Global Research

The question of whether the UK will open its doors to GMOs after Brexit has become more pertinent after EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told MEPs on Tuesday (26 November) that in order to secure a trade agreement, the UK would have to agree to maintain a ‘level playing field’ and not undercut EU regulation.

Barnier said that if a new UK government sought to diverge from EU regulatory standards that would weaken environmental standards there will never be a free trade agreement, MEPs at a meeting in the European Parliament revealed.

The discussion over science-based policymaking in the EU, in general, has been heating up in recent years, with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) front and centre of the debate.

Concerns have been raised particularly regarding the unknown impact of the release of GMOs into the environment and the food system, with critics citing a lack of adequate and sufficient risk assessment.

In July 2018, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that organisms obtained by new mutagenesis plant breeding techniques should, in principle, fall under the GMO Directive.

This ruling is one in a long line of resolutions against approvals of the use and import of GMOs that the EU has adopted in recent years.

However, there could soon be a shift of thinking about GM crops in the UK, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledging to “liberate” the UK’s bioscience sector from the EU’s anti-GM regulation post-Brexit.

Opening Britain’s doors to GMOs has also been suggested as key to allowing the UK to draw up a quick trade agreement with the United States.

Speaking at a recent plant breeding conference in Brussels, Dr Thorben Sprink from the Julius Kühn-Institute in Germany said he thought the UK would “make the most” of the opportunity Brexit presented for the country to reject Europe’s “very tight regulation” and encourage more GMO research.

At the event, Secretary-General of Euroseeds Garlich Von Essen said that neither breeders nor farmers want to be in the “second league” and that Brexit would allow the UK to implement “science-based regulation”.

Liz O’Neill, director of GM Freeze, a UK non-profit organisation which campaigns against GM, told EURACTIV that GM regulations have already been identified as a non-tariff barrier to trade, citing that Donald Trump signed an Executive Order in June, aiming to force the UK (and the EU) to open the door to GM crops from the US.

She said that there will undoubtedly be pressure on the UK to accept GMOs, and that Brexit has the potential to “change everything with food and farming and open the floodgates to unregulated GMOs”.

UK National farmers union (NFU) chief science and regulatory affairs adviser, Dr Helen Ferrier, told EURACTIV that biotechnology and GMOs “have the potential to offer multiple benefits to the public, farmers and the environment, and could help tackle some intractable issues in the production and consumption of food”.

She said “there may be opportunities to look at different regulatory approaches after Brexit to the way technologies are developed and used.

The potential impact on trade with key partners, whether the EU or the US, needs to be kept in mind, as well as the need for access to the full toolbox of innovations to help find solutions to major challenges such as climate change and diet-related illness.“

However, she highlighted that the use of biotechnology “must be regulated using sound science in terms of its environmental and health impact”.

The UK department for environment, food and rural affairs (DEFRA) said they were unable to comment on future policy decisions during the pre-election period.

Low consumer acceptance 

However, NGOs and anti-GM campaign groups say that public support for GM remains low in the UK.

O’Neill told EURACTIV that “the UK public consistently rejects the use of GM in food and farming, both in polls and at the checkout” and that they “simply do not sell”.

In April 2018, an IPPR poll found that only 8% of the public thought the UK should lower food safety standards to secure a trade deal with the US, with 82% preferring to keep standards as they are.

O’Neill said that UK politicians will, therefore, have a “very hard time” persuading the electorate that a “US trade deal is more important than the high food standards they consistently support”.

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Featured image: “Brexit has the potential to change everything with food and farming” and could “open the floodgates to unregulated GMOs” said Liz O’Neill, director GM Freeze, a UK non-profit organisation which campaigns against GM [SHUTTERSTOCK]

Father Hovsep Bedoyan, the head of the Armenian Catholic community in Qamishli, and the priest’s father, Abraham Bedoyan, were killed November 11, on the road leading from Qamishli to Deir Ez Zor, were they were headed to check on the rebuilding of the Forty Martyr’s Armenian Apostolic Church in Deir Ezzor, which was destroyed in 2014 by terrorists who targeted Christians and churches.  Deacon Fati Sano of the Al-Hasakeh church was injured in the attack when the car was ambushed at a checkpoint by masked gunmen on motorcycles, which shot at point-blank range. The car they drove was inscribed with the Armenian Church’s logo. The same day, a series of bomb blasts in Qamishli occurred, targeting the Armenian Catholic church, an Assyrian Christian-owned business, and a Catholic school, killing at least 6 people and wounded 22 others.   More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians lived in Syria, mainly in the province of Aleppo prior to 2011; however, after the constant targeting of Christians by the Free Syrian Army (FSA) beginning in 2011, thousands have fled and many hundreds went to Armenia, who offered the Syrians a visa, when most of the world had shut its doors to them.

Tens of thousands of Christians from the Assyrian minority fled attacks in 2015, and have not returned. Christians in Homs were targeted very early in 2011 by the FSA, with churches attacked, burned and priests killed.  Christians in Damascus were dodging missiles fired into Bab Touma from terrorists, in East Ghouta, until the Syrian Arab Army defeated them and they could walk again safely on the “street called straight”, from Bible passages about Saint Paul. In September 2012, the large Christian neighborhood in Aleppo, Azizia, fought the FSA, with Christian civilians holding arms to defend their homes and churches. George, an Armenian Christian of Aleppo said, “The Armenians are fighting because they believe the FSA are sent by their Turkish oppressors to attack them, the Christians want to defend their neighborhoods.” “FSA snipers were on the rooftops and they were attacking the Maronite church and Armenian residents there,” said a former clergyman calling himself John.  A Syrian Armenian mother said, “They are shouting ‘the Alawites to the graves and the Christians to Beirut.”

While many Syrian Christians have resisted leaving Syria, for the life of a refugee abroad, many have gone even though they were living in safe areas, such as the coast.  They saw their Christian countrymen leaving in large numbers, and they feared that the FSA terrorists that the Obama administration was supporting would win, and in that case, they could never live safely in Syria.

Father Hovsep Bedoyan had been visiting Deir Ez Zor every 2 weeks while overseeing the rebuilding of the church there. The France-based association, L’Oeuvre d’Orient, is a Catholic charity aimed at reconstructing infrastructure for the return of the Christian community.  Monseigneur Pascal Gollnisch, the group’s head, pointed at Turkey’s recent invasion of Northern Syria: “It is the responsibility of all occupying forces to protect the safety of the local Christian minority,” he insisted.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that almost 200,000 people have been displaced by the Turkish invasion, dubbed “Operation Peace Spring”, while eyewitness accounts of summary executions, beatings, and torture, unlawful detention, and kidnappings by the Turkish military and the FSA, who are Radical Islamic terrorists, employed as mercenaries.

The FSA is the Turkish backed terrorists/mercenaries

“It was sadly learned that a cleric from the Syrian Armenian community was killed in a vicious attack in the area under the control of the terrorist organization PYD/YPG/PKK,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a written statement, which deflected responsibility, and blamed the Syrian Kurds who had been allied to the US, and denying their own FSA mercenaries were the actual killers.  ISIS has claimed responsibility for the killings, but the FSA and ISIS are allies, and sources close to the events on the ground have said it was the FSA who killed them, and ISIS only issued the claim of responsibility to shield the blame from the FSA.

FSA history in Syria and sectarianism

The FSA and its political wing, the SNC, have never been secular or moderate. The founding members of the SNC and FSA were members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their goal for Syria has always been to establish an Islamic government, thus abolishing the secular Ba’ath Party as well as the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP).

“The Free Syrian Army practically doesn’t exist,” Kamal Sido, a Mideast expert at the human rights group Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) told Germany’s Deutschlandfunk broadcaster. “The Free Syrian Army is a smokescreen hiding various names, and if you look at the names, at these groups’ videos, you’ll find they are radical Islamist, Jihadist groups.”

The FSA was not only fighting the Syrian government but were also killing, raping, maiming and kidnapping unarmed Syrian civilians, most of whom were Sunni Muslims, like themselves.  On July 20, 2017, President Trump cut the CIA’s covert program to equip and train the FSA. The CIA program began in 2013 by Obama to overthrow President Assad; however, CIA officials observed that many FSA had joined ISIS and other radical groups, and feared the weapons they gave the group might end up with ISIS.

The Marmarita massacre

On August 17, 2013, in Marmarita,  Amin Nakour, Maya Barshini, Atalla Aboud, and Ibrahim Saadi were attending a Christian celebration to honor the annual commemoration of “Mother Mary’s Day”.  The small village of Marmarita sits in the historic “Valley of the Christians” which is near Homs.  It was a hot August night, and Christian party-goers were suddenly attacked the FSA and their allies.  The four were killed when they attempted to flee the party in a car.  The FSA and their allies, have vowed to make Syria a Sunni Muslim State, and have targeted Christians and minorities for 8 years.

The invasion, occupation, and destruction of Kessab

On March 21, 2014, Kessab was attacked when shelling from the Turkish side of the border rained down on the undefended Armenian village, sending its 2,000 residents into panic.  Over 20,000 fanatics from the FSA and its allies came pouring over the border.  They desecrated all 3 churches, and looted the village’s graves, before scattering the bones of the deceased around the town. The FSA held 26 elderly Armenians against their will for forty days in Turkey, where the FSA kidnappers brought the US Ambassador to Turkey, Francis J. Riccardone, Jr., to visit the elderly captives, but offered no help or release.  Samuel Poladian, who stayed in Kessab for the 3-month occupation, and claims he heard Turkish military helicopters overhead on the morning of the invasion, and that Turkey assisted in the invasion.

Monseigneur Ayvazian said, ”They burned all my books and documents, many of them very old, and left my library with nothing but 60cm of ash on the floor.” He has a photo of the church altar, which was desecrated by the FSA before the Syrian Arab Army liberated Kessab on June 15, 2014. The Armenians claim the Kessab attack, which was directed solely against Armenian Christians, was Turkey’s brutal way of showing the Armenians and the Syrian government that they can attack at any time.

Armenian Church in Deir Ez Zor  destroyed

On November 10, 2014, terrorists blew up the Armenian Church in Deir el-Zour, which is dedicated to the 1.5 million Armenians slaughtered by the Turks during the 1915 genocide, where many hundreds of thousands of victims died in death camps around Deir el-Zour.   Because the FSA has received arms from Turkey, the destruction of the church is regarded by Armenians as crimes carried out by Turks, harkening back to the genocide. “During the Armenian genocide, the Turks entered the church and killed its priest, Father Petrus Terzibashian, in front of the congregation,” Monseigneur Ayvazian said, adding “Then they threw his body into the Euphrates. This time when the Islamists came, our priest there fled for his life.”

The Turkish hatred of Armenians

The 19th century Armenian Surp Asdvadzadzin Church in Gurun district of Sivas (Sebastia), Turkey, will reopen as a museum.  At different times the church has been used as a prison, movie theater, storeroom, and wedding hall. The local mayor hopes it will boost the development of tourism in the region. That is the stark reality in Turkey, where Muslims account for 98% of the population, compared to the large Christian minority in Syria. In Turkey, they have tried to erase their Christian history, and have used the old Armenian churches as museums, or locked up or ruined.

The Armenian Genocide, Turkish denial, the US House recognition

The Armenian Genocide was the systematic mass extermination and expulsion of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians within the Ottoman Empire, from approximately 1914 to 1923.  Other ethnic groups were similarly targeted for extermination; such as Assyrians and the Greeks, also strictly Christians. Mass executions were followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly, and the infirm on death marches leading to Deir Ez Zor, which were driven forward by military escorts, as the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery, rape, and massacre.

On Oct. 29, 2019, the US House voted overwhelmingly to formally recognize the Armenian genocide and denounce it.  Lawmakers had previously failed from supporting such a resolution to preserve the United States’ relationship with Turkey, a NATO ally that has steadfastly denied that the atrocities amounted to genocide. Livid at Turkey’s recent bloody military invasion in Syria, lawmakers saw a possible tie to the Armenian genocide, as many feared the withdrawal of American forces would lead to ethnic cleansing in northeast Syria.

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Steven Sahiounie is a political commentator.

Bulgaria has agreed to allow NATO to use its Black Sea port for naval coordination efforts as tensions rise between the Western military alliance and Russia.

The agreement was reached following a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov at the White House on November 25.

NATO has bolstered its defenses in Eastern Europe, including the Black Sea region, which is becoming a new frontier for energy geopolitics, after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and seized Ukrainian Navy vessels last year.

NATO earlier this year carried out military exercises in the Black Sea that involved more than 20 ships and crews from Romania, Bulgaria, Canada, Greece, the Netherlands, and Turkey to the consternation of Moscow. Russia’s Black Sea fleet is based in Crimea.

“Viewing with concern the security situation in the Black Sea, the United States welcomes Bulgaria’s offer to provide a maritime coordination function at Varna in support of NATO’s Tailored Forward Presence initiative,” the United States and Bulgaria said in a joint statement.

U.S. and Bulgarian officials will hold high-level meetings to discuss further maritime military cooperation, the statement said.

NATO members Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey border the Black Sea along with Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia. Both Ukraine and Georgia have expressed a desire to join NATO.

Trump hosted Romanian President Klaus Iohannis last month as part of a series of engagements with leaders from Central and Eastern Europe, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Austria.

Prior to his arrival in Washington, Borisov told journalists that he would not allow a permanent NATO military base on the Black Sea, a move that would anger Russia.

Bulgaria agreed to continue increasing its military spending to modernize its military and meet NATO’s spending targets of at least 2 percent of gross domestic product, a threshold it will surpass this year following the purchase of its first F-16 fighter jets from the United States.

It’s part of a $1.67 billion package that is the country’s biggest military procurement since the fall of communism in the early 1990s. It includes ammunition, training, and support from the United States.

The eight F-16 jets are expected to be delivered to Bulgaria in 2023 and 2024 to replace the Bulgarian Air Force’s fleet of Soviet-built MiG-29s.

Washington agreed to seek defense-industry partnerships with Bulgarian companies, while Sofia agreed to open its defense procurement to U.S. companies, a separate joint statement from the two presidents said.

Energy Diversification

Washington will aim to help Bulgaria wean itself off Russian energy dependence, not just through exports of natural gas but also through the supply of nuclear fuel, the joint presidential statement said.

Bulgaria’s only nuclear plant, Kozloduy, runs on energy supplied by Russia while it imports the majority of its oil and gas from Russia. The United States will send a “technical team” to Bulgaria to study cooperation in different areas of energy, including nuclear.

“The United States and Bulgaria also plan to work together to enhance Bulgaria’s energy security by supporting expeditiously the licensing and use of American nuclear fuel for the Kozloduy nuclear power plant,” the joint presidential statement said.

The United States also called on Bulgaria to fight corruption and protect media freedoms, which have eroded over the past decade as the energy sector comes under the control of politically connected oligarchs.

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Bolivia announced that it will restore diplomatic ties with Israel, two days after the South American country’s new interim government appointed its first ambassador to the United States since 2008. 

The new government’s foreign policy shake-up comes after former president Evo Morales was ousted on 10 November.

Speaking to international media on Thursday, Foreign Minister Karen Longaric said Bolivia plans “to restore relations with Israel”, Haaretz newspaper reported.

Morales cut diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv in 2009 over Israel’s war on Gaza, which killed at least 1,383 Palestinians, including 333 children.

At the time, Morales said he would ask the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring genocide charges against top Israeli officials.

Following his resignation last month under pressure from the military following his contested re-election, Morales has taken exile in Mexico.

On Thursday, Longaric said she planned to re-establish diplomatic ties with Israel “out of respect for the sovereignty of the state”, Haaretz reported.

She said she hoped “that relations could lead to positive aspects for both sides and contribute to Bolivian tourism”.

Israel’s foreign ministry welcomed the move.

“This will contribute to the strengthening of the State of Israel’s foreign relations and its standing in the world,” Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz said in a statement.

“The departure of President Morales, who was hostile to Israel, and his replacement by a government friendly to Israel, allows the fruition of the process.”

Bolivia’s foreign policy change comes after the country’s self-appointed interim president, Jeanine Anez, was accused of cracking down on human rights in the country.

Last week, Human Rights Watch said Anez’s government had adopted “alarming measures that run counter to fundamental human rights standards”. More than 30 have died in protests against the new government.

Several countries in Central and South America have adopted more pro-Israel positions in recent years, as well, putting them in line with US President Donald Trump‘s policies.

In August, Honduras recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and said it intended to open a diplomatic office there.

In May 2018, Guatemala opened a new embassy in Jerusalem, just two days after the American embassy was inaugurated in the holy city, a widely criticised move that infuriated Palestinians.

The Trump administration, which has taken a staunchly pro-Israel line, recognised Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in December 2017 and urged other countries to do the same.

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Featured image: Jeanine Anez receiving the presidential sash from a representative of the Bolivian military (photo: EFE).

The Trump administration’s declaration that it does not consider Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory a violation of international law has torn up four decades of American policy, and risks making life even worse for the most marginalised groups in the region.

At Christian Aid, we work with both Israeli and Palestinian organisations to promote universal accountability and the rule of law as the cornerstone of a just and viable peace. This summer, I visited the Palestinian village of Umm al-Kheir, in the south Hebron Hills. Originally from Arad, this community of refugees settled here without incident until 1981, when Israel began construction of the Carmel settlement on half the village land. Now a community of approximately 500 Israeli citizens living on Palestinian land, the contrast between the two communities could not be starker.

The illegal settlement is a modern “town” with all the amenities that you would expect: running water, electricity, paved roads. Indeed, a pylon carries electricity from the settlement to their chicken shed over the top of the Palestinian village, which is without power. Many of the Palestinian homes, a mix of makeshift containers and traditional tents, have demolition orders on them, as Israel alleges that they are built without permits.

LAST week, however, the Trump administration unilaterally declared that it does not consider Israeli settlements, such as Carmel, in the occupied Palestinian territory, a violation of international law. The UK government must now unequivocally reaffirm that it still considers these settlements as both unlawful and an obstacle to a just peace for the sake of Palestinians living in abject poverty who face a host of human-rights abuses.

Settlements are illegal under international law, as they violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits transfer of the occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory. The International Court of Justice, the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, and the United Nations Security Council all concur.

From 1967 to the end of 2017, more than 200 Israeli settlements were established illegally in the West Bank, now housing more than 620,000 Israeli citizens.

As the Association for Civil Rights in Israel tells me: “Settlements and outposts are illegal under international law, and no political declaration can change that fact. The settlements lead to a continued and systematic violation of the rights of Palestinians living in the West Bank.”

Currently, while settlements physically cover almost ten per cent of the West Bank, their regional councils control 40 per cent of it. This has shrunk the space available for Palestinians to build houses, livelihoods, and infrastructure. The World Bank has made clear that growing the Palestinian economy will include increasing the economic space available for Palestinian development in the West Bank. This requires an end to illegal-settlement expansion. Without this, poverty will deepen.

Settlement construction — with its supporting infrastructure of bypass roads, checkpoints, and the separation barrier — is a key factor behind the fragmentation of the West Bank for Palestinians, including their access to East Jerusalem. This undermines the right and ability of Palestinians to achieve self-determination, and prevents a “two-state solution”, as envisaged by the Oslo peace process.

The Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea region covers almost 30 per cent of the West Bank, and starkly demonstrates the situation. This fertile area could be used by Palestinians to develop energy, agricultural, and industrial projects.

Home to approximately 65,000 Palestinians, and 11,000 Israeli citizens who have settled illegally on Palestinian land, almost 90 per cent of this region has been designated “Area C”, putting it under Israeli military control: a so-called temporary measure agreed under the Oslo accords more than 25 years ago.

Israel applies its own state civil law to Israeli settlers in the West Bank, who enjoy the same legal protections, rights, and benefits as Israeli citizens do inside Israel. In contrast, Palestinians living in the same area are subject to Israeli military law, meaning that any trials that they face are carried out in military courts controlled and run by the Israeli military.

Further, Palestinians are not protected from frequent settler violence. Israel provides settlers with infrastructure, services, and subsidies that it does not extend to Palestinians, thereby sustaining separate and unequal systems of law, protection, and services. And, while Israeli settlers were able to vote in the recent elections, Palestinians living in the same area were not.

This latest US move, and subsequent calls by the former Israeli justice minister to extend Israeli sovereignty over the settlements, makes Israeli annexation of the West Bank seem more likely, and with it a just peace feel even further out of reach.

As another Israeli human-rights group, B’Tselem, says, the US announcement “doesn’t just green-light Israel’s illegal settlement project, but also other human-rights violations around the world by obliterating the principles of international law. In so doing, the American administration is pushing the world over 70 years backwards, to the period at the end of World War Two, when only in its aftermath did the world come to terms with the consequences of the absence of such protections.”

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William Bell is the Head of Middle East Policy and Advocacy at Christian Aid.

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America’s privileged class never had things better throughout the year. 

The vast majority of ordinary people struggle to get by, a few lost paychecks from homelessness, hunger and despair.

The world’s richest country exploits them so wealth, power and privilege can benefit.

According to Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week:

“Hunger and homelessness don’t stop for the holidays.”

Tens of millions of Americans “liv(e) on the edge, forced to choose between basic necessities like purchasing food, paying rent, or going to the doctor” when ill.

Poverty is the nation’s leading growth industry. Most US households face a daily struggle to get by.

On average, 550,000 Americans are homeless each night.

I see it firsthand whenever outside in downtown Chicago. The city’s Magnificent Mile reveals a reality check.

Countless numbers of homeless, hungry, desperate people line both sides of the avenue, hoping passers-by will offer loose change to help them make it through another day.

Many are combat veterans, treated with disdain by the nation they served. Others have families with children. Some have part-time work when able to find it – paying poverty or sub-poverty wages and no benefits.

On Chicago’s mean winter streets, they’re in doorways, on benches, or wherever they can huddle from winter cold – at times extreme. An uncaring nation treats them like nonpersons.

According to Feeding America,

“(m)illions people struggle to get by because of (unemployment), underemployment, stagnant wages and rising costs of living.”

“(M)ore than 40 million people still turn to the (organization) each year for” help that federal, state, and local governments don’t provide, adding:

“Millions of children and families living in America face hunger and food insecurity every day.”

“Every community in the country is home to families who struggle with food insecurity including rural and suburban communities.”

“Many households that experience food insecurity do not qualify for federal nutrition (food stamps and other) programs and need to rely on their local food banks and other hunger relief organizations for support.”

Who’s hungry or food insecure in the US? The very young. The elderly. The employed. The unemployed.

Urban and rural Americans nationwide of all races, creeds, colors, national origins, and genders — a nationwide epidemic.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, over 552,000 are homeless in the US on any given night.

They include individuals, entire families, “chronically homeless individuals,” and military veterans.

The National Coalition for the Homeless explained that contributing factors to the problem include lack of affordable housing, limited housing assistance programs, and home foreclosures.

In 2017, the National Low Income Housing Coalition estimated that an hourly wage of $21.21 on average is needed to pay rent or afford another means of shelter.

The figure exceeds the average hourly wage “earned by the average renter by almost $5.00 an hour, and greatly exceed(s) wages earned by low income renter households.”

Half of US households are either impoverished or bordering it. The vast majority of jobs are low-wage/part-time or temp with few or no benefits.

Most workers need two or more to survive — if able to find them. Real unemployment is 21% when calculated accurately as it was pre-1990.

Since the 2008-09 financial crisis, protracted Depression persisted for most US households, things worsening as economic conditions deteriorate.

While millions of Americans live on the edge, the vast majority of US discretionary income goes for militarism, maintaining the Pentagon’s global empire of bases, endless wars on nations threatening no one, and corporate handouts — notably to Wall Street and military, industrial, security complex companies.

The great GOP 2017 tax cut heist was and remains all about transferring trillions more dollars to corporate America and super-rich households.

Reportedly, Trump may seek a 2020 tax cut on the phony pretext of benefitting the disappearing middle class.

According to Americans for Tax Fairness director Frank Clemente, another tax cut “will only increase the deficit even more and give Republicans a further excuse to cut essential services for working families” more than already.

If enacted into law, privileged Americans will benefit, not ordinary ones, Clemente adding:

Another tax cut would be “an admission by the president that his first tax cut was a scam.”

“It wasn’t aimed at the middle class but aimed at his wealthy friends and big corporations. Why should we expect anything different now?”

On Thanksgiving weekend and throughout the year, Americans are governed by one-party rule with two extremist right wings, waging war on humanity at home and abroad.

No nation in world history harmed more people over a longer duration than the US.

All sovereign independent states unwilling to sell their souls to the US at the right place are on its target list for regime change by preemptive wars, color revolutions, or old-fashioned coups — weakened in advance by economic terrorism.

Victims are blamed for US crimes committed against them. Mass surveillance is the new normal.

So are police state laws and censorship, the hallmark of totalitarian rule — the slippery slope where America and other Western societies are heading, lurching toward full-blown tyranny.

On Thanksgiving weekend and throughout the year, there’s no cause to give thanks for governance contemptuous of ordinary people everywhere so privileged ones can benefit.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The US-installed coup d’etat regime is going all out to solidify dictatorial power.

Top priorities are eliminating challenges to its tyrannical rule and silencing dissent.

Pro-democracy supporters, independent journalists, human rights workers, and others supporting equity and justice risk arrest and imprisonment for sedition, terrorism, and other false charges.

An Interpol notice surfaced against Evo Morales. The coup d’etat regime and US want him prevented from returning to Bolivia. They want him eliminated.

Bogus charges against him include sedition, terrorism, criminal association, and supporting popular opposition to the coup d’etat regime.

On Wednesday, he tweeted:

“The coup wasn’t against Evo but to the entire country. They want to dismantle the Plurinational State, a reference of unity for the peoples of the world. Fascism does not accept the diversity of cultures and thought. But together we will know how to get up.”

On Tuesday, he said “the struggle does not end” with a coup against democratic rule, adding that fascist usurpers want to dismantle “what we have built for economic liberation.”

A medical worker involved in treating wounded victims of military gunfire was arrested on charges of terrorism.

Bolivian journalists were threatened to report the official narrative or risk arrest and imprisonment.

Independent media are being shut down, including RT Spanish. From Moscow, RT International said its broadcasts in Bolivia “will be terminated starting next week, the country’s leading private TV operator has announced without a prior notice or clear explanation, citing only orders from its administration,” adding:

Effective December 2, RT is banned in Bolivia — clearly on orders by the US installed regime. Anyone considered disloyal risks its wrath.

Dozens have been killed, hundreds injured, countless numbers arrested. Former Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia told RT:

“What constitutional freedom can be there if journalists are not allowed to do their job, to inform and tell the truth?”

The hard-right Ecuadorian Lenin Moreno regime also silenced RT Spanish without explanation.

Interior minister Maria Paula Romo falsely blamed RT for days of large-scale protests in the country against police state rule and neoliberal harshness last month.

On November 25, Trump regime executive order 13851 declared a nonexistent “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States constituted by the situation in Nicaragua.”

Will the regime try toppling democratically elected Daniel Ortega after installing fascist tyranny in Bolivia — despite failure of a CIA-orchestrated violent attempt to remove him last year?

The White House falsely accused him of “dismantling and undermining democratic institutions and the rule of law… us(ing) indiscriminate violence and repressive tactics against civilians, as well as corruption leading to the destabilization of Nicaragua’s economy…pos(ing) an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

Have Nicaraguan military and police officials been bribed by the CIA like their Bolivian counterparts?

Are more CIA-orchestrated violence, vandalism and chaos coming? Are further eruptions of these actions planned for Venezuela?

Is Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s government on the CIA hit list? He warned of a right-wing coup against his rule after announcing the end to “the long night of neoliberalism.”

Ignoring decades of CIA involvement in drugs trafficking, complicit with organized crime and money laundering Wall Street banks, Trump designated Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations.”

Is calling Obrador’s government a threat to US national security coming next as a pretext for military intervention?

All sovereign independent governments unwilling to sell their souls to Washington for the right price are on its hit list for regime change.

US Voice of America propaganda said the White House “prioriti(zes) put(ting) (greater) diplomatic and economic pressure on” Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua for “regime change.”

Are escalated US actions against their ruling authorities coming, an attempt to replace them with pro-Western puppet rule?

Post-9/11, the US orchestrated successful coups in Haiti, Honduras, Paraguay, Ukraine, Brazil and Bolivia — unsuccessful ones in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Are these countries, Cuba and Mexico next on its target list for regime change?

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

First published by Global Research in July 2016

The heroin epidemic resembles the days when “Crack cocaine” became the major drug that destroyed communities across the United States and other parts of the world including the Caribbean that began in the early 1980’s. The Crack epidemic coincidentally began around the same time when the Iran-Contra Scandal was being exposed. U.S. cities such as Los Angeles, Miami and New York City experienced a rise in crime and disease. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported back in 2015 that “heroin use in the United States increased 63% from 2002 through 2013.” Fast forward to 2016, heroin is sweeping across the United States at unprecedented levels.

According to an NBC affiliate  reported that state officials were set to declare a “public health emergency” in New Haven, Connecticut over the rise of heroin use which has resulted in two deaths:

Officials in New Haven on Friday were set to address a public health emergency declaration brought on by a rash of heroin overdoses in the city beginning Thursday. New Haven police said emergency responders saw at least 15 overdoses since Thursday afternoon, and possibly up to 22. At least two people have died. The city is warning residents that there is a batch of tainted, life-threatening heroin on the streets

In the suburbs of Long Island, NY, heroin use is an increasing problem. According to www.suburbanheroin.com a website devoted to the heroin epidemic on Long Island states that in 2012 – 2013 more than 242 people died from heroin use. Long Island is home to some of the wealthiest communities in New York State which goes to show that heroin is affecting all neighborhoods rich and poor. The NBC news report said that the CDC admitted that heroin has become an epidemic since 2002 

“The CDC reports that between 2002 and 2014 the rate of heroin-related overdose deaths more than quadrupled and more than 10,500 died nationwide in 2014.”

Now the question is why heroin use has dramatically increased since 2002? Maybe the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 after the September 11th attacks under the Bush regime had something to do with it? The main-stream media (MSM) establishment mouthpiece The Washington Post admitted in 2006 that heroin production in Afghanistan “broke all records” while under U.S. occupation:

Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday.

In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year — for a total of 5,644 metric tons — the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent

Washington claims that Mexico is the source of the heroin that is flooding U.S. streets “with 10,500 hectares under poppy cultivation in 2012” while Afghanistan had “224,000 hectares” according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in a 2014 report but the numbers tell a different story. Mexico’s heroin trade is small in comparison although it has been increasing its production capabilities.

However, not only heroin from Afghanistan is the major source for U.S. citizens, “BigPharma”, or the ‘corporate drug dealers’ who sell “legal drugs” also have a hand in the epidemic because they produce and sell ‘Opioids’ such asOxyContin and Percocet which is similar to heroin. Opioid medications are normally used as painkillers for broken bones, lacerations or post-surgery pain. However, abusing Opioids can also lead to heroin use.

The online news source The Huffington Post published an article titled ‘Ron Paul Had Accurate Conspiracy Theory: CIA Was Tied To Drug Traffickers’ highlights what the former Libertarian Presidential nominee Dr. Ron Paul said on the involvement of the CIA in the drug trade which was not a “Conspiracy Theory” but a fact when taking into consideration the Iran-Contra Scandal:

In 1988, while running for president on the Libertarian Party ticket, he highlighted yet another conspiracy theory, and this one doesn’t collapse under investigation: The CIA, Paul told a gathering of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, was involved in trafficking drugs as part of the Iran-Contra debacle.

Drug trafficking is “a gold mine for people who want to raise money in the underground government in order to finance projects that they can’t get legitimately. It is very clear that the CIA has been very much involved with drug dealings,” Paul said. “The CIA was very much involved in the Iran-Contra scandals. I’m not making up the stories; we saw it on television. They were hauling down weapons and drugs back. And the CIA and government officials were closing their eyes, fighting a war that was technically illegal”

The Taliban banned the production of opium in 2000. The War in Afghanistan was mainly about producing opium which did end up in the streets of Iran, Russia and China. According to a Pravda report in 2015 by William Edstrom titled ‘Heroin Dealer in Chief. Afghanistan, Source of 90% of The World’s Heroin’ stated the impact of Afghanistan’s opium production on neighboring countries:

Afghanistan, source of 90% of Earth’s heroin, ended 90% of Earth’s heroin problems when Taliban outlawed opium in 2000. The reason for War in Afghanistan was because Taliban outlawed opium growing which ended economic wars (opium wars) against Iran, Russia and China

The heroin epidemic is now affecting cities and towns across the U.S. Edstrom estimates that 165,000 American’s will die from the heroin epidemic in the next 10 years:

The War in Afghanistan began as an opium war against Iran, Russia and China, the tables are turning into an opium war against Americans on track to kill 165,000 Americans (2016-2026). Americans, 5% of Earth’s population, take 60% of painkillers on Earth

The death rate could go much higher considering the increasing level of poverty in the U.S. especially in the inner cities where the highest unemployment rates is among the 18-34 year olds. Many young adults will unfortunately turn to the drug trade whether they sell or use as hope fades for the lack of jobs or opportunities.

Fox News had a segment with Geraldo Rivera that shows how the U.S. government (in this case, the U.S. Marines) is involved in Afghanistan’s heroin production with Washington’s approval of course. Watch Video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgKmJESBFsw

Heroin is a valuable commodity as long as the War on Drugs remains in effect, that’s why Obama extended the Afghan mission until 2017, for the next U.S. elected president to occupy the White House. If it’s Hillary Clinton, U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan indefinitely. Trump might do the same, but that still remains to be seen. On July 7th, 2015 NBC reported on Afghanistan’s opium production and where they stand in terms of world supply

“According to the United Nations, the war-torn nation provides 90 percent of the world’s supply of opium poppy, the bright, flowery crop that transforms into one of the most addictive drugs in existence.”NBC also quoted John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction who did say that “Afghanistan has roughly 500,000 acres, or about 780 square miles, devoted to growing opium poppy. That’s equivalent to more than 400,000 U.S. football fields — including the end zones.”

That’s a large amount of land devoted to opium production which provides an opportunity for the CIA to cash in on the illegal drug trade for their secret covert operations (which avoids public scrutiny) and re-establish a drug trade route to target the populations of China, Iran and Russia.

The heroin crisis then and now is a direct consequence of the Military-Industrial Complex. During the 1970’s, around the same time during the Vietnam War, heroin made its way to the United States from the Golden Triangle which became an epidemic. It was estimated that more than 200,000 people in New York City alone were using heroin. At one point in time, you were able to find used syringes on public playgrounds. Now, heroin from Afghanistan has made its way back to the U.S. Heroin is profitable as much as it is strategic; it is also used as a weapon against Chinese, Iranian and Russian populations which has led to addiction, crime and helped spread diseases such as AIDS. Heroin is now affecting the United States, the CIA’s very own territory. Not that the CIA really cares who it effects when you closely examine their history of drug trafficking with the Iran-Contra Scandal or the Golden Triangle during the Vietnam War as author and activist William Blum noted in his book Rogue State,

 “The CIA flew the drugs all over Southeast Asia, to sites where the opium was processed into heroin, and to trans-shipment points on the route to Western customers.”

As long as the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan continues under the guise of establishing a democratic government, the flow of heroin will continue unabated. One question we should ask is “who owns the planes and the ships that transport 90% percent of the world’s heroin from Afghanistan to the rest of the world in the first place? It sure isn’t the Taliban.

In Godfather 2 there is a riveting (in its bluntness) scene involving Michael Corleone and Nevada Senator Pat Geary. At his son’s confirmation party, in a private meeting room, the senator wants a hefty bribe to help with a new casino license. This new ‘Don Corleone’ refuses to offer one, figuring that he is more powerful than the senator and needs not to pay off. When the senator insults him with invectives about the Italians and this whole mafia fantasy (in his mind) Michael Corleone lays out the whole damn ball of wax .”We’re all part of the same hypocrisy Senator!” 

For generations there has been a seemingly eternal bag of hypocrisy that is our Two Party/One Party political system. When these phonies and hypocrites are in front of a camera or at an election campaign event, they barely ever tell you what they really feel. No, instead they rely on ‘talking points’ drawn up by their slew of advisors, and of course, they play to the emotions of the suckers… sorry, the voters. From Bush Sr. railing about NOT increasing taxes, to his idiot son proclaiming that we don’t need to go to foreign lands with our military… to Obama insinuating that we need to have Medicare for All and that infamous public option… to this present carnival barker who pledged to get the hell OUT of the Middle East. Isn’t all this what bulls love to excrete?

From the bombardment of commercialism throughout our media and right into our daily lives, the hypocrisy never ends. Insurance companies who say they ‘Care about you’ while doing all they can to NOT pay off on what you deserve.

Corporate run restaurants and  businesses who have their employees greet you with some redundant mantra as you enter.

Big Pharma that disguises the drugs they peddle as the natural way to good health (thank God for those side effect notifications at the end of those commercials).

Honestly, just about every commercial is full of ****! Tomorrow will be another annual day (or should I say weekend?) aptly called ‘Black Friday’ with the mobs who never dared come out to protest the illegal and immoral disgrace of the war on Iraq in 2003… except for but one solitary day in February of that year.

Did not Junior Bush let the cat out of the bag after 9/11 when he told Amerika to ‘Go out and shop’? Sadly, many of us are victims of this consumer culture, credit carded and in debt for the new car, 1000 inch plasma television set , smart phone, blackberry and other assorted electronic gadgets. When the next ‘House of cards’ collapses as it did in 2008…

The great cartoonist of social commentary, Walt Kelly, said it best through his Pogo comic strip: “We have met the enemy and he be us!”

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Philip A Farruggio is a contributing editor for The Greanville Post. He is also frequently posted on Global Research, Nation of Change, World News Trust 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 300 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].

The northeastern part of Syria remains one of the main hot points of the conflict despite the ceasefire regime formally declared in the region.

Clashes between Turkish-backed armed groups, on the one side, and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian Army on the other side erupt on a regular basis. On November 23, Turkish proxies, supported by the Turkish Army, launched a large-scale attack on northern Raqqa with the aim of capturing Ayn Issa, where a Russian humanitarian and coordination center is located. By November 25, the SDF and the army had repelled this attack regaining all lost positions. Nonetheless, sporadic clashes north of Ayn Issa and southeast of Ras al-Ayn continued.

The Ayn Issa advance followed a November 18 statement by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, in which he said that Turkey will launch a new military operation in northeastern Syria if the area were not cleared of what he called terrorists.

Cavusoglu claimed that the United States and Russia had not done what was required under the agreements that had halted the Turkish offensive against the “terrorists” (i.e. Kurdish armed groups). Under the Turkish-US and Turkish-Russian agreements, Kurdish units had to withdraw from the border area and then a safe zone had to be established.

“If we do not obtain a result, we will do what is necessary, just as we launched the operation after trying with the U.S.,” Cavusoglu said, referring to coordination with the US to remove the YPG from the area before Turkey launched its Operation Peace Spring on October 9.

The statement of the Turkish foreign minister came just several hours after an attack on a joint Russian-Turkish patrol in northeastern Syria by YPG-affiliated radicals. YPG supporters threw petrol bombs at Russian and Turkish vehicles.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov described Cavusoglu’s statement as surprising and said that such comments may lead to further tensions.

Later, Turkey informed Russia’s ambassador in Ankara that Cavusoglu’s remarks were a kind of misunderstanding. However, this doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. The November 18 statement is fully in accordance with the course of Ankara’s foreign policy.

The Turkish leadership has never seen Russia as a long-term partner. Rather, Ankara sees Moscow as a situational ally and aims to exploit the gullibility of this ally to achieve their goals. Turkish foreign policy demonstrates that Ankara is not seeking to make ‘friends’ with other regional and global powers. Turkey’s foreign policy is mobile and variable, and always designed to defend the interests of Turkey as a regional leader and the key state of the Turkic world.

