then the LTCH’s medical director, director of nursing and pharmacist, and the resident’s treating physician(s) or nurse practitioner all would receive a copy of the completed death record. They would be required to review it as soon as possible and bring any concerns they may have with death or the accuracy of the death record to the OCC and/or the Ontario Forensic Pathology Service.
The inquiry report also recommended the OCC consult with the deceased’s family or with the person who had decision-making power for the deceased before he or she passed.
Eighteen of the recommendations were implemented by February.
A MRD Team at the care home fills out both forms within a few hours of the death. The team members often are not present either at the time of death or during the previous day or days leading up to the death.
A member of the team electronically submits the IPDR and MRDR to the OCC, which immediately transcribes that information onto an electronic MCOD. The OCC then transmits it to the funeral home. The OCC does not share the MCOD with the care home.
(Ontario’s Vital Statistics Act was altered sometime before April 6 to allow death-registration documents to be transmitted via fax or a ‘secure electronic method’ by coroners, funeral directors and division registrars [municipal clerks]. The Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services and the OCC then created electronic versions of the MCOD and the burial permit.)
This option is also available for hospitals. According to the Q&A written by the OCC on the new rules for dealing with hospital deaths, the first-line approach is for the physician who treated the patient to fill out the MCOD within one hour of death.
If that physician is not available, the pre-designated Expedited Death Response Team (EDRT) [also jarring, since this could be read as referring to an expedited death rather than an expedited response to the death] at the hospital fills out an Expedited Death Report. This document is almost identical to the MRDR, except the title is different and ‘Hospital where death occurred’ replaces ‘Long-Term Care Facility where death occurred.’
The EDRT electronically transmits the report to the OCC. This should be done “within minutes, not hours,” according to the hospital Q&A.
When the OCC receives the MRDR and IPDR from an LTCH, or an Expedited Death Report from a hospital, the OCC staff use this information to complete the MCOD. They then transmit it to the funeral home. They do not send the death certificate to the hospital or LTCH.
Next, someone at the funeral home completes the Statement of Death. This is a one-page form that includes the name, age and former occupation of the deceased, the name of the person who pronounced the death, the name and address of the ‘proposed cemetery, crematorium or place of disposition’ and some other basic information. It does not list the cause of death.
The funeral home quickly sends via encrypted email or fax the completed Statement of Death and the MCOD to the local municipality, which then issues a burial permit. The burial or cremation or other disposition of the body then can proceed.
There is no information on the publicly accessible portions the BAO’s website about how much, if anything, the funeral homes are allowed to bill the provincial government and/or the estate of the deceased for each of these steps.
Approximately one week later the local municipality electronically transmits the MCOD to the Office of the Registrar General of Ontario.
Harry Malhi, a media-relations person for the Registrar General’s office, said in an emailed response to several questions that “generally, it takes approximately 6-8 weeks for the Office of the Registrar General to register a death once the registration documents [MCOD and Statement of Death] have been received.” Malhi also stated that “death registration and specifically cause of death information is considered personal information related to the deceased and is not available publicly.”
The Registrar General shares the information on each death with Ontario’s and Canada’s vital statistics offices. Aggregated death data and statistics are not available until at least one year later.
Over the Easter weekend, from April 10 to 12, Dr. Huyer and Carey Smith, who is the BAO’s CEO and Registrar, explained the new procedures via eight webinars to more than 1,000 people from the LTCH, hospital and funeral-home sectors.
Smith’s presentation emphasized the need to “accelerate the disposition of the deceased and to minimize storage between death and disposition.”
This “moves decedents from [the] healthcare [sector] to [the] funeral sector without delay to place them into care of people best-trained and equipped to handle them,” his presentation states. The new approach also “relieves [the] burden on healthcare – [allowing staff to] devote their attention to the living.”
Smith observed (as seen in screenshot of slide 24, below) that the goal is managing “the surge.”
Dr. Huyer similarly highlighted the spectre of a fresh spike in morbidity and mortality, as shown in this screenshot from slide 7 of his presentation.
However, the vast majority of Ontario’s healthcare system has never been over-burdened by COVID-19-related deaths, nor has this been a likelihood.
Virtually all elective cases were cancelled or postponed by mid-March. This resulted in most hospitals being far less busy than normal, as documented in many mediareports. The Financial Accountability Office of Ontario corroborated this in an April 28 report. And on May 8 the Ontario premier and minister of health announced the province is preparing to resume elective hospital procedures and surgeries.
There also has been no indication that more than a small handful of LTCHs in the province have ever had such rapid rates of resident deaths during a COVID-19 outbreak that the facilities’ overnight storage space was at risk of becoming over-filled.
There are additional facets of the new procedures that raise red flags.
One example is on the second page of the Q&A about the new rules for the LTCH sector. There, it states bodies must be removed from the LTCH even if the death requires a coroner investigation.
“Regardless of whether a death requires a coroner investigation, the movement of the resident to the funeral home by the funeral service provider will proceed.”
Thus there is no opportunity for an objective examination of the physical setting of the death.
Yet Dr. Huyer seems to see only upsides to the new rules.
“All of these things are added during this period of time to allow not only a timely approach but also an efficient approach to be able to ensure that people proceed to burial or cremation in a timely way without requiring additional storage space,” he said in the telephone interview.
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Rosemary Frei has an MSc in molecular biology from a faculty of medicine and was a freelance medical writer and journalist for 22 years. She is now an independent investigative journalist in Toronto, Ontario. You can find her earlier article on The Seven Steps from Pandemic to Totalitarianism for Off-Guardian here, watch and listen to an interview she gave on COVID19 and follow her on Twitter.
As far as pharmaceutical giants pining to roll out the world’s first COVID-19 vaccine is concerned, the race is very much on. The SARS-CoV-2 continues to be lauded as the most time-sensitive crisis of our modern era, and CEOs of various drug companies are not hiding the fact that they are putting safety to the back-burner of their production schedule. If anything, they even appear to be praising such a risky practice, and ultimately seem to be gleaning some notable rewards for doing so.