Cavusoglu’s statement hints at a new shift in Turkish foreign policy, which may be aimed at undermining Russian influence in northern Syria.

Turkish and Russian forces conducted over 10 joint patrols in the framework of the ‘safe zone’ agreement. Most of them, except the very first and last ones, were marked by attacks and provocations carried out by YPG-affiliated radicals. Pro-YPG rioters threw stones, blocked patrols, attacked vehicles and even used petrol bombs. It should be noted that the SDF’s security force Asayish publicly apologized for the petrol bomb attack on Russian vehicles when it appeared that Ankara was ready to use this as a pretext to formally resume its Operation Peace Spring. This does not mean that the unconstructive stance of the Kurdish leaders has somehow changed.

By these provocations, they were testing Russia’s red lines which are the main factor limiting Turkish response to such actions. Attacks on Russian vehicles also demonstrate that at least a part of the local Kurdish population sees the Russian military presence as hostile. The main reason is Moscow’s open cooperation with Ankara.

The developments of the last few weeks demonstrate that Turkey launched its Operation Peace Spring in northeastern Syria in de-facto coordination with Iran and Russia. Besides this, the offensive was supported by the Trump administration behind the scenes. After the end of the operation under the US-Turkish and Russian-Turkish deals, the region of northeastern Syria had every chance of moving towards stabilization.

The full implementation of the steps agreed by Ankara and Moscow over the next 1-2 years would bring about  a long-awaited peace to the territory of northeastern Syria . However, this is not what the Turkish leadership is interested in. The Erdogan government needs the “Kurdish threat” and instability in northern Syria to maintain a wide assortment of formal pretexts for further expansion into the neighboring country and for the backing of pro-Turkish groups operating there. Turkey is interested in  maintaining peace on its own territory. At the same time, it prefers to keep a useful ‘zone of instability’ in northern Syria.

If Ankara successfully plays Russia in its northeastern Syria ‘safe zone’ game, it will be able to:

• discredit Russia and its personnel in the eyes of the Kurdish population;
• undermine Russia’s political position in this part of Syria;
• indirectly demonstrate the deficiency of the Russian initiatives in northern Syria.

The growth of tensions in the region and continued attacks on Russian vehicles patrolling the area contribute to this scenario.

Russian forces were deployed to the north as a part of Moscow’s effort to back the Assad government and support a broader political settlement of the conflict. So although  Russia has very few interests there it has already faced notable obstacles (from the intractability of the Kurdish leadership to the shift inTurkish policy). Russian withdrawal from the border area as a result of some major security incidents or a series of smaller ones would allow Turkey to continue pursuing its mid-term goals:

• To keep the “Kurdish threat”, which is being actively exploited by the Erdogan government in its domestic and foreign policies, under control;
• To seize key logistical routes, including the chunk of the M4 highway east of the Euphrates, in northern Syria. In some cases, Turkish forces may even push to capture some oil fields in the area;
• To justify an increase of support to pro-Turkish groups in northeastern Syria and in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

In its turn, the Kurdish leadership, by undermining the safe zone agreement and thus the Russian position, hopes to strengthen its negotiating position with Damascus and to gain additional political and financial revenue despite the failure of its pro-US policies. However, a wider look at the situation demonstrates that this approach is leading them towards an even larger catastrophe. If the safe zone deal collapses and Turkish forces resume their offensive, the Kurdish population will fall under the wheels of the Turkish military machine. A large part of the Kurds will be repressed or have to flee to the US-occupied or Damascus-controlled areas. The US will keep control of the oil-rich part of the country. Turkey will get the north. The Kurds will blame the Russians for failing to ‘protect them’.

The US appears fully aware of this scenario and its intelligence services worked to support the YPG radicals that attacked Turkish-Russian patrols because this gives Washington additional levers of pressure on forces of the Assad government and Russia on the eastern bank of the Euphrates.

On the other hand, the Syrian Army and its allies may use the escalation in northeastern Syria and the increase of Turkish support to radicals in Greater Idlib as a pretext for the resumption of large-scale counter-terrorism efforts in western Syria. Nonetheless, this kind of informal exchange will be small consolation for Syria, whose sovereignty and territorial integrity continue to founder because of the hostile actions of foreign powers.

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A relevant article by Thierry Meyssan has been published that reveals the deep historical fascist/catholic links leading up to the coup in Bolivia and the danger that may lie ahead as a result. It is important to be aware of this in order to provide informed solidarity with the people of Bolivia and a sharper analysis of the inevitable US intervention in Latin America.

However, we take issue on some of Meyssan’s statements leading up to his main story.

We question his statement that this “was not exactly a coup d’état, but a simple overthrow of the constitutional president.” One could debate on the semantic difference between “coup” and “overthrow”. Ultimately, their intent is indistinguishable. In fact, this is how the Encyclopaedia Britannica defines coup: “Coup d’état, also called Coup, the sudden, violent overthrow of an existing government by a small group. The chief prerequisite for a coup is control of all or part of the armed forces, the police, and other military elements.” This is precisely what happened in Bolivia. Meyssan himself refers to the coup perpetrators as “putschists” later in his article.

Another issue we find hard to believe is Meyssan’s statement,

“the United States of America, which is pleased with the turn of events [coup], has not provoked them.”

There is ample evidence of US intervention.

Has there been any similar coup in Latin America in modern times where the US has not been involved directly or indirectly? Are we to believe that this is an exclusively domestically-driven coup in a region where the US has so much at stake politically and economically, and that closely monitors and controls?

Truly we do not see any difference between the US regime change drive in Venezuela or in Bolivia aside from the force and openness of the push, the timing or the circumstances of the events.

We do happen to believe that the US is in the initial stages of a decaying empire, but even recognising that “the US State Department is a field of ruins”, it is hard to accept, yet, this level of decay based on what we see in terms of US penetration and interventions in the region via its hybrid war toolkit. The unlikely alternative is to believe that a casual conversation between a Colombian diplomat and his foreign affairs boss is the proof of the US administration “incompetence” in Bolivia.

What Meyssan calls “The shadows of the past” is the real story behind the coup in Bolivia. It is a story that involves characters such as the Croatian Fascist-Nazi Ustashi terrorist group, the Catholic church and the CIA. The links between these parties are important to keep in mind.

Many Ustashi members fled to Latin America after World War II; some settled in Bolivia. They brought with them their capitalist and racist ideology with the blessing of the Catholic church in exchange for spreading Christian fundamentalism. One of the major opponents of Evo Morales is Luis Fernando Camacho, a wealthy lawyer from Santa Cruz, who has been associated with an anti-indigenous people group, the Santa Cruz Youth Union, believed to be founded by the “Bolivian Ustashi”. He has been reported to enter the government palace by force kneel in front of a bible resting on a Bolivian flag before supposedly delivering a letter of resignation to president Evo Morales. He may also be a vice-president candidate in the next election recently agreed on by the interim government of self-proclaimed president Jeanine Añez.

Santa Cruz is a Bolivian Eastern region where many Croatians have settled. It is mostly populated by European-descent people, is rich in gas and farmland resources, and has the reputation of having had a separatist vote in 2008 that the Morales government rejected as unconstitutional. Another figure with close ties to Camacho is also relevant in Santa Cruz. His name is Branko Marinkovic. Born in Bolivia to Croatian parents, he also retains Croatian citizenship. He is the president of the Federation of Private Industries in Santa Cruz and is a big rancher and land owner. “Rumour” has it that he has been involved in building a private militia, but when asked of course he denies it.

Undoubtedly the identification with the Catholic church has provided an appearance of legitimacy and acceptance of the Bolivian Ustashi and their associates that has fully been exploited by the CIA for its wider covert operations in Latin America in fighting Communism or any other socialist movement. We sadly concur with Meyssan, “the networks installed by the CIA in the 1950s to 1970s have beautiful [sic] remnants.”

After the military coup we are told that we are witnessing the fact that “a political current within Catholicism advocates violence in the name of God” in Bolivia. Far from being a new phenomenon, this violent religious fanaticism is not different from what the European colonisers  did in Latin America centuries ago. Today, we cannot dismiss the fact that even in the remote possibility that the US did not “provoke” the coup it will definitely take advantage of the unstable political situation to reel the next government towards neoliberalism with fascist characteristics.

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This article was originally published on OneWorld.

Nino Pagliccia is an activist and freelance writer based in Vancouver. He is a retired researcher from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Venezuelan-Canadian who follows and writes about international relations with a focus on the Americas. He is the editor of the book “Cuba Solidarity in Canada – Five Decades of People-to-People Foreign Relations” (2014). He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from OneWorld

Nicaragua has been experiencing a political crisis since mid-April 2018 when a reform of the Social Security system was used as a pretext to unleash pro-U.S. violent protests against the government of President Daniel Ortega. 

The ruling party detected and denounced the violent acts by rioters whose sole purpose was to destabilize the country, in conjunction with Washington escalating its pressure against Nicaragua.

Dialogue processes were initiated and suspended in the absence of progress. The problem is that those who requested dialogue came to ask for power and since it was not permitted, they claimed to international media that the government was not flexible in their negotiations. In the search for a negotiated exit to the crisis, the opposition called for early elections, changes to the electoral law and a new conformation of the Supreme Electoral Council.

The Nicaraguan leader explained that the hand behind the “crisis” was coordinated by the opposition and some private media outlets. The opposition wants to show that there are large demonstrations, but they are small and lowkey. The most conservative media in the country, which covered the protests biasedly, are paying the price by losing advertisers and readers. This led to El Nuevo Diario announcing that it stopped circulating, along with another newspaper that would stop publishing a humorous supplement

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday extended a national emergency declaration for Nicaragua for a year due to the “dismantling and undermining of democratic institutions” by the Government of the Central American country and the alleged repression of activists.

“The situation in Nicaragua, including the violent response by the Government of Nicaragua to the protests that began on April 18, 2018, and the Ortega regime’s systematic dismantling and undermining of democratic institutions and the rule of law, its use of indiscriminate violence and repressive tactics against civilians, as well as its corruption leading to the destabilization of Nicaragua’s economy, continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” said the president in a statement sent to Congress.

The notice extends for one year the emergency declared on November 27, 2018. The national emergency is intended to broaden the presidential powers to invoke a dozen relevant U.S. laws, however, it is not clear how the declaration would apply to Nicaragua. Trump used a similar emergency statement regarding the U.S.-Mexico border to invoke existing laws that, according to the administration, allow the diversion of money from government programs to build a border wall.

But why has Trump decided to do this?

Nicaragua has long been a thorn for U.S. hegemonic designs on Latin America. In one of the most recent examples, Nicaragua was one of the very few Latin American countries that rejected the resolution of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), a mostly conservative U.S.-puppet alliance, to demand new elections in Bolivia, as it avoids the rupture of the constitutional order that persists in that Andean nation.

However, Nicaragua’s defiance of the U.S. goes much further back, especially if we consider Daniel Ortega’s brother, Humberto, telling his military officers in 1981:

“Our revolution has a profoundly anti-imperialist character, profoundly revolutionary, profoundly classist: We are anti-Yankee, we are against the bourgeoisie, we are inspired by the historic traditions of our people […] we are guided by the scientific doctrine of the revolution, by Marxism-Leninism.” Ortega’s rhetoric has always been against “imperialists” and “global capitalism’s tyrannical dictatorship.”

The old “Red Terror” threat of the bygone Cold War era appears to still haunt Washington, leading to Trump ludicrously claim days ago that Nicaragua is a “national security threat” just weeks after he encouraged and orchestrated the right-wing coup against former Bolivian President Evo Morales. Of course, Trump gave no explanation how Nicaragua could ever possibly be a security threat to the U.S.

The main U.S. foreign media mouthpiece, Voice of America (VOA), gave insights into what we can expect in the future, stating:

“Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the Latin American countries whose government Trump has made a priority to put diplomatic and economic pressure on to bring about regime change.”

The VOA article also revealed that “The pressure against Nicaragua is going to continue” through economic means – sanctions., Trump’s preferred method of destroying countries, such as Venezuela.

VOA has always been an insight into Washington’s plans and ideas, and with it stating that Nicaragua, alongside Cuba and Venezuela, is a priority state for the U.S. to destroy, it can be expected that more reactionary violence will occur and poverty will significantly increase in the country. It is for this reason that the head of the Latin American department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Aleksandr Schetinin explained that over the past few years, the U.S. has had the idea of ​​making Latin America “more manageable.” This was preceded by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explaining that the “U.S. attempts to reshape the Latin American political landscape to its own extent” and uses “force wherever it wants to overthrow governments.”

There can be little doubt that in the coming weeks we can expect the violence, escalation and propaganda against Nicaragua to intensify. With the success of the Bolivian coup, this could begin to inspire the same model being implemented against anti-U.S. states in the Western Hemisphere. It appears that Nicaragua will be the U.S. next major target to be destroyed until U.S. business interest in the impoverished Central American country is restored.

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Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

According to Victoria Charles, a biographer of French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), the artist died in Atuona, in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia, “having lost a futile and fatally exhausting battle with colonial officials, threatened with a ruinous fine and an imprisonment for allegedly instigating the natives to mutiny and slandering the [French] authorities, after a week of acute physical sufferings [from syphilis] endured in utter isolation.”

Upon receiving the news of the death “of their old enemy, the bishop and the brigadier of gendarmes—the pillars of the local [French] colonial regime—hastened to demonstrate their fatherly concern for the salvation of the sinner’s soul by having him buried in the sanctified ground of a Catholic cemetery. Only a small group of natives accompanied the body to the grave. There were no funeral speeches, and an inscription on the tombstone was denied to the late artist.” The bishop subsequently wrote in his regular report to Paris: “The only noteworthy event here has been the sudden death of a contemptible individual named Gauguin, a reputed artist but an enemy of God and everything that is decent.”

Paul Gauguin, Ta Matete, 1892, Kunstmuseum Basel

Over the course of the next several decades, Gauguin’s importance as an artist became widely recognized. His influence on Henri Matisse, André Derain, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fauvism and Cubism was especially significant. Matisse argued that Gauguin had “cleared the way,” along with Eugène Delacroix, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne, for the “rehabilitation of the role of colour, and the restitution of its emotive power.”

Meanwhile, the opinions of “the bishop and the brigadier of gendarmes” concerning Gauguin’s “contemptible” life-style and activity came to be viewed with disdain—or, more to the point, were simply forgotten. Simultaneously, his paintings of Tahitian women and landscapes, in particular, with all their inevitable contradictions, gained favor among great numbers of people for their brilliant color, expressiveness and sympathy.

However, the contemporary intelligentsia, in its degeneration and decay, unoriginal and uninspired to the core, is effectively reviving the slanders of the aforementioned “pillars of the colonial regime”—now in the name, ironically, of supposed anti-colonialism and feminism.

Objectively, this heavy-handed effort by affluent middle-class layers is directed toward encouraging conformism and staving off the growing radicalization of young people, in particular. Treated outside of any historical or psychological context, Gauguin’s life is turned into a cautionary tale about the dangers of straying from the dictates of today’s petty-bourgeois moralists. Born out of instinctive social fear and economic self-interest, this dishonest accounting of his art and life is a form of intellectual intimidation.

Image on the right: Paul Gauguin, Two Tahitian Women, 1899

The New York Times embodies and spearheads this modern-day philistinism and political reaction. Outraged by Gauguin’s continuing popularity with many art lovers and the public at large, the Times and its international allies, the Guardian in Britain, for example, along with various academics and art critics, have been attempting for some years to destroy Gauguin’s reputation.

As one such figure, Norma Broude, put it, the “awakening” in the early 1970s in regard to Gauguin’s supposed sins “did little to alter Gauguin’s place in the mainstream canon, if judged by the steady stream of major exhibitions that have continued to appear down to the present day.” She continued: “But it did lead at the time to a vehement rejection and repositioning of Gauguin in the feminist art-historical literature, where he soon came to be castigated, as much for his life as his art, in terms of late-twentieth-century standards and moralities in general and in terms of feminist and postcolonial ones in particular. ” [Emphasis added]

The well-heeled and complacent perpetrators of this campaign do not let the complex facts of Gauguin’s life and career, including his immense sacrifice and suffering, stand in their way.

In the latest attack, the Times published an article November 18 with a headline that posed the question, “Is It Time Gauguin Got Canceled?” The sub-headline continued, “Museums are reassessing the legacy of an artist who had sex with teenage girls and called the Polynesian people he painted ‘savages.’” The new piece, by culture writer Farah Nayeri, forms part of the Times ’ relentless promotion of sexual, gender and racial politics.

Image below: Paul Gauguin, 1891

The article begins provocatively: “‘Is it time to stop looking at Gauguin altogether?’ That’s the startling question visitors hear on the audio guide as they walk through the ‘Gauguin Portraits’ exhibition at the National Gallery in London. The show, which runs through Jan. 26, focuses on Paul Gauguin’s depictions of himself, his friends and fellow artists, and of the children he fathered and the young girls he lived with in Tahiti.”

Who would pose such a “startling”—and foul—question about a major artist? In the past, only deservedly hated censors and authoritarian governments proceeded along these lines. This has been the language and behavior of the extreme right. What is the implied alternative to people “looking at Gauguin?” Should we censor or burn his work to prevent it from being seen by the general public?

National Gallery officials should be ashamed of themselves for even raising such a question. They are capitulating shamefully to the current upper-middle-class obsession with sexual conduct, projected into the past in the case of someone like Gauguin. Victorianism and prudery have reconquered these strata, without much apparent resistance.

Nayeri writes later: “In the international museum world, Gauguin is a box-office hit. There have been a half-dozen exhibitions of his work in the last few years alone, including important shows in Paris, Chicago and San Francisco. Yet in an age of heightened public sensitivity to issues of gender, race and colonialism, museums are having to reassess his legacy.”

One of the know-nothing philistines that Nayeri cites is Ashley Remer, a New Zealand-based American curator, who asserts “that in Gauguin’s case the man’s actions were so egregious that they overshadowed the work.” Nayeri quotes Remer as saying, “He was an arrogant, overrated, patronizing pedophile, to be very blunt.”

Again citing Remer, the Times piece continues: “If his paintings were photographs, they would be ‘way more scandalous,’ and ‘we wouldn’t have been accepting of the images.’”

Nayeri goes on: “Ms. Remer questioned the constant exhibitions of Gauguin and the Austrian artist Egon Schiele, who also depicted nude underage models, and the ways those shows were put together. ‘I’m not saying take down the works: I’m saying lay it all bare about the whole person,’ she said.”

Image on the right: Paul Gauguin, Vahine no te tiare(Woman with a Flower), 1891, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Of course, the logic of her argument leads precisely in the direction of “taking down the works,” or, rather, not putting them up to begin with. Why else “question” the obviously irritating “constant exhibitions?” At any rate, who is Remer, someone without the slightest artistic or intellectual standing, to determine that Gauguin is “overrated?”

The Times is pursuing a two-pronged campaign. On the one hand, the newspaper gloats over and incites present-day efforts, for example, in France (and elsewhere) to suppress Roman Polanski’s film J ’ accuse ( An Officer and a Spy ) on the Dreyfus affair and anti-Semitism, and on the other, it aggressively urges the exclusion of artists from the past of whom its middle-class constituency is encouraged to disapprove.

What atrocities are still to come? Who will be next in this Vandal-like effort to blot out troubling cultural personalities?

Paul Gauguin was a major artistic figure, whose painting had a genuine influence on the development of modern art. When one considers the occasionally brutal or callous details of his personal life, or simply his bluntness, it is worth considering the harsh and bloody social framework that helped shape him.

The future painter was born in Paris on June 7, 1848, as one biographer noted, “in the midst of the revolutionary events when barricade fighting was going on in the streets of the city.” June 1848 witnessed the mass uprising of the Paris working class and its subsequent murderous suppression by the French army under General Louis-Eugène Cavaignac. More than 10,000 people were killed or wounded in the fighting, including thousands of insurgents—another 4,000 political prisoners were later deported to Algeria. With the final triumph of the status quo in late June, wrote Karl Marx, “the bourgeoisie held illuminations while the Paris of the proletariat was burning, bleeding, groaning in the throes of death.”

Gauguin’s parents were the French-Peruvian Aline Maria Chazal, daughter of the socialist Flora Tristan, and liberal journalist Clovis Gauguin. In the autumn of 1849, for political reasons, the family left for Peru, where Gauguin lived until the age of 7.

Paul and his mother eventually returned to France (his father having died en route to South America), living at first in Orléans in the house of an uncle then under police surveillance due to his role in the 1848 revolution.

Paul Gauguin, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, 1897-98

At 17, Paul joined the merchant marine and three years later, the French Navy. Following the collapse of the French forces in the Franco-Prussian war, he returned to Paris in April 1871, in the midst of the Commune. In the wake of the defeat of the working class in that new upheaval (and once more, mass killings by the French military), Gauguin found a job with a brokerage firm. He married a Danish woman, Mette-Sophie Gad, in 1873, and over the next 10 years they had five children.

Gauguin lived a more or less settled, bourgeois life, but began painting in his spare time. He encountered Camille Pissarro, the anarchist Impressionist painter, also a mentor of Cézanne, and other painters during these years. Gauguin began exhibiting works of his own in the early 1880s.

The stock market crash of 1882 had a serious impact on his life. A commentator notes that it “put an abrupt stop to Gauguin’s double life as a broker and an artist.” He lost his employment and moved his family to Copenhagen in 1884 to pursue a business opportunity, which soon failed. Gauguin then returned to Paris, alone, to take up the full-time vocation of artist. His wife and children returned to her family in Denmark. Mette went to work as a translator and teacher.

In the latter part of the 1880s, Gauguin underwent many difficulties, including extreme poverty and deprivation. Famously, of course, he lived with van Gogh in Arles, in the south of France, for nine weeks in 1888. Like van Gogh, he experienced deep frustration and depression (and later, in the 1890s, attempted suicide).

Dissatisfied with Impressionism, which he considered disorganized and insubstantial, finding Paris to be suffocating, and, “in the hopes of retrieving some lost, uncorrupted past from which art could be renewed,” in another biographer’s words, Gauguin traveled to Brittany, Panama and Martinique (where he contracted dysentery and malaria) in 1886–87.

In a letter to a critic written in 1899, Gauguin observed, “We painters, we who are condemned to penury, accept the material difficulties of life without complaining, but we suffer from them insofar as they constitute a hindrance to work. How much time we lose in seeking our daily bread! The most menial tasks, dilapidated studios, and a thousand other obstacles. All these create despondency, followed by impotence, rage, violence.”

Paul Gauguin, Self-portrait, 1889–1890, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

In 1891, dissatisfied with a lack of recognition, destitute and driven by the desire to escape conventional civilization, Gauguin set off for Tahiti, convinced he would find there a more elemental and less artificial way of life. His memoir-travelogue of that first visit, Noa Noa (“very fragrant”), makes remarkable reading, and, if viewed objectively, dispels many of the misconceptions that persist about Gauguin.

Astonishingly and rather bravely, if foolishly from any “sensible” point of view, Gauguin landed in Tahiti with virtually no money (a public sale in Paris of 30 paintings was enough to cover the cost of the trip) and no knowledge of local customs or the language. His first reaction was disappointment at the degree to which colonization had transformed what he imagined would be an uncontaminated Eden.

French Polynesia, it seemed, “was Europe—the Europe which I had thought to shake off—and that under the aggravating circumstances of colonial snobbism, and the imitation, grotesque even to the point of caricature, of our customs, fashions, vices, and absurdities of civilization. Was I to have made this far journey, only to find the very thing which I had fled?” And later: “The dream which had brought me to Tahiti was brutally disappointed by the actuality. It was the Tahiti of former times which I loved. That of the present filled me with horror.”

His attitude changed somewhat after he removed to a more remote area, where he was entirely reliant on the local people—all his provisions having run out after a day or two!

Gauguin’s description of his life includes quite candid and extended passages about the Tahitian girl, Tehura, he lived with and whom he came to love, and who loved him: “This child of about thirteen years (the equivalent of eighteen or twenty in Europe) charmed me, made me timid, almost frightened me.”

Gauguin returned to France in 1893, leaving his Tahitian “wife” behind. After experiencing further career and personal difficulties, including a definitive break with Mette, the artist returned to Polynesia in 1895. During the last years of his life he often came into conflict with the colonial authorities and the Catholic Church. “In 1903,” one biography explains, “due to a problem with the church and the government, he was sentenced to three months in prison, and charged a fine … He died of syphilis before he could start the prison sentence.”

The reader is free to examine the biographical details and draw his or her own conclusions. Even if one were to determine, however, that Gauguin acted irresponsibly or reprehensibly in Tahiti, to what extent, if any, do the more unseemly facts qualitatively or even identifiably mar his work? Some separation has to be made between the artist and his or her biography, a separation almost always made, for example, in the case of a scientist.

The serious artistic personality is often better than him or herself. Arbitrary and ahistorical moralizing is worse than useless in such cases. Gauguin produced deeply affecting images. No honest viewer could seriously suggest that his depictions of Tahitian life have encouraged colonialist or other backward and reactionary attitudes.

It is true that Gauguin referred to the Tahitians as “savages.” In the first place, however, if it were the case that he was a racist, that would not by itselfdisqualify his art work. There is still the question of its objective truth as a picturing of life. Unhappily, the roll of artists afflicted with intense anti-Semitism, for example, is quite long, including, of course, Richard Wagner, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

In any event, any serious attention to Gauguin’s work and writings puts the lie to stupid and reductionist conceptions. He could not jump out of his skin any more than anyone else, and there are condescending and prejudiced views expressed in Noa Noa, which one is not surprised to find in the thinking of a 19th century petty-bourgeois European. On the whole, however, Gauguin developed profound admiration and affection for the Tahitians, (and even more so, later, the Marquesans), who befriended and sustained him. Countless passages in the work, indeed its entire thrust and purpose, confirm this.

Moreover, the art world pundits who refer to the painter’s comments about “savages” forget one small detail: for Gauguin, van Gogh and others of his artistic generation and ilk, savagery was something “devoutly to be wished.” In his writings, before and after his departure for Tahiti, Gauguin repeatedly referred to himself as a savage.

In a letter to Theo van Gogh (Vincent’s brother and Gauguin’s art dealer) in 1889, for instance, he remarked: “I am attempting to invest in these figures the savage I see in them, which is also in me.” On another occasion, he wrote, “I try to confront rotten civilization with something more natural, based on savagery.” Near the end of his life, in 1903, he observed, “I am a savage. And civilized people have an inkling of this, for in my works there is nothing that surprises or upsets if it is not this ‘savage in spite of myself.’”

What does this mean, this aspiration to so-called savagery? It was bound up, above all, with the confused reaction of artists and others in the 1880s and ’90s to the development of modern industry, large, crowded cities and mass society itself. As his various comments indicate, Gauguin viewed European society as false, deluded, soulless and corrupt.

He wished, he explained, to “be rid of the influence of civilization … to immerse myself in virgin nature, see no one but savages, live their life, with no other thought in mind but to render, the way a child would, the concepts formed in my brain and to do this with the aid of nothing but the primitive means of art.” This misguided response of artists to the development of modern capitalism was an objective historical question.

In his Nature of Abstract Art (1937), the left-wing art critic and historian Meyer Schapiro, an admirer of Leon Trotsky at the time, wrote persuasively about this phenomenon. It is worth citing his comments at some length:

The tragic lives of Gauguin and van Gogh, their estrangement from society, which so profoundly colored their art, were no automatic reactions to Impressionism or the consequences of Peruvian or Northern blood. In Gauguin’s circle were other artists who had abandoned a bourgeois career in their maturity or who had attempted suicide. For a young man of the middle class to wish to live by art meant a different thing in 1885 than in 1860. By 1885 only artists had freedom and integrity, but often they had nothing else. … Impressionism in isolating the sensibility as a more or less personal, but dispassionate and still outwardly directed, organ of fugitive distinctions in distant dissolving clouds, water and sunlight, could no longer suffice for men who had staked everything on impulse and whose resolution to become artists was a poignant and in some ways demoralizing break with good society. …

The French artists of the 1880’s and 1890’s who attacked Impressionism for its lack of structure often expressed demands for salvation, for order and fixed objects of belief, foreign to the Impressionists as a group. The title of Gauguin’s picture—“Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?”—with its interrogative form, is typical of this state of mind. But since the artists did not know the underlying economic and social causes of their own disorder and moral insecurity, they could envisage new stabilizing forms only as quasi-religious beliefs or as a revival of some primitive or highly ordered traditional society with organs for a collective spiritual life. This is reflected in their taste for medieval and primitive art, their conversions to Catholicism and later to “integral nationalism.” …

The reactions against Impressionism, far from being inherent in the nature of art, issued from the responses that artists as artists made to the broader situation in which they found themselves, but which they themselves had not produced.

Schapiro further noted that it is, in fact, “a part of the popular attraction of van Gogh and Gauguin that their work incorporates (and with a far greater energy and formal coherence than the works of other artists) evident longings, tensions and values which are shared today by thousands who in one way or another have experienced the same conflicts as these artists.”

This sensitivity to the social process and the dilemmas confronting artists at specific moments in history, as well as to the source of their work’s popular appeal, is entirely and eternally a closed book to the identity politics fanatics at the Times. The latter are pursuing a political-ideological course whose success depends on numbing their audience to art and art criticism’s genuinely radical and even subversive sides, and focusing attention solely on their value as weapons in an intramural struggle for position and privilege within the affluent petty bourgeoisie. Gauguin’s life-work is mere additional collateral damage in that warfare.

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Trade campaigners have welcomed the release of leaked papers detailing trade talks between the Trump administration and British government officials, which show the US government pushing Britain into as hard a Brexit as possible because they see this as the best way of benefitting the US economy. This comes at the expense of standards, protections and livelihoods in Britain.

The leaked papers show US officials calling Theresa May’s ‘Chequers proposal’ for Brexit a “worst case scenario” because it would not allow a sufficient changes to British food standards to give US agriculture increased penetration into British markets (4th working group, p 26).

One of the biggest changes Boris Johnson’s made to May’s Brexit proposal was to remove the long-term linking of British and European standards, threatening food and other standards under a US trade deal. The papers show that Johnson made these changes despite economic modelling which suggested this scenario would be good for the US but bad for Britain (5th working group, p97).

The details are leaked versions of the secret papers detailing trade talks between US and British negotiators which were previously only released in highly redacted form (1) and were condemned by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as part of the first general election debate. Analysis by Global Justice Now says the papers also show:

• The US pushing lower food standards on Britain post Brexit, including allowing imports of chlorine-washed chickens (2nd working group, p42), less nutritional labelling on foods (2nd working group, p42), and less protection for regional food like stilton cheese (1st working group, p41). The US offered to help the UK government ‘sell’ chlorine chicken to a sceptical British public and stated that parliamentary scrutiny of food standards is ‘unhelpful’ (2nd working group, pp42-43).
• The US banning any mention of climate change in a US-UK trade deal (2^nd working group, p17).
• US officials threatening UK civil servants that they would undermine US trade talks if they supported certain EU positions in international forums (5th working group, p35).
• The US suggesting a ‘corporate court system’ in a US-UK deal, which would allow big business to sue the British government, in secret and without appeal, for anything they regard as ‘unfair’ (4th working group, pp92-98, 5th working group, p35). Recent similar cases have included suing governments for trying to phase out use of coal.
• US officials pushing a far reaching proposals on the digital economy, giving Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon sweeping freedoms to move and use our online data (2nd working group, pp30-31, 4th working group, p22), which would make taxation and regulation of these companies more difficult and prohibit Labour proposals for a public broadband service (4th working group, pp99-100).
• Threats to public services like the NHS, via sweeping services liberalisation (3rd working group, pp41-42). The British government would need to exclude everything not subject to liberalisation in order to protect public services, while bringing formerly public services like the mail, or rail companies back into public ownership would be much harder.
• US officials making a further threat to NHS in terms of medicine pricing policy, with special concern about Brits paying more for cancer medicines which the US feels Britain doesn’t pay enough for (4th working group, pp121-132). Trade negotiators have received special lobbying from pharmaceutical corporations as part of the trade talks (5th working group, pp43-44).
• US officials demanding US experts and multinational corporations are able to participate in standard-setting in Britain post Brexit (4th working group, p58-59).
• A promise by both sides to keep talks secret from the public (2nd working group, p5 & 8).

Nick Dearden, director of Global Justice Now, said:

“No wonder the government didn’t want us to see these papers: they clearly show the British negotiators being bullied by Trump’s administration, and Boris Johnson dancing to the tune of US big business. Boris Johnson’s position on Brexit is clearly dictated by what’s best for US corporations, even when he knows this will be worse for the British economy and British welfare.

“The US is demanding damaging changes to the British economy which threaten our public services like the NHS, our food standards and farmer livelihoods, our access to new cancer medicines, and our ability to tackle climate change. US officials are damning about parliamentary scrutiny over safety standards and are even trying to dictate what positions Britain can take in international fora. Both sides are committed to as much secrecy as possible in these trade talks.

“These papers make a mockery of Boris Johnson’s manifesto pledge to protect British public services and standards – that would be absolutely impossible under the type of trade deal being discussed here. We will continue to force these discussions into the light, so people know what they’re voting for 12 December.”

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Marsha Blackburn, a Republican Senator from Tennessee, burnished her anti-China hawk credentials by ridiculously tweeting that the Hong Kong local elections were a “monumental defeat” for “pro-China lawmakers”. The politician has been on a hostile anti-Chinese spree all this month alleging that the popular Tik-Tok app is secretly spying on American children and warning about how the Chinese base in Djibouti could negatively affect American interests in Africa.

She’s now followed through on her promise last week to provide the Hong Kong protesters with social media support by spreading an entirely false narrative about the importance of the city’s latest local elections. They weren’t a “monumental defeat” for “pro-China lawmakers”, but for the fake news speculations that China would rig the vote in order to help establishment figures win. There’s this notion in the Western Mainstream Media that China is a “dictatorship” that doesn’t allow free elections, yet last Sunday’s vote disproved that.

The historically high turnout proved that Hong Kong residents of all political dispositions have faith in the model of “one country, two systems”, rightly believing that their vote will be accurately counted and that the authorities would respect the results, which they have. The people trusted the vote-counters and the fairness of the electoral process, which was a trust that was ultimately well-placed. The people have spoken, and now the city has hundreds of new district council members.

Senator Blackburn scrambled to put a spin on this supposedly “unexpected” outcome, hence why she misleadingly implied that the vote was between “pro-China lawmakers” and what could only be implied by default to have been their “anti-China” opponents. That is a false portrayal of the district council elections since everyone who participated in them accepted the legitimacy of the “one country, two systems” model that has governed Hong Kong’s relations with the mainland since reunification.

Her manipulative framing can only be described as an attempt at information warfare designed to deceive her audience into thinking that the electoral results represented a setback for China. They didn’t, precisely because Hong Kong is an integral part of the People’s Republic and Sunday’s exercise of democracy was perfectly in line with the “one country, two systems” model that Beijing itself agreed to. There were not “pro-China” or “anti-China” candidates, just a diversity of local political views, all of which support their country’s unity.

Other commentators have described the new district council leaders as being “pro-democracy”, which by default implies that their opponents were “anti-democracy”, but this is also another attempt at spinning the truth. All candidates were “pro-democracy” because they agreed to participate in local elections, with their primary political differences being over the best way to manage local affairs in their neighborhoods. Hong Kong’s residents wanted some fresh faces, which doesn’t undermine the system, but actually renews it.

One of the global trends in recent years has been a preference for political outsiders, which has been more commonly expressed in Western countries than in others. Seeing as how Hong Kong used to be a Western colony for over 150 years, it’s people are still predisposed to some of the influences coming from that part of the world, which partially explains why they embraced this trend in the latest elections. To the credit of the “one country, two systems” model, it flexibly adapted to their political will despite the city’s ongoing crisis.

Returning to Senator Blackburn’s tweet, it’s apparent that she has an agenda in deliberately misportraying the results of the Hong Kong district council elections. They were a “monumental defeat” for fake news, not China, and they were a victory for the “one country, two systems” model, not so-called “pro-democracy” lawmakers like many other Western figures and outlets have claimed in presuming that their opponents were “anti-democracy”. The Chinese people won, while those who are trying to divide them lost.

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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.

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India’s practice of “military diplomacy” in holding joint drills with a variety of Great Powers and regional states has been a mixed bag of success since the former has resulted in sending positive signals about “multi-alignment” while the latter risks fueling the fears of the domestic political opposition in those states that the South Asian country is subordinating them as “junior partners” in its regional hegemonic vision.

Intelligence documents reveal how Tehran took advantage of US blundering

The American invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of that nation’s government in 2003 has rightly been described as the greatest foreign policy disaster in the history of the United States. Eight thousand one hundred and seventy five American soldiers, contractors and civilians have died in Iraq since 2003 as well as an estimated 300,000 Iraqis. By some more expansive estimates the so-called “global war on terror,” of which Iraq was the major component, may have directly killed 801,000, of which at least 335,000 were civilians. Other estimates indicate that the total dead from collateral causes, to include disease and starvation, could exceed 3 million, overwhelmingly Muslims.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq alone have also cost, according to the same Brown University study, an estimated $6.4 trillion and still counting as the money to pay for it was borrowed.

The invasion destabilized the entire region and shattered forever the relatively stable status quo whereby minority Sunni dominated Arab Iraq served as a check on Shia dominated Persian Iran’s ambitions. The two countries had in fact gone to war in 1980-1988. The United States provided support to Iraq in that conflict, which killed as many as half a million military and civilians on each side.

After the US invasion, as Shia were a majority in Iraq it was inevitable that the country’s new “democratic” government installed by the victors would eventually find much in common with its eastern neighbor in spite of Washington’s efforts to prevent such a development. The resulting armed conflict that also involved the independence minded Kurdish minority was something like a civil war. It primarily pitted the displaced Sunni against the ascendant Shia militias and was a contributing factor in the subsequent birth and development of the terrorist group Islamic State, also referred to as Daesh.

A remarkable 700 pages of documents relating to Iran’s role in Iraq has surfaced and was printed recently in The Intercept, which received the material, and also in The New York Times, which agreed to help validate and process the information. The Times headlined its piece on the documents with Leaked Iran Cables: Key Findings From Secret Documents: Leaked spy cables reveal how Iran came to dominate the political and military spheres in Iraq. Here’s what the hundreds of documents tell us. For The Intercept, the key insight provided by reviewing the documents was how the “devastation that followed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq gave Iran a golden opportunity to build a political and social order there that was more favorable to their interests.”

The documents consist of copies of original reports and cables written in Farsi that have been sourced to the Iranian external spy service, the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). They mostly date from 2013 through 2015. Many of them are field reports that detail the routine of spying – secret meetings, paying bribes, surveillance and countersurveillance. They were sent to The Intercept anonymously by what would appear to be a disgruntled Iraqi official who expressed a desire to “let the world know what Iran has been doing in my country Iraq.” Even though the material is extremely interesting and undeniably genuine, the stories in the Times and Intercept unfortunately only had a short run before disappearing into the mass of impeachment coverage.

As a former intelligence officer, my take on the story was to wonder why anyone should be surprised at what had happened. Iran, operating on internal lines from a position of strength, was working assiduously to infiltrate and place under control a neighboring country that had gone to war with it 30 years before and had killed half a million of its citizens. It was also working to penetrate and manage the new, hostile American presence which was sitting right next door. Spying on one’s friends and enemies alike and co-opting politicians is routine and expected from any competent intelligence service. It is precisely the same formula used by the United States, admittedly more openly, in Afghanistan to this day and also in Iraq after the invasion of 2003.

Just as the United States placed its proxies in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran has clearly exploited its own relationships with Iraqi Shiites, some of whom actually lived in exile in Iran during the rule of Saddam Hussein. The Iranian intelligence service developed special working relationships with many of those individuals and also sought new recruits within the increasingly Shiite government in Baghdad. Current Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi is known to have a “special relationship” with Tehran through his Iranian official contacts operating in Baghdad.

The documents, in fact, make clear that the Iranian government considers Iraq a client state whose friendly government has to be propped up at all costs. It has indeed penetrated virtually every government ministry at nearly every level. The documents reveal how in 2014 an Iraqi military intelligence officer met with an Iranian spy carrying a message from his boss in Baghdad Lieutenant General Hatem al-Maksusi, commander of military intelligence in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. His message was “Tell them we are at your service. Whatever you need is at their disposal. We are Shiite and have a common enemy. All of the Iraqi Army’s intelligence — consider it yours.” The Iraqi described secret targeting software provided by Washington and offered to provide it to Iran, saying “If you have a new laptop, give it to me so I can upload the program onto it.”

From the American perspective, the documents reveal that the meetings between senior American diplomats and their Iraqi counterparts in Baghdad and Kurdistan were regularly reported back in considerable detail to Tehran. The Iranians were particularly interested in developing agents who had once worked for the US government and were able to provide information on the CIA and DIA intelligence networks remaining in Iraq after the US military was forced to leave in 2011. The documents reveal, for example, that a CIA asset operating under the pseudonym “Donnie Brasco” offered to sell to Iranian intelligence officers the locations of Agency safe houses, details of training and also the identities of other Iraqis who had worked for the Americans.

The documents indicate that Iranian efforts in Iraq were coordinated by Major General Qassim Suleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who worked with the existing Iraqi-Shiite militias that had become increasingly powerful during the fighting with the Sunnis. The papers reveal that though there was some fumbling, the Iranian intelligence officers were generally very professional, objective oriented and effective.

Suleimani sought with considerable success to construct a vast network of informants and co-optees within the Iraqi government, many of whom are named in the reports. Interestingly, the Iranians have experienced some of the same problems in seeking to manage the fragile Iraqi political situation that previously plagued the United States, though they have benefited from the Shiite relationship. Deadly anti-government protests currently taking place in Iraq that have killed more than 300 have focused on the country’s pervasive corruption, but there have also been numerous calls for an end to Iranian influence. The Iranian Consulate in Baghdad has been attacked and burning Iranian flags have been a regular feature in the violence. Iran clearly was more successful than the US in the contest for influence over Baghdad, but the reports suggest that it has failed to fully appreciate the genuine Iraqi desire for independence from both Washington and Tehran.

If there is a lesson to be learned from the documents it is that if you blunder around the world breaking countries that you know little about, you will wind up with up doing more damage to yourself. It should have been obvious even in Washington that Iran, with its Shiite connection and first-rate intelligence service, would be well placed to convert Iraq into a Persian satrapy after the removal of Saddam Hussein, but imperial hubris at the Pentagon and White House did not permit any consideration of “What comes next?”

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

NATO is in a state of division and instability with the US, Turkey, and France at odds, providing President Trump with the perfect opportunity to pull out of both NATO and the UN.

Next week NATO will be holding its 70th anniversary summit in London. Just days before, Turkey is renewing its demand for NATO support for its military operations in northern Syria as well as the formal recognition of the Kurdish YPG as a terrorist organization in exchange for its support. Without these concessions, Turkey is refusing to back a NATO defense plan for the Baltics and Poland.

Without Turkey’s formal approval NATO will have a difficult time expediting its defense plan for Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Because the two issues are not directly related, some believe Turkey is holding Europeans hostage until they comply with their demands. Not only is Turkey the only Islamic member of NATO but it has the second largest military in NATO granting NATO access to Georgia and Azerbaijan, which makes one wonder, who needs the other more, NATO or Turkey?

Whether it’s defiantly ordering S400’s from Russia, after the United States made multiple threats to sanction and ultimately kicked Turkey out of the F-35 fighter jet program, or placing ultimatums on NATO such as the ones previously stated, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s disruptive behavior is making him a difficult ally.

Turkey not only defied Washington’s repeated requests to abandon the S-400 deal with Russia but it went on to test them just two weeks after President Erdogan met with President Trump in Washington. Ankara plans on activating them once their military personnel are trained and ready to operate them, by next April they are expected to enter combat duty.

Seventy years ago, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed with twelve nations who agreed that any external threat to any of their independent states would be dealt with by collective (mutual) defense. New member states were periodically added, and the total number has morphed into twenty-nine North American and European countries.

Contrary to the incessant propaganda that’s been spewed for decades, NATO is not a peace-promoting intergovernmental military alliance, but rather a regime-change propagating war machine focused on political and military intervention around the world. NATO has left its bloody mark in Africa, Latin America, the Balkan region, and the Middle East. War crimes go unpunished, as culprits defend each other and coverup their crimes against humanity.

Four years before NATO was founded, the United Nations was established in 1945. The two allegedly share a commitment to maintaining international peace and security and have been cooperating together for decades but if one were to look beyond the façade, they would discover injustice and indifference towards providing peace support and crisis-management operations. For instance, UN members the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Israel are two of the world’s most prominent human rights abusers and yet they chair a number of boards for women and human rights. That’s just one example of the blatant hypocrisy by yet another organization that needs to be dissolved as it serves no benefit to humanity.

President Trump has mentioned a few times that the United States should withdraw from NATO and the UN, calling the first obsolete, and the second a political game. President Trump feels that allies want to enjoy the benefits of NATO membership without sharing the risks and costs. Ultimately President Trump looks at politics whether domestic or foreign, through a business focused perspective.

Even some of President Trump’s staunchest critics would agree that since the Cold War ended NATO no longer serves its purpose. Trumps vocal statements coupled with unilateral foreign policy decisions have left NATO members feeling excessively uneasy about the fate of NATO, especially France.

Following President Trump’s abrupt partial withdrawal of troops from northern Syria, French President Emmanuel Macron said earlier this month that Europe is facing the “brain death of NATO” and questioned the United States’ reliability in defending NATO allies. Macron is a strong supporter of the transatlantic alliance and is worried that American indifference puts NATO at jeopardy. The one for all, all for one collective alliance is only as strong as its independent member states’ commitment to unity and defense.

Macron is entirely justified in his skepticism especially with rampant political instability sweeping through Europe with Brexit and the globe as a whole. Uprisings whether generic or manufactured are rattling a number of continents simultaneously as well.

Regardless if European nations become more defiant, or if the US makes good on their desire to leave, or other NATO members withdrawal bringing on the collapse of NATO, whatever the reason may be, the weakening and dissolution of NATO would ultimately be a good thing. Some believe that NATO was the most successful alliance in European history and now that it has served its purpose and accomplished its mission it should be put to rest.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Sarah Abed is an independent journalist and analyst.

On 1 March, Russian president Vladimir Putin delivered the annual address to Russia’s Federal Assembly. The part of Putin’s address that drew the most notice was his revealing the development of new hypersonic weaponry unmatched elsewhere: the Mach 10+ capable Kinzhal and the Mach 9 capable Zircon.

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Russian military and naval expert Andrei Martyanov examines this advancement in military technology in his new book The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs (Clarity Press, 2019). He writes that Kinzhal and Zircon hypersonic missiles revamp

naval warfare completely on a scale comparable in its effect to to the introduction of steam-powered ironclads into warfare that was previously dominated by wooden sail ships and muzzle loaded cannons. (p 65)

This, according to Martyanov, represents the real revolution in military affairs which

starts with modern hypersonic fully shoot-and-forget weaponry whose capabilities trump completely any kind of net-centricity by virtue of those weapons being completely un-imperceptible by any existent means. (p 90)

The US aircraft carrier fleet are virtually useless against such a threat. Thus, writes Martyanov,

In a conventional clash on the seas, be that on the high seas, in remote sea zones, or in a littoral of Russia, the U.S. Navy’s surface fleet will simply not survive. (p 92)

Be that the case, then so much for the US military’s much ballyhooed exceptionalism and full-spectrum dominance.

That the US establishment and its media would guffaw at Russian missile superiority is, therefore, to be expected. As recently as 22 August, Foreign Affairs, a publication of the neoliberal, corporate-globalist Council of Foreign Relations, ran a headline asking: “Is Russia’s Doomsday Missile Fake News?” This was followed by the subheader stating: “Experts are skeptical that Moscow has the money or technical know-how to field Putin’s promised arsenal.” In other words, doubt was being cast on poor Russia and its lack of ingenuity. Quite a scathing nullification of Putin’s address.

The Kinzhal is a weapon carried by MiG-31K and TU-22M3M aircraft. There is purportedly no anti-missile technology capable of intercepting the Kinzhal which has an “astonishing” range of 2000 km.

The Zircon is slated to be deployed in 2023, primarily on sea-going vessels. It represents such a threat to the continental US that nuclear weapons remain as a last resort alternative. (p 95) Because of the Zircon‘s operational range of 400-1000 km and the extreme quiet of modern Russian subs, retaliation is largely avoided. And, “it is highly unlikely … effective solutions will be found any time soon” to the Zircon missiles. (p 101)

And it may well take much longer for the US to come up with a solution. Martyanov is critical of analysis on military matters by non-experts. Economists, lawyers, and humanities-trained people, writes Martyanov, “simply have no tools for understanding modern warfare.” (p 105) The media are held in equally low esteem by Martyanov who notes the “generally low educational level of the American journalistic corps and talking heads.” (p 109)

Another technological development mentioned is the Petrel cruise missile whose nuclear propulsion system allows it to stay airborne a long time and cover intercontinental distances. (108-109)

Air-defense are increasingly important for military operations, and Russia is the world leader in this regard states Martyanov. The author also acknowledges China’s air defense capability and notes it too has a hypersonic weapons program enabling it to defend vigorously against the US in its coastal area. (p 115)

A particularly interesting informational tidbit was that the Syrian air defense that shot down 71 of 103 US and French TLAMs was an upgraded old Soviet air defense. The Russian S-300 and S-400 air defenses were not used. (p 116)

American F-22s and F-35s are highly susceptible against the Russian air defense S-300 and S-400. Says the author, “the myth of Stealth has been completely dispelled.” (p 121) The US Stealth technology is describes as a “technological and operational mistake of massive proportions.” (p 130)

And the S-500 anti-missile complex is nearing operational status. The S-500 is touted as being capable of intercepting ballistic missiles, shooting down low-orbiting satellites, and reaching AWACS planes, perhaps even intercepting hypersonic non-ballistic targets. (p 123-124)

The US, according to Martyanov, lacks far behind Russia in air defense, hypersonic weapons, and ballistic missile development. (p 125)

Elsewhere in the world, Martyanov holds that Iran would be no pushover for the US, and that such an attack would quickly turn into an exorbitantly expensive boondoggle. (p 138)

Martyanov views elitist American society with disdain. Its economy depends on perpetual warfare (p 155); it is an aggressor state against which both conventional and nuclear deterrents are demanded (p 158); and infantilism and petulance are belied by nonstop lying and irrationality. (p 160)

The US strikes an imperialist military posture, which Martyanov says makes it vulnerable. Because of its overweening pride and refusal to change with the times, the US is a declining military power.

The Russian military expert points out that if one party is armed, then arming oneself is a necessity. This serves an important function as a deterrence.

In a bizarre and dark historic irony–today it is these, the most advanced and deadliest weapons ever produced in the history of humanity, which allow keeping the peace on Earth, and with it, guarantee humanity’s survival. (p 173)

A dialogue in Star Trek‘s “The Enterprise Incident” holds that a military technological advantage is ephemeral.

The captive Romulan commander says to the science officer Spock: “You realize that very soon we will learn to penetrate the cloaking device that you stole.”

To this Spock replies: “Of course. Military secrets are the most fleeting of all.”

Sadly, Star Trek is depicting a future where militarism and the pursuit of an upper hand in military weaponry appears to be a never-ending phenomenon.

For the present moment, Russia appears to have gained some important tactical and technological advantages. Technology is in perpetual development. Informed lucid-thinking Russians and Americans know this. Lasers are still a way off. AI is developing. Technology will continue to evolve.

It is hoped that humans will evolve quicker.

Martyanov’s The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs is a fascinating read for those who strive to understand military technology, the strategy behind weaponry, and the pitfalls to militarism.

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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. Read other articles by Kim.

Concerns about air quality lingered Wednesday following a major early morning explosion at a chemical plant in Port Neches, Texas that shot a fireball into the sky.

The disaster at the TPC Group-owned facility roughly 94 miles west of Houston took place a week after the Trump administration rolled back safety rules meant to protect workers and people who live near chemical plants. In light of the timing, Catherine Fraser, Environment Texas’s clean air associate, called Wednesday’s explosion “a timely warning that state and federal officials need to do more to keep communities safe.”

“It shook our house twice,” Shawn Dunlap, who lives in neighboring Nederland, told NBC News. “It was just like a bomb going off.” Twitter user @souljaslim52 put itanother way: “shit blew tf up.”

According to a statement from TPC Group, the incident occurred at 1:00am local time. The company said it “cannot speak to the cause of the incident or the extent of damage.” The Port Neches Police Department, in a statement posted to Facebook, said, “There’s extensive damage throughout the city.”

Area residents reported damaged homes, with some suffering shattered glass and blown-off doors. Three workers at the plant also suffered minor injuries, the company said.

“Throughout the morning more booms could be heard in the area as firefighters attempted to control the blaze,” reported Beaumont’s KBMT.

Local ABC affiliate KTRK reported that the chemical burning is butadiene, which the EPA classifies as carcinogenic.

Area residents captured images and sounds of the explosion:

WOW: Incredible video shared with us of the Port Neches plant explosion earlier this morning, not far from Beaumont. Eddie Ramirez writes: "My video cameras caught the moment impact. I hope and pray that everyone is ok." Latest updates: https://t.co/XTy9gwimgB | #HTownRush pic.twitter.com/pF63DrTFZL

— KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) November 27, 2019

TAKE A LOOK | Dramatic front camera video of the TPC Group Plant explosion in Port Neches

READ MORE: https://t.co/FGYHV2w1p7 pic.twitter.com/pwq08qwCCY

— 12NewsNow (@12NewsNow) November 27, 2019

Environment Texas’s Fraser, in her statement, pointed to the plant’s history as cause for particular concern.

“This facility has a track record of violating the Clean Air Act,” she said, “with five other illegal emissions events just in 2019, emitting carcinogenic 1,3 butadiene and other chemicals, and a history of community complaints.”

“According to the EPA, the TPC Plant has been in non-compliance 12 separate quarters over the last 3 years, and has received 7 formal enforcement actions over the last 5 years. According to the TCEQ, the chemical of most concern is butadiene,” Fraser continued. “The TPC plant emitted 61,379 pounds of butadiene in 2018. Butadiene is a known human carcinogen.”

Environmental justice expert Mustafa Santiago Ali weighed in on the explosion with a brief statement on Twitter. He noted that the Trump administration’s move last week to finalize the weakening of the Chemical Disaster Rule and chided the president for  “putting more people’s lives in danger.”

When will they learn? Every time the #Trump Administration & #EPA rolls back a #environmental rule meant to protect your health or your life, something bad happens! 3 injured as Texas plant explosion releases chemical plume🆘https://t.co/EUMPuacWEC pic.twitter.com/oNKBwq1QOV

— Mustafa Santiago Ali (@EJinAction) November 27, 2019

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Featured image: An explosion occurred at roughly 1:00 am Wednesday at a chemical plant in Port Neches, Texas. (Screengrab from video courtesy Derek Ross Hall via Twitter)

Time and again, the US unacceptably meddles in the internal affairs of other countries — what the UN Charter’s principle of non-intervention prohibits.

House and Senate members unanimously passed the so-called Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act (HKHRDA) of 2019.

On Wednesday, Trump signed the measure into law, along with a companion bill, restricting exports of US crowd control devices to Hong Kong police.

The measures have nothing to do with supporting democracy and human rights, notions the vast majority of US officials abhor and tolerate nowhere.

They have everything to do with waging war on China by other means — including illegal sanctions, unacceptable tariffs, and supporting months of violence and vandalism in Hong Kong by CIA-recruited hooligans.

The HKHRDA requires annual certification by the secretary of state to justify Hong Kong’s special status as affirmed by the 1992 Hong Kong Policy Act.

The president is required to impose (illegal) sanctions on individuals allegedly involved in committing human rights abuses and suppressing freedoms in Hong Kong.

The president is also required to protect US business interests and citizens from so-called risks posed by a revised Fugitive Offenders Ordinance.

The US commerce secretary is required to annually assess whether Hong Kong enforces US regulations, pertaining to exports of sensitive dual-use items to US sanctioned countries.

On Thursday, China’s Foreign Ministry threatened to retaliate against the hostile measure, a statement saying:

“We suggest that the United States does not put its foot down because otherwise China will have to take serious countermeasures and the United States will have to bear full responsibility for their consequences,” adding:

The unacceptable measure represents “unconcealed hegemonic behavior. (It) ignored the facts, blatantly support(ing) violent radicals who oppose the rule of law” in the city.

“For the erroneous act by the US, China will certainly take firm countermeasures, and the US side will be fully responsible for all the consequences.”

Both measures signed into law by Trump on Wednesday are an affront to China’s “one country, two systems,” defining how Hong Kong has been governed since becoming a Chinese region in 1997.

The city’s government slammed the hostile US legislation, saying:

“The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region today expresses its decisive protest over the adoption of the US ‘Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act’ and another law, which is also related to Hong Kong, and expresses its regret that the United States has repeatedly ignored Hong Kong’s concerns about these two acts.”

An unnamed Chinese official involved in trade talks with the US said the government “is not in a hurry to sign a trade deal.”

In response to HKHRDA’s enactment, China’s official People’s Daily broadsheet said the following:

The law is an unacceptable “attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of China,” adding:

“Driven by the political conspiracy to disrupt Hong Kong and curb China’s development, some US officials have openly supported the Hong Kong rioters and fueled the already messed-up situation in the region.”

“As a serious breach of morality and nature justice, they choose to secure personal interests at others’ expense, and will certainly pay the price in the end.”

China’s Global Times slammed the US attempt to interfere in Hong Kong, calling its actions “a clear violation of Chinese sovereignty,” adding:

“Washington is determined to turn Hong Kong into a new front to strategically pressure Beijing.”

“Some beguiled Hongkongers have been taken over by the illusion that the law could help their city gain a higher degree of autonomy, as they imagine Beijing would be deterred by the US legislation, and thus make major concessions that are not in line with the Basic Law.”

“(T)he law threatens to sanction Hongkongers who do not cooperate with the US. This will suppress neutral space for people with different ideas and further tear the city apart.”

“Anyone who colludes with external forces to undermine ‘one country, two systems’ must pay a heavy price.”

Hostile US actions toward China and other sovereign independent countries are all about seeking control over them — what the scourge of US hegemonic aims are all about.

A Final Comment

Hardline Senator Ted Cruz intends introducing the so-called Taiwan Symbols of Sovereignty Act.

The measure calls for displaying Taiwan’s national flag at US government agencies and on uniforms of Taiwan representatives working in the country.”

It will authorize the state and war departments to post content online that violates the US “One China” policy.

It was first mentioned in the Shanghai Communique on February 28, 1972 during Nixon’s visit to China – stressing the importance for both countries to normalize relations.

On January 1, 1979, the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations agreed to by Jimmy Carter and Deng Xiaoping formally established bilateral relations, ending official recognition of Taiwan, announced by Carter in December 1978.

The (1992 Consensus) one China principle affirms US recognition of one China comprised of the mainland and Taiwan.

Trump earlier saying “(e)verything is under negotiation including one China” didn’t go down well in Beijing.

Its authorities consider Taiwan a breakaway province to be eventually reunited with the mainland.

They call US arms sales to its government and incursions by Pentagon warships in the Taiwan Strait provocative actions.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang earlier stressed that issues relating to Taiwan are “nonnegotiable,” adding:

One China alone exists, Taiwan an inalienable part of it. The People’s Republic of China is its only legitimate government, “an internationally recognized fact, and no one can change it.”

“We urge the relevant party in the United States to realize the high sensitivity of the Taiwan issue and abide by commitments made by previous US governments to the one China policy and the principles of the three joint communiques.”

Sino/US relations are already greatly strained over unresolved trade issues; China’s political, industrial, economic and technology aims; militarization of the South China Sea; and months of CIA orchestrated violence and vandalism in Hong Kong.

New US measures signed into law by Trump Wednesday further aggravate bilateral relations.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Luo Xuan/Global Times

On Wednesday, Britain’s Labor Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn released secret Tory/Trump regime trade documents, showing Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is on the table for privatization.

Does Tory leader Boris Johnson want healthcare in Britain transformed into a US pay or die system? Corbyn said documents he obtained say so. See below.

The US healthcare industry is controlled by predatory insurers, Big Pharma, and large hospital chains.

Patients pay double the amount for medical care than what’s charged in other developed countries.

The US is the only developed country without some form of universal healthcare. If Tories triumph in UK December 12 elections, will Britain move in the same direction?

In the US, millions are uninsured, countless millions more way underinsured, universal single-payer the only equitable solution, what most congressional members and monied interests funding them oppose.

The US has virtual open-checkbook funding for militarism, warmaking, and corporate handouts. Its privileged class is served exclusively at the expense of most others.

It has the world’s best healthcare system – based on the ability to pay, a fundamental human right commodified, profit-making prioritized over the public welfare.

No one ever seeks treatment from insurers when ill. If they’re eliminated, hundreds of billions of dollars can be saved annually — enough to provide all Americans with healthcare the way it should be delivered.

Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) advocates for replacing dysfunctional Obamacare with a “publicly financed National Health Program (NHP) that would fully cover medical care for all Americans, while lowering costs by eliminating the profit-driven private insurance industry with its massive overhead.”

“Hospitals, nursing homes, and other provider facilities would be nonprofit, and paid global operating budgets rather than fees for each service.”

“Physicians could opt to be paid on a fee-for-service basis, but with fees adjusted to better reward primary care providers, or by salaries in facilities paid by global budgets.”

“The initial increase in government costs would be offset by savings in premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and the rate of medical inflation would slow, freeing up resources for unmet medical and public health needs.”

Doctors in the US are frustrated by a system that requires them to divert valued time needed for patient care to dealing with insurers — concerned only about maximizing profits through rigorous cost control.

Marketplace medicine is all about treating patients as consumers, charging what the market will bear, a dysfunctional system, incomes failing to keep pace with rising costs, putting expensive treatments increasingly out of reach for growing millions.

On Wednesday, Jeremy Corbyn said the following:

“If you watched the first TV debate between me and Boris Johnson, you’ll have seen me hold up these censored, blacked-out reports of secret US-UK talks about breaking open our NHS to US corporations and driving up the cost of medicines,” adding:

“You’ll have seen Boris Johnson lose his cool, very angrily react saying it was ‘an absolute invention’ and ‘completely untrue.’ ”

“He told the country there were ‘no circumstances whatsoever in which his government or any Conservative government’ would put the NHS on the table in any trade negotiations.”

“What I have here is something I can reveal to you — 451 pages of unredacted documents and information. All of it here.”

“His government released” a redacted version of these documents. “We have since obtained” an unredacted version, “which is a very different version of events.”

“If you watched the first TV debate between me and Boris Johnson, you’ll have seen me hold up these censored, blacked-out reports of secret US-UK talks about breaking open our NHS to US corporations and driving up the cost of medicines.”

“You’ll have seen Boris Johnson lose his cool, very angrily react saying it was ‘an absolute invention’ and ‘completely untrue.’ ”

“He told the country there were ‘no circumstances whatsoever in which his government or any Conservative government’ would put the NHS on the table in any trade negotiations.”

“What I have here is something I can reveal to you 451 pages of unredacted documents and information. All of it here.”

“Perhaps he’d like to explain why these documents confirm the US is demanding the NHS is on the table in the trade talks?”

“These uncensored documents leave Boris Johnson’s denials in absolute tatters.”

“Voters need to ask themselves some very serious questions: is the NHS safe in Boris Johnson’s hands?”

“We’ve now got evidence that under Boris Johnson the NHS is on the table and will be up for sale. He tried to cover it up in a secret agenda but today it’s been exposed.”

“Now we know the truth, when Johnson says, ‘get Brexit done’, it’s a fraud on the British people. This is the reality. Years of bogged down negotiations and our NHS is up for sale.”

“This election is now a fight for the survival of our National Health Service as a public service free for all at the point of need.”

“(L)et me give this reassurance: Labor will never ever treat our NHS as a bargaining chip in trade talks with anybody. We will never let Donald Trump get his hands on our NHS. Because our NHS is not for sale.”

“These reports cover six rounds of talks running from July 2017 until just a few months ago. The meetings took place in both Washington DC and London.”

Negotiations are ongoing, Corbyn stressed.

“We are talking here about secret talks for a deal with Donald Trump after Brexit. A deal that will shape our country’s future.”

“These reports pull back the curtain on the secrecy that’s being plotted for us all, behind closed doors, by the Conservative government. This is what they didn’t want you to know.”

Corbyn stressed the following points:

Big Pharma wants Brits paying exorbitant prices for drugs like Americans.

Tories say it’s nonsense. Unredacted documents Corbyn obtained refute them.

Months of Tory/Trump regime talks are well advanced, agreement already reached on longer-term duration for drug patents.

The longer they last, the more Big Pharma can charge competition-free, putting health at risk because of unaffordability for low-income households.

Drugs in the US are far more expensive than in Britain and other nations with universal healthcare.

Corbyn: “One of the reasons for US drug prices being on average 250% of those here is a patent regime rigged for the big pharmaceutical companies.”

In Trump regime/Tory talks, “US officials ‘pushed hard’ for longer patent” durations.

“Let’s be frank. The US is not going to negotiate to sell its own medicines for less.”

Time and again, Trump complained about “unreasonably low (drug) prices” abroad. The White House calls it “foreign freeloading.”

“Big Pharma has ripped off and imperiled the health of the American people for years. Now these secret reports show they’re looking to do the same to us – if the Conservatives are elected on December 12th.”

When Trump visited the UK in June, Corbyn quoted him saying: “When you’re dealing in trade, everything is on the table, NHS or anything else.”

Unredacted documents he obtained said “everything is included unless something is specifically excluded.”

The Trump regime wants “total market access,” the “baseline assumption of the trade negotiations.”

If Johnson is reelected prime minister in December and Tories control parliament, changes to the NHS discussed above could follow and “be almost irreversible,” Corbyn stressed, adding:

“Officials have discussed a system to give corporations the power to sue our country. This is not only a plot against our NHS. It is a plot against the whole country.”

“These sell-out negotiations with Trump cover everything from food safety, to gender discrimination rules, to workers’ rights” — to privatizing the NHS.

Reportedly six rounds of Trump regime/Tory talks were held from July 2017 to July 2019 — when Theresa May was UK prime minister.

Britain’s Channel 4 broke the story, documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request.

“Drug pricing” discussions were called “valuing innovation,” code language for Big Pharma wanting to operate in Britain as it does in the US, charging as much as the market will bear.

According to the Channel 4 report, the Trump regime “and (the) powerful (US) pharmaceutical industry want the NHS to pay more for their medicines which are much more expensive across the Atlantic,” adding:

“They want to remove the UK’s ability to block American drugs not deemed ‘value for money’ and restrict our powers to allow cheaper alternatives to be prescribed to patients which save the NHS hundreds of millions of pounds a year.”

UK “democratic social justice” group Global Justice Now director Nick Deardon said that unredacted documents obtained by Corbyn “clearly show the British negotiators are being bullied (to) danc(e) to the tune of US big business.”

Governments of Western and most other societies serve wealth, power and privileged interests exclusively at the expense of ordinary people.

So-called free trade isn’t fair. It’s hugely destructive, overriding sovereign independence, fundamental freedoms, labor and consumer rights, environmental concerns and social justice.

The scourge of neoliberal shock therapy denies equity and justice for all, prioritizing dominance over democracy, profits over populism, and private interests over public ones.

It’s a zero-sum game, benefitting monied interests over popular ones, societies made unsafe and unfit to live in.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

“The more I pursued the question of why Assange has so little public support, the more disturbing the story became.”

I follow the blog written by Craig Murray, a former British Ambassador with long experience of the UK’s deep state. When he wrote recently about the deteriorating state of health of Julian Assange, the Australian publisher of WikiLeaks, currently detained in solitary in high-security Belmarsh prison, with inadequate access to documents and lawyers to defend himself against extradition to the USA, I decided to join the rally supporting him in Trafalgar Square, London. Hardly anyone showed up on Saturday, November 16th – at best 60 people.

This non-news is itself news. The more I pursued the question of why Assange has so little public support, the more disturbing and complicated the story became. If you want to follow this up with a single further source, I recommend prize-winning, independent journalist Jonathan Cook’s blog.

What Assange Has Done

In 2006, Assange established WikiLeaks, a platform for whistle-blowers. By leaking US war logs and hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables supplied in 2010 by army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, he exposed human rights abuses, atrocities and war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. WikiLeaks, the self-proclaimed “intelligence agency of the people,” protected Manning’s anonymity (correct journalistic practice). The platform undermines Western powers’ control over information.

What He is Alleged to Have Done

Assange is accused in the US of leaking confidential information and putting lives at risk. A Swedish prosecutor also alleged that he had unprotected sex with two women in Sweden (an offence under Swedish law).

Assange was told he was free to leave Sweden and one of the two women dropped her complaint. In late 2010 Assange surrendered to the British police for other alleged sex offence and was released on bail. In 2012, when a British court ruled that he should be extradited to Sweden, Assange breached his bail and was granted asylum on political grounds in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy. By then he feared he would be extradited to the USA directly or via Sweden.

In the increasingly ‘Me Too’ era, WikiLeaks and the alleged sex offences have been entwined by no fewer than six states.

How the US, UK, EU and the Swedish States have Acted

In 2012, the UK government approved Assange’s extradition to Sweden based on a European Arrest Warrant that had not been signed by any judicial authority and despite the lack of assurance from the US that he would not be extradited to the US from Sweden. The UK government was forced to amend the law later to prevent such abuse in future.

From 2012 to 2019, the Ecuadorian Embassy was surrounded by a costly British police force. Furthermore, the UK government periodically threatened to order police into the embassy to arrest Assange.

In 2016, the UK ignored the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention’s ruling that Assange was being detained unlawfully by the UK and Sweden, alleging falsely that the UN Group was not composed of lawyers. A Freedom of Information (FoI) request from an Italian journalist also showed that the British Crown Prosecution Service had pressured Sweden not to agree to question Assange in London in 2010 and 2011. The CPS was also found to have destroyed documents to hinder FoI requests, and those not destroyed show the UK also putting pressure on Sweden to seek extradition.

In 2018, Assange’s lawyers sought to get the British arrest warrant annulled because the Swedish authorities had dropped the case, because of his valid reasons for asylum (given the US wish to extradite him), and because the time spent in the Ecuadorian embassy was equivalent to time served for infringing bail. However, the presiding judge, Emma Arbuthnot, rejected the appeal.

In April 2019, after Ecuador’s political relationship with the USA had changed, and after the UK had given Ecuador assurances that Assange wouldn’t be extradited to a country with the death penalty, British police entered the Ecuadorian embassy and forcibly arrested him for the old bail violation. The US promptly laid seventeen new charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 – implying a possible jail sentence of up to 170-180 years and sought his extradition to the US.

Meanwhile, Assange has been kept in Belmarsh jail under conditions that the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has described as “cruel treatment” amounting to “psychological torture.” Craig Murray describes him at first hand as a “shambling and incoherent wreck.”

In June 2019, UK home secretary Sajid Javid had signed and certified Julian Assange’s extradition to the USA but left the final decision with the courts. According to Murray, the prosecution, instructed by five representatives of the US government, opposed considering whether the charge was a political offence and thus excluded by the extradition treaty. They pressed for a rapid timetable that defence lawyers say they cannot meet and a location for the hearing – Belmarsh Magistrates Court – where there are but six seats for the public.

In pressing extradition under the Espionage Act – where political offences are excluded from the extradition treaty – the US Justice Department has to treat routine journalistic practices (the receipt and publication of leaked material protected under press freedom laws) as a criminal conspiracy. Extraditing Assange to the USA is thought by some US editors to raise high-stakes questions of freedom and democracy in both the UK and USA. The prosecution WikiLeaks puts the New York Times and the Guardian at risk of prosecution.

The Ecuadorian State

Assange sought – and was granted – asylum in London’s Ecuadorian embassy (when Ecuador was battling media Moghuls and hostile to the USA). During his seven years in the embassy, Assange is thought to have been denied medical and dental treatment. In turn, Assange is accused of abusing asylum by operating business as usual from his sanctuary. In 2019, after Assange’s asylum was revoked, the embassy allowed US officials to seize Assange’s computer and his legal and personal documents from the embassy.

During Assange’s years of confined asylum, the Australian state weighed in by threatening to strip Assange of his citizenship until this was revealed to be illegal.

The Press, the Sex Case and the Swedish State

The liberal mainstream media such as The Guardian – which had earlier published some of the WikiLeaks files but then fell out with Assange over the publication of unredacted documents – have argued this year that Assange should be extradited to Sweden to stand trial for rape there.

But the Swedish women concerned did not allege rape when they made police statements. Subsequent media hype and procedural irregularities led to the cancellation of the Swedish investigation. The torn condom produced by one woman in evidence of sexual misconduct had no trace of the DNA of either her or Assange, and he was allowed by Sweden to return to the UK.

Despite this, Interpol issued a Red Notice (normally restricted to dangerous criminals and terrorists). For six years, until 2016, the second Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny refused to interview Assange in London and, when she eventually did, Assange’s Swedish lawyer was not permitted to be present. Ny closed the investigation in May 2017. There are no charges. Yesterday, Sweden dropped the rape investigation on Julian Assange.

It is left to a handful of independent journalists to chronicle these events. They understand that what is happening is a punitive assault on press freedom outside US borders, on the First Amendment guaranteeing press freedom in the US, and on the global public’s right to information. Noam Chomsky comments:

“Julian Assange has committed the grave crime of exposing power to sunlight.”

Murray says “the campaign of demonisation and dehumanisation”… whose success drives the lack of public support means… “he can be slowly killed in public sight.” The next public meeting for Assange is on November 28, 2019, in London. The Belmarsh court case is currently timetabled for February 2020.

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The cat is out of the bag: Boris Johnson is dancing to Donald Trump’s tune, regardless of the damage this might cause to Britain. His promises to maintain Britain’s ‘high standards’ after Brexit are not worth the paper they’re written on.

That’s the only conclusion that can be drawn from a set of leaked papers detailing trade talks between US and UK officials over the last 3 years. The minutes, redacted versions of which Jeremy Corbyn held up at last Tuesday’s leaders debate, were posted by an anonymous source on the discussion website, Reddit. They show how the US administration has already successfully bullied Britain into taking a harder Brexit position, which is good for Trump’s geopolitical games and US big business, but bad for Britain’s economy and British welfare.

The papers show US officials pushing Britain to an ever harder Brexit position, clear that they don’t want Britain to be a ‘satellite of the EU’ in the way Switzerland is. They even threaten that if the UK continued to push certain EU positions in international forums – something the UK is still bound to do – it could undermine negotiations on a US trade deal.

Papers from the time of Theresa May’s ‘Chequers plan’ are illuminating because the administration is clearly furious at May’s promise of long-term alignment with EU standards which would prevent the dilution of British food regulations which US agribusiness hopes to benefit from. US negotiators saw this as a “worst case scenario” and threatened to raise it with Trump ahead of his UK visit.

One of the most significant changes which Johnson made to May’s Brexit deal was a weakening of the alignment to EU standards, suggesting US bullying worked. But it’s particularly worrying that economic modelling seen by the trade officials showed this was likely to be good for the US, but much less so for “UK welfare and GDP gains.”

We already suspected that the US was pushing lower food standards in Britain post-Brexit. That’s because US food standards are far more favourable to big business than EU standards, and the only way to help US business increase its penetration into British markers is to undermine current regulation. US officials explicitly mention the infamous chlorine-washed chickens, promising to help the British government sell the concept to a sceptical British public. They attack attempts to reduce sugar in food, the protection of regional products (like Stilton cheese and Cornish pasties) and even nutritional labelling, which they say is more harmful than it is useful.

While US officials are eager to give US experts and multinational corporations better “participation” in standard-setting in Britain post Brexit, they are deeply critical of Parliament sticking its nose into such issues. They call the European Parliament’s decision to temporarily ban the Monsanto-owned chemical glyphosate “unhelpful”.

Although the trade deal could exacerbate the drivers of climate change, US officials report they’re “banned” from mentioning greenhouse gas emissions reductions. In fact, the US seems interested in introducing a ‘corporate court system’ in a US-UK deal, formally known as ‘investor state dispute settlement’ or ISDS, a mechanism regularly used in other trade deals to make government action on climate change more difficult. ISDS would allow thousands of US multinationals access to secretive tribunals, for the first time, where they can sue the British government for treating them ‘unfairly’. Unfairness, in this context, could mean phasing out coal-fired power or banning fracking.

The papers show both sides are deeply interested in a so-called e-commerce chapter, which is aimed at creating new rules for the digital economy. The problem is that these rules would lock in the power of internet giants like Facebook, Google and Amazon, making it harder for governments to tax and regulate these corporations, and making Labour’s proposals for a public broadband service all but impossible.

Across all service sectors, the US wants sweeping liberalisation, based on a so-called ‘negative list’ – unless you specifically list it, assume it will be opened up to US corporate penetration. This could mean parts of the NHS being further opened up (the US expresses an interest in nursing) and would make bringing formerly public services like mail or rail companies back into public ownership that much harder.

Moreover, US officials repeat Trump’s concerns that countries like Britain aren’t paying enough for our medicines, with a special concern about cutting edge biological medicines used in the treatment of many cancers. Introducing a US-style pricing regime would make such drugs unaffordable to the NHS. Incredibly, trade negotiators received special lobbying from pharmaceutical corporations as part of the trade talks.

Both the British and American sides agree that these talks should be secret – exempt from freedom of information rules – and it’s clear to see why. The papers reveal the British government being subject to bullying by the biggest country on earth. Far from taking back control, Britain has clearly entered into a relationship where we hold none of the cards.

They make a mockery of Boris Johnson’s manifesto pledge to protect British public services and standards – that would be absolutely impossible under the type of trade deal being discussed here. And they justify Labour’s focus on the US trade deal at this election. This deal is at the centre of the divergent views the two biggest parties have about what sort of country they want to build after 12 December. On the one side, we could have a government which tries to fight inequality and climate change by constraining corporate power through tax, regulation and decent public services. On the other, one that will ignore the interests of their own electorate to kowtow to the biggest corporations in the world.

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Update: In the latest blow to Boeing, whose sagging shares are helping to weigh on the Dow in Wednesday’s thin pre-holiday trade, WSJ has published a story claiming that regulators in Europe and the Middle East are ratcheting up their scrutiny of the new 777x. The news followed a report about a failed stress test by mere hours.

The move marks the end of an era for American aviation, when international regulators simply trusted the US to handle oversight. It’s an important sign of the confidence that has been lost as Boeing struggles to move on from the crashes, and mass groundings, of the 737 MAX 8.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency said in a statement it is performing a “concurrent validation” of the FAA’s certification of Boeing’s 777X, a new variant of the company’s popular wide-body jet. The plane is expected to be the first new airliner design from either Boeing or rival Airbus SE to come to market since the MAX crisis began. Two recent crashes of that jet exposed problems with its flight-control systems and FAA certification procedures. Regulators around the world grounded the entire fleet, creating turmoil for airlines and passengers world-wide.

The national regulator in the United Arab Emirates, meanwhile, also plans to separately scrutinize the certification process of the 777X, according to people familiar with the matter. While a small agency, the Emirati General Civil Aviation Authority wields outsize influence over the future of the 777X. That is because the U.A.E.’s state-owned carrier, Emirates Airline, is one of the new jet’s biggest customers. It is slated to be the first airline to fly the airliner in 2021.

According to WSJ, the regulators aren’t insisting on performing their own complete independent certifications, rather, they’re going to scrutinize the process used by the FAA.