Johnson & Johnson’s chief scientist Paul Stoffels has revealed that the company will be spending $500 million to research and develop a vaccine (which, incidentally, is part of a $1 billion partnership with the US government). Stoffels announced that his company aims to begin production within the next few weeks “before the vaccine has gone through clinical trials or been approved by the FDA.” The reasoning behind this rush for manufacturing, as Stoffels explains, is to ensure that there are sizeable quantities ready for consumption – assuming they ultimately get approved. While admitting that this is a generally unorthodox approach to vaccine development, Stoffels justifies this unprecedented reverse-order for the reason that “the crisis is so big that we have to organize ourselves differently and get going…(Forbes, March 30).”
Stoffels also denies any profit-based ambitions in this blatant push for vaccine development. He claims that J&J are developing a vaccine that is essentially not for profit so that it is “more affordable and available on a global scale as quickly as possible.” He further stresses that this is “not about competition,” and that there essentially has to be “more trains on the rails to success here than just one vaccine.”
While Johnson and Johnson’s seemingly altruistic stance has been clearly articulated in relation to its commitment to battling the coronavirus, it should nevertheless be pointed out that the company’s stock value rose by 7.5% immediately after the announcement was made (Forbes, March 30).
Indeed, some analysts have warned that the US stock market might be experiencing a premature (and ultimately superficial) recovery due to the infusion of optimism over the news of a vaccine product becoming available in the near future. This optimism has been hyped even further by an announcement made by Matt Hancock (Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the UK) that the University of Oxford’s Jenner Institute may in fact have a drug ready for distribution as early as September. Human trials evidently already began in late April (The Telegraph, May 13).
Geoffrey Porges, Director of Therapeutics Research and a Senior Research Analyst at SVB Leerink (a specialized investment bank focusing on the healthcare sector), has warned that these types of announcements carry the risk of creating predetermined expectations among the public, to the point where “having a vaccine and having one in this timeframe seem a foregone conclusion.” Porges adds that “such a conclusion then distorts policymakers,’ investors’ and developers’ decisions and expectations.”
The implication is that these types of expectations have led to the dramatic surging of drug companies’ stocks, and that the very act of drug-prophesying itself appears to be enough to conjure up share value. Meanwhile, ambitions to push a vaccine development as quickly as possible “comes at the risk of safety or efficacy liabilities down the road,” according to Porges. He also points out the concern that “epidemiologists as well as economists appear to be planning for a vaccine coming down the pipeline in as little as six months, (while a more broadly) used vaccine is likely to take two to three years in (Porges’) ‘most optimistic’ estimation.”
Coincidentally, Porges’ advisory came just after a 20% spike in the S&P 500 Index after some notable March lows (Bloomberg, Apr. 22).
At the time of this writing there are currently more than 70 vaccines in development, with companies like Moderna and Johnson & Johnson being earmarked for faster development. Additionally, experimental vaccines developed by Pfizer have already been rolled out in the US.
But there is far from unilateral agreement among the scientific community when it comes to the ethics of such speed-brewing in the vaccine industry. Writing in a recent edition of Nature, Dr. Shibo Jiang (professor of virology in New York and Shanghai, and also one of the original developers of the SARS vaccine) wrote that:
“…in the United States, the biotechnology company Moderna in Norwood, Massachusetts, has shipped an experimental vaccine based on messenger RNA to the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland, for testing in a clinical trial. The mRNA-based platform for delivering vaccines has been shown to be safe in humans, but this COVID-19 vaccine has not. The NIAID argues that the risk of delaying the advancement of vaccines is much higher than the risk of causing illness in healthy volunteers, but I worry that vaccine developers will rush in too hastily if standards are lowered”(Nature, March 16/20).
Despite serious concern as this coming from a veteran virologist such as Jiang back in March (which, in our current COVID culture, might as well be a hundred years ago), it does appear that the die has now been cast in terms of pharmaceutical companies’ expectations about when a vaccine could appear on the market – never mind asking the question of whether it even should appear in the first place. The expectation is official and companies want to deliver it yesterday.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla announced that “the short, less than four-month time frame in which we’ve been able to move from preclinical studies to human testing is extraordinary.” Bloomberg reports that, across the board, “drugmakers have been working with regulators to compress development times to stop the spread of the virus…”
Incidentally, Pfizer’s shares were seen to rise by 2.2% shortly after releasing their news about potential early vaccination options.
Bloomberg warns, however, that “given what has happened with the development of other vaccines in the past, there is a risk that the new inoculation could actually make patients more susceptible to severe illness.” As for specific time-frame, Pfizer has projected the fall of 2020 as an intended target period for emergency use of their vaccine. Currently, the company is working on four different potential products – each of which are based on a “new type of RNA technology.”
Specifically, upon injection into the body, the RNA (ribonucleic acid) inserts itself into human cells, which results in the formation of viral proteins that ultimately trigger the development of protective antibodies.
The only problem with this technology is that it has not actually been approved yet.
NYU Langone Vaccine Center director Mark Mulligan has pointed out that this type of vaccine technology that Pfizer is using is actually more of a “mimic of what happens with a natural immune response to an invader,” and that there are some definite advantages to such a vaccine product “in terms of the speed with which they can be produced and this idea that this is a natural type of vaccination” (Bloomberg, May 5).
Alternatively, the Saturday Evening Post recently revealed a major push towards a vaccine that is built specifically upon synthetic biology – the advantage being that such a product can be rolled out in mass quantities much sooner. “To create new vaccines, researchers are using computers to design nanoparticles that self-assemble from protein building-blocks, LEGO-like, and attach viral molecules that trigger a strong immune response” (Saturday Evening Post, June 2020, Vol. 292).