Click the image to watch the video.

European and Emirati regulators aren’t envisioning a full-blown certification of their own. Instead, they will independently scrutinize the processes used by the FAA and Boeing related to a number of specific systems on the plane, including its flight-control system and Boeing’s safety classification system, according to people familiar with the matter. They will also individually review the plane’s unique folding wings, these people said.

These reviews are perhaps the clearest sign yet that the FAA’s status as the world’s most reliable regulator has been lost, something that President Trump will need to blame on President Obama.

The separate reviews further undercut the FAA’s once-unchallenged stature as the world’s most influential regulator. The agency had lost credibility in the days after the crash of an Ethiopian Airways 737 MAX in March. That followed the deadly crash of a Lion Air MAX, under similar circumstances, late last year. The crashed killed 346 people in total.

There’s no question that this is terrible news for Boeing, Fortunately, according to the latest reports, the 737 MAX should be back in the skies by early next year.

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With the FAA reportedly preparing to inspect every 737 MAX individually before it signs off on the planes’ return to the air – a decision that will likely delay recertification and add to Boeing’s losses – the latest bad news for the aerospace firm comes from its hometown (well, sort of, Boeing is officially based in Chicago but the bulk of its operations are located in Washington State) paper, the Seattle Times.

The paper reported that a recent stress test for a new model of the Boeing 777 resulted in the fuselage (a fancy term for the body of the plane) ripping apart just below the FAA’s official threshold for certification.

Driving the story home, the paper also published a grainy cellphone pic of the damage:

Back in September, the ST and a few other outlets reported that there were problems with the stress test, and that a door had flown off the handle. This, as it turns out, is not only incorrect, but it minimizes the seriousness of what actually happened.

During the test, the plane’s fuselage “split dramatically” along the underside of the plane near where the landing wheels are stowed. The body of the plane was rent open with the force of a bomb. Workers in another hanger nearby said the ground the shook and they heard a load explosion. The Seattle Times clarified that their earlier reporting about a door flying off its hinges was mistaken: the 777’s doors close from the inside and are larger than the holes they cover, but one door was seriously damaged.

When Boeing tested the original 777 model in 1995, it kept going until the aluminum wings snapped at 1.54 times limit load. On the 787, it chose to stop at 1.5 and then ease the composite wings back down again. Breaking a pair of composite wings could result in release of unhealthy fibers in the air, so it’s likely that with the 777X also having composite wings, that was the plan again this time.

But as Boeing personnel along with six FAA observers watched from the windows of a control room, at 1.48 times limit load – 99% of ultimate load – the structure gave way. Under the center fuselage, just aft of the wing and the well where the landing gear wheels are stowed, the extreme compression load caused the plane’s aluminum skin to buckle and rupture, according to the person familiar with the details.

The resulting depressurization was explosive enough that workers in the next bay heard it clearly. One worker said he heard “a loud boom, and the ground shook.”

Then there was the secondary damage…

That then caused secondary damage: The photos show that the fuselage skin split part of the way up the side of the airplane, along with areas of bent and twisted structure that extended through the area around a passenger door.

A day after the incident, based on incomplete information, The Seattle Times and other media outlets incorrectly reported that a cargo door had blown out.

Unlike the plane’s cargo doors, which hinge outward, the passenger doors on airliners are plug-type doors that only open inward and are larger than the hole they close. But the structure around that passenger door just aft of the 777X wing was so damaged that the pressure blew the door out and it fell to the floor.

These secondary damage sites — the rip up the side of the fuselage, the door blown out — alarming as they might seem, are not a concern to air safety engineers. “The doors were not a precipitating factor,” said the person familiar with the details.

It’s the initiating failure, the weakness in that localized area of the keel, that Boeing must now fix.

As uncomfortable as it sounds, Boeing probably won’t need to do a retest: Since the rupture occurred so close to the threshold level, the FAA will likely allow Boeing to make the necessary changes independently and then show its work via analysis.

A safety engineer at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), speaking anonymously without permission from the agency, said that because the blowout happened so close to the target load, it barely counts as a failure.

Boeing will have so much data gathered on the way to the 99% stage that it can now compare with its computer models to analyze the failure precisely, the FAA engineer said. It can then reinforce the weak area, and prove by analysis that that’s sufficient to cover the extra 1%.

One engineer said the rip actually isn’t anything to worry about.

The engineer said it’s not that unusual to find a vulnerability when taking an airplane structure to the edge of destruction.

“The good news is they found it and can address it,” the FAA engineer said. “They found a problem they can fix. They can beef up the structure based on analysis.”

And here are some more details about the test, including an explanation of the FAA’s standards, as well as what happens to the test plane during the test.

The test conducted that day was the final test of this airplane, which was fixed in a test rig inside the Everett factory specifically to be stressed close to destruction. The jet was surrounded by scaffolding and multiple orange weights hung from the airframe. Wires were hooked to instrumentation that studded the surface to measure every stress and deflection, the data monitored in real time by engineers sitting at control room computers.

As the test neared its climax, weighted pulleys had bent the jet’s giant carbon composite wings upward more than 28 feet from their resting position. That’s far beyond the expected maximum deflection in normal flight of about 9 feet, according to a person familiar with the details.

At the same time, the fuselage was bent downward at the extreme front and aft ends with millions of pounds of force. And the interior of the plane was pressurized beyond normal levels to about 10 pounds per square inch — not typically a requirement for this test, but something Boeing chose to do.

All this simulated the loads in a flight maneuver where a pilot would experience a force of 3.75 G, compared to the maximum of 1.3 G in normal flight.

The combination of the bending forces  on the wing and fuselage created a high compression load on the bottom centerline of the fuselage — the keel — according to the person, who asked for anonymity because the details are sensitive.

Federal certification regulations require engineers to ratchet up the forces until  they reach “ultimate load” — defined as 1.5 times the “limit load,” which is the maximum that would ever be experienced in normal flight — and hold it there for at least three seconds.

Unfortunately for Boeing, traders weren’t in the mood for excuses, and sent the company’s shares lower in premarket trade…even as the broader market was set to open at record highs.

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Once again, the United States is complicit in an illegal coup d’état in Latin America, this time in Bolivia. On November 10, a right-wing, anti-Indigenous group seized power after the Bolivian military’s removal of President Evo Morales, who had declared victory in the October 20 presidential election.

The United States’ fingerprints are all over the coup. Advisers from the U.S. Southern Command have been stationed on Bolivia’s border with Argentina, Ivanka Trump made a surprising visit to an Argentine province near the Bolivian border in September, the pro-U.S. Organization of American States (OAS) cast unfounded doubt on Morales’s election victory, and the U.S.’s National Endowment for Democracy provided suspicious grants to Bolivia.

At least 32 people have been killed and hundreds injured since the coup began. Sacha Llorenti, Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations, told Democracy Now!, “We are going through not just a coup d’état, but a violent one.” Indeed, it has resulted in “the rise of a far-right regime of terror,” professor Gabriel Hetland wrote in The Washington Post.

Morales — Bolivia’s first Indigenous leader in a country where 65 percent of the people are Indigenous — received 10 percent more votes than Carlos Mesa, the second-place candidate who has close ties to the U.S. government. Mesa was in regular communication with U.S. officials who were trying to destabilize Morales, U.S. government cables published by WikiLeaks reveal.

The day after the election, the U.S.-funded OAS sought to delegitimize the election results.

“The OAS Mission expresses its deep concern and surprise at the drastic and hard-to-explain change in the trend of the preliminary results revealed after the closing of the polls,” it stated.

But the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) published a comprehensive statistical analysis on November 8 that found no evidence of fraud or irregularities in the election and determined that the results reflected highly similar patterns from past elections. Other research conducted by CELAG (Centro Estratégico Latinoamericano de Geopolítica) confirmed CEPR’s findings and identified insufficient evidence to support the assertions in the OAS statement.

CEPR co-director Mark Weisbrot noted in an op-ed for Market Watch,

“The OAS isn’t all that independent at the moment, with the Trump administration actively promoting this military coup, and Washington having more right-wing allies in the OAS than they did just a few years ago.”

The OAS was established during the Cold War to prevent the proliferation of leftist governments. USAID considers OAS a critical tool in “promot[ing] US interests in the Western hemisphere by countering the influence of anti-US countries” such as Bolivia.

The November 10 military coup led to the forced resignation of Morales, who received asylum in Mexico. Right-wing politician Jeanine Añez declared herself interim president, and Donald Trump immediately recognized her illegitimate claim to the presidency. Añez then issued a decree immunizing the military from criminal liability “for carrying out necessary actions in their legitimate defense while performing their constitutional duties.” Morales supporters accused Añez of giving soldiers “carte blanche” to shoot demonstrators. Bolivia’s human rights ombudsman and reporters have documented widespread injuries and fatalities from gunshots.

U.S. Involvement in the Coup

During Morales’s nearly 14 years in office, his Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party reduced poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent. It cut unemployment by 50 percent and nearly tripled the per-capita G.D.P.

“It’s indisputable that Bolivians are healthier, wealthier, better educated, living longer and more equal than at any time in this South American nation’s history,” Anthony Faiola wrote in The Washington Post.

There was discontent about Morales seeking a fourth term among some sectors in Bolivia, who thought there should be space for new leadership. But Morales had a strong record of establishing policies to help the people of Bolivia, which angered the U.S. government, Western corporations and the corporate media, “who function as ideological shock troops against leftist governments in Latin America,” Alan MacLeod wrote at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.

The U.S. and Argentine governments helped to engineer the Bolivian coup, Stella Calloni reported in Resumen: Latinoamerico. She cited the presence of advisers from the U.S. Southern Command on the Argentine border with Bolivia.

Calloni also documented “the surprising trip of Ivanka Trump” to the Argentine province of Jujuy near the Bolivian border on September 4-5. Accompanied by 2,500 U.S. agents and Undersecretary of State John Sullivan, Ivanka Trump was ostensibly there to “visit” a small NGO dedicated to furthering women’s rights, and she delivered an “aid” package of $400 million for “road works.” Alicia Canqui Condori, national representative of MAS, said that, “in Jujuy Donald Trump’s daughter had met with Gov. Gerardo Morales to plan what happened in Bolivia.”

Moreover, according to Calloni, Bolivian Gen. Williams Kaliman, who “suggested” that Morales resign after the election, traveled to the United States 72 hours after the coup began and he received $1 million from the U.S. embassy in Bolivia. Like many Latin American strongmen over the years, at least six of the top military leaders involved in the coup, including Kaliman, were trained at the notorious U.S. Army School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Months before the coup, Bolivia concluded a $2.3 billion deal with a Chinese consortium to mine lithium. Bolivia has 70 percent of the world’s supply of lithium, which is used in car batteries, electronic devices and weapons systems. “The idea that there might be a new social compact for the lithium was unacceptable to the main transnational mining companies,” Vijay Prashad wrote. U.S. and Canadian companies sought to make a lithium agreement with Bolivia but they could not meet Morales’s conditions. “Morales himself was a direct impediment to the takeover of the lithium fields by the non-Chinese transnational firms,” according to Prashad. “He had to go.”

Sordid History of U.S. Meddling in Latin America

U.S. complicity in the Bolivian coup follows in a sordid tradition of meddling in the political and economic affairs of Latin American countries. “For many years, the US government has provided overt financial support to opposition political parties and civic groups, including to many of the groups that have been engaged in violent insurrections and coup plotting since at least 2008,” Thomas Field wrote in Jacobin.

One key vehicle that the U.S. government uses as a cover for its imperialist policies is the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). After disturbing revelations of covert CIA operations in the second half of the 1970s, NED was established under Ronald Reagan.

“The idea was that the NED would do somewhat overtly what the CIA had been doing covertly for decades, and thus, hopefully, eliminate the stigma associated with CIA covert activities,” William Blum wrote in 2005.

NED co-founder Allen Weinstein concurred, stating in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” Although ostensibly a private, nonprofit organization, NED is largely funded by the United States. “In effect,” Blum noted, “the CIA has been laundering money through NED.”

Peter Haberfeld, a retired lawyer and labor organizer who has studied the “Pink Tide” governments in Latin America, documented NED grants in Bolivia. He told Truthout that “between 2016 and 2019, NED gave grants to over 30 organizations for ‘democracy promotion’ in Bolivia. The grants total $3,209,887.”

Haberfeld said the grants were officially earmarked for “lofty objectives such as expanding participation by women, youth, media and entrepreneurs in a vibrant political process, particularly in connection with elections,” but cautioned “it is wise to be suspicious.” Haberfeld cited author Neil A. Burron, who wrote in The New Democracy Wars: The Politics of North American Democracy Promotion in the Americas, that “democracy promotion is typically formulated to advance commercial, geopolitical and security objectives that conflict with a genuine commitment to democracy development.” Burron noted, “For the US, the political manipulation of democracy promotion in support of a North American-led regional order is a continuation of long-standing forms of intervention [that have been] used as a license to meddle in the domestic affairs of others.”

NED was complicit in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, manipulated the 1990 Nicaraguan elections, heavily funded the 2002 failed coup attempt against socialist President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and supported the opposition to progressive President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti in the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1992, NED donated a quarter-million dollars to the Cuban-American National Foundation, the violent anti-Castro group based in Miami.

In 2018, under the guise of “democracy,” “human rights” and “entrepreneurship,” NED funneled more than $23 million to opposition groups in Latin American countries, including Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia.

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton called Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua the “Troika of Tyranny” in November 2018. A few months later, in April 2019, the U.S. government orchestrated another unsuccessful coup in Venezuela. Juan Guaidó, Washington’s chosen puppet to seize power from President Nicolás Maduro, was funded by NED.

Trump not only took aim at the progress Barack Obama had made toward normalization of relations with Cuba, he has escalated the U.S. economic war on Cuba and unleashed untold numbers of lawsuits that threaten to destroy the fragile Cuban economy.

The Obama administration, led by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, supported the 2009 coup in Honduras. The fraudulent election following the coup was financed by NED and the State Department, ushering in a repressive and militarized regime. Conditions deteriorated, leading to the exodus of thousands of Honduran children fleeing north.

U.S. Complicity in the Coup in Bolivia Is Illegal

U.S. complicity in the coup in Bolivia is illegal under both U.S. and international law. The United Nations Charter prohibits the use of or threat to use force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another nation. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to self-determination.

The Charter of the Organization of American States, to which the U.S. is a party, forbids any country from intervening in the internal or external affairs of another country. The OAS charter declares that,

“Every State has the right to choose, without external interference, its political, economic, and social system and to organize itself in the way best suited to it, and has the duty to abstain from intervening in the affairs of another State.”

The Foreign Assistance Act forbids the United States from assisting a country “whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.”

There has been global condemnation of the coup. Sixty-four organizations of jurists, lawyers, NGOs, social movements and trade unions from around the world, including the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the National Lawyers Guild, sent a letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, urging her to strongly condemn the human rights violations resulting from the coup.

Fourteen members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying they were “deeply concerned” about the contribution of the Trump administration to the “escalating political and human rights crisis” in Bolivia.

Over 800 scholars, activists and public figures published an open letter demanding that the United States and the international community halt all support to the right-wing, anti-Indigenous regime that took power after the military coup.

Veterans For Peace condemned the racist coup in Bolivia and demanded an end to U.S. intervention in Latin America:

Veterans For Peace stands in solidarity with the Indigenous majority in Bolivia who are resisting the racist, right-wing takeover of their democracy. We demand that the coup be stopped and democracy restored in Bolivia. As military veterans who have been used and abused in too many unjust wars, we demand an end to 200 years of U.S. intervention in Latin America.

The situation in Bolivia is volatile and there is danger it could devolve into civil war. This is the time to urge senators and Congress members to end all U.S. support for the illegitimate regime, demand free and fair elections with all political parties represented, and insist that fundamental human rights of all Bolivians are protected.

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Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from Massoud Nayeri

Clearing the FOG hosts Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese interviewed Alison Weir, journalist and founder of If Americans Knew, a website that provides factual information about the Israeli State and Palestine. Weir describes how she learned firsthand that US media provide a false and one-sided narrative about Occupied Palestine and why she has dedicated the past twenty years to counter that. She also explains some of the most common myths and what she learned as she did research for her book, “Against Our Better Judgment.” Weir is a very clear thinker on the issue of Palestine-Israel and provides the data and language we need to speak to a propagandized population. You can listen to the entire interview and the week’s news analysis on Clearing the FOG.

Interview

Clearing the FOG (CtF): Alison, your website is a great source of information. Before we get into the site, why don’t you tell us about how you got involved in this issue.

Alison Weir (AW): People always wonder that because I don’t happen to be Jewish or Arab or Muslim or Palestinian and like most Americans 20 years ago, I knew very little about this issue. I had been active on other issues, anti-war during the Vietnam war, civil rights, that type of thing but I had never focused on Israel-Palestine until the Second Intifada began in the Fall of 2000. I’m sure you know intifada just means “Uprising,” a Palestinian Uprising. When that began, in Fall of 2000, I got curious about it.

My background is journalism. At that time, I was the editor of a very small weekly newspaper in Northern California. This wasn’t for my job, it was just my personal curiosity. I started to follow the news coverage on this uprising and I quickly noticed that it was very one-sided, that we were hearing from and about Israelis in great detail, but we got very little information from and about Palestinians.

I went on the internet and discovered a great deal of information from the region itself, from humanitarian agencies that were there, Israeli media in English, Palestinian media. And I discovered that Israeli forces were shooting Palestinians every day in large quantities, including many children and I noticed this reality was not being reported on the news sites that I usually looked at. The San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times, especially NPR, seemed to be covering that up.

So the more I looked into it, the more I felt this was a truly significant cover-up. I felt and I do feel now that this was the longest-lasting and most enduring cover-up I had ever seen and that it was occurring across the political spectrum. After a few months of looking into that, I decided, it seemed so significant that I quit my job in Sausalito and traveled as a freelance reporter throughout Gaza and the West Bank. It was a very intense trip, I was not part of any delegation. There really weren’t any delegations at that time.

When I came back, I started the organization, If Americans Knew. The goal has been to be very factual, to show the sources of our information. It’s very transparent. It gives Americans without ideological slant the facts on Israel-Palestine and especially the American connection, the fact that we are in many ways responsible for what Israel does because our tax money goes to Israel. It’s now over 10 million dollars per day. We’ve given Israel far more than we’ve given anybody else.

Most Americans, I think, are the way I was. I felt I had no connection to this confusing issue on the other side of the world, but I learned I have a very direct connection to it and therefore it’s my responsibility to know about it and to act in ways that I feel are morally required. In a nutshell, that’s how I ended up 20 years later still working on this issue.

CtF: That was a very courageous thing to do. Of course, the US also provides cover for Israel in the United Nations or when the International Criminal Court wants to investigate Israel. How were you received by Palestinians when you went there to cover the Intifada?

AW: The perception was and is that you will be in great danger from Palestinians. But I discovered it was the opposite. I was welcomed. I was invited to stay in people’s homes, which I often did. People were very excited to learn that an American journalist was there. I told people I’m here to see what’s going on and people would smile at me in places like Gaza where there were really very few Americans at that time. I didn’t see any other journalists traveling around.

Crowds of people would come up to me and they wanted to show me their bullet-riddled homes and show me what was happening to them. So I found it then and on my other trips there since, people are very welcoming, very friendly. Often they’re very aware of how much money the US gives to Israel. Even though most Americans don’t know that, it is known in the region. Despite their knowledge of that and despite their knowledge of how the US has supported Israel in so many ways, they’re still very welcoming to Americans and very willing to not blame us for what our government is doing. So it’s really the opposite of what people have been led to believe it would be like.

CtF: We were just in Occupied Palestine recently and what you describe is very consistent with our experience as well. Your website focuses on correcting the misconceptions. What are some of the most important misconceptions that people in the United States have about the situation in Occupied Palestine?

AW: That’s at the heart of the problem because there are so many that it’s hard to make people realize it’s really as different as they expect. If there were only one or two, people can accept that. It’s harder for them to realize that almost everything they thought was true is not accurate. And that is what I am often telling them.

One of the main things is that we are directly related to the conflict. We give Israel massive amounts of money. This is per capita on average 7,000 times more than we give other people. One of the other things is that many people are unaware that Israel was established in my lifetime, that when I was born there was no Israel. There was a region called Palestine that had been there called Palestine for really millennia.

Many intelligent and knowledgeable people are not aware of what Israel Palestine is about, that basically Israel was established through warfare. It was not established by the United Nations, another misconception. It was established by a war of ethnic cleansing. That’s what we now term that type of war. It’s the title of an excellent book by an Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, so, the very foundation of Israel is very different than people realize.

This was an intentional dispossession of the indigenous population. It started with the beginning of the establishment of the modern state of Israel and continues through today. Constantly Israel is confiscating additional Palestinian land and taking it over for Jewish-only settlements, as they’re called. Many people are unaware that many Palestinians are Christians. This is where Christianity began. It’s rarely mentioned in the US media.

The other thing people are often unaware of these days is media coverage always focuses on “rockets from Gaza.” Every news report mentions rockets from Gaza. The fact is that I was there traveling around by myself as a reporter before any rockets had been fired and I saw already at that time in early 2001 extreme devastation. I saw neighborhoods in Gaza that were bullet-riddled, that looked like the pictures you see of World War II ruins. In the West Bank too shelling was going on. This was before any rockets had been fired.

People think Israel is defending itself from rockets, but the rockets were actually resistance groups in Gaza trying to fight back with really very ineffectual rockets. In the whole time they’ve been used, they’ve killed at most a few dozen Israelis. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have killed many thousands of Gazans. The only statistic we get in the typical news report is thousands of rockets have been fired from Gaza. They never tell that the total number of Israelis who have been killed is perhaps by now, maybe 50, perhaps not even that high and they never tell that during that time about 5,000 Gazans have been killed. We don’t hear about the massive bombardment of Gaza that’s been going on for a very long time and that has killed thousands of Gazans. And of course, killed many people in the West Bank also.

CtF: When we were there, we saw fighter planes flying over Jerusalem on their way to bomb Gaza. Over 30 Gazans were killed, including a family. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the recent siege of Gaza. And these so-called rocket attacks, they’re like little pipsqueak rockets. These rockets were a response to an Israeli assassination in Gaza. It’s really amazing they use that as an excuse, but they do.

AW: They get away with it because the media only tell about the response and don’t tell about what came before. The American population is completely misled. Most of these are small homemade projectiles, but media will report them as missiles and people are imagining a Nike missile or something. That’s just not what’s going on.

There have been studies of the chronology of the violence in the conflict. There was one excellent study by an MIT professor who looked at periods of calm, at various truces through the years. Her study showed that it was something like 96% of the time in the shorter truces it was Israel that had first resumed violence against Palestinians and in the longer truces, it was 100% of the time that Israeli forces resumed the violence. This is just not known to the American public because it’s very filtered news coverage that people are getting.

Your point of hearing jets flying over to bomb Gaza is very significant. People don’t know that here we have one of the most powerful militaries on the planet, largely due to our tax money and often US weaponry, fighting against a population that has no Air Force, no Navy, no aircraft, no helicopter gunships. The disparity is astounding and the media try to call it a war. A war is between two military forces. That’s not what we have when we look at Gaza and Israeli forces.

CtF: It’s such an asymmetric situation. Palestinians have been forced from their homes, living in an apartheid state and have the right under international law to defend themselves. But the Palestinians we met with while we were there, activists, said we are nonviolent, we believe in using non-violence and talked about teaching their children not to hate other people, how giving in to that was destructive. One of the things that people push back in the United States is they say that there never really was a Palestine, that Palestinian nationality didn’t start until the 20th century. Can you comment on that?

AW: Yes. This is one of the Israeli talking points that many people have fallen for. You see this on Facebook and Twitter and various places. It’s a nonsensical argument. It’s true, there was not a state of Palestine. There was not a state of Israel. There was a region called Palestine. You can look at old maps.

Palestine was a region back in biblical times. It was talked about in more recent times. It was talked about in more recent centuries. It was under the Ottoman Empire. It was what we call multicultural. Around 1900, the population was about 80 percent Muslim, about 15 percent Christian and a little under five percent Jewish. This was a region. It was not a nation-state, as we know nation-states came relatively late to the world. Germany wasn’t a nation-state for many years. The United States did not used to be a nation-state. Palestine was a region. Palestinians have existed.

There was a book published some years ago by an Israel partisan who went by the name Joan Peters claiming the Palestinians did not exist, that they were just nomads that had come in because the Zionists’ wonderful entrepreneurial spirit had created jobs for these nomads to join them. This is the thesis of her book called “From Time Immemorial.” Many people read it. It was praised by pretty much every book review in the United States.

People like Barbara Tuchman, an Israel partisan, but known as a historian, praised it. It turned out to be a complete hoax.  Some very good historians and analysts including some Jewish Americans looked into the book and found out that these many footnotes were often fraudulent. They were actually coming from Zionist propaganda. In Israel itself, it was exposed as non-factual. In Britain, it was exposed as non-factual. In the United States, it eventually was, but I don’t think any of the people that gave it a positive review and that endorsed it then had the honesty or principle to retract their erroneous reviews.

Many people, especially many Jewish Americans, read that book and were taken in by it and then repeat the myth that there were no such thing as Palestinians. Even Golda Meir, the famous Israeli Prime Minister, said at one point that quote there were no Palestinians. That’s like Americans trying to say well there were no Native Americans here. Of course, there was.

CtF: Even in the country itself Israeli Jews seem oblivious to the reality in their own country. Home demolitions and the settlers putting settlements on Palestinian communities and on Palestinian lands. We drove on Jewish-only roads. If I Google “Jewish only roads,” I find an article about “Jewish only roads don’t exist.” One of the challenges we have in talking to people in the United States, and even in Israel, Occupied Palestine, is they don’t want to see reality. How do you communicate to people who just seem oblivious whether unintentionally or intentionally?

AW: Certainly, Israelis have been brought up to be just the way you’re describing. Nurit Peled, an academic, has done excellent work showing that Israeli textbooks are very propagandistic in the way that they depict Palestinians. They’re not even called Palestinians. They call them Israeli Arabs. So this is deeply embedded in many portions of the Israeli population.

Fortunately, there are many people in Israel that are dissenting from that and they’re trying to reach their fellow Israelis. There are Israelis Against Torture and Israelis Against Home Demolition. There are a number of Israeli groups within the society, a small fraction, but they’re doing really wonderful work in trying to expose what’s actually going on. There are some Israeli journalists, especially Gideon Levy, who write every week in the Israeli media about some of the latest atrocities being committed by Israel against Palestinians.

I would love to reach everybody. I’d love to reach every Israeli. I’d love to reach every American who’s taken in by Israeli talking points. What I focus on is the really fairly promising reality that about three-quarters of the American population, despite the pro-Israel media coverage that we’ve been getting for decades and despite Hollywood, really does not have a strong view on this issue. And general surveys will show that they say something like we shouldn’t take sides, which is sensible. If you don’t know much about an issue, you just don’t take sides.

That sounds like a fairly wimpy approach to those of us who know what’s going on there, but what that would mean if you don’t take sides is we would stop giving Israel 10 million dollars per day. We would stop vetoing UN resolutions to protect Israel from world condemnation of its violence. So it’s actually quite a good stand if we did what the majority of Americans already say we should do.

I try to focus on giving the general public the facts on this issue and the importance of making their wishes known to their elected representatives that it’s time to stop this massive aid to Israel. It prevents peace. Israeli militarists think they have a blank check from the most powerful nation on the planet, which they do right now. So my view is we give voters factual information on this. We show how extremely tragic the situation is because of what we’re funding and the fact that it hurts us as well and emphasize how important it is to tell our elected representatives that we want them to change these misguided destructive US policies of a blank check to Israel.

It’s time for us to vote and to work on the issue of Israel Palestine. Not only because of what it’s doing to Palestinians, not only because of what it then does to the US but because our support of Israel has led to our wars in the region. It has led to much of the violence in the region that has since spilled over elsewhere. It’s the core issue of the Middle East and it’s the time for us to focus on it and to address it.

CtF: I want to ask you about a topic that you’ve been writing about recently. And that is the criticism that people who question or criticize the Israeli state are anti-semitic. Can you talk about that?

AW: Yes, that’s used all the time and most of us are profoundly opposed to bigotry of all kinds. We don’t want to be splattered with such mudslinging. We don’t want to be called anti-Semitic. We don’t want to be anti-Semitic and we’re not being anti-Semitic when we speak out for justice as a principal, but that’s the attack that they try to use.

A member of the Israeli Parliament some years ago on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now said, and I’m paraphrasing, she said this is a trick. We always use it when somebody is critical of Israel, we call them anti-Semitic and that is exactly what going on. Nobody should be anti-Semitic. Nobody should be against any population, should be hostile and prejudiced against people. Bigotry is wrong. So that’s what they try to use.

What’s gotten worse is that not only do they try to claim somebody’s anti-Semitic when we’re talking about a nation-state and talking about injustice and trying to support principles of justice for all people, there is an effort to change the definition of anti-Semitism to include criticisms of Israel. This is extremely insidious.

It’s been going on for a number of years. There’s a new formulation in which certain criticisms of Israel, factual statements about Israel, will now be defined as anti-Semitism. Therefore it will be defined as hate speech, etc. This effort was begun by an Israeli Minister named Natan Sharansky. It has now been embedded in the US State Department and it’s being embedded elsewhere around the world. We need to learn about that and we need to oppose it. We need to stick with the traditional definition of anti-Semitism and we should oppose all anti-Semitism just as we oppose all racism, but we should not allow that incorrect epithet to be used to silence us or to prevent us from working for justice and human rights for all people including Palestinians.

CtF: One of the people we visited with when we were recently in Occupied Palestine was Rabbi Hirsh, who is with an ultra-orthodox Jew, and he makes a very strong case that Zionism is inconsistent with Judaism, that it violates the Torah. That makes the state of Israel really under his religious analysis to be against Judaism. A growing group of Jews in the United States is getting active in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. A number of Jewish groups are actually beginning to criticize Zionism and Israel. It’s really is an absurd claim that people who criticize Israel or Zionism are anti-Semitic. It just shows the weakness of their arguments.

AW: It does and I’m glad you brought that up because when Zionism, political Zionism, began with Theodore Herzl and some conferences in Switzerland in the late 1800s, the majority of Jews around the world did not join that movement. They said we’re Americans, we’re British etcetera. Even a Jewish population in Palestine was opposed to it, especially observant Jews were opposed to it and considered it a heretical move. There are many Jews who for religious reasons oppose Zionism saying this is against the Bible. It’s against God’s will. That’s part of what people don’t know. And in my book, in the research I did, it was very interesting to see how Zionists were very upset that Jewish-Americans were not embracing Zionism in the early years. In fact, for a number of decades, there were groups such as the American Council on Judaism that actively and strenuously opposed Zionism.

CTF: Finally, how can people learn more about the work that you do?

AW: The first thing would be to go to our website: IfAmericansKnew.org. From there, you will also go to our blog, the If Americans Knew blog. Between those two resources, I believe there’s a lot of information that will be useful to people. My book is available on Amazon. The short title is “Against Our Better Judgment.” It can be read very quickly. It’s one of the selling points and it’s thoroughly cited. It turned out that the book is half citations. So every statement in it, you can find the source for that statement. It contains a great deal of information that many people, even experts on the issue, did not know about before because when I started researching it, I was starting from scratch. I read a huge number of books. We’re also working to encourage people to join the effort to work within their congressional district to inform the people in your community about what’s going on. You can email us at [email protected] and help get this information off the internet and into the hands of people in your community. We also have a very active Facebook page, If Americans Knew Facebook page, where we post things every day. I especially encourage people to join our email list. We should not rely on Facebook for our communication. That is a private company and they could turn it off whenever they want to so, please join our email list also.

CtF: If you haven’t visited If Americans Knew, it’s a very deep website. If you ever want to understand a particular aspect of Israel or Occupied Palestine, you’ll find a lot of the facts right there. If you’re ever writing about it, debating it, trying to understand and discuss it with others, it’s a very fact-based and deep web site that serves a very useful purpose for engaging on this issue.

AW: We’ve certainly tried and the websites been live about 15 or 16 years. There’s really a depth of content there. We’re trying to upgrade it to a more modern look but there’s so much content, we just haven’t been able to do that yet. So it’s an old-school look but the content is there for people to find and it’s all sourced. We try to make sure that our material is factual and show people that that’s the case.

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Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese co-direct Popular Resistance where this article was originally published.

Featured image is PressTV

Oil tankers and oil makeshift refineries in northeast Syria were bombed by ‘mysterious’ planes yesterday morning, SANA later stated it was done by the Syrian Army regional command.

The statement conveyed Syrian Arab News Agency SANA was brief but very meaningful:

“SANA’s correspondent in al-Hasakah quoted a field source as saying: after verifying that some Kurdish organizations in the Syrian Jazira region smuggle Syrian oil through tanks through Jarablus and Erbil region in northern Iraq to the Turkish regime, which they claim to be their main enemy, Groups of these tanks and oil refining centers were destroyed this morning.

The source stressed that strict measures will be taken against any smuggling of stolen oil from Syrian territory outside Syria.”

Syrian Jazira region refers to the Syrian territories east and northeast of the Euphrates.

That’s it!

The statement is short, the message is profound, the warning line at the end cannot be missed and should be studied very carefully by Trump forces operating illegally in Syria. The US President Donald Trump is the one who said explicitly he’s keeping a number of his forces in Syria to loot the Syrian oil and smuggle it outside the country. In the thinnest chance, they have some smart analysts they should interpret this warning correctly.

It’s been a proven fact over the years that the pariah Turkish regime of the anti-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood fanatics led by Erodgan is stealing Syrian factories and machinery, Syrian wheat, Syrian oil, and even organs from sick Syrians admitted at their ‘hospitals’.

In public, the separatist Kurds claim that the Turkish regime, especially since the radical anti-Islamic Muslim Brotherhood junta took over, is their main enemy and has carried out countless attacks against Turkish targets that led only to the killing of thousands of their own people, they claim to be protecting, southeast of Turkey, which is exactly what ISIS claimed, yet both of them were Erdogan’s ‘best’ business partners in stealing Syrian riches, destroying the Syrian economy and infrastructure, and smuggling it all to Israel…!

In the early days of the Russian military intervention aiding the Syrian Arab Army upon the official request of the Syrian state, the Russian Air Force bombed what Mr. Putin described as ‘very long columns of tankers smuggling Syrian oil to Turkey which appeared like a living pipeline.’ The bombing caused financial losses to Erdogan and angered him to the extent he retaliated by shooting down a Russian fighter jet pursuing terrorists in northeast Syria. The fighter jet task was coordinated with Turkey early on and the pilots had their back to the ever-backstabbing Turks.

We kept exposing the fake news about the non-existing combats between Erdogan sponsored different terrorist factions including the separatist Kurdish militias. What was really happening on the ground was more like the change of flags on the account of the cannon fodders on the account of the lower ranks of all those factions, and in the end, the biggest price was paid by the Syrian people who were terrorized, slaughtered, kidnapped, maimed, and stolen by all those factions, including the Kurds. We angered many throughout the past years, we wonder if they’ll ever wake up.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to liberate every inch in Syria from terrorists and their sponsors; he is of the very determined and consistent type, especially when it comes to the sovereignty of Syria, and the rights of its people, the feature he inherited from his late father Hafez Assad, and the exact feature that gives him, as it gave his father before for a long time, the massive support from all the Syrian people, save a few thousands working for the US.

This is the message by the Syrian Arab Army, the Syrian President, and the Syrian people behind them to all invaders and thieves, if they are blind let their people wake them up.

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The Economist proclaimed recently that Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the man who, as secretary of defense, presided over this horrifying episode (the final phase of Sri Lanka’s terrorist inspired internal conflict), has just been elected president of Sri Lanka. To Sinhalese Buddhists, about 70% of the population, he is a hero. After all, the militia he destroyed was appallingly cruel and bloodthirsty and had tormented Tamils as much as, if not more than, other Sri Lankans.

It never ceases to amaze how ‘liberal’ the liberal and free press gets when describing events that it has not witnessed and individuals of whom it does not approve for reasons that cannot be explained readily or logically. This approach is not limited to one country or one person.

On 16th November, Sri Lanka’s electors (almost 84% of them exercised their franchise freely, according to all observers) democratically elected Gotabhaya Rajapaksa as president confounding many foreign analysts. His lead was almost 12 percentage points. His victory was greeted with widespread and raucous jubilation across the country, with fire crackers being lit and free milk rice being distributed. But, disappointingly, no Western media outlet highlighted this clear victory of President Gotabhaya Rajapaksa or his forward looking policy platform for which the majority voted. Instead a narrative based on allegations and conjecture continues to be spewed out, conveniently backed by negative western NGOs.

Almost all media outlets in the West continue to brand Rajapaksa as the “Strong man, the alleged war criminal and human rights violator.” The minorities apparently live in fear of the incoming administration. The Economist, which is reputed for its “trustworthy” reporting of facts for over a century, referring to the end of the terrorist inspired conflict in May 2009, proclaimed grandly that “the army surrounded 100,000 civilians on a tiny sliver of beach, barely three square kilometers in size. Mixed in among them were a small number of separatist guerrillas, the remnants of a once-formidable force that had been battling for an independent state for the country’s Tamil minority for 26 years.

The insurgents had no compunction about using innocent villagers as human shields. The army claimed to have more scruples: it had designated the area a “no-fire zone”, where civilians could safely gather. Nonetheless, it continued to shell the beach mercilessly. The UN warned that a humanitarian disaster was unfolding and urged the government to declare a ceasefire, to no avail. In the end, resistance crumbled and the army took control. But the beach was left piled with bodies, with more floating in the adjacent lagoon. The number of civilians who died in the final phase of the war, the UN concluded years later after a long investigation, was probably in the “tens of thousands”.

Obviously, facts were not allowed to interfere with this grand and heart wrenching narrative. The so called spit of land, to which the LTTE had forced the civilians to flee, was about 26 square kilometers in extent.  The LTTE had forced the civilians to flee to this area to be used as a human shield. Obviously, it had been planned with devilish cunning  that this civilian shield would force the government forces to slow down their advance or, better still, goaded the international community to intervene.

The bonus was that dead civilians would later provide the convenient grounds for alleging that war crimes had been committed, quite ignoring that the civilians had been forced in to that situation by the LTTE itself. The number of civilians who were later to cross the lagoon and escape to the government side was around 297,000 – not 100,000. It was not a handful of fighters who held the “eight mile stretch of land” but over 12,000, who later surrendered to the security forces. To this day, no one has located, despite desperate efforts, the graves of the tens of thousands of bodies that were piled up on the beach or floating in the lagoon. No burial pits have been found and the burials would have required a large force of grave diggers who were not available as most able bodied Tamils were manning the LTTE defenses, either voluntarily or under coercion. A vast armoury of heavy and light weapons were recoverd by the security forces,

Rt. Hon. the Lord Naseby’s revelations in the House of Lords on 5 February, 2019, based on the reports of  the UK Military Attaché in Colombo, Antony Gash, are available in the public domain. Gash had recorded in a dispatch dated 16 February 2009 concerning 400 IDPs being transferred from the fighting area to Trincomalee, “The operation was efficient and effective, but most importantly was carried out with compassion, respect and concern. I am entirely certain that this was genuine — my presence was not planned and was based on a sudden opportunity”.

Lord Naseby goes on to say,

“There are many more references in the dispatches to the fact that it was never a policy of the Sri Lankan Government to kill civilians.”

He adds,

“I have one other reference that I think is useful. It comes from the University Teachers for Human Rights, which is essentially a Tamil organization. It says: “From what has happened we cannot say that the purpose of bombing or shelling by the government forces was to kill civilians … ground troops took care not to harm civilians”.

He quotes another passage,

“Soldiers who entered the No Fire Zone on 19th April 2009 and again on the 9th and 15th May acted with considerable credit when they reached … civilians. They took risks to protect civilians and helped … the elderly who could not walk. Those who escaped have readily acknowledged this”.