An additional (so-called) benefit of this alternative brand of vaccine technology is that, once developed, it will not require refrigeration. Naturally, this has considerable implications for wide-spread use in third world countries. Unsurprisingly, funding for this emerging variation of vaccine technology is coming from the NIH as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
It goes without saying that pharmaceutical companies have become so infused into our globalized wellness infrastructure to the point that we don’t even see them anymore. They have become pervasively entrenched into the background of our social fabric, and are considered as mundanely-important and essential as the plumbing in our houses and our cities. This widespread habituation has ultimately numbed our sense of collective concern to the point where we aren’t as alarmed by how their products are conceived, nor by who is ultimately funding their research and development. Their deeper, inner-workings are not a part of our personal lives, so why should we care?
When paired with the official COVID-19 narrative itself and the insidious scare-tactics that are being paraded by ill-informed public servants and the mainstream media, it is safe to say that we have officially entered into an age of radicalized and globalized med-seeking. The intended consumers are those who don’t question the risks, the side-effects, or the injuries that are possible under such sped-up industrialized conditions; it is for those who simply want the promise of a cure for something which they blindly perceive to be a biological monstrosity.
The frightening thing about it is that so many citizens are just going along with it, no questions asked. And if you do ask questions about it, then be prepared to be instantly dismissed as having no valid perspective, and your perspectives chalked up to the ramblings of a ‘tinfoil hat-wearing’ conspiracy theorist.
But my overall urge is to consider that this unusual and fascinating event in our history can actually serve as a very poignant stimulant in turning our attention back to the critical issue of freedom.
After all, this really is the most important things that we can share as a global society. Without it, I would argue that we ultimately don’t even have a society.
With this in mind, we can actually look to the blatantly-admitted foregoing of safety policies that are being employed by our drug providers, and do our fellow neighbours a true public service by simply not being okay with such irresponsible standards.
Furthermore, our collective resistance to such sociopathic medicating should ultimately serve as the newstandard – in contrast with what we are endlessly being offered as the “new normal.” Otherwise, by silently and willingly accepting the desperate, profit-driven standards behind such ramped-up vaccine developments in the world today, we are telling the developers and funders behind such things that our bodies (along with our intellectual integrity for that matter) are essentially for sale.
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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.
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Most people are more likely to wind up six feet under because of almost anything else under the sun other than COVID-19.
The CDC just came out with a report that should be earth-shattering to the narrative of the political class, yet it will go into the thick pile of vital data and information about the virus that is not getting out to the public. For the first time, the CDC has attempted to offer a real estimate of the overall death rate for COVID-19, and under its most likely scenario, the number is 0.26%. Officials estimate a 0.4% fatality rate among those who are symptomatic and project a 35% rate of asymptomatic cases among those infected, which drops the overall infection fatality rate (IFR) to just 0.26% — almost exactly where Stanford researchers pegged it a month ago.
— Ethical Skeptic ☀ (@EthicalSkeptic) May 22, 2020
Until now, we have been ridiculed for thinking the death rate was that low, as opposed to the 3.4% estimate of the World Health Organization, which helped drive the panic and the lockdowns. Now the CDC is agreeing to the lower rate in plain ink.
Plus, ultimately we might find out that the IFR is even lower because numerous studies and hard counts of confined populations have shown a much higher percentage of asymptomatic cases. Simply adjusting for a 50% asymptomatic rate would drop their fatality rate to 0.2% – exactly the rate of fatality Dr. John Ionnidis of Stanford University projected.
More importantly, as I mentioned before, the overall death rate is meaningless because the numbers are so lopsided. Given that at least half of the deaths were in nursing homes, a back-of-the-envelope estimate would show that the infection fatality rate for non-nursing home residents would only be 0.1% or 1 in 1,000. And that includes people of all ages and all health statuses outside of nursing homes. Since nearly all of the deaths are those with comorbidities.
The CDC estimates the death rate from COVID-19 for those under 50 is 1 in 5,000 for those with symptoms, which would be 1 in 6,725 overall, but again, almost all those who die have specific comorbidities or underlying conditions. Those without them are more likely to die in a car accident. And schoolchildren, whose lives, mental health, and education we are destroying, are more likely to get struck by lightning.
To put this in perspective, one Twitter commentator juxtaposed the age-separated infection fatality rates in Spain to the average yearly probability of dying of anything for the same age groups, based on data from the Social Security Administration. He used Spain because we don’t have a detailed infection fatality rate estimate for each age group from any survey in the U.S. However, we know that Spain fared worse than almost every other country. This data is actually working with a top-line IFR of 1%, roughly four times what the CDC estimates for the U.S., so if anything, the corresponding numbers for the U.S. will be lower.
Being alive means there is a risk that you will die in every year of your life. Normally we don't think about this because the probability is very small.
It turns out that even if you are infected with COVID, your increased risk to die vs normal is not very large at all. pic.twitter.com/lrQnTuHYRS
As you can see, even in Spain, the death rates from COVID-19 for younger people are very low and are well below the annual death rate for any age group in a given year. For children, despite their young age, they are 10-30 times more likely to die from other causes in any given year.
While obviously yearly death rates factor in myriad of causes of death and COVID-19 is just one virus, it still provides much-needed perspective to a public policy response that is completely divorced from the risk for all but the oldest and sickest people in the country.
Also, keep in mind, these numbers represent your chance of dying once you have already contracted the virus, aka the infection fatality rate. Once you couple the chance of contracting the virus in the first place together with the chance of dying from it, many younger people have a higher chance of dying from a lightning strike.
Four infectious disease doctors in Canada estimate that the individual rate of death from COVID-19 for people under 65 years of age is six per million people, or 0.0006 per cent – 1 in 166,666, which is “roughly equivalent to the risk of dying from a motor vehicle accident during the same time period.” These numbers are for Canada, which did have fewer deaths per capita than the U.S.; however, if you take New York City and its surrounding counties out of the equation, the two countries are pretty much the same. Also, remember, so much of the death is associated with the suicidal political decisions of certain states and countries to place COVID-19 patients in nursing homes. An astounding 62 percent of all COVID-19 deaths were in the six states confirmed to have done this, even though they only compose 18 percent of the national population.