Lord Naseby estimated that the maximum number of civilians killed was probably around 6000. Not tens of thousands as proclaimed by the Economist.

There has been no military conflict in history where no civilians have suffered. This number killed in the last days of the Sri Lankan conflict may have included combatants fighting  in civvies. The figure quoted by Lord Naseby broadly confirms the internal figure compiled by the UN office in Colombo and the census figure compiled later. But what is important is Lord Nasemby’s conclusion that civilians were not the target of the military operation.

Oh shucks. Why let published facts get in the way of a heart wrenching story if it serves to vilify someone who has been slated to be tarred.

Over 55% of the Tamils of Sri Lanka and the overwhelming preponderance of Muslims live in and among the majority Sinhala population. Surprisingly, no one seems to have noticed anyone in these communities living in fear as claimed by the Economist or making any effort, with bag and baggage, to move to the safety of the North or the East. Of course, some in these communities, remembering the disturbances in Kandy during the last regime and the those in Aluthgama during the previous regime, may express reservations that please the ears of foreign journalists to juice up their stories. But by and large, the children of the minority communities go to school every day as before, their businesses continue to flourish and their temples and mosques remain crowded.

General Sarath Fonseka (now Field Marshal) who commanded the army during the final phase of the conflict and contested the country’s presidency in 2010, in spite of being routed in the South, comfortably won all the Tamil-speaking majority electoral districts in the North and the East. Obviously, the electorate did not think of him as a killer of Tamil civilians.

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There are growing concerns, at least in some financial circles, that the monetary policies presently being pursued by the US Fed and the world’s other major central banks could, at some point, result in a crisis of confidence in “fiat” currencies issued by the state and lead to a turn to gold as a store of value.

These fears were voiced in an article by the incoming editor of the Financial Times, Rana Foroohar, published on Monday under the headline, “Gold is looking more and more attractive.”

“Gold bugs have always struck me as paranoid,” she wrote. “You really have to believe the sky is falling in order to horde physical bars in a digital age. So it’s rather worrying that some investors and central bankers are talking up gold.”

Foroohar cited a recent article by the central bank of the Netherlands that pointed to the role of gold if a crisis of confidence emerged in the monetary system. The article stated that

“if the system collapses, the gold stock can serve as a basis to build it up again.” It added, “Gold bolsters confidence in the central bank’s balance sheet and creates a sense of security.”

The concerns over a possible crisis of the monetary system are being fuelled by the experiences of the past decade of monetary policy. The unprecedented pumping of trillions of dollars into the global financial system by the major central banks has failed to bring about any genuine recovery in global economic growth.

In response to the financial crash of 2008, the Fed, along with other major central banks, bailed out the banks to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and cut interest rates to historic lows. When these policies failed, they embarked on unconventional monetary policies based on the purchase of financial assets, so-called “quantitative easing.”

The holdings of such assets by the Fed expanded from around $800 billion before the crash to more than $4 trillion. The European Central Bank’s program has resulted in it holding some €2.6 trillion worth of financial assets. Nothing like this has ever been seen before in history.

The major effect of these measures has been to send the price of financial assets such as stocks and bonds soaring, increasing the wealth of corporations and the global financial elites by trillions of dollars, and accelerating the growth of social inequality around the world as wages stagnate and social spending is cut on the grounds that “there is no money.”

The rationale advanced in support of these measures was that they were necessary to prevent a complete collapse of the financial system, and that they would eventually lead to a return to growth in the real economy, making it possible to revert to a “normal” monetary policy.

In 2017 and early 2018 it appeared finally that this might be the case as global growth rates started to rise, reaching their highest levels since the period immediately before the financial crisis. Accordingly, the Fed began to raise rates—there were four increases of 0.25 percentage points each in 2018—and it started to wind down its holdings of financial assets. The European Central Bank (ECB) followed suit and also halted its asset purchases, while still keeping its base interest rate in negative territory.

The Bank of Japan, however, did not follow this course, but kept its base interest rate at zero and maintained its purchases of government bonds and other financial assets, to the extent that it now holds 46 percent of government debt. In the Japanese market for government bonds, one arm of the state, the government, is the seller of debt, while another arm, the Bank of Japan, is the purchaser. Now there are fears that the entire world may be on the road to “Japanification.”

The move to “normalisation” by the Fed and the ECB has been very short-lived. At the end of last year, the rapid fall in US equity markets saw the Fed do an about-turn. In the first half of this year it maintained it would not raise rates. It also indicated that the reduction of its asset holdings—a policy described at one point by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell as being on “auto pilot”—was to be ended even before it had really gotten underway.

This was followed by three interest rate cuts of 0.25 percentage points each since July, together with the message, under the Fed’s policy of so-called “forward guidance” to financial markets, that rises were off the table for the foreseeable future. Wall Street has duly celebrated by pushing stock market indexes to new record highs.

The ECB has followed suit, resuming its program of asset purchases and pushing its base interest rate further into negative territory.

The failure of both interest rate cuts and quantitative easing to bring about any real expansion of the global economy—the International Monetary Fund has said the world economy is in a synchronised global slowdown characterised by falling investment in the major economies and a contraction in trade—has raised questions about the next stage of monetary policy.

In her article, Foroohar cited remarks by Ray Dalio, the chief of the Bridgewater hedge fund, one of the world’s largest, to a conference convened by the Institute for International Finance (IIF) last month. Dalio said that in order to continue paying its bills, the US Federal Reserve would have to inflate its balance sheet and keep interest rates low or even negative. This could lead to a situation where nobody would want to own US debt and investors would look for other assets as a store of value.

“The question is, what else?” he asked. “That’s the environment I think we’ll be in. And there’s a saying that gold is the only asset you can have that’s not somebody else’s liability.”

Foroohar also pointed to a recent newsletter by financial analyst Luke Gromen, regarded in some circles as a “gold bug,” in which he noted that annual US “entitlements”—defined as payments on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security plus defence spending and interest payments—now stand at 112 percent of US federal tax receipts. This has risen from 103 percent 15 months ago and 95 percent two years ago—a rise brought about by Trump’s tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.

Gromen wrote that the US has become “utterly dependent on asset price inflation for tax receipts” and the only way the government could pay its bills was for asset prices to rise on their own or for the Fed to “print enough money to make asset prices rise.”

In remarks to the IIF conference, not reported by Foroohar, Dalio raised questions about the future of the fiat monetary system, where what is money is determined by the state.

He said that “we are in a new world now,” a seemingly “crazy,” “odd” or “other reality,” in which central banks will have to increasingly “monetize” debt, along the lines of what is already taking place in Japan, in order for government payments as well as payouts by pension funds to be met.

“I think we are in the last stages or the end of the last stages of what is currency, what is reserve currency, how does that fiat currency system work,” he said.

It is not possible to predict exactly how this new financial world—a world of negative interest rates and the monetization of mounting debt by central banks—will develop. But it is clear that the very foundations of the system of international finance are coming under increasing strain, with the prospect of a collapse with devastating economic consequences looming ever larger.

The prospect that such a crisis may provoke a return to gold as the only basis for a store of value, as confidence in fiat currencies erodes, raises fundamental issues elaborated by Marx in his analysis of the contradictions and crises of the capitalist economy.

Marx advanced what has been termed a commodity theory of money: that, ultimately, value had to have a material form of expression in another commodity, which, for historical reasons, was gold. Capitalism, he maintained, strove to overcome this metal barrier through the development of credit and other mechanisms, but “again and again breaks its back on this barrier.”

Following the removal of the gold backing from the US dollar by President Nixon in August 1971, it was held by many economists, including some who called themselves Marxists, that Marx’s analysis was invalid. The expansion of the global economy, in which a fiat currency, the US dollar, no longer backed by gold, functioned as the foundation of the international monetary system, was a historical refutation of his analysis, it was claimed.

However, under conditions of increasing international financial turmoil and growing doubts about the stability of the fiat currency system, another remark made by Marx should also be recalled. He noted that the fundamental laws of political economy do not assert themselves gradually or smoothly, but express themselves like the law of gravity when a house falls about our ears. And as the concerns voiced by the editor of the Financial Times and others make clear, the house of international finance is starting to shake.

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Americans and also much of the rest of the world have been watching or otherwise following the impeachment proceedings in Washington and not paying much attention to developments in the Middle East that could be setting the stage for a new war.

It should surprise no one to learn that Washington has no actual policy to finish what it is doing and get out so it is allowing itself to be led by its so-called allies in the region. There has been what amounts to a nearly complete reversal of the early October decision by President Donald Trump to deescalate in the region by pulling U.S. troops out of northern Syria. After occupying the Syrian oil fields in the immediate wake of that decision and declaring that American soldiers would shoot-to-kill Russian and Syrian soldiers who tried to retake that bit of sovereign Syrian territory, one now learns that U.S. troops are again operating hand-in-hand with Kurdish militias to attack what have been claimed to be ISIS remnants.

Defenders of Donald Trump continue to insist that he does not want a war and is serious about disengaging from “senseless” conflicts, but it would be hard to come to that judgement based on what the president and his staff of pathological miscreants actually do. In fact, one might reasonably argue that the administration is planning for war on multiple fronts.

Russia has long been a target of an ignorant Trump’s neoconnish foreign policy, to include the refusal to renew several admirable treaties that have limited the spread of certain types of weapons. Also, lethal military aid to gallant little Ukraine, much in the news of late, is actually a dangerous misstep on the part of Washington as Russia regards its border with that country as a vital interest while defending Kiev is in reality no national security interest for the United States at all.

Albin Kurti is on the verge of becoming the next Prime Minister of Kosovo after he and opposition chairman Isa Mustafa confirmed last week that the two rival political parties had made progress to create a coalition government. Mustafa said that Kurti can rightfully become the next Prime Minister if he can convince the three remaining parliamentarians, representing the Bosniak, Turkish and Roma minorities to enter a coalition – and it appears they will.

What does the accession of Albin Kurti mean for the future of Kosovo?

Kurti does not recognize the flag and anthem of Kosovo, as well as the Kosovar national identity. At first, this actually sounds positive and perhaps he is a leader who wants to reconcile with Belgrade and bring Kosovo, considered Serbia’s heartland, back under Serbian administration. However, this could not be further from the truth as he is an Albanian ultra-nationalist and believes Kosovo should be annexed by Albania. Essentially, he is Kosovo’s man to push forward the project for a “Greater Albania.”

As part of his platform, he argues that the constitution of Kosovo should be changed so that national identity is restored to Albanians in Kosovo. Essentially, he rejects the Kosovar nationality as defined by the proposal of Finnish Nobel “Peace” Prize winning Marti Ahtisaari, and takes on the Albanian identity openly. Kurti does not differentiate between nation and ethnicity as he sees Kosovo as an extension of Albania. The nation and the state are not the same.

If Kurti becomes Prime Minister of Kosovo, one pressing question is which state will swear allegiance to – Albania or Kosovo? Most Kosovars consider themselves to be Albanian, and usurpingly the overwhelming majority of Kosovars support the idea of a “Greater Albania.”

Kurti never hid his aspirations for union with Albania and has not changed it since he has been active in both society and politics. And he is certainly not alone as Kosovars do not have their independent history, and rather their traditions, culture, religious heritage, language and customs belong to the ethnic identity of Albanians, who already have their own state – Albania.

The name “Kosovars”, which they received as a gift from the West through Ahtisaari’s plan, was to define them as a new nation, independent of the already existing Albanian one. But it’s not so easy to do. Because the only true asset of the “Kosovar nation” is the terrorist Kosovo “Liberation” Army (KLA), and their only national hero is terrorist Adem Jashari. In other words – their so-called history begins sometime in the mid-1990s.

And that legacy of the KLA includes the destruction of ancient Serbian Orthodox churches, rape and ethnic cleansing, with many of the former leaders of the KLA turning Kosovo today into a heroin ‘smugglers paradise,’ and hub for human trafficking, organ harvesting and arms trafficking. The Kosovo War Crimes Tribunal could very well be shut down soon if Kurti, as is expected, will officially become leader of the illegitimate state.

The Tribunal against the KLA, more specifically, the Specialized Chambers and the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office of Kosovo based in The Hague (Special War Crimes Tribunal in Kosovo), expires next year, if judged by the 2015 constitutional amendment that formed the institution.

The institution has not filed any charges so far, though it has heard about 100 witnesses, according to Kosovo, including Ramush Haradinaj, a former prime minister.  Kurti, who is likely to succeed Haradinaj, has already announced that the work of “this unusual building of justice,” as the court has called it, will be discussed in two places: in the Kosovo parliament and in Brussels. In other words, can he terminate the treaty with the EU, since he is one of the biggest opponents of its establishment? This can be problematic as it is located in The Hague, but was formed with the approval of the Kosovo Assembly.

Depsite the evidence provided by Serbian prosecutors to the court, the occupying government in Pristina does not want to cooperate, so the trials never eventuate. Many in Kosovo have opposed the formation of the court, as it deals only with allegations in Dick Marty’s report, which does not even mention Serbian crimes. The Hague Specialized Chambers are a replica of the Kosovo justice system in a small way. They are established at every level of the judicial system in Kosovo, from the Basic Court to the Constitutional Court and employ only international staff. The Court is mainly funded by the European Union and was formed at the insistence of the international community. He investigates alleged crimes by the KLA against ethnic minorities and political rivals.

So then, whose court is this?

This judicial institution has a mandate for alleged crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes related to the allegations in Dick Marty’s report, mainly organ harvesting, which were committed between January 1998 and December 2000 – but continues to this day. Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi has repeatedly said the formation of a court was needed to “clean up our fight and prove that we have nothing to hide, but also to preserve historic and strategic allies, the US, the EU and NATO.”

With the likelihood of Kurti becoming the next Prime Minister, we can now expect the project for a Greater Albania be accelerated and him providing protection for KLA terrorists from facing justice. Even if Kosovo and Albania may not unite, or attempt to, it will likely mean that more countries will renounce their recognition of Kosovo for their blatant attempt at escalating a volatile issue. Over 10 countries have already renounced their recognition of Kosovo, bringing the total percentage of UN member countries who recognize Kosovo to 51% and quickly reducing.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Paul Antonopoulos is a Research Fellow at the Center for Syncretic Studies.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

Thanksgiving 2019

“The Thanksgiving story is an absolution of the Pilgrims, whose brutal quest for absolute power in the New World is made to seem both religiously motivated and eminently human…. The Mayflower’s cultural heirs are programmed to find glory in their own depravity, and savagery in their most helpless victims, who can only redeem themselves by accepting the inherent goodness of white Americans.”

This article was originally published on November 27, 2003, when Glen Ford was co-publisher of The Black Commentator.

Nobody but Americans celebrates Thanksgiving. (Canadians have a holiday by the same name, but an entirely different history and political import.) It is reserved by history and the intent of “the founders” as the supremely white American holiday, the most ghoulish event on the national calendar. No Halloween of the imagination can rival the exterminationist reality that was the genesis, and remains the legacy, of the American Thanksgiving. It is the most loathsome, humanity-insulting day of the year – a pure glorification of racist barbarity.

We are thankful that the day grows nearer when the almost four centuries-old abomination will be deprived of its reason for being: white supremacy. Then we may all eat and drink in peace and gratitude for the blessings of humanity’s deliverance from the rule of evil men.

Thanksgiving is much more than a lie – if it were that simple, an historical correction of the record of events in 1600s Massachusetts would suffice to purge the “flaw” in the national mythology. But Thanksgiving is not just a twisted fable, and the mythology it nurtures is itself inherently evil. The real-life events – subsequently revised – were perfectly understood at the time as the first, definitive triumphs of the genocidal European project in New England. The near-erasure of Native Americans in Massachusetts and, soon thereafter, from most of the remainder of the northern English colonial seaboard was the true mission of the Pilgrim enterprise – Act One of the American Dream. African Slavery commenced contemporaneously – an overlapping and ultimately inseparable Act Two.

The last Act in the American drama must be the “root and branch” eradication of all vestiges of Act One and Two – America’s seminal crimes and formative projects. Thanksgiving as presently celebrated – that is, as a national politicalevent – is an affront to civilization.

Celebrating the unspeakable

White America embraced Thanksgiving because a majority of that population glories in the fruits, if not the unpleasant details, of genocide and slavery and feels, on the whole, good about their heritage: a cornucopia of privilege and national power. Children are taught to identify with the good fortune of the Pilgrims. It does not much matter that the Native American and African holocausts that flowed from the feast at Plymouth are hidden from the children’s version of the story – kids learn soon enough that Indians were made scarce and Africans became enslaved. But they will also never forget the core message of the holiday: that the Pilgrims were good people, who could not have purposely set such evil in motion. Just as the first Thanksgivings marked the consolidation of the English toehold in what became the United States, the core ideological content of the holiday serves to validate all that has since occurred on these shores – a national consecration of the unspeakable, a balm and benediction for the victors, a blessing of the fruits of murder and kidnapping, and an implicit obligation to continue the seamless historical project in the present day.

The Thanksgiving story is an absolution of the Pilgrims, whose brutal quest for absolute power in the New World is made to seem both religiously motivated and eminently human. Most importantly, the Pilgrims are depicted as victims – of harsh weather and their own naïve yet wholesome visions of a new beginning. In light of this carefully nurtured fable, whatever happened to the Indians, from Plymouth to California and beyond, in the aftermath of the 1621 dinner must be considered a mistake, the result of misunderstandings – at worst, a series of lamentable tragedies. The story provides the essential first frame of the American saga. It is unalloyed racist propaganda, a tale that endures because it served the purposes of a succession of the Pilgrims’ political heirs, in much the same way that Nazi-enhanced mythology of a glorious Aryan/German past advanced another murderous, expansionist mission.

Thanksgiving is quite dangerous – as were the Pilgrims.

Rejoicing in a cemetery

The English settlers, their ostensibly religious venture backed by a trading company, were glad to discover that they had landed in a virtual cemetery in 1620. Corn still sprouted in the abandoned fields of the Wampanoags [2], but only a remnant of the local population remained around the fabled Rock. In a letter to England, Massachusetts Bay colony founder John Winthrop wrote, “But for the natives in these parts, God hath so pursued them, as for 300 miles space the greatest part of them are swept away by smallpox which still continues among them. So as God hath thereby cleared our title to this place, those who remain in these parts, being in all not 50, have put themselves under our protection.”

Ever diligent to claim their own advantages as God’s will, the Pilgrims thanked their deity for having “pursued” the Indians to mass death. However, it was not divine intervention that wiped out most of the natives around the village of Patuxet but, most likely, smallpox-embedded blankets planted during an English visit or slave raid. Six years before the Pilgrim landing, a ship sailed into Patuxet’s harbor, captained by none other than the famous seaman and mercenary soldierJohn Smith [3], former leader of the first successful English colony in the New World, at Jamestown, Virginia. Epidemic and slavery followed in his wake, as Debra Glidden described in IMDiversity.com [4]:

In 1614 the Plymouth Company of England, a joint stock company, hired Captain John Smith to explore land in its behalf. Along what is now the coast of Massachusetts in the territory of the Wampanoag, Smith visited the town of Patuxet according to “The Colonial Horizon,” a 1969 book edited by William Goetzinan. Smith renamed the town Plymouth in honor of his employers, but the Wampanoag who inhabited the town continued to call it Patuxet.

The following year Captain Hunt, an English slave trader, arrived at Patuxet. It was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them into slavery for 220 shillings apiece. That practice was described in a 1622 account of happenings entitled “A Declaration of the State of the Colony and Affairs in Virginia,” written by Edward Waterhouse. True to the explorer tradition, Hunt kidnapped a number of Wampanoags to sell into slavery.

Another common practice among European explorers was to give “smallpox blankets” to the Indians. Since smallpox was unknown on this continent prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Native Americans did not have any natural immunity to the disease so smallpox would effectively wipe out entire villages with very little effort required by the Europeans. William Fenton describes how Europeans decimated Native American villages in his 1957 work “American Indian and White relations to 1830.” From 1615 to 1619 smallpox ran rampant among the Wampanoags and their neighbors to the north. The Wampanoag lost 70 percent of their population to the epidemic and the Massachusetts lost 90 percent.

Most of the Wampanoag had died from the smallpox epidemic so when the Pilgrims arrived they found well-cleared fields which they claimed for their own. A Puritan colonist, quoted by Harvard University’s Perry Miller, praised the plague that had wiped out the Indians for it was “the wonderful preparation of the Lord Jesus Christ, by his providence for his people’s abode in the Western world.” Historians have since speculated endlessly on why the woods in the region resembled a park to the disembarking Pilgrims in 1620. The reason should have been obvious: hundreds, if not thousands, of people had lived there just five years before.

In less than three generations the settlers would turn all of New England into a charnel house for Native Americans, and fire the economic engines of slavery throughout English-speaking America. Plymouth Rock is the place where the nightmare truly began.

The uninvited?

It is not at all clear what happened at the first – and only – “integrated” Thanksgiving feast. Only two written accounts of the three-day event exist, and one of them, by Governor William Bradford, was written 20 years after the fact. Was Chief Massasoit invited to bring 90 Indians with him to dine with 52 colonists, most of them women and children? This seems unlikely. A good harvest had provided the settlers with plenty of food, according to their accounts, so the whites didn’t really need the Wampanoag’s offering of five deer. What we do know is that there had been lots of tension between the two groups that fall.  John Two-Hawks, who runs the Native Circle [5] web site, gives a sketch of the facts:

“Thanksgiving’ did not begin as a great loving relationship between the pilgrims and the Wampanoag, Pequot and Narragansett people.  In fact, in October of 1621 when the pilgrim survivors of their first winter in Turtle Island sat down to share the first unofficial ‘Thanksgiving’ meal, the Indians who were there were not even invited!  There was no turkey, squash, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie.  A few days before this alleged feast took place, a company of ‘pilgrims’ led by Miles Standish actively sought the head of a local Indian chief, and an 11 foot high wall was erected around the entire Plymouth settlement for the very purpose of keeping Indians out!”

It is much more likely that Chief Massasoit either crashed the party, or brought enough men to ensure that he was not kidnapped or harmed by the Pilgrims. Dr. Tingba Apidta, in his “Black Folks’ Guide to Understanding Thanksgiving [6],” surmises that the settlers “brandished their weaponry” early and got drunk soon thereafter. He notes that “each Pilgrim drank at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to comment on his people’s ‘notorious sin,’ which included their ‘drunkenness and uncleanliness’ and rampant ‘sodomy.'”

Soon after the feast the brutish Miles Standish “got his bloody prize,” Dr. Apidta writes:

“He went to the Indians, pretended to be a trader, then beheaded an Indian man named Wituwamat. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a wooden spike for many years, according to Gary B. Nash, ‘as a symbol of white power.’ Standish had the Indian man’s young brother hanged from the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name ‘Wotowquenange,’ which in their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers.”

What is certain is that the first feast was not called a “Thanksgiving” at the time; no further integrated dining occasions were scheduled; and the first, official all-Pilgrim “Thanksgiving” had to wait until 1637, when the whites of New England celebrated the massacre of the Wampanoag’s southern neighbors, the Pequots.

The real Thanksgiving Day Massacre

The Pequots today own the Foxwood Casino and Hotel [7], in Ledyard, Connecticut, with gross gaming revenues of over $9 billion in 2000. This is truly a (very belated) miracle, since the real first Pilgrim Thanksgiving was intended as the Pequot’s epitaph. Sixteen years after the problematical Plymouth feast, the English tried mightily to erase the Pequots from the face of the Earth, and thanked God for the blessing.

Having subdued, intimidated or made mercenaries of most of the tribes of Massachusetts, the English turned their growing force southward, toward the rich Connecticut valley, the Pequot’s sphere of influence. At the point where the Mystic River meets the sea, the combined force of English and allied Indians bypassed the Pequot fort to attack and set ablaze a town full of women, children and old people.

William Bradford, the former Governor of Plymouth and one of the chroniclers of the 1621 feast, was also on hand for the great massacre of 1637:

“Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire…horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enemy.”

The rest of the white folks thought so, too. “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots,” read Governor John Winthrop’s proclamation. The authentic Thanksgiving Day was born.

Most historians believe about 700 Pequots were slaughtered at Mystic. Many prisoners were executed, and surviving women and children sold into slavery in the West Indies. Pequot prisoners that escaped execution were parceled out to Indian tribes allied with the English. The Pequot were thought to have been extinguished as a people. According to IndyMedia [8], “The Pequot tribe numbered 8,000 when the Pilgrims arrived, but disease had brought their numbers down to 1,500 by 1637. The Pequot ‘War’ killed all but a handful of remaining members of the tribe.”

But there were still too many Indians around to suit the whites of New England, who bided their time while their own numbers increased to critical, murderous mass.

Guest’s head on a pole

By the 1670s the colonists, with 8,000 men under arms, felt strong enough to demand that the Pilgrims’ former dinner guests the Wampanoags disarm and submit to the authority of the Crown. After a series of settler provocations in 1675, the Wampanoag struck back, under the leadership of Chief Metacomet, son of Massasoit, called King Philip by the English. Metacomet/Philip, whose wife and son were captured and sold into West Indian slavery, wiped out 13 settlements and killed 600 adult white men before the tide of battle turned. A1996 issue [9] of the Revolutionary Worker provides an excellent narrative.

In their victory, the settlers launched an all-out genocide against the remaining Native people. The Massachusetts government offered 20 shillings bounty for every Indian scalp, and 40 shillings for every prisoner who could be sold into slavery. Soldiers were allowed to enslave any Indian woman or child under 14 they could capture. The “Praying Indians” who had converted to Christianity and fought on the side of the European troops were accused of shooting into the treetops during battles with “hostiles.” They were enslaved or killed. Other “peaceful” Indians of Dartmouth and Dover were invited to negotiate or seek refuge at trading posts – and were sold onto slave ships.

It is not known how many Indians were sold into slavery, but in this campaign,500 enslaved Indians were shipped from Plymouth alone. Of the 12,000 Indians in the surrounding tribes, probably about half died from battle, massacre and starvation.

After King Philip’s War, there were almost no Indians left free in the northern British colonies. A colonist wrote from Manhattan’s New York colony: “There is now but few Indians upon the island and those few no ways hurtful. It is to be admired how strangely they have decreased by the hand of God, since the English first settled in these parts.” In Massachusetts, the colonists declared a “day of public thanksgiving” in 1676, saying, “there now scarce remains a name or family of them [the Indians] but are either slain, captivated or fled.”

Fifty-five years after the original Thanksgiving Day, the Puritans had destroyed the generous Wampanoag and all other neighboring tribes. The Wampanoag chief King Philip was beheaded. His head was stuck on a pole in Plymouth, where the skull still hung on display 24 years later.

This is not thought to be a fit Thanksgiving tale for the children of today, but it’s the real story, well-known to the settler children of New England at the time – the white kids who saw the Wampanoag head on the pole year after year and knew for certain that God loved them best of all, and that every atrocity they might ever commit against a heathen, non-white was blessed.

There’s a good term for the process thus set in motion: nation-building.

Roots of the slave trade

The British North American colonists’ practice of enslaving Indians for labor or direct sale to the West Indies preceded the appearance of the first chained Africans at the dock in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. The Jamestown colonists’ human transaction with the Dutch vessel was an unscheduled occurrence. However, once the African slave trade became commercially established, the fates of Indians and Africans in the colonies became inextricably entwined. New England, born of up-close-and-personal, burn-them-in-the-fires-of-hell genocide, led the political and commercial development of the English colonies. The region also led the nascent nation’s descent into a slavery-based society and economy.

Ironically, an apologist for Virginian slavery made one of the best, early cases for the indictment of New England as the engine of the American slave trade. Unreconstructed secessionist Lewis Dabney’s 1867 book “A Defense of Virginia”[10] traced the slave trade’s origins all the way back to Plymouth Rock:

“The planting of the commercial States of North America began with the colony of Puritan Independents at Plymouth, in 1620, which was subsequently enlarged into the State of Massachusetts. The other trading colonies, Rhode Island and Connecticut, as well as New Hampshire (which never had an extensive shipping interest), were offshoots of Massachusetts. They partook of the same characteristics and pursuits; and hence, the example of the parent colony is taken here as a fair representation of them.

“The first ship from America, which embarked in the African slave trade, was theDesire, Captain Pierce, of Salem; and this was among the first vessels ever built in the colony. The promptitude with which the “Puritan Fathers” embarked in this business may be comprehended, when it is stated that the Desire sailed upon her voyage in June, 1637. [Note: the year they massacred the Pequots.] The first feeble and dubious foothold was gained by the white man at Plymouth less than seventeen years before; and as is well known, many years were expended by the struggle of the handful of settlers for existence. So that it may be correctly said, that the commerce of New England was born of the slave trade; as its subsequent prosperity was largely founded upon it. The Desire, proceeding to the Bahamas, with a cargo of ‘dry fish and strong liquors, the only commodities for those parts,’ obtained the negroes from two British men-of-war, which had captured them from a Spanish slaver.

“Thus, the trade of which the good ship Desire, of Salem, was the harbinger, grew into grand proportions; and for nearly two centuries poured a flood of wealth into New England, as well as no inconsiderable number of slaves. Meanwhile, the other maritime colonies of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and Connecticut, followed the example of their elder sister emulously; and their commercial history is but a repetition of that of Massachusetts. The towns of Providence, Newport, and New Haven became famous slave trading ports. The magnificent harbor of the second, especially, was the favorite starting-place of the slave ships; and its commerce rivaled, or even exceeded, that of the present commercial metropolis, New York. All the four original States, of course, became slaveholding.”

The Revolution that exploded in 1770s New England was undertaken by men thoroughly imbued with the worldview of the Indian-killer and slave-holder. How could they not be? The “country” they claimed as their own was fathered by genocide and mothered by slavery – its true distinction among the commercial nations of the world. And these men were not ashamed, but proud, with vast ambition to spread their exceptional characteristics West and South and wherever their so-far successful project in nation-building might take them – and by the same bloody, savage methods that had served them so well in the past.

At the moment of deepest national crisis following the battle of Gettysburg in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln invoked the national fable that is far more central to the white American personality than Lincoln’s battlefield “Address.” Lincoln seized upon the 1621 feast as the historic “Thanksgiving” – bypassing the official and authentic 1637 precedent – and assigned the dateless, murky event the fourth Thursday in November. Lincoln surveyed a broken nation, and attempted nation-rebuilding, based on the purest white myth. The same year that he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he renewed the national commitment to a white manifest destiny that began at Plymouth Rock. Lincoln sought to rekindle a shared national mission that former Confederates and Unionists and white immigrants from Europe could collectively embrace. It was and remains a barbaric and racist national unifier, by definition. Only the most fantastic lies can sanitize the history of the Plymouth Colony of Massachusetts.

“Like a rock”

The Thanksgiving holiday fable is at once a window on the way that many, if not most, white Americans view the world and their place in it, and a pollutant that leaches barbarism into the modern era. The fable attempts to glorify the indefensible, to enshrine an era and mission that represent the nation’s lowest moral denominators. Thanksgiving as framed in the mythology is, consequently, a drag on that which is potentially civilizing in the national character, a crippling, atavistic deformity. Defenders of the holiday will claim that the politically-corrected children’s version promotes brotherhood, but that is an impossibility – a bald excuse to prolong the worship of colonial “forefathers” and to erase the crimes they committed. Those bastards burned the Pequot women and children, and ushered in the multinational business of slavery. These are facts. The myth is an insidious diversion – and worse.

Humanity cannot tolerate a 21st Century superpower, much of whose population perceives the world through the eyes of 17th Century land and flesh bandits. Yet that is the trick that fate has played on the globe. We described the roots of the planetary dilemma in our March 13 commentary, “Racism & War, Perfect Together. [11]”

The English arrived with criminal intent – and brought wives and children to form new societies predicated on successful plunder. To justify the murderous enterprise, Indians who had initially cooperated with the squatters were transmogrified into “savages” deserving displacement and death. The relentlessly refreshed lie of Indian savagery became a truth in the minds of white Americans, a fact to be acted upon by every succeeding generation of whites. The settlers became a singular people confronting the great “frontier” – a euphemism for centuries of genocidal campaigns against a darker, “savage” people marked for extinction.

The necessity of genocide was the operative, working assumption of the expanding American nation. “Manifest Destiny” was born at Plymouth Rock and Jamestown, later to fall (to paraphrase Malcolm) like a rock on Mexico, the Philippines, Haiti, Nicaragua, etc. Little children were taught that the American project was inherently good, Godly, and that those who got in the way were “evil-doers” or just plain subhuman, to be gloriously eliminated. The lie is central to white American identity, embraced by waves of European settlers who never saw a red person.

Only a century ago, American soldiers caused the deaths of possibly a million Filipinos whom they had been sent to “liberate” from Spanish rule. They didn’t even know who they were killing, and so rationalized their behavior by substituting the usual American victims. Colonel Funston [12], of the Twentieth Kansas Volunteers, explained what got him motivated in the Philippines:

“Our fighting blood was up and we all wanted to kill ‘niggers.’ This shooting human beings is a ‘hot game,’ and beats rabbit hunting all to pieces.” Another wrote that “the boys go for the enemy as if they were chasing jack-rabbits …. I, for one, hope that Uncle Sam will apply the chastening rod, good, hard, and plenty, and lay it on until they come into the reservation and promise to be good ‘Injuns.'”

Last week in northern Iraq another American colonel, Joe Anderson of the 101st Airborne (Assault) Division, revealed that he is incapable of perceiving Arabs as human beings. Colonel Anderson, who doubles as a commander and host of a radio call-in program and a TV show designed to win the hearts and minds of the people of Mosul, had learned that someone was out to assassinate him. In the wild mood swing common to racists, Anderson decided that Iraqis are all alike – and of a different breed. He said as much to the Los Angeles Times [13].

“They don’t understand being nice,” said Anderson, who helps oversee the military zone that includes Mosul and environs. He doesn’t hide his irritation after months dedicated to restoring the city: “We spent so long here working with kid gloves, but the average Iraqi guy will tell you, ‘The only thing people respect here is violence…. They only understand being shot at, being killed. That’s the culture.’ … Nice guys do finish last here.”

Col. Anderson personifies the unfitness of Americans to play a major role in the world, much less rule it. “We poured a lot of our heart and soul into trying to help the people,” he bitched, as if Americans were God’s gift to the planet. “But it can be frustrating when you hear stupid people still saying, ‘You’re occupiers. You want our oil. You’re turning our country over to Israel.'” He cannot fathom that other people – non-whites – aspire to run their own affairs, and will kill and die to achieve that basic right.

What does this have to do with the Mayflower? Everything. Although possibly against their wishes, the Pilgrims hosted the Wampanoag for three no doubt anxious days. The same men killed and enslaved Wampanoags immediately before and after the feast. They, their newly arrived English comrades and their children roasted hundreds of neighboring Indians alive just 16 years later, and two generations afterwards cleared nearly the whole of New England of its indigenous “savages,” while enthusiastically enriching themselves through the invention of transoceanic, sophisticated means of enslaving millions. The Mayflower’s cultural heirs are programmed to find glory in their own depravity, and savagery in their most helpless victims, who can only redeem themselves by accepting the inherent goodness of white Americans.

Thanksgiving encourages these cognitive cripples in their madness, just as it is designed to do.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at [email protected] [14].

“The Sioux (aka Lakota) Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.” – Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey

We turkey-celebrating, obese, sports-addicted, shop-until-you-drop, historically-illiterate couch potatoes are all beneficiaries of the acts of our guilty ancestors who may have been unaware perpetrators of the crimes against humanity that occurred during the never-ending, shameful 500 year-long history of genocide, ethnic cleansing, colonizing and occupation of the people and the land that rightfully belonged the aboriginal tribes that had inhabited North, Central and South America for thousands of years before Columbus (who had no clue as to where he was) and his sex-starved sailors disembarked from their stinking ships and started pillaging the land and raping the most nubile female inhabitants back in 1492. (Soon cutting off the hands of  those  who couldn’t bring in their quota of gold from precious metal-less mines.)

Thus started the systematic genocide against the aboriginal, non-white people that led eventually – and perhaps inevitably – to the cruelty and crimes against humanity that enslaved millions of black Africans, many of whom died in chains even before they reached this so-called “promised land”.

In many cases the psychopathic killer-conquistadors that followed Columbus, were initially welcomed, tolerated and even nurtured (a la the mythical First Thanksgiving) – rather than being killed off as the criminal invaders that they were. Trusting the intruders to return their hospitality – in the spirit of the Christian Golden Rule – turned out to have been a huge mistake, for within decades the slaughter began, performed in the name of Christ – with the blessings of the accompanying priests whose mission was to convert the heathen to Christianity  under threat of death.

Most of our European ancestors were greatly enriched by the US Army’s massacres, the occupation and theft of their land, the exploitation of the resources, the colonization and the destruction of their way of life. We pink-skinned progeny have been conditioned to believe way too many myths about our obfuscated history. Thanks to our cunningly censored history books and the myths learned in Sunday School over the ages, we have been led to believe the story about the “nice” Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620 and who gratefully shared a feast with their new friendly Indian neighbors (who were soon to be driven off their land and annihilated by the Puritan so-called “christians” and others that soon followed).

The disinformation process about the first Thanksgiving (and the successor long week-end that happens every fourth Thursday of November in the US) has been designed to absolve our ancestors of guilt for the cruel bloodbaths that were perpetrated “in their names” by obedient soldiers against the militarily weaker aboriginals, a pattern that has been repeated against many weaker nations all around the world throughout our history.

The following censored-out stories about a few of our so-called “heroes” need to be told in the context of the true history of the American genocide of the First Nations people that happened right here in River City. Those “heroes” include Minnesota’s first two governors and one humiliated Civil War general.

The following quotes and explanatory commentary will expand on the title of this essay.

“The Sioux (aka Lakota) Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.” – Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey in a genocidal declaration made on Sept. 9, 1862. Ramsey had made a fortune in real estate because of his dealings selling property to white settlers and businessmen after he himself had negotiated US-Dakota treaties that cheated the Dakota tribes out of their land. (http://sites.mnhs.org/historic-sites/alexander-ramsey-house/history)

“I shall do full justice, but no more.  I do not propose to murder any man, even a savage, who is shown to be innocent.” “I shall probably approve them (the executions of the 303 Dakota warriors) and hang the villains” — Ex-Minnesota Governor, Colonel Henry H. Sibley, whose troops had defeated Chief Little Crow in the Battle of Wood Lake on August 23. Sibley had appointed the five member military tribunal that tried, convicted and sentenced, via death by hanging, 303 Dakota warriors that had been captured in the battle that ended the 6 week US-Dakota War of 1862.. Sibley was commenting on the fate of the convicted warriors, all but 38 of whom had their death sentences commuted by President Lincoln. Many warriors were imprisoned at Camp McClellan, near Davenport, Iowa and more than 1,600 non-combatants were imprisoned at a concentration camp at Fort Snelling over the winter of 1862 – 63. Those that survived the cold, the starvation diets and the diseases were then deported to concentration camps in Nebraska and South Dakota (Pine Ridge). (http://www.minnpost.com/minnesota-history/2012/09/150-years-ago-us-dakota-war-ends-battle-wood-lake)

“The 38 Indians and half-breeds ordered by you for execution were hung yesterday at 10 am. Everything went off quietly.” – Henry Sibley, in a December 27, 1862 telegraph message to President Lincoln. (http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/sibley.html)

“There will be no peace in this region by virtue of treaties and Indian faith.  It is my purpose utterly to exterminate the Sioux (aka the Dakota) if I have the power to do so and even if it requires a campaign lasting the whole of next year.  Destroy everything belonging to them and force them out to the plains, unless, as I suggest, you can capture them.  They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromises can be made.” – Civil war Major General John Pope, in a letter to Colonel Sibley, urging an all-out effort to totally exterminate the Dakota, (letter was dated September 28, 1862): The punitive 40 year-old Pope was infamous for his abrasiveness, conceit and loud mouth, with which he alienated his colleagues, his officer staff and his soldiers. Significantly, Pope had recently been summarily relieved of his command of the Union Army of Virginia and demoted to Minnesota after his humiliating defeat by Robert E. Lee at the Second Battle of Manassas just a month earlier (August 31, 1862). (http://www.civilwar.org/battlefields/secondmanassas/second-manassas-history-articles/second-battle-of-manassas.html and

http://usdakotawar.org/history/aftermath#sthash.XxnK8yhx.dpuf)

“As Europeans settled the East coast, they displaced eastern tribes who then migrated to get away from the White civilization, and they, in their turn, displaced weaker local tribes they encountered, and pushed many of those tribes farther from their homelands, as they took over their homelands.

“Westward moving Europeans would give the displaced eastern tribes … guns and gun powder and they would then instigate fights between the newly arrived tribes and the long established tribes in order to force the long established tribes from their homelands; and in doing so, extinguish the long established tribes’ ancestral ties that they had with the land, their ancestors and the spirit world. Evidence of this practice has shown itself time and time again throughout the Americas.

“Around 1750, a displaced East coast band of Ojibwe were pushed into the Dakota’s homeland and they then used French guns and gun powder to force the Dakota from their Mille Lacs Lake homeland.

“This was the strategy the European colonists used to greatly diminish the number of Dakota in their Mille Lacs homeland, which encouraged and made it possible for a French weapons armed, alcohol manipulated band of Ojibwe to violently force the Dakota from their Mille Lacs homeland.”

“Grieved by the loss of their lands, dissatisfied with reservation (aka, concentration camp) life, and ultimately brought to a condition of near starvation, the Dakota people appealed to US Indian agencies (involving ex-Minnesota governors Sibley and Ramsey) without success. The murder of five whites by four young Dakota Indians ignited a bloody uprising in which more than 300 whites and an unknown number of Indians were killed. In the aftermath, 38 Dakota captives were hanged in Mankato (the day after Christmas Day 1862) for ‘voluntary participation in murders and massacres,’ and the Dakota remaining in Minnesota were removed to reservations in Nebraska. Meanwhile, the Ojibwa were relegated to reservations on remnants of their former lands.

“What happened to the Dakota in 1862 and afterward was a grievous crime against humanity. If it had occurred in this present day and age the United Nations and the international community would condemn it and declare it to be ethnocide and genocide. A United Nations world court indictment would be issued and the perpetrators of this ethnocide and genocide would be rounded up, tried, convicted and punished for crimes against humanity.” — Thomas Dahlheimer from his long essay, entitled, A History Of The Dakota People In The Mille Lacs Area (http://www.towahkon.org/Dakotahistory.html)

Gov. Ramsey’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of November 3, 1862:

“WHEREAS, it is meet and in accordance with good and cherished custom of our fathers worthy to be “a statute forever in all our dwellings,” that the people “when they have gathered the fruit of the land,” should “keep a feast unto the Lord,” in commemoration of His goodness, and by a public act of Christian worship, acknowledge their dependence as a community upon Him in whose hands the kingdoms of the earth are but as dust in the balance.

“Therefore I, Alexander Ramsey, Governor of the State of Minnesota, do hereby set apart the twenty-seventh day of the present month of November, as a Day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God for his wonderful mercy towards us–for all the good gifts of His providence–for health and restored domestic peace–and the measure of general prosperity which we enjoy.

“Especially let us recognize His mercy in that He has delivered our borders from the savage enemies who rose up against us, and cast them into the pit they had privily dug for us; that our friends have been rescued from the horrors of captivity, and that our homes and household treasures are now safe from the violence of Indian robbers and assassins.

“And let us praise Him for the continued preservation of the Government of our Fathers, from the assaults of traitors and rebels; for the sublime spirit of patriotism, and courage, and constancy with which He has filled the hearts of its defenders; for the victories won by the valor of our troops; for the glorious share of Minnesota in the struggles and triumphs of the Union cause; for the safety of her sons who have passed through the fire of battle unscathed, and the honorable fame of the gallant dead; for the alacrity and devotion with which our citizens have rushed from their unharvested fields to the standard of the nation; and, above all, for the assurance that their toils, and perils, and wounds, and self-devotion, are not in vain; for the tokens, now manifest, of His will, that, through the blood and sweat of suffering and sacrifice, the nation is to be saved from its great calamity, and the great crime of which it is at once the effect and punishment; and that behind the thunders, and lightnings, and clouds of the tempest, the awful form of Jehovah is visible, descending in fire upon the mount, to renew the broken tablets of the Constitution, and proclaim FREEDOM as the condition and the law of a restored and regenerated Union.

“Given under my hand and the Great Seal of the State, at the City of St. Paul, this third day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two”.– Alexander Ramsey, Governor of the State of Minnesota

“Since 1970, Native Americans have gathered at noon on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth to commemorate a National Day of Mourning on the US Thanksgiving holiday. Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other European settlers. To them, Thanksgiving Day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of their people, the theft of their lands, and the relentless assault on their culture. Participants in a National Day of Mourning honor Native ancestors and the struggles of Native peoples to survive today. It is a day of remembrance and spiritual connection as well as a protest of the racism and oppression which Native Americans continue to experience.” — Text of a plaque on Cole’s Hill, overlooking Plymouth Rock, Plymouth, MA

Dr Kohls is a retired family physician from Duluth, Minnesota who has been involved in peace, nonviolence and justice issues and often writes about militarism, racism, fascism, imperialism, totalitarianism, economic oppression, anti-environmentalism and other violent, unsustainable, anti-democratic movements.

Former US Attorney Joe diGenova predicts that US Justice (sic) Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report on the Obama regime’s FISA court violations and US Attorney John Durham’s criminal investigation of the Russiagate hoax perpetrated by the CIA, FBI, Democratic National Committee, and presstitute media will be “very bad for people in the Obama administration. . . . it’s going to be devastating . . . it’s going to ruin careers.”

For the sake of accountable government, I hope that Mr. diGenova is right. But I have my doubts. Cabinet departments and government agencies are not very good at investigating themselves. Attorney General Barr’s job is to protect his department. He knows, and will be often told, that to bring indictments against Justice Department officials would discredit the Justice Department in the public’s mind. It would affect the attitude of juries toward DOJ prosecutions. John Durham knows the same thing. He also knows that he will create a hostile environment for himself if he indicts DOJ officials and that when he joins a law firm to capitalize on his experience as a US Attorney, he will not receive the usual favors when he represents clients against DOJ charges. Horowitz knows that his job is to coverup or minimize any illegalities in order to protect the Department of Justice from scandals.

In Washington coverups are the rule, and the DOJ coverup might already have begun. One sign of a coverup is to announce a future release date of the report. This has now occurred with Horowitz’s report on the FISA violations. The purpose of such announcements is to allow the report to be discredited in advance and to be old news by the time it appears.

Another sign of a coverup is the use of leaks to shift the focus from high level officials to lowly underlings, and this has happened with the Horowitz report, which has leaked that a low level FBI attorney is under criminal investigation for allegedly falsifying a document related to the surveillance of former Trump campaign official Carter Page in 2016. According to the leak, the FBI attorney has acknowledged that he did alter the document. In other words, it seems we are being prepared for a false story that the plot against Trump originated in lower levels and not with CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey, FBI Deputy Diretor Andrew McCabe, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and the rest. This is the way the coverups of the US torture prison, Al Ghraib, in Afghanistan was handled and the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Only the underlings take the hit as if they were in charge acting on their own, independently of their superiors.

Another sign that a coverup is in place is Attorney General Barr’s assurance that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself and that evidence to the contrary is just a series of coincidences that, misunderstood, resulted in a conspiracy theory. Caitlin Johnstone gives this short shrift.

Barr claims to have personally reviewed security footage that no one entered the area where Epstein was imprisoned. Previously we were told that the security cameras were not turned on, so what security footage did Barr review? Can the rest of us see the “evidence”?

Barr also in his prouncement evaded the remarks of the Chief Medical Examiner, who stated clearly that the damage to Epstein’s neck is not consistent with suicide but is associated with strangulation.

There was no reason whatsoever for Epstein to kill himself. He had so much dirt on the Western political elite that he could not be given his day in open court. So he was murdered. The question is, why was he picked up and murdered? Was he using the pedophile information to exact blackmail payments from those he had provided with underage sex? Is it possible for an elite society to be more corrupt than the Western elite society is? How can the West survive when its elites are corrupt beyond comprehension?

That Epstein did not kill himself is completely obvious, so when AG William Barr covers up Epstein’s murder, this is an indication that he will cover up the military/security complex/DNC/presstitute coup against President Trump.

From what I know of Washington, I am certain that Washington, the cesspool of the world, will never rat on itself.

*

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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog, Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published.

“If this country ever goes under, it will be for needless, egregious hypocrisy.”  — Norman Mailer, “Harlot’s Ghost”

Somewhere in Heaven, English author George Orwell is either laughing, crying, or looking on; mouth agape, speechless. The total corruption of the meaning of words in the English language, the acceptance by the general public of propaganda as news, and the surveillance of every single individual by Big Brother that he wrote about in the novel “1984” (published in 1949) have all come true.

I’m sure the explanation of “humanitarian bombing” would be of particular interest to him. The mainstream media in this country has reduced the immigration crisis to something like:

“Illegal aliens from Mexico are coming to take your jobs and live on your tax money. Good refugees from the Middle East are fleeing to Europe to escape Bashir Assad. Oh, by the way, the Muslims coming to the USA might be terrorists.”

Nowhere is the bastardization of language more apparent than in the current immigration crisis; not only in the Middle East and Europe, but in the United States of America. While the mainstream media is currently obsessed with Syrians fleeing “terrorists” attempting to get to Europe, it completely ignores the fact that the USA has it’s own refugee crisis; both with people fleeing our economic and military warfare around the world, as well as within our own borders, And just as Europe’s refugee crisis is a case of the unintended consequences of (primarily) British, French, and German colonialism coming home to roost, the immigration crisis in the United States is also of our own making.

The only people it is currently politically correct to vilify about immigration are “Mexicans” and Muslims. Nobody talks about the undocumented people here from Australia, Canada, Europe, and India; primarily because they are “model minorities” who will work cheaper than citizens of the United States. Most of them integrate seamlessly into American society, and they are usually conservative, and keep their mouths shut about immigration and foreign policy issues. And of course, they are mostly “white,” and so automatically benefit from the inherent privilege of the dominant Anglo-centric culture.

The United States of America is a nation of refugees. To be clear, a migrant is a person who voluntarily moves from from one geographical location to another for economic or personal reasons. An immigrant is someone who voluntarily decides to become the citizen of another country, and has the resources to do so. A refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country, often in fear for their lives. Not only is the United States full of refugees from our foreign policy in Central and South America, most of the Muslims who have come here in over the past 20 years are refugees from our follies in the Middle East. (folly, noun: foolishness, foolhardiness, stupidity, idiocy, lunacy, madness, rashness, recklessness, imprudence, injudiciousness, irresponsibility, thoughtlessness, indiscretion; informal craziness. ANTONYMS wisdom).

The refugee crisis in the Americas began in 1492, and has continued unabated since Christopher Columbus landed in the “West Indies.” The indigenous people of this hemisphere have been refugees from genocide, colonization, and European diseases for over 500 years. The conquest of the Americas was the beginning of one of the longest refugee crisis in the history of the world; second only to the exclusion of Jews from Europe. Unfortunately, both the exclusion of the “darker peoples” (Moors and Jews) from European countries, and the expropriation of indigenous people’s land in the Americas (and Australia and Oceana. And Africa. And Asia.) continues to this day. Most of the people crossing the “border” into the United States are actually migrants; their ancestors bones are buried in the Americas, the land is literally in their blood. They consider the plants and animals on these continents to be their relatives. It is the Europeans and Africans who are the “illegal aliens” in these lands.

The public school narrative in our country generally goes something like this: “Christopher Columbus discovered America, and then people from England and Northern Europe founded the colonies that became the United States of America. And Canada and Australia.” Of course it is rarely mentioned that Chris was working for (and was possibly a lover of) the Queen of Spain. There may be a cursory mention of the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Central and South America, but American history is so Anglo-centric that most Americans know next to nothing about the Spanish history of the United States. The Americas are unique, because along with Australia, they are the only continents where the original inhabitants were almost entirely killed off and replaced by another ethnic group. The Inca, Mayan, Aztec, Filipino, and other lesser known civilizations were decimated by disease, firearms, and hard liquor.

In Europe, Asia, and Africa, different kingdoms took turns conquering each other; but for the most part the Nubians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Huns, Mongols et.al. eventually went home. However, once they crossed the Atlantic and discovered the Pacific Ocean, the English, Germans, Spanish, and French did not. They over-stayed their welcome in the Americas, Oceana, Australia (and Africa and Asia), the legacy of which haunts Europe to this day. The Roman Empire morphed into to the Spanish, French, and British Empires. The United States of America is the final stage of this particular brand of militarized theocracy.

The average person going to “The Americas” was doing so out of duress. Like today, most people don’t have the wherewithal or the resources to just pick up and move to a foreign country. Most people never leave their ancestral homes, friends, and families unless there is some very compelling reason for them to do so. This country was not settled by bored dilettantes or timid bourgeois looking for adventure. Nobody in their right mind is going to get on a tiny, leaky, scurvy-ridden boat with a bunch of shifty-eyed strangers, cross an ocean full of sea monsters, and then have to live among people trying to hold onto their ancestral lands with arrows and spears and clubs. Not to mention the bears, wolves, cougars, wolverines, badgers, coyotes, bobcats, strange diseases, and most frightening of all: uncertainty. It wasn’t like they had round-trip tickets, like if they didn’t succeed they could always go back to…wait, that’s why they left; there was no “there” there anymore.

Most of the people who settled America were running from something; the law, a marriage, a disgruntled business partner, a jealous husband. Or perhaps they had been chased off of their ancestral lands by some duke or baron, or the King decided he wanted their 12-year old daughter for one of his serving wenches, or their village or country had been invaded, or disease and starvation had decimated their community.  Sometimes they were individuals who were given a choice by the local magistrate; “Get on that boat, or get your neck stretched.” Whatever, it wasn’t people from polite society suddenly deciding on a whim to go to America for a better life. There was no “better life” until most of the people and animals on these continents and islands had been killed and/or displaced. The people who colonized the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific were not Boy Scouts. It is easy to understand America’s propensity for violence: the code of the frontier was: “Shoot first, ask questions later.”

 The Refugee Crises In The United States

Those paying attention in history class in the U.S.A. may have heard of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Probably not, though. This involved the “resettlement” of the Five Civilized Tribes, (Cherokee, Choctaw, Muskogee, Chickasaw, and Seminole), from the Deep South to the Oklahoma Territories. While Native Americans had been driven off of  their land since the arrival of the Euros to these shores, this was an official expropriation by President Andrew Jackson, with the consent and approval of Congress. By 1837, at least 46,000 (undoubtedly more) indigenous people had been removed from their homelands, opening up the Southeastern United States for settlement.  These refugees included Europeans and Africans who had been living among the tribes. Thousands of people died along the way; the route became known as the “Trail of Tears. This was the first refugee crisis in America created by government fiat.

By the mid-1800’s, America was sufficiently “settled” so that the European middle-class could indeed come and seek opportunity, by which I mean riches. Most people didn’t come here to work hard and save their money and blah, blah, blah. The only reason to risk life and limb and spend all of your and your families life savings to come to America was to get rich; fast, and by any means necessary. Let me put it another way; there was precious little need for social workers and designers and managers. There was much need for steely-eyed gunmen, blacksmiths, wranglers, hunters, trappers; hard men, and the women who could put up with them. Farmers? No so much; nobody ate vegetables in those days. Starting with the Gold Rush in 1849, America forever became a symbol of not just a better life, but of getting rich…quick.

However, once here, “immigrants” faced a sobering reality. Being “white” meant nothing if you were in the way off another mans wealth and power. While there were indeed massacres of settlers by pissed-off locals; there were also scores of “range wars” fought between large land owners and small ranchers and farmers. It was common practice for the afore mentioned steely-eyed gunmen to kill entire families or even whole communities; sometimes while disguised as Native Americans. People only moved West if they had too; and they usually only had too when some railroad baron or big rancher claimed, bought, or just straight out stole their land. “Go West, Young Man” was not only an entreaty of Manifest Destiny; it was often an ultimatum.

Given the current political climate in this country, it’s hard to believe that the United States actually recruited immigrants to populate the Westward expansion, as well as to provide a steady flow of cheap labor for the Eastern and Mid-Western factories (as well as cannon-fodder for future wars). Millions of people left Eastern Europe, Ireland, and Italy fleeing famine, wars, and abject poverty. In 1883, this refugee crisis prompted Emma Lazarus to write a sonnet called “The New Colossus,” which was engraved on a plaque and placed at the base of the Statue of Liberty. This was supposed to be what America was all about: liberty and justice for all. The poem ends with these immortal lines:

“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-toss to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Unfortunately, once they got here, many Slavs, Jews, Irish, Portuguese, and Italians found themselves segregated into ghettos, and discriminated against in housing and employment. Apparently Congress did not agree with this whole “give us tired, your poor” thing, and President Chester A. Arthur’s unremarkable term in office was further tarnished when he signed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1883. This was the first time in this country’s history that a specific ethnic group had been officially excluded from immigrating here. Although this act was initially intended to last for 10 years, it was not repealed until 1943.

I don’t know what they’re teaching kids in school these days, but I doubt many of them have to read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck anymore. Which is a crime, because in addition to being one of the best novels ever written by an American, it demonstrates that the class divide in this country is at least as strong as the racial one. The Dust Bowl migration saw approximately three and a half million people, almost all of them of European descent, move out of the Great Plains and the Southeastern United States; most of them to California. The “dust” in the Dust Bowl was topsoil that has been killed by the modern techniques of plowing and irrigation, followed by severe drought. This resulted in one of greatest ecological catastrophes in the history of the world, as the farmland of the Great Prairie simply dried up and blew away.  Once again, the refugees from these disasters were not exactly welcomed (apparently nobody read Ms. Lazarus’s poem). Anti-“Okie,” “Arkie,” and “Texie” sentiment against these domestic refugees resulted in property destruction, beatings, and even murder. Some of these poor souls ended up in domestic exile in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth at the edge of the Mojave Desert; Bakersfield, California (The last I was there, it was 115•F).

The Great Migrationis the name given to the movement of approximately six million African Americans from the Dirty South to the Midwest, Northeast, and  Western states in the first half of the 20th Century. Again, nobody leaves their ancestral home without a compelling reason. As in the rest of the Global South, oil, timber, and fertile farmland were bought up by “landlords” and corporations. The land of former slaves and “freedmen” was expropriated by legal and extra-judicial means. If you had a choice, it was to be either a sharecropper or tenant farmer, subject to the whims of the land owner. How many lynchings and other murders were actually about property disputes? We’ll never know. Certainly some of these people were leaving voluntarily to seek better life, but did they really have an option? African Americans (and poor whites) were refugees first, then migrants. The migration from the South to other parts of this country continues to this day; and it’s a one way trip. Nobody decides to go back to the southern states after seeing the rest of the country. The recent events in Ferguson, Missouri show that conditions in The Dirty South are still bad enough to uh, inspire people to “get the Hell out of Dodge.”

Internally Displaced Persons

The United States has approximately two million individuals incarcerated in prisons and jails. We won’t go into how many people are being held in “black” sites around the world; these numbers are just within the borders of the United States. Two million persons without a home, separated for years, or for their entire lives from their families and communities. Conditions in most jails and prisons in the United States are the very definition cruel and unusual punishment; which the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions expressly forbid. These individuals comprise the largest identifiable group of refugees in the United States today. Most of those fortunate (?) enough to be released from Gulag Americana will wander the Earth like hungry ghosts, unable to find jobs or housing, and in many cases unable to even vote in this “democracy.” This results in a constant recidivism rate of about of about 66%. The judicial/prison/industrial  complex in this country feeds itself like the Ouroboros.

The official estimate for the homeless population in the United States is approximately 800,000 individuals. However, this number only includes people who are counted in a census conducted on a single night in major cities. It does not count people living in public and private campgrounds, and in sheds, garages, automobiles, and “intentional communities” outside the range of the census. Nor does it count people who have returned home and cannot afford to move out on their own, or those who are precariously housed in dilapidated buildings in the older sections of every major city in this country. And of course, it doesn’t count the aforementioned  prisoners. So in fact, the number of homeless in this country is “several” million individuals; many of them families with children. The first requirement of being considered a refugee is that you have no place to live.

The latest round of domestic refugees in this country has been caused by the “tech boom,” which is actually a real-estate speculation bubble. “Tech” hasn’t done anything really impressive since the silicon chip; most “innovation” is really old wine in new bottles. I mean, even the iWatch is just a computer. A really cool, teeny, tiny computer, but…a computer. Dick Tracy’s Wrist Radio (look it up, kiddies). And can someone please tell where is the value in a Twitter? Doesn’t the fact that the company has never made any money seem to bother anyone? ”Bio-tech” has been even less impressive, spending billions to cure diseases that are mostly entirely preventable, and coming up with therapies and drugs only the wealthy can access. Nevertheless, municipalities like San Francisco have gone all-in by giving these companies tax-breaks to move into parts of cities where the property values are low, thereby “revitalizing” them. But revitalization is a code-word for gentrification. When these companies move into a neighborhood, rents go up, driving out long-time residents. When a studio apartment in a run-down neighborhood costs $2000, the people who used to live in these communities become refugees in their own city.

The “Mexicans”

“In the United States there is no history; only media.” — Carlos Fuentes

“Operation Wetback”  (seriously) was an immigration law enforcement initiative implemented in 1954. This operation was a response to pressure from farmers and businesses North of the border to stop the “illegal entry of “Mexicans” to the United States. It was also supported by the Mexican government, who feared the loss of manpower for it’s agricultural and manufacturing industries. This law resulted in physical abuse, civil-rights violations, and the mass deportation of American citizens. Oh wait, those things are happening today!  A compounding factor has been the growth of the private prison industry, which is now operating “detention centers.” They could also be called refugee camps…or concentration camps. These de facto prisons are full of women with young children waiting to be sent back to unbearable conditions South Of The Border.

Monterey, California was the capital of New Spain in 1776, right about the same time the British colonies decided to stop paying taxes to the King of England and essentially stole this land and called it the “United States.” Spain had been on these shores (and interior) since 1492; you do the math. And by “here,” I mean from Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America to the Sonoma Mission in California. The Conquistadores were also in the Philippine Islands, Florida (Juan Ponce de Leon’s search for the Fountain of Youth is one of the best adventure stories of all time), and much of the Caribbean, especially Cuba. After Mexico declared independence from Spain in 1821, Spanish Territory in the much of the U.S.A. was divided into ranchos by the Mexican government. The U.S. government declared war on Mexico in 1848, and as a consequence seized all territory North of the present border, which included territories that are now the states of Texas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, and the grand prize: California.

At least half of the people most uninformed Americans and the mainstream media, call Mexicans are actually peoples from the mountains and jungles of MesoAmerica. While some of these folk are indeed Mexicans, U.S. foreign policies like the War On Drugs, The War On Terror, and the various free-trade agreements have turned much of the Global South into a free-fire zone. U.S.-trained militaries, militias, and goon squads drive indigenous people off of the land for the fruit and oil and lumber companies in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Columbia, Peru, and Ecuador, as well as Mexico. Those that refuse to leave are massacred.

The existence of an imaginary line in the sand cannot keep people from migrating, even with satellites, airplanes, helicopters, drones, walls, fences, tanks, domestic para-military militias, and ridiculous laws. Indigenous peoples have been moving from North to South, and South to North for millennia. The racist joke: “If you have two Mexicans in the room, you have at least one Indian” is basically true. Despite what you see on Telemundo and Univision, most of the people who live in Mexico, Central, and South America are mestizo; European and indigenous blood. Also, unlike the people on Latin American television, most people do not live in modern housing, or drive automobiles. In fact, most people in those countries don’t have enough to eat, clean water, electricity, roads, schools, or access to conveniences like refrigeration, modern medicine, and education.

Most of this migration is due to covert and overt subversion of these countries by foreign intelligence operatives (guess who?), drug cartels, and of course international capital. Consequently, some people are forced to leave their ancestral homes, families, and friends, and to borrow impossible sums of money to make an impossible trip; from literally the middle of nowhere to the biggest security state on Earth. People are driven from the countryside, usually into over-crowded cities with no prospects of gainful employment. Indeed, the only jobs for poor people in most Latin American countries is to work for the drug cartels in some capacity or other. So when faced with the choice of starving to death or being assassinated in the mountains or jungle, or facing long prison terms in the worst conditions imaginable, or certain death in the drug game, many people try to make it to the United States. Not because most of them want to “find a better life,” or to live like the people in the tele-novellas. No, most people just want to live.

If all the people that the “conservatives” call Mexicans were to leave tomorrow, their over-privileged lifestyles would disappear the first time they ordered a margarita. I mean, do they even know where Tequila is? Or what it is? (No, it’s not “cactus juice”). For starters, there would be nothing to eat at their fast-food joints or chain restaurants, and no one to prepare it if there were. Who is going to make those burritos and tacos Americans scarf up by the ton? And who do you think is really doing the cooking in those chic-chic restaurants (not the celebrity chef, that’s for sure)? There would be nobody to wash the cocaine out of the sheets at the fancy resorts and hotels, nobody to cut the grass and unload the trucks and watch the kids while you go to the mall or wherever. Nobody to do all the ridiculously dangerous and tedious work that is done by “illegal aliens.” Billions dollars would drop out of the U.S. economy overnight. And there would be nobody to scapegoat for the numerous problems the United States of America is causing around the world; or for our own self-inflicted wounds.

San Francisco: A Sanctuary City

Speaking of international war crimes, I met “Bashir” in Belize in 2009, and I asked him to be careful of U.S. meddling in his homeland. Haven’t heard from him in a while. Hope he wasn’t at a wedding party….. San Francisco has been home to refugees from Latin America every since this was Nueva España. The Chinese have come and gone from the Golden Mountain for centuries. The “Chinatowns” in San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles are among the oldest ghettos in this country. Displaced Filipinos have been making their way to Cali since the Spanish American War in 1898. After WWII, many Russian and Japanese refugees moved to the West, mostly to San Francisco and Los Angeles. “Little Saigon” in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco has become home to people from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar; most as a direct result of consequences from the Vietnam war. Recently, the City has had an influx of people from Syria, Yemen, Libya, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Somalia, and  Eritrea/Ethiopia. None of them seem particularly thrilled to be here, which indicates they are refugees, not immigrants.

San Francisco is an official “sanctuary city,” which means City officials are not in the business of checking peoples papers. There are asylum seekers here from all over the world. All those great international restaurants that San Francisco is so well known for? Thai, Burmese, Vietnamese, Afghani, Indian, “Middle Eastern,” Persian, Greek, Russian, Brazilian, Columbian, Cuban, Korean, Japanese, Salvadoran, Guatemalan, Nicaraguan, Moroccan, Ethiopian, Senegalese, and of course the many flavors of the many regions of Mexico and China. Most of them have some connections to refugees. If they are not owned by  asylum seekers, the people working in the kitchen and dining room are almost certainly working “off the books.”

There used to be a gift shop on Market Street near the Cable Car turntable called Afghan Treasures. They sold really nice handcrafted items from Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tibet and Nepal. This family was one of the first to flee the American invasion in 2001.  I was a regular customer, and I was always afraid to ask how their family was doing back home; but I did anyway. They always said everything was fine, but how could it have been? Although the San Francisco Bay Area is the most liberal place in the United States, rising Islamophobia forced them to change the stores name to…Hidden Treasures. And I’m sure they weren’t trying to be ironic. This was some years ago; they have been subsequently gentrified out of the City (Twitter moved into the neighborhood). But Afghan refugees continue to come to the USA; the closest smoke shop to me is owned by Afghanis, and they sell a brand of cigarette paper papers called “Afghan Hemp” that are the best papers I’ve ever used; (and I’ve used them all).

Today’s immigration crisis in the United States is only framed in the most simplistic sound-bites. In fact, it’s an enormously complex issue involving people from the four corners of the Earth. The bottom line is that most refugees, both domestic and foreign, are here as a direct result of the greed, ignorance, and hubris of our leaders. It’s long past time we stop calling the people entering, or attempting to enter the United States “illegal aliens,” especially those that are here as a result of our actions in their countries. All borders are imaginary, and all borders change over time. Many of the people Coming To America are victims of American Exceptionalism; hubris, ignorance, coup d’état, vulture capitalism, and benign neglect. The “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terror,” neither of which “we” are winning, produce thousands of refugees each day. Also hundreds of corpses.

A nation of refugees cannot possibly discriminate against refugees that result from the actions of it’s own foreign policy. But we do; we have gone so far off-track in this country that our moral compass is pointing to “H”…..Hell. We have homeless children starving to death on our own city streets, and yet have the temerity to dictate to people in a foreign country how to live; and we bomb them if they don’t agree. The alleged “Christians” who run this country need to read their Bibles, and to remove the tree from their own eye before worrying about the splinter in the eye of their neighbors.

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This article was originally published on Scoop.it.

Joseph Thomas is a San Francisco writer and digital media producer. [email protected] 

It’s almost as British as fish and chips and a pint, but what used to be embraced by the masses as a reliable source of information, the BBC, is now under increasing scrutiny for its overt political bias. With the growing popularity of social and alternative media, Brits are no longer taking as gospel what is pumped out by, this publicly funded service which is increasingly coming under fire for being nothing more than a propaganda machine for the sitting government.  The hashtag #BBCbias has been trending for some time now on Twitter, and with more and more commentators questioning the integrity of this public service, it’s clear that the organisation needs to take a long hard look at itself.

Let’s take the issue of Scottish Independence for example. Coverage of this, and of the Scottish National Party has been demonstrated to be biased for years. A 2014 report by Dr John Robertson concluded that BBC reports in the run up to the Yes campaign consisted of “typically a Westminster scare story, on the Yes campaign, mostly left unanswered and unchallenged” and that coverage had “not been fair or balanced”. More worrying however, the research had illustrated that this biased reporting could well have had a negative impact on the independence movement: “we have evidence of coverage which seems likely to have damaged the Yes campaign”.  The revelations earlier this year by a senior BBC journalist, Allan Little, that his colleagues viewed it as their responsibility to demonstrate how ‘foolish’ independence was, only adds to the case that coverage was far from impartial.

But despite the public outcry, it’s clear that few lessons have been learned. Much of the current criticism of the BBC is to do with its stance towards the Labour party led by Jeremy Corbyn. It couldn’t be more obvious from interviews by some of its top journalists – Andrew Marr for one – that there is an anti-Corbyn position, and in fact Corbyn has himself accused Marr in the past of ‘establishment bias’. A report from 2016 only looked into coverage of the Labour leader by the mainstream media in general and concluded that there was a “marked and persistent imbalance” in favour of sources critical to him. Furthermore, it singled out the BBC for using more ‘pejorative language’ when referring to Corbyn and his party colleagues and it gave almost double the unchallenged airtime to people criticising the Labour leader than to his supporters.

In recent months however, since Prime Minister Boris Johnson took office, the preferential treatment given to the government has been more stark than ever, mainly down to the nature of his ‘style’. For more than any other Prime Minister before him, Johnson has been accused of being economical with the truth. Therefore the BBC is under increased pressure to either promote the government position, as it has traditionally done, however extraordinary it may be, or rethink its approach altogether. One of the first to bring this issue to the public eye was acclaimed journalist Peter Oborne. Writing in Open Democracy, he stated that ‘British journalists have become part of Johnson’s fake news machine’. He accuses the Prime Minister of having “debauched Downing Street by using the power of his office to spread propaganda and fake news” and mentions the BBC Political Editor Laura Kuenssberg, saying she was ‘manipulated by Downing Street’ when she reported ‘insider information’ without questioning it.  But with the lies of Boris Johnson being exposed more and more, how long can the BBC protect him?

Peter Oborne does go some way to explaining the problem: “I have talked to senior BBC executives, and they tell me they personally think it’s wrong to expose lies told by a British prime minister because it undermines trust in British politics.” But in actual fact this does not convey fully what is happening. For the reality is, despite its mission statement boasting of its aim “to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain”, the BBC is, and always has been, a mouthpiece for the British government of the day. Its journalists, up until the 1990s were vetted by the British security services. It’s always had an agenda to promote the establishment narrative and to oppose any individuals or movements which threaten that. Scottish independence is a threat. Jeremy Corbyn is another. The former will break up the Union; the latter is deemed a security risk because of his pacifist tendencies and non-interventionist stance when it comes to foreign policy.

But with both these movements gaining ground, and British politics and society in a state of flux, we are now in uncertain territory. The period of post-war stability is now coming to an end, and so is it the reign of the mainstream media. For the BBC to survive in this new media landscape it will have to inject a heavy dose of honesty and transparency into its broadcasting, or face being obsolete.  As populism gathers strength, and people access a wider range of media sources than ever before, they will no longer be accepting things at face value.

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Johanna Ross is a journalist based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Featured image is from Media Lens

We are pleased to announce a lecture tour of Canada by the internationally-acclaimed British journalist, Vanessa Beeley.

Ms. Beeley is one of only a handful of journalists in the world qualified to answer questions about the war in Syria that have largely been ignored by the Canadian media:

• What role have successive governments of Canada played in the proxy war against Syria?
• Why do the White Helmets operate exclusively in areas controlled by terrorist organizations?
• What were the mysterious circumstances under which White Helmets founder, James LeMesurier, died recently in Turkey?
• Why did Israel become involved in extracting White Helmets from Syria to Jordan and Canada?
• How is it that the Syrian government, portrayed in the West as a brutal “regime”, is winning the war?

Vanessa Beeley is an independent journalist and photographer who has worked extensively in the Middle East – on the ground in Syria, Egypt, Egypt, Iraq, and Palestine, while also covering the conflict in Yemen since 2015. In 2017, Vanessa was a finalist for the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism which was won by the much-acclaimed Robert Parry that year.

In 2018, Vanessa was named one of the 238 most respected journalists in the UK by the British National Council for the Training of Journalists. In 2019, Vanessa was among recipients of the Serena Shim Award for uncompromising integrity in journalism.

Vanessa contributes regularly to Mint Press News, Russia Today, UK Column, The Last American Vagabond, Global Research, Sputnik radio, 21st Century Wire, and many other independent media outlets.

Ms. Beeley will appear in seven Canadian cities challenging the official Canadian government narrative on Syria. The title of her lecture is “Canada’s Dirty War Against Syria: the White Helmets and the Regime-Change-War Billionaires.” The seven cities are Hamilton (Dec. 3), Toronto (Dec. 5), Mississauga (Dec. 6), Ottawa (Dec 8), Montreal (Dec 9 and 10), Regina (Dec 11), and Winnipeg (Dec 12).

A Facebook events page has been created with the details of the venues and times of the lectures in each of the seven cities, click here. (or screenshot below)

Two successive governments of Canada, those of Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau, have been an integral part of the US coalition for regime change and economic sanctions against Syria since 2011. The Trudeau government has donated at least $4.5 million to the White Helmets since 2016 and has resettled about 250 White Helmets members and their families in Canada.

Ms. Beeley’s latest interview – with The Taylor Report at CFMU.fm – can be downloaded here.

The tour organizers call on the Trudeau government to end its economic sanctions against the people of Syria and to restore full diplomatic relations with Damascus. For more information, please contact Ken Stone at [email protected] or 905-383-7693.

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Lying is a money making activity and lies are commodities. There is a profitable global market for media and public figures committed to spreading disinformation.

Needless to say, “Telling the Truth”, on the other hand, Is Not a Money-Making Proposition. The monthly deficit we have been faced with over the past year is proof of this concept.

With this in mind, can you spare a dollar a day to keep disinformation away? Your support could make the difference and ensure that GlobalResearch.ca is here for a long time to come!

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Turkey Rejects US Demand to Return Russian S-400s

By Stephen Lendman, November 27, 2019

The capabilities of Russia’s S-400 air defense system is unmatched by anything in the West.

China was Russia’s first foreign buyer, its military saying it “saw that the S-400 system by its capabilities today is unparalleled in the world in its armament class” — including its ability to overcome heavy enemy fire and electronic countermeasures at altitudes up to 23 miles, its range up to 250 miles.

Video: “Les cendres de la guerre” with Dr. Ayssar Midani

By Mark Taliano, Ayssar Midani, and Michel Collon, November 27, 2019

Reporting from Joubar, a suburb of Damascus, Dr. Ayssar Midani shines a light on realities of the NATO war against Syria, and against civilization itself.

She takes us to places from which terrorists fired their missiles onto children, men, and women in Damascus, murdering and handicapping thousands. She shows us the location where terrorists tortured their victims.

Trump and Netanyahu: A Tale of Two Criminals

By Robert Fantina, November 27, 2019

Also, like Trump, Netanyahu is ‘serving’ without a mandate. Following the April elections, he was unable to form a coalition government, so for the first time in its ugly and bloody history, Israel had two elections in one year. He came in second, but was still selected to form a government. Alas, he was unable to do so, resulting in the opportunity being given to his nearest competitor, the equally odious and racist Benny Gantz, whose party, the Blue and White, actually won more seats that Netanyahu’s Likud party. But with Netanyahu blocking any proposal that didn’t maintain him as prime minister, thus putting him in a position to prevent the indictments against him that have since been issued, Gantz was also unsuccessful in cobbling together a coalition government. Now the opportunity is wide open for any member of parliament: good luck with that. All this paves the way for another election in March, thus making three elections within a 12-month period.

Establishing Fossil-fuel Free (FFF) Communities

By Emanuel Pastreich, November 27, 2019

The response to the increasing awareness of the threat of continuing a fossil-fuel driven growth and consumption economic model is a ruthless effort to block out serious reporting on climate change in the media and to downplay is seriousness in education and in the policy debate.

It is inspiring to see youth take leadership roles in the struggle to address climate change, but we have not even started to transform our economy, let alone our civilization.

Iran’s Barter Trade Deals with China, By-Passing the US-Dollar, “Dedollarizing” Her Economy

By Peter Koenig, November 27, 2019

While at the outset the Europeans did not want to appear as Washington vassals – and more – their corporations had already signed new business deals with Iran and were not keen on canceling them, The EU had attempted to design an international payment system outside of the dollar-dominated SWIFT transfer system, the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). Designed in January 2019, it is a special European transfer system, serving only European purposes to trade with Iran outside of US-dollar controlled sanctions. However, to this date not one single transaction has been carried out under INSTEX, mostly because of European’s are captive of an unexplainable puppetry dependence on Washington. The leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khameneicalled Instex “a bitter joke”.

Global Warming and the Ozone Layer: What’s More Dangerous, CO2 or Nuclear War?

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, November 27, 2019

While climate activists express their concern regarding the nefarious impacts of global capitalism on climate, including those pertaining to militarization (and defense spending), the scientific analysis of climate under the auspices of the IPCC  largely focusses on a single variable: Carbon Dioxide (CO2), i.e. the impact of increased emissions of CO2 derived from fossil fuels (including fracking) on average global temperature.

Depletion of the ozone layer is what triggers global warming. The ozone layer is in the Earth’s stratosphere. “Ozone is constantly being produced and destroyed naturally. This ozone layer filters out ultra-violet (UV) rays from the Sun and protects life on Earth.”

Harassment, Surveillance, Intimidation: How America’s Police State Deals with Dissent and Political Activism

By Larry Romanoff, November 26, 2019

Most Americans proudly trumpet their famed civil liberties such as freedom of assembly, freedom of speech and of thought, freedom of the press, freedom from warrantless search, the treasuring of dissidents and dissident thought, but these freedoms and liberties have long since disappeared into the police state that is now the USA, though the repetition of these myths in the media and their indoctrination in the minds of Americans continue unabated. The freedom to assemble peacefully in the US died many years ago, and many other so-called rights melted away with this one. True dissension is heavily circumscribed and anyone actually presenting a challenge to the established order will find himself targeted by the authorities.