We destroyed our entire country and suspended democracy all for a lie, and these people perpetrated the unscientific degree of panic. Will they ever admit the grave consequences of their error?
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Daniel Horowitz is a senior editor of Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter.
European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told a gathering of German ambassadors on Monday that “analysts have long talked about the end of an American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century. This is now happening in front of our eyes.” He said that the coronavirus pandemic could be the catalyst to shift power from West to East and that “pressure to choose sides is growing” for the EU, before adding that the 27-nation bloc “should follow our own interests and values and avoid being instrumentalised by one or the other.”
Borrell said “we only have a chance if we deal with China with collective discipline,” noting that an upcoming EU-China summit this autumn could be an opportunity to do so. “We need a more robust strategy for China, which also requires better relations with the rest of democratic Asia.”
As China, India, Japan, Indonesia and Russia will become some of the world’s biggest economies by 2030, according to Standard Chartered Plc, the 21st century is known as the “Asian Century.” So, the EU has a serious decision to make on whether to continue its hostile approach towards Russia if it wishes to have more straight forward trade access to Asia. Putin has made incentives for colonists to populate the Far East of Russia to boost its small population of under seven million people who live close to China to fully and better engage in the “Asian Century.”
European trade with Asia could be done through the Russian Far East port of Vladivostok and the Trans-Siberian transportation routes, and this would also bypass China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Macron last year made a Facebook post where he said “progress on many political and economic issues is evident, for we’re trying to develop Franco-Russian relations. I’m convinced that, in this multilateral restructuring, we must develop a security and trust architecture between the European Union and Russia.” With Macron emphasizing a European-Russian rapprochement, he then expanded on General de Gaulle’s famous quote that Europe stretches “from Lisbon to the Urals,” by saying that Europe reaches Vladivostok which is near the Chinese and North Korean border.
According to experts China’s foreign investment in the advanced development zone accounts for about 59.1% of all foreign investments in the region. The Russian Far East has a huge investment potential, especially with materials, natural resources, fisheries, and tourism, and China aims to take advantage of the mostly underdeveloped region. The region is not only resource rich, but is strategically located as it borders China, Mongolia and North Korea, and has a maritime border with Japan.
With France’s recognition of Vladivostok and Borrell now acknowledging that the power centers of the world are shifting to the East, the EU has little choice but to make a rapprochement with Russia and end its sanctions regime. In addition, it would be in the EU’s interests not to engage in anti-China actions on behalf of the U.S.
China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has meant that it has not only recovered and restarted its economy, but that it engages in large-scale soft power projections by delivering tons upon tons of medical aid to every region in the world and has sent doctors and nurses to the most affected countries. This comes as the U.S. is approaching 2 million cases of coronavirus and over 100,000 deaths. Earlier this month, the unemployment rate in the U.S. reached 14.7% with the Federal Reserve estimating it could reach a high of 25%. Pre-coronavirus data found that 29.9% of Americans live close to poverty while 5.3% of the population live in deep poverty and 11.1% of American households, were food insecure, meaning they had difficulty providing enough food for all people within the house. Despite the growing social and domestic problems in the U.S., it is unlikely that Washington will give up its global hegemony so easily.
But Borrell seems to have little confidence that the U.S. will maintain its global leadership and is now eyeing China and the East as the EU’s new main trading partner. Effectively, as the Anglo World attempts to maintain the Atlanticist dominance, the EU is recognizing that its future lies with Eurasia.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Paul Antonopoulos is an independent geopolitical analyst.
We bring to the attention of Global Research readers selected excerpts from a carefully researched article published by the Atlantic, which documents the manipulation of CDC data pertaining to the corona-virus. Of significance: the recorded COVID data set guidelines for the reopening of State economies.
This is an important study. It corroborates several other reports including articles by medical doctors published by Global Research.
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The government’s disease-fighting agency is conflating viral and antibody tests, compromising a few crucial metrics that governors depend on to reopen their economies. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and other states are doing the same.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic. 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 upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19. The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.
This is not merely a technical error.States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points.
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.
The widespread use of the practice means that it remains difficult to know exactly how much the country’s ability to test people who are actively sick with COVID-19 has improved.
“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.”
Our thanks to The Atlantic and the authors of this article
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Iranian tankers were 2200 km from the US coast when the Iranian-flagged “Fortune”, followed by “Forest”, entered Venezuelan waters, challenging the US embargo and the US’s threats. The Islamic Republic was broadcasting loud and clear a strong message.
The first message was dispatched to the US administration after Gulf and Arab Leaders conveyed a direct message to the Iranian leaders: “Washington is determined to stop the Iranian tankers sailing to Venezuela”. Iran responded to all messages received that “its five tankers will sail to Venezuela and if any of these tankers is intercepted, Iran will respond in the Straits of Hormuz, the Gulf of Oman or anywhere else it sees fit.”
“These five tankers – the Clavel, Fortune, Petunia, Forest and Faxul- are only the beginning of the supply to Venezuela. Iran has the right to send any of its tankers anywhere in the world and any US interception will be considered an act of piracy and will trigger a direct response,” said an Iranian decision-maker who revealed the Iranian response to the US administration via message-carriers.
“Iran had decided to avoid the horn of Africa because the plan was for the first tanker to reach the Venezuelan waters on the first day of Eid el-Fitr. The aim was to share an important day of the Islamic Republic’s defiance to the US in its backyard and to break the sanctions imposed on one of Iran’s main allies. It is a message for the “Axis of the Resistance” that Iran will not abandon its friends and allies anywhere in the world whatever the challenges. It is directly confronting the US by imposing a new rule of engagement”, said the source.