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Over the course of my life I have watched integrity shrivel up and die everywhere in the Western world. It is not like it was ever really abundant, but there was a goodly amount of it, and it had authority. People, especially those in public life, weren’t shameless as they are today.

In the past decade I have watched the disappearance of free speech. An independent media disappeared in the last year of the Clinton regime when 6 mega-corporations were permitted to concentrate 90% of the media into their hands. Today free speech protected in the US Constitution is not valued as highly as the “feelings” of self-described “victim groups” who are offended by everything from truthful statements to traditional figures of speech. Even scientific discussion of the genetic basis of intelligence gives “offense” as does the use of gender-specific pronouns such as he and she.

Obviously false statements can be self-declared as true as when a biological male declares himself female and competes in women’s sports. Those who object to the obvious charade are declared “transphobic” and have to apologize. Sometimes they are fired for insisting on biological fact.

Exercising press freedom, as Julian Assange did, today brings charges of espionage and is misrepresented as a threat to national security. The media speak with the same voice, and it is the voice that serves the ruling elites. Truth is nowhere in the picture. The only purpose of the media today is to control the explanations for the elites. The media throughout the Western world is merely a Ministry of Propaganda. The young, never having experienced a free press or free speech, do not know what they are.

America today is a country that my parents and my grandparents would not recognize. If they were to be resurrected, they would think they were living in George Orwell’s 1984. And they would be.

I, and others of my generation, which is now passing away, are unable to accommodate The Matrix that elites and their media whores have created for the peoples of the Western world. Consequently, we are marginalized, despite our accomplishments and our grand honors, and if we persist we are libeled and slandered.

For example, Wikipedia has described me at various times as “a conspiracy theorist,” an “anti-semite,” and “a holocaust denier.” These labels were used despite the facts that I have never written a “conspiracy theory,” I have many Jewish friends and financial supporters and have had Israeli house guests, and I have never studied the holocaust or written about it.

I have been described in this way by Wikipedia despite the absence of evidence because Wikipedia is part of the mechanism for discrediting those who challenge official explanations. Whether this is by intent or from the opportunity that an open source provides to one’s opponents to libel and slander I cannot say.

Zionists don’t like me, because on occasion I republish on my website articles by non-zionist Jews and Israeli citizens who are critical of Israel. It is still possible to criticize US policy without being labeled “anti-American,” but if you criticize Israeli policy, or republish someone who does, it means you hate Jews. For me, this is really funny. My hand-picked principal deputy in the Treasury was a Jew. My Oxford University professor, Michael Polanyi, to whom my first book is dedicated, was a Jew. The Nobel prize winner, Milton Friedman, a Jew, was a supporter of my academic career. My favorite academic co-author was David Meiselman, a Jew. Ron Unz, a Jew, republishes my columns, as does Rob Kall, a Jew. Jews contribute to the support of my website. But according to Wikipedia I hate Jews.

There are many Jews who respect the truth and who fight for it. They are not in the Israeli government, but they exist. Zionist call them “self-hating Jews.” In other words, even Jews who criticize Israeli policies are labeled anti-semites. They are accused of criticizing Israel out of self-hate. The question many have is why alone among all countries of the world is Israel so determined to prevent any criticism of itself. Why only Israel?

Until recently—and who knows, perhaps again tomorrow—Wikipedia was calling me a “holocaust denier.” The “evidence” was a book review I wrote of two of David Irving’s books, neither of which was about the holocaust, but in one of the books Irving reported his findings that there were massacres and deportations of Jews. He concluded that there was a holocaust of sorts, but that he had been unable to find any evidence that there was the organized extermination portrayed in the official holocaust story. I quoted Irving’s conclusions, and Wikipedia misrepresented my quotation of Irving’s findings as my views.

A struggle ensued between the Israel Lobby and CIA trolls that inhabit Wikipedia and a number of my readers who would inform me that they had corrected the false attribution only to contact me 24 hours later with the news that the trolls had re-established the misrepresentation. At the moment the passage reads more or less correctly:

Review of David Irving’s books, Hitler’s War and Churchill’s War

In 2019, Roberts wrote in a review of David Irving’s books, Hitler’s War and Churchill’s War that “Irving, without any doubt the best historian of the European part of World War II, learned at his great expense that challenging myths does not go unpunished… I will avoid the story of how this came to be, but, yes, you guessed it, it was the Zionists”.[37] Roberts reported without endorsement Irving’s conclusion that “No German plans, or orders from Hitler, or from Himmler or anyone else have ever been found for an organized holocaust by gas and cremation of Jews… The “death camps” were in fact work camps. Auschwitz, for example, today a Holocaust museum, was the site of Germany’s essential artificial rubber factory. Germany was desperate for a work force.”

The question that remains in my mind is why, of all the many book reviews I have written, was a few lines from my report of Irving’s findings singled out for inclusion in my bio? Was the purpose to have a cover for misrepresenting the views of a historian, who has spent 40 years studying the subject, as my views, a person who has not spent 5 minutes studying the holocaust?

Attorneys thought that I might have a libel case against Wikipedia and offered to take a look. I was more interested in Wikipedia’s invasion of my privacy. I haven’t given permission to be included in their corpus of work that somehow they must market. The holocaust libel case bothered me, because it implied my consent to the idea that denying or challenging some aspect of the holocaust was disreputable and a reflection on a person’s character. But if those who challenge the official holocaust story are correct, what is disreputable about being a “holocaust denier?” As I haven’t studied the holocaust or the works of those who have, I thought a libel case committed me to a position that I had not examined. The issue is further complicated by free speech and free thought issues.

Looking at Wikipedia’s account of me I noticed other strange emphasis. For example, Wikipedia thinks it is important biographical information that Darrell Delamaide in USA Today, Luke Brinker of Salon, and Michael C. Moynihan of The Daily Beast have described “Roberts as a conspiracy theorist” and “as partaking in Putin worship.” By refusing to respond to Washington’s provocations in kind, Putin has reduced the risk of nuclear war. Why is acknowledging this fact “Putin worship?” Is this accusation anything more than the portrayal of people who do not help Washington demonize Russia as “Russian agents?”

I have never heard of Delalmaide, Brinker, or Moynihan. Has anyone? What are their achievements beyond serving as name-callers in behalf of controlled explanations? This ilk copies the way holocaust views were fabricated for me by misrepresenting my report on historians’ conclusions about the assassination of JFK as words based on my own investigations.

To prove my political incorrectness and lack of sympathy for gender equality, Wikipedia emphasizes that I “opposed gender integration aboard U.S. Navy vessels,” as did the US Navy. I am also guilty of not believing in “the existence of white male privilege.” Apparently, whoever wrote this was so intent on presenting me as politically incorrect that it did not occur to them why, if white males are privileged, they, unlike all others, are not protected by quotas and protections against hate speech and hate crimes. It was the white male senior engineer at Google who was fired for saying that men and women are good at different things. Some white male privilege when white males cannot express their view and cannot even state a correct fact.

There are other equally stupid passages in the Wikipedia account of me. But it is pointless to change them. The problem with an open source material like Wikipedia, as opposed to a professional peer-reviewed source, is that anyone can alter any account to serve any purpose other than accuracy and truth. Wikipedia by being open sourced enables falsification. I have concluded that it is best just to dismiss Wikipedia as an unreliable source. Otherwise it is an endless battle as there are more trolls than truth-tellers. In a world devoid of integrity, an open source encyclopedia is unable to provide reliable information.

Readers have a poor opinion of Wikipedia and Snopes. An example:

HAH! This reminds me of Quackwatch! I won’t even listen to anyone who says anything about health unless they are labelled a Quack by Quackwatch! Same with Wikipedia! If Wikipedia likes you, I do not! They are SO not a reliable source. I DO like them for looking up cities, with info and demographics, but that is ALL I will really use Wikipedia for! YOU NEED TO CONSIDER IT A BADGE OF HONOR IF WIKI DOESN’T LIKE YOU!!!! Bet you’re not popular with Snopes either! OH! And as for a conspiracy theorist! You know that ANYONE who does not believe everything they say is one of those! Another badge of honor! For those of us who listen to you, you are a hero, right up there with Ron Paul! Thanks for all you do, and hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Love to you and your family! Elaine

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

First published in 2011, this carefully researched documentary, reveals how the US manipulates protest movements (through covert ops) and carries out “color revolutions”.

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The Revolution Business, 2011 – Consultants are helping people countries like Ukraine and Egypt build a foundation of knowledge in order to start revolutions.

Democratic change has been demanded across the Middle East. But was what seems like a spontaneous revolution actually a strategically planned event, fabricated by ‘revolution consultants’ long in advance?

Revolution consultants are the worst nightmare of every regime. Srdja Popovic was a founder of the organisation ‘Otpor’, a revolution training school. It was instrumental in the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s and has now inspired a new generation of activists.

Political commentators like William Engdahl are convinced Otpor is being financed by the USA.

“The people from Otpor gave us a book in which they described all their strategies”, says Ezzedine Zaatour of the Tunisian uprising. That book was written by an American, Gene Sharp, and is now considered the “revolution guide book”, being used by opposition movements worldwide.

As Optor release their latest gadget, a resistance training computer game sponsored by American organisations, world leaders are voicing their concerns. “This is called a gentle coup!”, insists Hugo Chavez.

Transcript:

Script: Revolution 00:01

Democracy awakens In the Middle East. But what seems like a spontaneous revolution was actually a strategically planned event, fabricated by professional consultants long in advance.

00:11 IV William Engdahl (Sound bite English)

00:16
These revolution consultants are the worst nightmare of every regime.

00:21 IV Hugo Chavez
Here you can see the symbol of the resistance!

00:24
These revolution consultants are funded and supported by American organisations.

00:28 IV Srdja Popovic (Sound bite English)

00:31
These revolution consultants mainly operate in countries in which the western world has a clear interest. Hardly a coincidence it seems.

00:42 IV Gene Sharp (sound bite English)

00:48

00:55
Cairo in early February: The sudden appearance of the wild horseman at this demonstration shocked the world over. These aggressors on their horses stormed into the crowd and split the peaceful demonstration apart. What seemed like a brutal attack by representative of the old Mubarak regime was actually a staged affair. It was intended for the national and international Media. The Message: Egypt is in a state of Chaos.

01:20
Provoked by these false attacks, demonstrators reacted with violence and so the situation escalated. Always at the forefront: the members of “The Movement of the 6th of April. These men have been carefully trained for tenuous situations like this.

01:40
Right from the start the revolution consultants follow a specific strategy. A strategy developed by the Serbian Otpor organisation. The Organisation responsible for the downfall of Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic. This strategy, successful in Serbia in the 90s, became a blueprint. It proved successful once again when used for the revolution in Egypt.

02:05
IV OT Mohamed Adel, Activist, “the movement of the 6th of April”
Otpor organised workshops in the outskirts of Cairo. In these workshops we were trained in the art of peaceful resistance. We had to learn that the police are not our enemy and that we must try to get them on our side. We had to impress people with the idea of non-violent resistance.

02:37

02:39
Opposition movements from all over the world come to the Serbian Capital of Belgrade to be educated in the art of overthrowing a dictatorship. The Serbs succeeded with their own revolution 12 years ago. They now use their experience for their revolution training school “the centre of strategy for non violent resistance” or for short Canvas.

Chief instructor Srdja Popovic is one of the few Canvas members who would show his face publicly in front of the camera. It was in his office where the Egyptian revolution was planned.

03:14 IV Srdja Popovic , Revolution Trainer (Soubite English)

03:26 (fast!)
It wasn’t just Egyptians that trained here. Revolution training is high in demand these days.

03:31 IV Srdja Popovic (English sound bite)

03:58
In the 90’s, Srdja Popovic organised street demonstrations against Milosevic. He started Otpor as a youth movement with some of his fellow students.
From these beginnings, he was able to mobilise millions of people with his impressive enterprises. The financial support is coming from the USA.

04:02
Film: “Bringing down a Dictator”

04:29
Add: I had already tried everything to get rid of him. Now I found something that does the trick.

04:37
It works!

04:31
Text insert

04:41
Here, in front of the Belgrade parliament was the trial run for Otpor with many other Revolutions to follow.

04:49 question Reporter (in English)

04:52 IV, Srdja Popovic Democracy Activist (sound bite English)

05:14
After Milosevic’s downfall, Otpor became an international phenomenon. The symbol of the fist reappears all over the world as the signature of the revolution makers.

Established in Serbia, the fist re-emerged in Kumara, Georgia, followed by Oborona in Russia, then in Venezuela and Iran, and at last it was used by the opposition groups in Egypt.

05:40
The American author and Princeton University Lecturer, William Engdahl, has written for over 30 years about Washington’s secret geo-politics. He has established a widespread information network that extends deep into America’s secret service. He is convinced – Otpor is not acting alone.

05:59 IV William Engdahl, Author (Soundbite English)

06:43

06:44

In New York we are meeting again with Srdja Popovic. We want to find out if the Otpor organisation is actually following a secret agenda of the United States.

06:55

But to our disappointment Popovic is reluctant to talk about his arrangements with American organisations.

The Otpor movement was indeed financed by American tax money during the Serbian revolution. A fact that only became public knowledge after Milosevic’s downfall. This chapter however is one that Otpor is keen to close.

07:13 IV Srdja Popovic, revolution –trainer (soundbite English)

08:08
Columbia University invited Popovic as a guest lecturer.

08;15 Srdja Popovic (Sound bite English)

08:22
The guest from Serbia enlightens the students on the truth behind the changes in the Middle East. Who was actually behind it all? Popovic himself knew for years, but only now can he talk about it publicly.

08:39 IV Srdja Popovic (Soundbite English)

08:56

09:00
The old city of Tunis. The Tunisians were the first in the Arab world to overthrown their government. Yet the euphoria about their dictators downfall was hardly noticeable. The uncertainty of the political future leaves the Tunisian population anxious.

For decades the people of Tunisia were oppressed by Ben Ali’s totalitarian ruling. These days the capital seems to be dominated by a loud and harsh atmosphere. Its people agitated yet overwhelmed by their freedom. The centre of the town appears like a Roman forum: everywhere heated discussions about politics.
The new generation wants change. Most of the young people are well educated; they see themselves as westerners.

09:45
Until recently scenes like this were thought impossible. Suddenly the fear is gone – at least during the moment of revolt. The people are standing up; finally the world recognises the desperate political situation of their State.

Amine Ghali has been an activist from the start. He shows us the photographs of a meeting in Morocco which was the beginning of a long hoped for change in Tunisian history.

10`16 IV Amine Ghali, Freedom House, Kawakibi Democracy Transition Center, Tunis (Soundbite English)

10:58
The time was ripe for a ‘revolution test run’. Discontentment with the political situation had been growing amongst the population for years. Life in the slums had become desperate. Lack of food and medical care left the people without any perspective for a better future. With living conditions going from bad to worse, the Tunisians could hide their anger no more The activists saw their opportunity, they used this anger to achieve their goal: the overthrowing of Ben Alis regime.

11:28
OT Ezzedine Zaatour, U.G.E.T. Student Union, Tunis
In a way we have done the same that they did In Belgrade in the 90s. Non-violent resistance, the ridicule of the regime. There was no violence on the street even when the police intervened, we did not fight. The people from Otpor gave us a book in which they described all their strategies, how you have to proceed when you want to overthrow a regime.

11:50
That book, which is used by opposition movements worldwide, was actually written in Boston USA. Here is one of the intellectual centres of democracy activists.

The book ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy’ is considered the Bible of the non-violent resistance.

The author of this “revolution guide book” lives in one of the working class neighbourhoods in the outskirts of Boston.

12:18
83 year old Gene Sharp wrote this masterpiece. It contains 198 methods of non-violent action.

12:26 IV Gene Sharp, Author (Soundbite English)

12:50
Gene Sharp taught many years at Harvard University. His work describes various strategies from Hunger Strike to the unmasking of intelligence officials.
His assistant, Jamila Rqip, has the main duty to distribute Sharpe’s work. His Book “From Dictatorship to Democracy” has been translated into 34 languages.

13:13 IV Jamila Raqip, Albert – Einstein -Institute. (Soundbite English)

13:37
Sharpe’s „guide to Revolution“ is feared by Dictators around the world. Venezuela’s president Chavez called Sharp a rabble rouser in the service of the CIA. In Russia the possession of the Book is considered a hostile act against the government.

13:52 IV Gene Sharp, Albert –Einstein-Institute (Soundbite English)

14:27 With Internet anybody has access to Sharps revolution strategies.

14:34 IV William Engdahl, Author (Soundbite English)

14:55
Are all these revolutions actually initiated by the Americans?

15:01
We can look back at what happened during the “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine for evidence. One has to acknowledge that the events that took place in Kiev in 2005 appear to endorse this assumption. Traditionally Ukraine was part of Russia, but by the end of 2004 the tide turned. The United Stated pumped millions of dollars into the countries opposition movements in the favour of regime change.

15:26
We are meeting with the two former leaders of the Ukraine revolution. Just by being a member of the opposition movement “PORA” they received significant sums of money, together with training in civil disobedience. Finally they were given a book.

15:43
IV Mychailo Swystowitsch, former ukraine activist

Oh yes, the book by Gene Sharp. We all used it. And it connected us with everybody, with Otpor in Serbia, the opposition movement in Belarus and Kmara in Georgia.

15:57

15:59
It was in November 2004 when hundreds of thousands of people flooded Independence Square in Kiev and demanding Viktor Yushchenko for their president. 16:10 At the end of the Revolution the crowd got what they demanded. Yushchenko become president due to the massive support he received from the western world.

16:19 Soundbite Dmytro Poteschin, political consultant (Soundbite English)

16:28

16:31
The Revolution as a happening, a celebration, this is the spirit of Gene Sharp. Every movement becomes a brand with its own symbolism: oranges in Ukraine, the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the Tulip revolution Kyrgyzstan in, the Denim Revolution in Belarus, all different symbols but the same concept and the same sponsor: The United States of America.

16:51 IV Dmytro Potechin, Political Consultant (soundbite English)

16;58 Question reporter (English)

16:59 IV Dmytro Potechin , (Soundbite English)

17:19

17;21
After the Revolution in Ukraine, Dmytro Potechin made a career from being a former activist; he works now as well as a revolution trainer. From his flat he instructs the opposition movements in Iran, Russian, Belarus, and Egypt. Via Skype he is able to stay in touch with all his clients.

17:44 IV Dmytro Potechin , trainer for nonviolent resistance (Soundbite English)

17:54

17:57
An Activist of the opposition movement in Belarus is online. Dmytro is planning a work shop over there, which is not without difficulties as he is labelled Persona non grata by the Belarus government

18:11 IV Dmytro Potechin , trainer for nonviolent resistance (Soundbite English)

18;40

18:42
Back in Belgrade, Otpor Trainer Ivan Marvic proudly presents his new gadget for the resistance training. It’s a computer game that simulates the fight against the power of state. Ivan is sure with that game will make his training much more effective.
Sponsorship for the development of the game came from American organisations.

19:04 Soundbite Ivan Marovic, Co-founder of Otpor (Soundbite English)

19;48

19;49
Marovic declares, the new generation doesn’t want to read books, they would prefer to play video games, and it’s far more effective.

19:58 Soundbite Ivan Marovic, (Soundbite English)

20:03 Soundbite Ivan Marovic, (Soundbite English)

20;05

20:08 Soundbite Ivan Marovic, (Soundbite English)

20:12

20:14 Soundbite Ivan Marovic, Otpor trainer (Soundbite English)

20:34

20:35
Despite the Internet the Revolution trainers spend most of their time travelling to countries in need of a well organised resistance. Just In the past year Srdja Popovic alone flew over 100.000 miles. His inside knowledge and experience is his capital.

20:49 Soundbite Srdja Popovic, Otpor-founder Soundbite English

21:29
The Egyptians followed Srdja’s rules exactly and succeeded.

21:34

21:39
The whole world was watching as the people celebrated on Tahrir Square. The regime was powerless; if it had reacted with violence it would have lost its face in front of the whole international media.

21:52 Soundbite William Egdahl, Author (Soundbite English)

22:22

22:23 George W. Bush former US – President 20th January 2004 (Soundbite English)

22:28 Hillary Clinton US foreign –Minister 13th April 2011 (Soundbite English)

22:32 George W. Bush former US – President 19th September 2006 (Soundbite English)

22:36 William Hague, foreign secretary 8th February 2011 (Soundbite English)

22:47 George W. Bush former US – President (Soundbite English)

22:52
Guido Westerwelle, German foreign Minister 6th February 2011
You must not get the impression that what happens in the Streets of Cairo at the moment is initiated by the Western world or other foreign states.

23:05

23:07 The Iranian government produced this propaganda video.

23:10

23:12
The video is apparently unmasking a US conspiracy group. Part of this secret gathering is Gene Sharp; author of the guide book ‘From Dictatorship to Democracy’. The video shows Iran is acutely aware of just how much of a threat Gene Sharp and his strategies are to their rule.

23:30

23:33 Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez also voices his concerns.

23:38

23:40
Soundbite Hugo Chavez
Mr Cameraman come close, here the Symbol from Serbia and here the same in Venezuela in 2007.

23:50 This is called a gentle coup!

23:53

24:05 (slow!)
Cairo after the Revolution. The City seems quiet, apart from some religious upheaval. Remarkably few police or military forces are present. But everyday life is hard for the Egyptians. The constant fear of a counter-revolution is always at the forefront of their minds. Anyone and everyone is a suspect – a potential counter-revolutionary, who wants to bring back the old regime.

24:35
The old city is as vibrant as ever, only the tourist are missing. The people thoughts revolve around their immediate future – the upcoming elections. What will democracy bring for them? The established political parties? The military? Or the Islamic brotherhood? And then, what will be left from the spirit of the revolution – the hopes and dreams of the people of Egypt?

25:13
Adel
The people that suggest that there was a big master plan behind this revolution; they don’t know what was going on in the streets of Egypt. We have witnessed what our country had become. We wanted the changes, and we wanted them to come from our midst. We want to be the creators of our own destinies, to fight for our rights. I cannot believe that the Americans can influence millions of people.

25:40
The people of Tunisian still enjoy the new freedom. For the first time they are able discuss publicly what has troubled them for decades – their former leader’s lies, the corruption, the unfair distribution of wealth. They are unsettled however, by the recent arrests of civilians and the curfews. Also the economy is a major concern for them. Tourism is slow and foreign investors see Tunisia as a risky endeavour.

26:08 Soundbite Ghali (Soundbite English)

26:53
Soundbite Adel

We are scared, especially if we are looking at the example of Romania. There was a revolt against their regime, but then the old potentate’s came back into power. We fear that something similar could happen over here. There have been talks about a counter revolution. We therefore request that everybody from the old regime who had been involved in criminal activities must now be brought to justice.

27:13
The revolutionary road to democracy is one filled with many obstacles. Once the overthrowing of a government is accomplished the hard work starts for these revolution activists. Civil liberties must be established and defended. For the revolution consultants this has become a very lucrative business.

Journeyman Pictures is your independent source for the world’s most powerful films, exploring the burning issues of today. We represent stories from the world’s top producers, with brand new content coming in all the time. On our channel you’ll find outstanding and controversial journalism covering any global subject you can imagine wanting to know about. For downloads and more information visit: http://journeyman.tv/62012/short-film…

In a word, he wasn’t “our guy” in La Paz, Bolivia’s political capital. 

He didn’t surrender the sovereign rights of the nation and people to US interests.

He was democratically elected and reelected four times, serving from January 22, 2006 until stepping down on November 10 to avoid greater CIA-orchestrated violence, vandalism and chaos.

US-installed, unelected, illegitimate, political nobody hardliner Jeanine Anez replaced him — supported by Bolivian military and police junta power.

A state of siege exists in the country, heavily armed security forces patrolling strategic areas in La Paz and elsewhere.

The coup d’etat regime is going all-out to eliminate challenges to its illegitimate power grab.

Anyone supporting democracy the way it should be, the rule of law, and wanting Morales returned as Bolivia’s legitimate president risks arrest and imprisonment on phony charges of terrorism and/or sedition.

US-installed fascist tyranny replaced Bolivia’s first indigenous president, the CIA gaining another imperial trophy.

Morales’ own words defined him. In 2010, Fidel Castro said he denounced NATO, a “war-mongering institution, using arrogant and uncouth language, proclaim(ing) its right to intervene in any country of the world wherever (its) interests were being felt to be threatened,” said Castro, adding:

US-dominated NATO “ignor(es) the fate of billions of people, and the real causes of poverty and suffering of most of the planet’s inhabitants.”

Morales “stated truths that will go down in history,” saying:

“Welcome to Bolivia, land of Tupac Katari, land of Bartolina Sisa, of Simon Bolivar, and of so many men who fought 200 years ago for the independence of Bolivia and many countries in the Americas,” adding:

“More than 180 years had to go by for us to make some profound transformations and incorporate these historically excluded sectors in Bolivia, and I hope I am not mistaken, I think it is the only country not just in the Americas but in the entire world where 50 percent of the ministers are women and 50 percent are men.”

“(A)fter the Constitution was approved by the Bolivian people in 2009, the most excluded, reviled people, those that were considered to be animals, those that were the indigenous movement, now they are represented in the Plurinational Legislative Assembly as well as in the departmental assemblies.”

“(W)e permit(ted) these indigenous brothers and sisters, who were left out and condemned to extermination, to be present…that had never happened before.”

“(F)ormer US ambassador Manuel Rocha (said) “don’t vote for Evo Morales. Evo Morales is the Andean Bin Laden and the coca growers are the Taliban.”

“Such accusations…bend the truth out of shape.” Hardliners in the US and Latin America falsely claim a “danger in the Andes, threats to democracy, to human rights” in Bolivia under Morales.

Castro added that “(o)ut of sheer modesty, Evo didn’t speak of the colossal advances obtained by the Bolivian people in matters of health,” adding:

“In the ophthalmological field alone, some 500,000 Bolivians had eye surgeries. Health services reach all Bolivians and about 5,000 General Comprehensive Medicine specialists are being educated and will shortly be graduated.  That sister country of Latin America has more than enough reason to feel proud.”

In his September 24, 2019 address to the UN General Assembly, Morales said the following:

“We meet in this forum to discuss and find solutions to the serious threats facing humanity and life on the planet.”

“(M)illions of people (face) poverty, hunger, no potable water, losing their homes, forced displacement, more refugee crises, and new armed conflicts.”

“The arms race, military spending, technology at the service of death and the unscrupulous arms trade have increased.”

“The financial system remains undemocratic, inequitable and unstable, which privileges tax havens and the banking secrecy that subjects weak countries to accept conditions that perpetuate their dependence.”

“Inequality, hunger, poverty, the migration crisis, epidemic diseases, unemployment, are not just local problems, they are global problems.”

“Transnational companies control food, water, non-renewable resources, weapons, technology and our personal data. They intend to commercialize everything, to accumulate more capital.”

“The world is being controlled by a global oligarchy, only a handful of billionaires define the political and economic destiny of humanity.”

“(T)he root of the problem is the (predatory) capitalist system.”

“(T)he responsibility of our generation is to give the next a fairer and more human world.”

“That will only be achieved if we work together to consolidate a multipolar world, with common rules, defending multilateralism and the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and international law.”

Under his leadership, Bolivia’s economic growth increased fourfold, its unemployment Latin America’s lowest at 4.2% in 2018.

“Extreme poverty fell from 38.2% to 15.2% in 13 years. Life expectancy increased by 9 years.”

“The minimum wage rose from $60 to $310. The gender gap in land titling for women was reduced. 138,788 women received land in 2005 and 1,011,249 up to 2018.”

“Bolivia ranks third in the world with the highest participation of women in parliament. More than 50% of parliament is made up of women.”

“Bolivia was declared a territory free of illiteracy in 2008. School dropout rate fell from 4.5% to 1.5% between 2005 and 2018,” infant mortality reduced by 56%.

“We are in the process of implementing the Universal Health System, which will guarantee that 100% of Bolivians access a free, dignified service, with quality and warmth.”

Legislation was passed to provide free medical care for cancer patients. Key natural resources were nationalized.

“(B)asic services (including water, electricity, and telecommunications were recognized) as a human right.”

Morales’ ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS) party opposed US sanctions war on Cuba, Venezuela, and other countries.

He concluded his address, saying “we ratify our commitment to consolidate a new world order of peace with social justice, in harmony with mother earth to live well (vivir bien), respecting the dignity and identity of the peoples.”

All of the above made him a marked man for removal,  bipartisan hardliners in Washington wanting him replaced by pro-Western puppet rule.

Self-exiled in Mexico, his democratic election voided, facing arrest on bogus terrorism and sedition charges if he returns home, the struggle for Bolivia’s soul continues in his absence.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

The capabilities of Russia’s S-400 air defense system is unmatched by anything in the West.

China was Russia’s first foreign buyer, its military saying it “saw that the S-400 system by its capabilities today is unparalleled in the world in its armament class” — including its ability to overcome heavy enemy fire and electronic countermeasures at altitudes up to 23 miles, its range up to 250 miles.

A dozen or more other countries expressed interest in or already contracted to buy S-400s — notably India, the Saudis, Iraq, Qatar, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, and Vietnam.

India paid Russia $5.2 billion for five S-400 systems to be delivered early next year.

Following Turkish President Erdogan’s mid-November White House meeting with Trump, he said the following:

“We agreed to seek solutions to the S-400 issue. I explained to Trump once again how we came to the point of buying S-400s.”

“I told him that we could not give up on the S-400s and that Turkey will not turn back.”

“We regard the proposal to completely remove the S-400s as meddling in our sovereign rights.”

“There can be no question of us leaving the S-400s and turning toward the Patriots.”

“If the current uncompromising stance on the F-35s persists, we told him (Trump) that Turkey would seek alternatives to meet its medium-term needs” — notably by buying Russian state-of-the-art Su-57 stealth warplanes, he may buy anyway.

According to Russian arms exporter Rosoboronexport head Alexander Mikheev, a deal with Turkey for more S-400s may be agreed on next year, saying:

“We hope that in the first half of 2020 we will sign the contract documents. But I want to stress that military technical cooperation with Turkey is not limited to the supply of the S-400s. We have big plans ahead,” adding:

“You can see how confident India, China, Turkey and other countries are on the international stage.”

“Many are openly outraged by US sanctions policy, which is trying to prevent them from developing their own armed forces and technical military cooperation with Russia.”

Following delivery of S-400s to Turkey last summer, the Trump regime threatened sanctions on the country — so far not imposed.

Last week, a senior State Department official unacceptably demanded that Ankara return purchased S-400s to Russia.

Hardline Senator Chris Van Hollen urged Trump to impose sanctions on Turkey. He accused Erdogan of “thumbing his nose at Trump, the US and NATO.”

Days earlier, the Turkish Defense Industry Directorate said the systems were bought to be used, not put aside.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Melvet Cavusoglu said

“(w)e told (the Americans) that we didn’t buy these systems as a prop.”

Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the S-400s “will be in ‘stand alone’ mode. They will operate independently” of NATO systems.

Turkey’s military began testing its S-400s by flying warplanes over Ankara on Monday. Further tests will be conducted at high and low altitudes.

Head of Russia’s Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSVTS) Dmitry Shugayev said:

“We will finish training the Turkish personnel by the end of this year. The system will be placed on combat duty by spring.”

It won’t be stored, kept inoperative, or returned to Russia. S-400s were bought to be installed and used if necessary. There’s no turning back.

A Final Comment

Bloomberg News reported that Senate members vowed to sanction Turkey for its S-400 purchase.

Pompeo earlier warned of Trump regime sanctions if Ankara makes them operational.

On Tuesday, he equivocated, saying

“(w)e’re still talking to the Turks. We are still trying to figure out our way through this thing,” adding:

“I don’t want to get ahead of what the president may or may not do, but we have made clear to the Turkish government our desire to see them move away from putting into full operationalization the S-400 weapon system.”

Congressional and/or White House sanctions on Turkey for its legitimate purchase, with more S-400s likely to be bought in the new year, perhaps Russian Su-35 and Su-57 warplanes as well, will further strain already greatly strained relations.

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

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

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

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

A global campaign encouraging individuals, organisations and institutional investors to sell off investments in fossil fuel companies is gathering pace. According to 350.org, US$11 trillion has already been divested worldwide.

But, while it may seem a logical strategy, divestment will not lower demand for fossil fuels, which is the key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, it may even cause emissions to rise.

At first sight, the argument for divestment seems straightforward. Fossil fuel companies are the main contributors to the majority of CO₂ emissions causing global warming. Twenty fossil fuel companies alone have contributed 35% of all energy-related carbon dioxide and methane emissions since 1965.

The argument goes that squeezing the flow of investment into fossil fuel companies will either bring their demise, or force them to drastically transform their business models. It makes sense for investors, too, as they avoid the risk of holding “stranded assets” – fossil fuel reserves that will become worthless as they can no longer be exploited.

For companies heavily invested in coal – the most polluting fossil fuel – this rings true. Although new coal plants are still being constructed in countries such as China, India and Indonesia, predictions by major energy agencies and industry alike indicate a steep decline in its contribution to the global energy supply. With cleaner alternatives readily available, coal is no longer considered a safe long-term investment – and widespread divestment will only add to this sentiment.

When it comes to oil and natural gas, however, the picture looks quite different. Oil is used for a much wider range of products and processes than is coal, while the cleaner reputation of natural gas gives it significant appeal as a “bridge fuel” to a zero carbon economy, whether rightly or not. As a result, the push for oil and gas divestment is likely to have unintended consequences.

Divestment troubles

The primary targets of the divestment movement are international oil companies (IOCs) – private corporations that are headquartered in Western countries and listed on public stock exchanges. ExxonMobil, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Total are among the private oil “supermajors”. [In a bitter irony, the Climate Action campaign is in part funded by the Oil companies GR Editor]

Recent research suggests that divestment can reduce the flow of investment into these companies. But even if the divestment movement were successful in reducing the economic power of these companies, IOCs currently only produce about 10% of the world’s oil.

The rest is mostly produced by national oil companies (NOCs) – state-owned behemoths such as Saudi Aramco, National Iranian Oil Company, China National Petroleum Corporation and Petroleos de Venezuela, located mostly in low and middle income countries.

Given that NOCs are less transparent about their operations than are IOCs, and that many of them are also headquartered in authoritarian countries, they are less exposed to pressure from civil society. As a result, they are “dangerously under-scrutinised”, according to the Natural Resource Governance Institute.

As they are state-owned, they are also not directly exposed to pressure from shareholders. Even the imminent public listing of Saudi Aramco will only offer 1.5% of the company, and this will mainly come from domestic and emerging markets, which tend to impose much less pressure to value environmental issues. Environmental groups have urged Western multinational banks not to invest in the Saudi company.

This means that while global demand for natural gas and oil is still rising, and investments are insufficient to meet future demand, divestment pressures are unlikely to impact the business plans of NOCs. As a result, instead of reducing global fossil fuel production, the divestment movement will simply force IOCs to cede market share to NOCs.

If anything, this would cause CO₂ emissions to rise. The carbon footprints of NOCs per unit of fuel produced are on average bigger than those of IOCs.

IOCs are also generally better placed and more willing than are NOCs to reduce the carbon intensity of their products and support the transition to renewable energy. They have, for example, led the way among oil companies in research into capturing and storing carbon, even if results have so far proven elusive.

Many universities have been targeted by the fossil fuel divestment movement. Jonathan Brady/PA

In a nutshell, the divestment movement will not reduce demand for oil and gas. It will transfer the supply of fossil fuel to companies that are more polluting, less transparent, less sensitive to societal pressures, and less committed to addressing the climate crisis.

Missing the mark

The divestment movement is understandably enjoying widespread appeal in a time of climate emergency. But by targeting the low-hanging fruit that are IOCs, the movement misses the more complex question of how to actually reduce the global demand for fossil fuels.

To achieve that goal, we’d be better off creating a regulatory environment that forces both IOCs and NOCs to redirect their energies. For example, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and putting a price on carbon would make heavily investing in renewables – already cheaper to produce than fossil fuels – more attractive for all energy companies.

Such changes could also generate nearly US$3 trillion by 2030for governments worldwide. These funds could be used to massively scale up renewables, prioritise the development of energy storage to address the intermittent nature of such power, and improve energy efficiency in industry, transport and housing – which will make fossil fuels increasingly redundant.

While IOCs now produce much less fossil fuel than they used to, they still have a huge amount of expertise that could be applied to the energy transition. In my view, rather than transferring power to less environmentally conscious NOCs, we should make use of them.

As for those with shares in fossil fuel companies: exercise your powers as a shareholder to pressure them to support the energy transition as constructively and ethically as possible. Your influence matters.

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Stefan Andreasson is a Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Queen’s University Belfast.

Britain’s ruling Conservative party has vowed to ban UK public bodies from participating in boycott and divestment campaigns of any foreign country in its manifesto.

The Conservative Party’s proposals could mean new legislation will bar local government bodies and universities from endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli human rights violations.

“We will ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, divestment or sanctions campaigns against foreign countries,” stated the Conservative Party’s manifesto, which was published on Sunday.

This proposal comes days after the UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) launched an appeal to the Supreme Court over the government’s ban on local government divesting pension schemes from companies connected to a foreign country.

Commenting on the Conservative Party pledge, PSC director Ben Jamal condemned proposals to ban public bodies from participating in boycotts.

“The Israeli government, with the support of the [US President Donald] Trump administration, is running roughshod over international law and ramping up its human rights violations against Palestinians,” Jamal told Middle East Eye.

“In this context, the Conservative Party should be committing the UK to implement its responsibilities to hold Israel to account, rather than seeking to prevent public bodies from making ethical decisions not to invest their money in supporting Israeli apartheid.”

Last year, the UK Court of Appeal ruled in the government’s favour, declaring lawful a ban on local government pension schemes divesting from companies involved in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

The 2018 ruling overturned a June 2017 judgement from the UK High Court, which had stated that the government acted unlawfully in stopping local councils from divesting from companies involved in the occupation.

Ryvka Barnard, a senior campaigner for War on Want, condemned the manifesto pledge as undermining a tactic long used by human rights activists in Britain.

“Boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns have long been used to protest injustice,” Barnard told MEE. “From the Bristol bus boycotts in the 1960s over refusal to employ Black or Asian bus crews, to sanctions campaigns to pressure the South African apartheid regime, to today’s divestment campaigns to end institutional complicity with the destructive fossil fuel industry.

“Where our own government has failed to act in accordance with its own policies and international law, ordinary people have stepped up…In the UK, existing policies like the Trade Union Act, the Lobbying Act, and the repressive Prevent agenda already undermine the rights of people to protest,” she added. “This latest proposal will further weaken those rights.”

Earlier this month, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of clearly labelling products made in Israeli settlements as having been produced in the occupied West Bank.

Founded in 2005, the BDS campaign was created as a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups with the aim of using non-violent methods to pressure Israel to end its illegal occupation of the West Bank and end its siege on the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli government has since set up a department called the Ministry of Strategic Affairs in a bid to counter the BDS movement. Since its establishment, laws have been introduced in several countries, including in the United States and France, with the stated aim of criminalising BDS.

On Monday, Israeli authorities deported Human Rights Watch (HRW) director for Israel and the Palestinian territories Omar Shakir after accusing him of supporting the BDS movement – an accusation he denied. HRW denounced his expulsion as an attempt to silence critics of the Israeli government.