Iran shut its ears to all threatening messages from the US menace and instructed its five tankers to go not round the horn of Africa but through the Gulf of Aden via Bab al-Mandab strait, the Suez Canal and Gibraltar into the Atlantic Ocean- where the US has a strong presence and influence. This shortens the distance and it tested the intentions of the American Navy. Simultaneously, Iran informed its allies of its readiness to confront the US if ever an escalation should loom on the horizon so that these allies within the “Axis of the Resistance” are ready for a wider confrontation if needed.
The first Iranian tanker, “Fortune”, reached the Caribbean Sea on the first day of Eid al-Fitr, on Sunday 24th of May, with US Navy ships in the vicinity. The tankers are carrying over 10 million barrels of oil but also Alkylate and spare parts to start repairing any of the eight “out of order” refineries, to enable oil-rich Venezuela to be self-sufficient in the future. The US sanctions on Venezuela had paralysed Venezuelan refineries and caused gasoline shortages, with the aim of overthrowing the legitimately elected President, Nicolas Maduro.
Iran is challenging the US administration and considers it a victory that its first tanker went through without being intercepted. Tehran considers this challenge to US authority much more significant than the downing of the US’s most sophisticated drone or the bombing of the US’s largest military base in Ayn al-Assad, Iraq.
“Our allies used to wonder why Iran was not confronting the US dominance face-to-face. In fact, we were preparing for this day, and what helps us the most is the US sanctions that force this country to be autonomous on many levels. Today, Iran and its allies are all equipped with strong ideology and motivation to face down US hegemony, with sufficiently advanced military and financial support to stand up to the US and its allies, both in the Middle East and outside the Middle East. Since World War II the US has not faced a challenge to its hegemony similar to the one Iran is representing, particularly when the main enemy, the US, believes that 40 years of sanctions and maximum pressure have crippled Iran’s capabilities. Imam Khamenei informed all our allies that the military and financial support to all of them will increase and will meet all their needs in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The Axis of the Resistance is now ready and united as one front”, said the source.
Venezuela had asked President Vladimir Putin for help. Russia said clearly it was not willing to send ships close to the US coast because that might support President Trump by triggering a false threat which could lead to unifying the national feeling behind him. This is why Putin had to refuse Venezuela’s request. Iran came forward at the first demand and was grateful for the opportunity to challenge the US and to pay back the support Venezuela offered in the year 2008 when Iran was in need and under heavy US sanctions that forbid technology transfer to build or repair its own refineries. Since then, Iran has built 11 refineries (and 3 more in Pars, Anahita and Bahman Geno which are still under construction) and is considered the third most important country in the world to have developed Gas to Liquid technology (GTL).
Since the US assassinated Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani at Baghdad’s airport, Iran has imposed new rules of engagement on the US. Its message consists in the inevitability of a response against its enemies if they hit Iran, and the threat that no attack will go unanswered. It seems Iran is no longer ready to turn the other cheek and has decided to take special measures to respond to any attack against its troops or interests, including in Syria (more details will be provided in another article). Also, Iran and its allies have raised the level of readiness to maximum in case the US administration decides to attack any aspect of Iran’s interests, particularly the flotilla heading to Venezuela.
Iran is not facing the US directly, and is not asking its allies to do the job on its behalf. The “Persian rug weaver” waited through 40 years of sanctions for this day, until its capability and preparations were completed. This means that now Iran will be tougher and harder, and that is manifest in the election of the new parliament and the new government. President Trump has abused and exhausted all the avenues used by President Hassan Rouhani. Therefore, any new negotiation between Iran and the US will be very difficult: there is a total lack of trust in any document signed by the US.
Whether a Republican or a Democrat reaches the White House at the end of 2020, they will be waiting by the phone for many long years if they imagine that Iran will take the initiative and call the US for a meeting. It will now be up to the US to prove to Iran that it is worth holding any negotiations at all.
Iran has planted robust roots in Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. It is now spreading towards Venezuela and will support President Maduro, a strategic rather than ideological ally, to stand against US hegemony and sanctions. More tankers are expected to follow in the very near future. Iran is eager to confront President Trump and tempt him into a confrontation only months before the elections. The Coronavirus mismanagement, the US’s rebuttal of its deals with Russia, Trump’s aggressive position towards China and the World Health Organisation, and his rejection of the Iranian nuclear deal (JCPOA): all these are striking possibilities for a challenge to his re-election. This is why Iran is preparing more surprises for Trump- to show that his Middle Eastern policy is jeopardising the safety and security of the US and its allies both in Europe and the Middle East, and indeed global world security.
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The debate today is whether Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s Chief Advisor, should resign, or not. Whether he broke the lockdown rules, or even the law. Whether his trip was justified or if there was some perfidiousness behind it.
The press divided between the lockdown enthusiasts defending him, or the anti-lockdowners eagerly calling him a hypocrite.
Both, again, were missing the point.
Yes, it’s satisfying to cast people down for being hypocrites. Yes, it’s easy to conduct witchhunts based on shallow issues against people whose politics we disagree with. But to take part in the free-for-all is to endorse a distraction that actually reinforces the narrative, and misses the fundamentally more important issue at the root of it.
We’re all meant to be “sheltering in place” and “protecting the NHS” and “saving lives” because there is a “deadly virus”. We’re being told this is for our own safety. Because the virus is allegedly dangerous.
When the people giving us these orders do not follow them themselves, they are not showing themselves to be “hypocrites”. They are showing themselves to be liars. They are admitting they don’t really believe what they’re saying.
The best example is actually from the other side of the pond – Chris Cuomo, CNN anchor, brother of one New York governor and son of another.
When Cuomo was meant to be “self-isolating”, after allegedly getting infected, he was spotted by a cyclist socialising on the site where his new house is being built. (Days later, Cuomo made a big deal out of emerging from his basement as if he hadn’t seen his family in two weeks).
You don’t invite your married girlfriend round to your house, then send her back to her husband and children, if you really believe there’s a dangerous virus.
You don’t drive to Durham in the middle of a “national emergency” if you really believe we could all get infected and die.
You don’t break your self-isolation early to have a barbecue with your neighbours if you truly think you have a terrible disease that could make your family sick.
If I tell you you shouldn’t eat chocolate, because it will make your head explode, then I take your chocolate off you and eat it – you wouldn’t think “You hypocrite! You fool! That could make your head explode!”, would you?
You’d be far more likely to think “Hey, he lied to me so he could steal my chocolate.”
(To fully complete the metaphor there needs to be a third person there, saying “but chocolate never made our heads explode before”, and being roundly insulted by the other two as a “Chocolate Denier”, who “just wants people’s heads to explode!”)
Whether it’s Neil Ferguson or Dom Cummings or Chris Cuomo the message is the same. They are telling us they do not really believe there is any danger.
More than that, the press covering it obviously don’t really believe it either.
Look at the crush of reporters and cameramen swarm over Dom Cummings outside his home this morning:
No adherence to #SocialDistancing rules by the hypocritical #FakeNews media as they ambush Dominic Cummings at his family home.
— Darren of Plymouth 🇬🇧 (@DarrenPlymouth) May 24, 2020
Remember: Cummings alleged crime is “breaking social distancing rules”.
Are any of those people social distancing? Are they all wearing masks? Are they acting – in any way whatsoever – as if there is a genuinely “deadly virus” out there?
No, they’re not. Because they don’t really believe it.
The same is true of the police, who will happily man-handle someone for not wearing a mask, despite not wearing masks themselves:
German police attack a man for not wearing mask in supermarket.
Is this LAW in Germany, or just ‘recommend’?….. either way, these police officers don’t bother wearing masks themselves!
Or, without any sense of irony, mob protesters for not “social distancing”:
Whether this is true Orwellian double-think or just old-fashioned dishonesty is not for us to judge (that’s between them, their consciences and maybe their therapists). The internal complexities are as unknowable as they are irrelevant.
The point is: The police, the press, the scientists, the politicians – everyone spouting the need to follow the lockdown rules is perfectly happy to break them.
Because they know what they’re really for, and it’s not to protect us from a virus.
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Italian authorities, ecclesiastic representatives, and social organizations acknowledged on May 23 Cuban efforts to face COVID across the country.
The Secretary of Health and Welfare of the government of the Lombardy region, Giulio Gallera, and the president of the National Association of Italian-Cuban Friendship (Anaic), Irma Dioli, attended the homage rally to support the Cuban doctors. Cuban ambassador in Italy, Jose Carlos Rodríguez, and the general consul in Milan, Llanio Gonzalez also joined the tribute in Duomo Square.
“Satisfied with the duty of solidarity they have fulfilled in the battle for life vs. COVID-19, the Cuban Doctors advance through the streets of Crema. The applause of the citizens embraces them and the infinite thanks of the Italian people.”
“When you came here you said that your homeland is the world, so from now on you will always be our compatriots, in this vast world, often mistreated by the absence of the supreme value of solidarity,” the Mayor of Crema, Stefania Bonaldi, said. Local news media exalted the commotion and thankfulness of Crema citizens who expressed their thankfulness to Cuban health professionals.
Alternative Student Opposition (OSA), Noi Restiamo, Communist Network (RdC), and other social organizations in Turin also recognized the Cuban medical brigade solidarity and requested the Nobel Peace Prize for the Caribbean Island doctors. The organization’s representatives revealed a wall painting in Parco Dora with Cuban doctors, the July 26 Movement, and Fidel Castro representations.
“It recalls the opposition to the economic blockade imposed on Cuba by the USA and supports the appeal promoted in Italy for the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Henry Reeve Brigade, operating in our country during the Covid-19 emergency, as requested by more and more international realities” the organizers explained.
Cuban doctors held over five thousand consultations in Italy and discharged 210 Covid-19 patients after the virus outbreak in March.
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Featured image: Homage to Cuban doctors in Plaza Duomo, Crema, Italy. May 23rd, 2020. | Photo: Twitter/@BrunoRguezP
Regular visitors to this site will be aware that I frequently write about the massive propaganda campaign being run by supporters of Israel to conceal the damage done by the Jewish state to actual United States’ interests. One of the more interesting aspects of that effort is the bowdlerization of language to extirpate some words that might have anti-Semitic overtones and to twist the meaning of others in such a fashion as to deprive them of any meaning. Providing loans at usurious rates of interest used to be regularly referred to “Shylocking” even in legal circles, named after the Shakespearean character in the Merchant of Venice. It is an obvious word just waiting around to be censored and has consequently disappeared from use.
Recently, those obvious expressions denoting ethnicity have been joined by a whole lot of words condemned by the American Jewish Committee that are a lot more subtle like “clannish,” “cosmopolitan” and “globalist.” The AJC defines the alleged anti-Semitic expression “dual loyalty” as
“…a bigoted trope used to cast Jews as the ‘other.’ For example, it becomes antisemitic when an American Jew’s connection to Israel is scrutinized to the point of questioning his or her trustworthiness or loyalty to the United States. By accusing Jews of being disloyal citizens whose true allegiance is to Israel or a hidden Jewish agenda (see globalist), anti-Semites sow distrust and spread harmful ideas—like the belief that Jews are a traitorous ‘fifth column’ undermining our country.”
The AJC’s definition of “dual loyalty” would perhaps bemuse President George Washington whose Farewell Address included
“…nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest… So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.”
If it seems that the First President was predicting the current subservient condition of the United States vis-à-vis Israel, I will leave that judgement up to the reader. More recently, Jewish pressure groups who seek to benefit Israel exclusively have been aided and abetted by the so-called U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman to suppress the use of words that cast Israel in a bad light. Most contentious is the elimination of the word “occupation” in State Department reporting to describe the wholesale illegal Israeli seizure of land in Palestine. The “occupied territories” held by Israel for over fifty years are now described as “disputed” while Jewish settlements on Palestinian land once routinely described as illegal are now legal. Friedman has expressed his approval of those “disputed” bits being scheduled for “annexation” after July 1st. Perhaps he will come up with a new word to replace annex, possibly something like “restore” or “reunite.” Or “fulfilling biblical prophecy.”
Words are important because how they are used and their context shapes the understanding of the reader or listener. In the United States there has been a concerted effort to equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism while simultaneously making anti-Semitism a hate crime and thereby converting what one might perceive as exercise of a First Amendment right into a felony. This is largely being done as part of the plan to create a legal basis to suppress the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). Twenty-seven states have now passed laws criminalizing or otherwise punishing criticism of Israel, to include requirements to sign documents declaring opposition to boycotts of the Jewish state if one wants a government job or other benefits. Donald Trump has also signed an executive order to combat what he calls discrimination against Jews and Israel at universities and there are several bills working their way through Congress that can criminalize BDS in particular, incorporating prison time and punitive fines.
But when it comes to protecting Israel in speech and in writing, no one outdoes the totally cowed Europeans. It is a criminal offense to challenge the many shaky details of the standard holocaust narrative in France, Germany and Britain and now the wordsmiths are hard at work to broaden what is unacceptable in speaking or writing.
A truly bizarre story comes from England, once upon a time the mother of parliamentary democracy and a model for those who cherished free speech. One recalls that recently Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn was ousted after a sustained effort headed by the country’s Chief Rabbi marshalling what one might reasonably call Britain’s “Israel Lobby.” It was claimed that Corbyn was an anti-Semite because he believed in the human rights of the Palestinian people and had also attended several pro-Palestinian events. Since the departure of Corbyn, there has been a major effort by the totally subdued Labourites to purge the party of all traces of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel and any expressions of sympathy for the Palestinians.
The new Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has apparently learned how to behave from the Corbyn experience. He has been crawling on his belly to Jewish interests ever since he took over and has even submitted to the counseling provided by the government’s “Independent Adviser on Antisemitism,” a special interests office not too dissimilar to the abomination at the U.S. State Department where Elan Carr is the Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating anti-Semitism.
The adviser, Lord Mann, who like Carr is of course Jewish, has now insisted to Starmer that the use of words like ‘’Zionist’’ or ‘’Zionism’’ in a critical context must be regarded as anti-Semitism if Starmer wants to establish what he refers to as “comprehensive anti-racism” within the Labour Party. Mann wants to confront what he refers to as “anti-Jewish racism” in Britain, saying that “the thing Keir Starmer has to do is stick with the clear definition of antisemitism, and not waver from that. The second thing he should do if he wants to really imbed comprehensive anti-racism including antisemitism across the Labour Party – then the use of the words Zionist or Zionism as a term of hatred, abuse, of contempt, as a negative term – that should outlawed in the party.”
Perhaps not surprisingly Lord Mann’s comments came during an online discussion with the Antisemitism Policy Trust’s director Danny Stone, one of the major components of Israel’s powerful U.K. Jewish/Zionist Lobby. A majority of British Members of Parliament of both parties are registered supporters of “Friends of Israel” associations, another indication of how Jewish power is manifest in Britain and of how spineless the country’s politicians have become.
Mann added:
“If he does that, it gives him [Starmer] the tools to clear out those who choose to be antisemitic, rather than those who do so purely through their ignorance as opposed to their calculated behavior. I think he is seeing tackling antisemitism as one of those things that will be shown to mark that he is a leader.”
So, in Britain you are still presumably free to criticize Zionism, but not Israelis, as long as you do not use the word itself. If you do use it in a critical way you will be one of those presumably who will be “cleared out [of the Labour Party] for choosing to be antisemitic.” Do not be alarmed if similar nonsense takes hold in the United States, where already criticism of Israel, such as it is, eschews the word Jewish in any context. Fearful of retribution that can include loss of employment as happened to Rick Sanchez at CNN, the few who are bold enough to criticize Israel regularly employ generic euphemisms like the “Israel Lobby” or “Zionism,” ignoring the fact that what drives the process is ethno- or religious based. However one chooses to obfuscate it, the power of Israel in the United States is undeniably based on Jewish money, media control and easy access to politicians. When the friends of Israel in America follow the British lead and figure out that the word Zionist has become pejorative they too will no doubt move to make it unacceptable in polite discourse in the media and elsewhere. Then many critics of the Jewish state will have no vocabulary left to use, nowhere to go, as in Britain, and that is surely the intention.
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This article was originally published on The Unz Review.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
Former Vice President and current Democrat front-runner Joe Biden embodied everything that’s wrong with the Democrats on Friday morning during an interview with a popular New York City radio host. In response to Charlamagne Tha God’s request for another interview with the candidate because he had more questions for him after they ran out of time, Biden laughed and said that “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”
He’s since apologized for his “cavalier” approach and being a “wise guy”, but the damage is already done. African-Americans have looked to the Democrats for decades as the defenders of their hard-earned freedoms, though Republicans have since pointed out in recent years that their political opponents have been taking this minority group’s support for granted. Aware of the growing popularity of this narrative, Biden was quick to claim that he never behaved that way and that no one should vote for a party based on their race.
Still, his apology was unconvincing when compared to what would have been expected of a Republican had one dared to say such a thing on air. The Democrats would have demanded that individual’s resignation, partisan “hacktivists” would probably have doxxed them and their family, and the mainstream media would endlessly talk about this story, especially if Trump was the one who did that. Instead, there’s been scarcely any condemnation, and Biden’s apology was accepted without any questions.
These double standards as a problem, however, and embody everything that’s wrong with the Democrats. It’s neither here nor there how the appropriate way for people to respond to such a possibly racist incident may be, but simply to state that Democrats are definitely treated differently than Republicans in this respect, especially by members of their own party and their media surrogates. This strongly suggests that offensive comments about race are a big deal if Republicans utter them but are deliberately downplayed if a Democrat is involved.
Extrapolating on this objective observation of American political reality, it naturally follows that the Republicans are onto something when they claim that the Democrats take African-Americans for granted. If the present opposition party truly supported this minority group’s interests like they claim to, then there wouldn’t be any selective standards in condemning racially charged comments as offensive and demanding more than just a half-hearted apology, especially when their presidential front-runner is at the center of such a scandal.
More and more, it begins to seem like the Democrats are only interested in calling out racism whenever it makes the Republicans look bad, choosing instead to distract African-Americans’ attention whenever one of their members is arguably guilty of this. They’re apparently operating under the assumption that this group will continue to “vote blue no matter who”, as the popular slogan goes, which is the very definition of taking their support for granted.
African-Americans aren’t anyone’s political pawns so their interests should be treated with the same respect by both parties without any partisan-influenced double standards. The very fact that this wasn’t the case with Biden’s comments speaks to the Democrats’ arrogant and condescending attitude towards them. That will have to change if the party hopes to ensure enough of their support to beat Trump in key battleground states this November, unlike what happened last election when African-American voter turnout surprisingly dropped.
The Center for American Progress concluded in their report about “Voter Trends in 2016” that “If black turnout and support rates in 2016 had matched 2012 levels, Democrats would have held Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and flipped North Carolina, for a 323 to 215 Electoral College victory.” The consequences of losing those states literally changed the world, and it was all due to the Democrats taking African-American support for granted. Judging by Biden’s scandal, however, they have yet to learn their lesson.
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This article was originally published on OneWorld.
Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
On Thursday, May 21, American President Donald Trump announced the decision to withdraw the United States from the Treaty on Open Skies, signed with Russia and ratified by 35 other countries in 1992. Trump says the reason for withdrawing from the agreement is the alleged violation of the terms of the treaty by the Russian Federation. In Trump’s words: “Russia did not adhere to the treaty. (…) Until they adhere, we will pull out”.
This is the third international arms control treaty from which Donald Trump has withdrawn since the beginning of his government. Two years ago, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as a nuclear agreement or Iranian agreement. Last year, the United States left the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF). Now, US withdraws the Treaty on Open Skies after accusing Russia of violating the treaty.
The Treaty on Open Skies was signed with the clear intention of contributing to world peace and a balance in the power game between nations, allowing signatories to freely fly their non-military and unarmed aircraft over the spaces of other member states. The agreement aims, above all, to improve mutual trust between nations through collection of information from each other during unarmed flights.
Despite Trump’s claims that the U.S. is withdrawing from the deal because of its violation by Russia, the evidence points to an entirely different response. American strategists have for years criticized the agreement and its strategic importance for the United States, stating that Washington gains greater advantage from the use of modern satellite systems, and does not need to comply with the rules and conditions of an international treaty for the safe collection of information. This means that the reason for leaving may be that Washington, not Moscow, has a much greater capacity to violate the treaty in many different ways.
The allegations against Russia – which relate to major recent events in regions of dispute and tension, especially on the border with Ukraine – are unfounded and somewhat distorted, clearly manipulated in order to justify a unilateral decision by the Trump administration. However, this is not the merit of the issue. The most worrying fact is how much the risks of world war increase with this US exit – which, in practice, means the end of this treaty that in recent years represented a great step in the history of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow.
Upon leaving the agreement, the US no longer has international rules concerning the use of aircraft – mainly espionage – in any country in the world, including the signatories to the treaty. In addition, there is the issue of spy satellites, which are not under discussion at the moment and are permitted under international space law. Thus, the risks of creating tensions with intelligence activities and unregulated collection of information are high, generating a global atmosphere of constant uncertainty, resuming the typical scenario of the Cold War years.
Still, the biggest losers from Trump’s decision will be his European allies, considering that these countries do not have the same military and intelligence capabilities as Washington, needing the Treaty completely to obtain information on Russian activities. If Russia comes out of the agreement, Europe will be completely vulnerable and once again American and European interests will be in deep shock.
It is also curious how tensions of this nature are created in the midst of a period of global emergency and collective concern about the advancement of the pandemic of the novel coronavirus. International organizations try to create the myth of the “union” of states and of global cooperation for the victory over the virus, which, as can be seen, is a big lie, especially when we take into account the American praxis.
The United States recently financed the invasion of Venezuela by Colombian mercenaries in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro; subsequently, they sent warships to the Caribbean Sea to surround Iranian ships reaching the Venezuelan coast; the American government has repeatedly accused China of creating and spreading the virus; now, unilaterally, the country withdraws from one of the most important treaties of military balance and peacekeeping, “justifying” its departure with alarmist accusations against Russia. After all, what is the American role in the current world power game? What is the interest behind so many aggressive maneuvers on the international stage while the world is distracted fighting the pandemic?
In fact, the stance of American foreign policy during the pandemic is being more aggressive than it was before the virus. It remains to be seen what the intention behind all these violent actions is. As for the Treaty, Washington is not leaving it for “Russian violations”, but because it no longer needs it.
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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.
The universal Covid-lockdown has also caused a meltdown of productive assets, which now become easy prey to be bought by large corporations – unemployment soaring to heights never experienced before by modern humanity, currently at 40 million Americans out of a job. This does not account for those having given up looking for a job or claiming unemployment.
The Institute of Forensic Science under the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, and eight companies were added to a second list with restricted access to US technology because they are “complicit in human rights violations and abuses … against Uygurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,” according to a second statement by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security(BIS). This second list of nine supplements the bureau’s October 2019 sanctions on 28 entities for the same charge.
Recently, several phone calls made four years ago between former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and current Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden were revealed. The content of the talks is profound and controversial and reveals the high degree of American influence in the coordination of Ukrainian domestic politics, showing the advanced state of submission of Kiev to Washington.
As many others have pointed out and as is becoming increasingly self-evident – COVID-19 isn’t breaking America – America is already broken. COVID-19 is simply amplifying and accelerating problems long rotting the foundation of American society. Those like Van Jones and CNN are committed to maintaining a status quo allowing this rot to continue and organizations like the NABJ find themselves subjected to irresistible pressure to likewise ignore the rot and focus attention elsewhere.
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