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Palestinians are calling for people internationally to take action against the companies complicit in Israel’s systematic demolition of Palestinian homes. This article focuses on British university partnerships with JCB, Caterpillar, HSBC and Volvo – four companies which are complicit in the home demolition policy. We also focus on six British universities:

• Sheffield Hallam University’s partnerships with JCB, Caterpillar and Volvo
• Warwick University’s partnership with JCB
• NMITE Hereford’s link to JCB
• Cambridge University’s links to Caterpillar
• Loughborough University’s partnerships with Caterpillar
• University College London Centre for Ethics and Law’s sponsorship from HSBC

In addition 27 UK universities hold investments in HSBC (either directly or indirectly), five invest in Caterpillar and four invest in Volvo.

Some of the information in this article is based on a database prepared by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which details UK university investments and partnerships.

This article is written in support of the Palestinian movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli militarism, colonialism and apartheid. In particular, we hope this will serve as information for action for students taking part in the #ApartheidOffCampus day of action in the UK on November 27^th.

Israel’s Home demolition policy

The Israel state carries out hundreds of demolitions of Palestinian homes and property every year.ⁱ Home demolitions are an integral part of the Israeli state’s continuing colonisation of Palestinian land.461 demolitions were carried out in 2018 in the West Bank alone.ⁱⁱ

The pretexts given for home demolitions are varied, for example:

• The land which the homes is on has been declared ’state land’
• The homes are deemed too close to one of Israel’s expanding colonial settlements
• The state is carrying out collective punishment against the families of those suspected of being involved in resistance
• The owners of the homes are deemed not to have proper planning permission (planning permission is almost never granted to Palestinians. Since 2000 only 226 out of 5,475 applications by Palestinians for planning permission in the West Bank have been granted)
• The land that the homes are on has been deemed ‘agricultural land’, a national park, a site of archaeological interest, a military area or a ‘firing zone’ⁱⁱⁱ

But, whatever the reason given by the Israeli state for demolitions, the overriding motivation is always the same: To push Palestinian communities off the land, and to facilitate the growth of Israeli colonies.

Demolitions within Israel

Home demolitions are ongoing within Israel’s borders too. During 2018, the state demolished the entire village of Al Araqib in the Naqab desert in the south of Israel 13 times.^iv On each occasion they were met with steadfast resistance from the residents, and many of the demolished structures have since been rebuilt. In April 2018 the southern village of Um Al Hiran was ethnically cleansed and its structures demolished. It is to be replaced by a new Jewish-only community.^v

Call for international solidarity

In September 2018 thousands of Palestinians, along with Israeli and international supporters, were resisting the daily attempts to destroy the entire village of Khan Al Ahmar, a bedouin village close to the expanding settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) issued this call to action against the international companies taking part in the demolition:

“The Palestinian BDS National Committee calls for a global civil society effort for preventing the imminent destruction of Khan al-Ahmar. When campaigning for Khan Ahmar and other Palestinian communities at risk of destruction and forcible displacement, we urge everyone to… organize divestment and exclusion-from-tender campaigns against these companies in your trade union, church, university — or include these companies in existing campaigns — to raise the price of their complicity in egregious human rights violations.”

In July 2019, the Israeli state carried out demolitions on a massive scale in East Jerusalem, reportedly its largest act of ethnic cleansing since the military occupation of 1967.

The BNC wrote at the time:

“On Monday, Israel committed its biggest crime of ethnic cleansing since 1967, against the Palestinian neighborhood of Wadi Hummus in occupied East Jerusalem. In a military raid that began at dawn, Israeli soldiers destroyed, in just a few hours, the homes of hundreds of Palestinian families. This attack came almost immediately after an Israeli military court had authorized the demolitions. Another 116 homes are under imminent threat of demolition in Wadi Hummus.

The magnitude of the crime is not only its sheer scale.

If Israel’s aggressive home demolitions are not stopped now, other Palestinian communities will be next. In Jerusalem alone, at least one third of all Palestinian homes are at risk of demolition. This would mean the forcible displacement of some 100,000 Palestinians…

Israel’s ability to ethnically cleanse the indigenous Palestinian population of Jerusalem and to force Palestinians into Bantustans carved out by its illegal wall and settlements can be hampered by the mobilisation of people power.”

The BNC has specifically called for action against JCB, Volvo and Caterpillar.

The BDS movement is also calling for action against HSBC, as the company has substantial investments in Caterpillar.

Bedouin homes are demolished in Abu Nuwar in July 2018 (Photo by Corporate Occupation)

JCB

British company JCB manufactures civilian and military bulldozers which are used in Israel’s demolitions of Palestinian homes.^vi During 2018, Shoal Collective found that JCB machines were used in demolitions of 130 structures, including 2 schools. At least 163 people were made homeless including 31 children.^vii

JCB machines were also used in the Israeli demolitions which made thousands of people homeless in Wadi Hummus in July 2019.

Sheffield Hallam University’s partnerships with JCB

Sheffield Hallam University’s (SHU) website refers to JCB as a ‘partner’. The university advertises that it offers vocational apprenticeship programmes in collaboration with JCB. These apprenticeships have been ongoing since 2015. According to the SHU website “[JCB] have developed a number of successful higher and degree apprenticeships with us, delivering a number of benefits to their business”. The website gives a number of examples of student apprentices who have gone on to work at JCB.

These student apprenticeships are a way of JCB increasing its skills base, and are highly beneficial for the company. According to Nigel Ward, a manager for JCB “The advantage it brings to JCB is that we’re slightly ahead of the game in growing our own talent. We get a full spectrum of capabilities coming from an apprenticeship…”

The SHU website even boasts that its apprentices will have a say in “Designing the future of JCB”

SHU also advertises engineering courses which have been designed “in consultation” with JCB. This shows that JCB are able to shape SHU’s courses according to the company’s requirements.

Earlier this year, students at SHU made the following statement about SHU’s relationship with JCB and with other companies complicit in the occupation:

“Sheffield Hallam turns a blind eye any to an ethical framework when it comes to having ties with JCB, BAE Systems, Hewlett Packard, Rolls Royce, Volvo Trucks and Caterpillar. That’s why, following from the successful pass of a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy at our Student Union in January 2019, we are on a mission to move beyond words into concrete actions to ensure students’ demands are heard, and their tuition fees are not used in forging such unethical collaborations and fueling more crimes against oppressed communities.”^viii

By running this apprenticeship programme in partnership with JCB, SHU is helping JCB with it’s recruitment of skilled workers. In continuing this programme, even when the complicity of JCB in Israel’s home demolitions has been pointed out to the university, SHU is showing complete disregard for the Palestinian communities which are being wrecked by the Israeli state’s home demolitions.

Warwick University’s joint projects with JCB

In 2017 Warwick University collaborated on a research project with JCB. A JCB engineer is quoted on an industry news website, boasting that the project helped JCB to develop their vehicles.

In collaborating with JCB on the project, Warwick University is ignoring the calls from Palestine to “raise the price” of JCB’s complicity in home demolitions.

NMITE Hereford

Britain’s newest university, the ‘New Model in Technology & Engineering’ (NMITE) Hereford has an ‘advisor’ from JCB.

Caterpillar

A soldier uses a Caterpillar military bulldozer to terrorise protesters in Kafr Qaddum.Photo by Mohamad Torokman.

US multinational company Caterpillar has become infamous for its support of the occupation. The company supplies D9 and D10 armoured military bulldozers, which are used in all of the Israeli military’s demolitions in the Gaza Strip.^ix

Caterpillar machines are also used in the Israeli state’s punitive home demolitions, where the military destroys the homes and property of the families of Palestinians suspected of involvement in resistance against the occupation.^x During 2018 Shoal Collective found that Caterpillar bulldozers were used in 7 punitive demolitions, and 86 invasions of the Gaza Strip.^xi Caterpillar machines were also used in at least three of the demolitions of the entire village of Al Araqib.^xii

Caterpillar bulldozers were used in the mass demolitions in Wadi Hummus in July 2019.

According to Shoal Collective:

“The D9 bulldozer is the Israeli military’s weapon of choice when carrying out its punitive demolitions, in contravention of international law. These demolitions are acts of collective punishment, aimed at wreaking vengeance on the families of Palestinians who are suspected of resistance.

Caterpillar’s non-military bulldozers are regularly used in Israel’s home demolitions in the West Bank, in settlement building and in working on Israel’s apartheid wall. They are also used to build roadblocks and checkpoints.”^xiii

Caterpillar and Sheffield Hallam University

Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) offers year long work placements with Caterpillar on some of its Automotive Engineering, Logistics&Supply Chain Management and Electrical&Electronic engineering courses. The university boasts that many of its graduates have gone on to work for the company.

Cambridge University

Cambridge University has partnered with Caterpillar through the Cambridge University Service Alliance (CUSA). The Alliance gives companies the ability to “influence and commission” research, as well as promote their brand.

While preparations were underway to destroy the entire village of Khan al Ahmar last Spring, CUSA were promoting Caterpillar’s participation in a trade conference in Dubai. As Caterpillar machines prepared the ground for the demolitions in August 2018, CUSA published an article about the unveiling of new research at Caterpillar’s premises in the UK.

Arms dealer BAE, which has sold weapons to Israel, and Cemex, which owns the company that provided cement for Israel’s apartheid wall have also been a part of Cambridge University Service Alliance.

Last year, 40 Cambridge University student groups signed a call for Cambridge to end its partnerships with BAE and Caterpillar. The statement reads:

“We, the undersigned, call on the University of Cambridge to immediately terminate its partnership with Caterpillar Inc. and BAE Systems, as part of the Cambridge Service Alliance. By maintaining this relationship, the University has made itself, and us, shamefully complicit in war crimes…

As highlighted by Human Rights Watch, Caterpillar Inc. supplies the militarized D9 bulldozers used by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to demolish thousands of Palestinian homes, making way for Jewish-only settlements.”

Loughborough University

The partnership between Loughborough University and Caterpillar has been ongoing since the 1990s. Loughborough University has been given “UK Partnership status” by the company and a high percentage of Caterpillar’s new graduate employees have historically been from Loughborough University.

According to research by Palestine Solidarity Campaign,

“Loughborough University and Caterpillar UK Ltd have signed a partnership agreeing to collaborate on research to investigate new technologies for future Caterpillar products. The Caterpillar Innovation and Research Centre, part of Loughborough’s School of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, works closely with Caterpillar to develop new engineering processes and components.”^xiv

This close collaboration with Caterpillar makes Loughborough University deeply complicit in the war crimes being carried out with Caterpillar equipment in Palestine. There has been a high profile global campaign against Caterpillar’s role in the occupation since 2003, so the management of Loughborough University cannot claim not to know what their partner is up to. To continue the partnership shows complete disregard for the Palestinian people experiencing Israel’s racist home demolition policy.

The following UK universities hold investments in Caterpillar (either directly or through an investment fund):

• University of Manchester
• London School of Economics
• Royal Academy of Music
• University of Aberdeen
• University of Glasgowⁱ

Protest outside the HSBC AGM. Photo from bdsmovement.net

HSBC

HSBC is a major investor in Caterpillar. A coalition of UK based Palestine Solidarity groups is calling for HSBC to drop its investments in Caterpillar. According to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, HSBC has “£100million worth of shares in Caterpillar, [whose] equipment is used to bulldoze Palestinian homes and build illegal settlements.”

University College London (UCL)

HSBC is a sponsor of the Centre for Ethics and Law at UCL. The centre claims that it “promotes and enhances collaboration between corporates, practitioners, civil servants, academics and others around the broad themes of professional ethics and the ethics of risk”

Arms dealer BAE Systems is also a sponsor of the Centre.

The following UK universities hold investments in HSBC (either directly or through an investment fund):

• Glasgow Caledonian University
• University of Strathclyde
• University of Leeds
• University of Manchester
• University of Reading
• University of Sheffield
• University of Stirling
• Plymouth Marjon University
• University College London
• Royal Holloway University of London
• Royal Academy of Music
• University of York
• University of Glasgow
• Lancaster University
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
• University of Dundee
• Newcastle University
• University of Surrey
• University of Central Lancashire
• University of Birmingham
• Coventry University
• University of Aberdeen
• Aberystwyth University
• University of Leicester
• The Institute of Cancer Research
• University of Derby
• London School of Economicsⁱ

A Volvo bulldozer demolishes a home in the South Hebron Hills in 2018

VOLVO

According to Shoal Collective, Volvo machines were used in the demolition of at least 102 structure in the West Bank during 2018, including two schools. Volvo equipment was used by the Israeli state to destroy the entire village of Al Araqib eight times.^xv

Sheffield Hallam University (SHU)

Volvo Trucks is an industry partner of SHU, and several of its courses advertise that graduates have gone on to work for Volvo.

Volvo Trucks is part of Volvo Group (AB Volvo), which controls the manufacture of the bulldozers used in Israel’s home demolitions.^xvi

The following UK universities hold investments in Volvo (either directly or through an investment fund):

• London School of Economics
• University of Aberdeen
• University of Leicester
• The University of Glasgow ⁱ

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Tom Anderson is part of Shoal Collective, and co-edits the Corporate Occupation website.

Notes

Featured image is of Palestinians protesting demolitions in Khan al Ahmar in 2018, picture by Active Stills

From the moment that the U.S. re-imposed sanctions in earnest on Iran late last year, Pakistan has been looking at ways to resuscitate a deal that had been agreed in principle before the U.S. unilaterally withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) last May. This deal involved moving as much gas as Pakistan needs from Iran’s Asalouyeh into Pakistan’s Gwadar and then on to Nawabshah for further transit if required. At the same time, China has been in long-running discussions with Pakistan over the specific projects that Beijing wanted to place in Pakistan as part of its ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) programme. All the while, the U.S. has been trying to stymie any such arrangement but OilPrice.com understands that the Iran-China-Pakistan deal is now back on, and with a vengeance.

China’s covert strategic deals are virtually always buried in interminably long anodyne statements that belie the true laser-focused intentions of Beijing and this time is no different. Joint statements just over a week ago from both Pakistan and China sides laid out four projects that are part of a ‘broader co-operation’ between China and Pakistan. They all sound relatively run-of-the-mill affairs, although still major undertakings, and are: the upgrading of the Pakistan Refinery Karachi, the building out of a coal to liquid engineering plant based on Thar coal at Thar Sindh, the utilisation of Thar Block VI for coal gasification and fertiliser projects, and the finalisation of the feasibility study on South-North Gas Pipeline Project that traverses Pakistan.

The fact that they are much more significant to the global geopolitical balance was evidenced by the U.S.’s furious warnings to Pakistan, based on the fact that all of these projects are in reality a key part of Beijing’s planned China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which, in turn, is a cornerstone of the OBOR initiative. Even as it was, U.S. South Asia diplomat, Alice Wells, warned that CPEC – which, vitally, includes heavy financing from Beijing and, therefore, a massive debt obligation to China by the host country over time – will only profit Beijing. As it stands, the cost of just the first round of CPEC projects has risen from an initial costing of US$48 billion to at least US$62 billion right now.

“It’s clear, or it needs to be clear, that CPEC is not about aid,” said Wells. “[The CPEC] corridor is going to take a growing toll on the Pakistan economy, especially when the bulk of payments start to come due in the next four to six years,” she added. “Even if loan payments are deferred, they are going to continue to hang over Pakistan’s economic development potential, hamstringing Prime Minister [Imran] Khan’s reform agenda,” she underlined.

The U.S.’s fury would have been much worse if it knew that, in fact, the ‘finalisation of the feasibility study on South-North Gas Pipeline Project’ whilst true, is just proverbially the tip of the iceberg.

“The actual plan is to resuscitate the Iran-Pakistan oil and gas pipelines over time, beginning with the gas pipeline, moving unlimited amounts of Iranian gas to Pakistan, and then into China and the rest of Asia should it be needed,” a senior source who works closely with Iran’s Petroleum Ministry told OilPrice.com last week. “It is being done in conjunction with Russia, with the twin aims of firstly ensuring that China’s ‘One Belt, one Road’ initiative continues to run smoothly from the East through Pakistan and then Westwards into Iran and onwards into Europe,” he said. “And, secondly, to ensure for Russia that Iran’s gas does not start flowing freely into Europe as and when the U.S. sanctions are lifted, as this would undermine Russia’s power over Europe, which is founded on supplying over a third of Europe’s gas,” he  added.

For China, the new pipeline – integral to its plan of making Iran and Pakistan its client states over time – has the added benefit of putting the U.S. on the backfoot in the ongoing trade war. For Iran, the incentives of closer ties with China and Russia are principally financial but also relate to China being just one of five Permanent Members on the U.N. Security Council (the others being Russia, the U.S., the U.K., and France). For Pakistan as well there is the added incentive that it is tired of being lambasted by the U.S. for its duplicity in dealing with international terrorism. Not that long ago, the U.S. accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban (correct but it was catalysed by the U.S.’s key Middle Eastern ‘ally’, Saudi Arabia), Al Qaeda (correct but catalysed, funded and logistically supported by the Saudis), the Haqqani network (correct but also funded and logistically supported by the Saudis), and Islamic State (sort of correct but that was also mainly, of course, the Saudis) against U.S. forces, despite taking hundreds of billions of dollars in aid payments.

Islamabad has also been an outspoken critic of renewed U.S. sanctions against Iran. Just after the first wave of the new sanctions were rolled out on 7 August last year, Pakistan’s Foreign Office spokesman Muhammad Faisal said that:

“We are examining the implications of the U.S.’s re-imposed sanctions on Iran, however, Pakistan, being a sovereign state, reserves the right to pursue legitimate economic and commercial interests while respecting the international legal regime.”

Later, in his inaugural speech as Pakistan’s then-new Prime Minister, Imran Khan, called for improving ties with the country’s immediate neighbours, including Iran, from whose President, Hassan Rouhani, he also accepted an invitation for an early state visit to Tehran. Bubbling back at that time to the top of the list of practical initiatives that could be advanced quickly was the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline (IPP), which, according to the Iran source: “[Imran] Khan personally backs and has made a priority project.”

In practical terms, Pakistan certainly needs all the sustainable energy sources it can get. As it stands, the country has seen domestic natural gas production stagnate at around 4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) against demand of more than 6 Bcf/d, which has led to repeated load shedding in many major cities of up to 15 hours a day. Moreover, the supply and demand disparity is set to become even worse very soon, as industry estimates project that Pakistan’s domestic gas production is set to fall to nearer 2 Bcf/d by 2020, due to aging infrastructure, whilst demand will rise to around 8 Bcf/d by the same time, driven by rising demand from the power, industry, and domestic sectors as the economy continues to grow by around 5% per year. According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Energy (MoE), the planned 0.75 Bcf/d of gas (for five years, in the first instance) that would flow from Iran’s supergiant South Pars natural gas field would add around 4,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity into the Pakistan grid, via a direct Iran-Pakistan pipeline.

The original agreement for the IPP, signed between Iran and Pakistan in 1995, was predicated on the pipeline running from Iran’s supergiant South Pars non-associated natural gas field into Karachi but the most recent iteration of the route involves the gas running from Iran’s Asalouyeh and into Pakistan’s Gwadar and then on to Nawabshah. The latest projection of the cost of the pipeline is around US$3.5 billion, according to industry sources, although US$2.5 billion of this has already been invested in the 900 kilometre stretch on Iran’s side that has already been completed. Pakistan’s 780 kilometre stretch has yet to be started.

Given the geopolitical importance of both Iran and Pakistan to Russia and China, though, as analysed in greater depth in my new book on the global oil markets, finding the money for the remainder of the project will not be a problem at all For China, there is a threefold motivation. First, its plans to integrate the IPP into the CPEC project means that Gwadar is earmarked to be a key logistical node in China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative. Second, it wants to keep Iran as one of its key suppliers of oil and gas in the future. And third, it regards supporting those who the U.S. opposes as being a central plank of its foreign policy, even over and above the short-term tactic of wrong-footing the U.S. in the ongoing trade war.

“One immediate reaction [of China to the burgeoning trade war with the US], will be to seek to expand and broaden economic links by offering improved market access to non-U.S. companies, by strengthening supply chain links and by replacing American commodities with imports from emerging market nations,” according to Jonathan Fenby, China research chairman at TS Lombard, in London.

“There is a tectonic shift going on that goes well beyond the tariff war, as China seeks to assert itself regionally and tries to establish a wider global role for itself while the U.S. moves from the ‘constructive engagement’ of the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations to regarding China as a ‘strategic competitor’,” he added.

The U.S. clearly sees it the same way, not just based on the latest comments by Wells but also on the fact that as long ago as January 2010, the U.S. formally requested that Pakistan abandon the project in return for which it would receive assistance from Washington for the construction of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and for the importing of electricity from Tajikistan through Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor.

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Simon Watkins is a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author.

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Reporting from Joubar, a suburb of Damascus, Dr. Ayssar Midani shines a light on realities of the NATO war against Syria, and against civilization itself.

She takes us to places from which terrorists fired their missiles onto children, men, and women in Damascus, murdering and handicapping thousands. She shows us the location where terrorists tortured their victims.

We explore tunnels, dug by terrorists and their captive slaves, used to to store weapons and ammunition and to prosecute their Western commanded and controlled terror campaigns.

We hear testimony from Sameer Mjalli. Terrorists kidnapped his two brothers in 2012, and their whereabouts remain unknown. Mjalli is a refugee first from the Israeli occupation of Gaza, and second form NATO terrorism in Ghouta.

Video: Interview with renowned Belgian author Michel Collon

We learn how the West supports and grows the Wahhabi ideology, and continues to do so. We see how terrorists attack public service employees and indeed all secular institutions.

All of Dr. Midani’s observations have been corroborated by previous on-the-ground independent researchers. For example, in 2017 Prof. Anderson noted that,

“the hostages provide several key benefits for the gangs. First they are an important slave labour force in tunnel digging, second they are used as human shields, to deter air attacks; and finally they have been sacrificed at times as victims of ‘regime’ attacks, in ‘false flag’ incidents. No-one has any real idea of the numbers of hostages; but many civilians and soldiers are still missing.” (1)

In 2018, Eva Bartlett recorded this testimony from Khaled, a civilian who had endured life under terrorist occupation:

”‘They stopped me at night, I was on my way to get something. They suspected that I was working for the regime, helping the army. They took me to al-Taoubah prison, where they tortured me. They would tie me to a chair and shock my hands or the top of my toes. They would tie two wires to my toes then plug the other end to the inverter and shock me. They would keep doing that until you confess to something. I didn’t confess, because I had nothing to confess to. They tortured me for two days. What they did caused me to have a severe myopia, it felt like electricity came out of my eyes.’

Khaled spoke of an execution he witnessed in Douma. ‘They came in a truck with a 23mm (anti-aircraft) machine gun and blew off his head. Then, they accused the Syrian Army of killing him.’ A photo on his mobile phone showed a headless man sitting in a chair, no remnants of shelling.

Jaysh al-Islam blew his head off for selling food cheaply, because they wanted to keep prices high, so that people stay impoverished and would have to work for them in tunneling or join them in fighting.” (2)

Evidence-based documentation of what has happened in Syria and what is happening in Syria has always been the antithesis to the war propaganda spun by colonial media and Western “establishment” sources.

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

Notes

(1) Tim Anderson, “SYRIA: The Long East Ghouta War – Tim Anderson in Damascus.” 21st Century Wire, 14 October, 2017.
(https://21stcenturywire.com/2017/10/14/syria-long-east-ghouta-war-tim-anderson-damascus/?fbclid=IwAR3gYLcDaAwrQWTna4SWPX92uVZ6reWphc-ejTSh9wdRkDjDx9RH3XHh5kU ) Accessed 27 November, 2019.

(2) Eva Bartlett, “Torture, starvation, executions: Eastern Ghouta civilians talk of life under terrorist rule.” RT, 10 June, 2018.
(https://www.rt.com/op-ed/429349-syrians-tell-terrorists-white-helmets/?fbclid=IwAR29ewYvJySErhNvyDRPnsZmg8QLk8-xi8cUNXrvMSSw-WLFQKmlJw5NADQ) . Accessed 27 November, 2019.

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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. 

Voices from Syria 

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Author: Mark Taliano

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It has been interesting to watch the slow-moving arc of justice, or some semblance of it, at play in Israel and the United States. The trajectories of both nations has been somewhat astounding.

In the United States, the past several decades, at least since the administration of Ronald Reagan, have seen the country move to a position of less tolerance for minorities, less care for the poor, more governmental policies to benefit the rich, and an ever-increasing reliance by politicians on corporate donations.

Let this writer hasten to explain that the U.S. was never a place of tolerance and care for the poor, but things have only gotten worse, not better, in the past several decades.

This has come to mean that those running for the highest offices in the land are beholden, not to the people or the Constitution that they purport to hold sacred, but to those industries who donate so generously to their campaigns. This resulted, in 2016, with both major parties nominating loathsome candidates for president. While former First Lady, senator and Secretary of State, the corrupt Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote that year, the incompetent, clown-like narcissist, former reality-TV star Donald Trump became president due to the U.S.’s bizarre electoral college.

Three long and torturous years into the administration of Donald Trump, he now faces impeachment. Articles of impeachment are expected to be handed down by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives within the next several days. It will then be up to the Republican-controlled Senate to decide whether or not to remove him from office. Despite the compelling evidence that he abused his power for personal gain, there is little chance of his removal.

Let us move for a moment to the situation in Israel. That nation is the poster child for one that has never cared about human rights or international law. The brutal oppression of the Palestinians, dating back over 70 years, is the most obvious evidence of that. The current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has expressed utter disdain for Arabs, and under his corrupt administration, the ‘Nation State’ law was passed, decreeing that Israel is the homeland of Jews and no one else. So much for the approximately 25% of people living in the Zionist entity who are not Jews.

But now, Israel’s longest-serving (is ‘serving’ the appropriate word, when genocide, racism and personal gain are the goals?) Prime Minister, who has continued and expanded the brutal, racist policies of all his predecessors, appears to be reaching the end of his tenure with the proverbial bang. He has been indicted on a series of charges including bribery, and may be removed from office. However, like the situation in the U.S., he and his sycophant admirers are fighting tooth and nail to keep him in power.

Also, like Trump, Netanyahu is ‘serving’ without a mandate. Following the April elections, he was unable to form a coalition government, so for the first time in its ugly and bloody history, Israel had two elections in one year. He came in second, but was still selected to form a government. Alas, he was unable to do so, resulting in the opportunity being given to his nearest competitor, the equally odious and racist Benny Gantz, whose party, the Blue and White, actually won more seats that Netanyahu’s Likud party. But with Netanyahu blocking any proposal that didn’t maintain him as prime minister, thus putting him in a position to prevent the indictments against him that have since been issued, Gantz was also unsuccessful in cobbling together a coalition government. Now the opportunity is wide open for any member of parliament: good luck with that. All this paves the way for another election in March, thus making three elections within a 12-month period.

Is it odd that two nations, both built on genocide, whose leaders are contemptuous of international law and human rights, whose policies bring out the absolute worst in people, are now engulfed in chaos? Netanyahu can’t form a government and is under indictment. His racist policies have become so blatant that even U.S. politicians are criticizing him and them, something that was absolutely unheard of a few years ago.

Trump has alienated the military with his interference in military justice cases (in the U.S., the term ‘military justice’ is a total oxymoron, but that’s a topic for another essay), his disdain for their foreign-policy advice (e.g. the U.S. abandonment of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), and his general chaotic style of governing. Any semi-reasonable advisers he ever had have long since departed. In true Orwellian style, truth is seen as falsehood, imagined and completely debunked conspiracy theories are trotted out as if they were proven facts, and the poor, immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans and many others are seen as enemies to the U.S.’s ‘national security’.

The reader will forgive this writer for seeing much good potentially resulting from these two situations. Trump’s domestic problems, while solidifying his base, are certainly alienating many of the ‘undecided’ voters, those who, for some inexplicable reason, are still considering voting for him. Not that whoever the Democrats nominate will be a savior, rescuing the U.S. from its brutal, imperial ways, but such things as Supreme Court appointments and aid to Israel may be far more reasonable.

If Netanyahu is stripped of his role as Prime Minister, a major obstacle to a new coalition government will be removed. Yet the various parties are still very fractured, so Gantz will have to jump through many hoops, including some held by the Arab League, in order to form a government. Again, this will not mean democracy for apartheid Israel, but it could be a step towards alleviating some of the pain and suffering of the Palestinians. One does not wish to be too optimistic, however. Gantz has talked of annexing the West Bank.

A strong caution is necessary. A world power in decline is always extremely dangerous, so what either ‘leader’ may do to either ensure his re-election, or go down in spectacular flames, possibly engulfing much of the world, rather than slinking away quietly, as they should, remains to be seen. It is hoped that someone in U.S. governance will be in a position to prevent it, should Trump be removed from office or is defeated in 2020. And in Israel, which relies on the U.S. to finance and support its many war crimes, an incoming coalition government, assuming one can be formed, may be able to restrain Netanyahu. But in both scenarios, there is very little hope to cling to.

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Recently The New York Times featured two op-eds by resident hacks Bret Stephens and Tom Friedman as well as a featured editorial, all on the subject of Syria and how the Trump administration has betrayed the American people. The pieces were published back-to-back over the course of three days, clearly an attempt on the part of the editorial page staff to establish the paper’s “message” on what the war in Syria was and is all about. All the pieces were riddled with inaccuracies and out-and-out fabrications to support the false assertion that the U.S. intervention in Syria was somehow based on a desire to “spread democracy” and freedom while also serving some vaguely defined American national security interests.

The New York Times is not unique in its defense of a hawkish and interventionist foreign policy, but it self-describes as the “newspaper of record” based on its long existence and its location in the media capital of the United States. That means that it reaches a larger audience than most other media and also that it is regarded generally as credible. Therein lies the danger, as Times reporting and opinion pages will definitely have a major impact on how the public and even policymakers will regard certain issues.

The Stephens op-ed and the Times editorial are worth examining, but the tone was set by the first piece to appear, by Friedman, entitled “Trump’s Syria Trifecta: A Win for Putin, a Loss for the Kurds, and Lots of Uncertainty for Our Allies: It’s pure genius!” Even bearing in mind that the Times’s reluctance to ever feature an article favorable to Donald Trump, the title of the piece is particularly scathing.

Friedman began,

“On the eve of the Iraq war, in 2003, Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain addressed a joint session of Congress about America’s foreign policy mission: ‘In some small corner of this vast country, out in Nevada or Idaho or these places I’ve never been to but always wanted to go,’ said Blair, ‘there’s a guy getting on with his life, perfectly happy, minding his own business, saying to you, the political leaders of this country, “Why me, and why us, and why America?” And the only answer is, ‘Because destiny put you in this place in history, in this moment in time, and the task is yours to do.’ Blair is still right about the role that destiny has placed on America’s shoulders, but years later it is also clear that many Americans are exhausted with that role.”

Friedman goes on to claim that

“the job of the president, though, is to balance the understandable desire of Americans to no longer bear every burden and oppose any foe to ensure the survival of freedom with the fact that U.S. interests and values still require us to remain engaged around the world in a sustainable way.” With that mission in mind, he then accuses the White House of having failed to “make fine distinctions, leverage allies, and amplify islands of decency.”

What does Friedman mean? First, that Washington’s use of military force against ISIS, a legitimate and possibly even necessary objective, failed to comprehend the fact that in Syria “ISIS was the enemy of multi-sectarian democracy, and so were Russia, Shiite Iran, Shiite Hezbollah, and the Shiite-Alawite Bashar al-Assad regime. And they and ISIS all deserved one another.” Per Friedman, defeating ISIS was actually counterintuitive, as it would “reduce the pressure on Assad, Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah and enable them to devote all their resources to crushing the last moderate rebels in Idlib, not sharing power with them. . . . I feel terrible for the Kurds, but at least America might get the last laugh on Putin. Trump let Putin win Syria—and the indefinite task of propping up al-Assad’s genocidal regime and managing Iran’s attempts to use Syria as a platform to attack Israel.”

The Times commentator also asserts, as do many in Congress, that removing the Syrian government was good policy because doing otherwise “sen[ds] a message to every U.S. ally: ‘You’d better start making plans to take care of yourselves, because if Russia, China, or Iran decides to come after you or bully you, America does not have your back—unless you’ve paid cash in advance.’ ” He also quotes a self-described and inevitably “expert” Michael Mandelbaum who makes the same point in his book The Rise and Fall of Peace on Earth: “When we suddenly withdraw our support for an ally in one place—with no warning—we call into question our credibility everywhere.” Mandelbaum, it should be noted, is a fixture at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, an institution that one might describe as a breeding ground of neoconservatives.

Friedman fancies himself an expert on the Middle East and, to be sure, he has carved a lucrative career out of that conceit. But his principal argument—that Russia and Iran are enemies of the U.S. that must be opposed wherever they pop up while American troops should also stay engaged worldwide for reasons of credibility—doesn’t really stack up. And he also falls for the “moderate rebels” and Assad as “genocidal” lines, which have been repeatedly debunked.

Friedman does not understand that the United States would be far more respected—and credible—if it were to deal with the rest of the world fairly and honorably rather than blundering around using repeated threats of military intervention. In reality, neither Moscow nor Tehran actually threaten the United States, while it was Washington that was the destabilizing force in Syria by directly and indirectly supporting actual terrorist groups in a bid to overthrow Assad, an effort assisted by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States, which also were supporting the terrorist groups in a bid to maintain chaos. Iran and Russia were only brought in by the legitimate government in Damascus to help defeat ISIS and also al-Qaeda-linked groups like al-Nusra. In spite of Trump’s boasts that the United States defeated ISIS, it was really the hard and bloody work of the Syrian army and its allies who won the day.

Friedman’s belief that the United States must remain engaged worldwide because it is a force for all that is good “to sustain freedom” is, of course, palpable nonsense as the U.S. moves seemingly inexorably towards becoming a police state at home. Afghanistan has not been stabilized after 18 years of occupation, Iraq is experiencing demonstrations and rioting linked to the corruption that the U.S. introduced to the country, and a stable and non-threatening Libya was turned into a dysfunctional haven for terrorists and criminals through Barack Obama’s regime change for that country. And, all of the above taken together as part of the “global war on terror” have killed as many as four million civilians and unleashed a wave of millions more as refugees that the world is currently trying to cope with.

But perhaps the most laughable line in the Friedman piece is his citation of the need to prevent Iran’s using Syria to stage attacks on Israel. The fact is that Israel, which is not at war with Syria, has bombed that country scores of times in the past two years alone while Syria, and its ally Iran, have not even once attacked the Jewish state. To suggest that Friedman entertains a blind spot in a certain direction would be an understatement.

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This article was originally published on American Free Press.

Philip Giraldi is a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer and a columnist and television commentator. He is also the executive director of the Council for the National Interest. His other articles appear on the website of “The Unz Review.” He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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The coup-imposed “Interior Minister” of Bolivia demanded that (“former”) President Morales be jailed for life because of his supposedly “terrorist” activities, which amounts to the weaponization of fear-mongering labels for purely political reasons intended to intimidate his majority-indigenous supporters into stopping their resistance activities against the US-backed regime change.

Arturo Murillo, the coup-imposed “Interior Minister” of Bolivia, said in an exclusive interview with The Guardian over the weekend that (“former”) President Morales should be jailed for life because of his supposedly “terrorist” activities following claims that a recording has surfaced of him allegedly urging his majority-indigenous supporters to set up roadblocks all across the country as a form of resistance against the US-backed regime change. This threatening language amounts to the weaponization of fear-mongering labels for purely political reasons intended to intimidate President Morales’ domestic base into stopping their revolt. The very word “terrorist” is heavily loaded with innuendo and implies someone who is planning to carry out physical violence, something that President Morales and his supporters have no interest in doing unless it’s to defend themselves.

Still, calling him a “terrorist” is also meant to attract international attention, particularly the US’, and get others to pressure Mexico over its recent granting of political asylum to him since the coup “authorities” claim that he’s violating that status by supposedly engaging in political activities. It’s not even so much the alleged recording that they claim has surfaced, but the very fact that he’s been extremely outspoken (especially on Twitter) about the latest developments in his homeland, which they realize is having a tangible impact on the situation there by inspiring his supporters to keep up their resistance. The coup plotters assumed that the immediate imposition of their military dictatorship would be enough to scare the indigenous population into submitting to them, but that was a totally mistaken forecast that failed to take into account their motivations.

There are credible fears that “Bolivia Faces Croatian-Style Ethnic Cleansing & South African-Like Apartheid“, and after 13 years of finally living as equal citizens in their country as a result of President Morales’ unprecedented socio-economic and political reforms, the majority-indigenous population is willing to fight for their rights instead of surrendering to a future of second-class citizenship or worse. Even if President Morales remained silent (which isn’t his nature to do whenever he’s aware of oppression going on anywhere in the world), his supporters would probably have still erected roadblocks and organized mass protests because they literally have everything to do lose unless the regime change is (ideally, peacefully) reversed. Implying that they support a “terrorist” who should “spend the rest of their life in prison” might only incense them more.

It’s well known from the American precedent that peaceful people are sometimes labeled as “terrorists” in order to “justify” the state using forceful means against them, up to and including outright murder, so the coup “authorities” are only further contributing to the threat perception that the majority-indigenous population has of them. That probably won’t succeed in curtailing their protests and might even backfire against them, especially if some of the participants become “radicalized” by this rhetoric and commit to using force against the state before the latter uses it against them personally. That scenario could see the situation rapidly escalating to the point of triggering a more intensified period of civil war than the country is already in, with enormous geostrategic consequences for regional stability and especially the nascent “South American Spring“.

The weaponization of fear-mongering labels such as “terrorist” can therefore be a double-edged sword since it’s obviously intended to be an aggressive infowar attack against the target meant to convey the urgent message of impending violence against them but could also trigger the aforesaid target into using violent means against them first out of self-defense if they’re truly innocent of the “terrorist” charges and feel that they must strike first in order to stand the best chance of survival. Bolivia’s coup “authorities” are playing with fire by deviously labeling President Morales as a “terrorist” and thus implying that his supporters are too since no self-respecting person could accept the “legitimacy” of a state that falsely implies that their support of its democratically elected and legitimate president who was overthrown in a military coup is tantamount to supporting “terrorism”.

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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.

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The response to the increasing awareness of the threat of continuing a fossil-fuel driven growth and consumption economic model is a ruthless effort to block out serious reporting on climate change in the media and to downplay is seriousness in education and in the policy debate.

It is inspiring to see youth take leadership roles in the struggle to address climate change, but we have not even started to transform our economy, let alone our civilization.

Sadly, even the most committed climate activists, even those willing to risk prison time, or bodily injury, still find themselves washing with warm water heated by coal or natural gas, eating vegetables that were shipped on diesel-powered cargo ships, transported on trucks powered by diesel fuel, and wrapped in plastics derived from petroleum.

The components in the computers and cell phones that activists use to coordinate their protests, or to write articles about climate change, were produced using coal and other noxious chemicals at factories in India, China or Thailand. The electricity that powers the internet connecting them with fellow activists is equally unclean.

For that matter, the academics who conduct research on the climate change’s impact on our future have their retirement funds tied up in the stocks of companies with direct, or indirect, ties to fossil fuel profits (links that are often not disclosed).

We face the contradiction, of using disposable felt pens made of plastic in factories powered by coal in Malaysia, and transported by petroleum-fueled trucks and airplanes, to write protest signs condemning the fossil fuel industry.

Protest draw attention to hidden truths, but when the marches are over, we return home to a nightmare world that offers no escape from the fossil fuels. We have the choice to eat meat, or not, but there is no option to reject this industrial economy run in accord with the bankrupt ideology of consumption and growth.

But if there were a choice, even if the scale was small at the beginning, the nature of the protest could be expanded so that all our actions, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, became a part of it.

If citizens of the Earth had the opportunity to be a member of an economic system that had absolutely no ties to fossil fuels, or to the money generated by them, then every single action of ethical citizens, from brushing their teeth in the morning to turning out the light in bed at night, would be a form of protest.

Such communities would open the gate to an alternative economy, as opposed to a bit of greenery in the middle of an extractive and predatory economic order.

The next step of our protest must be the creation of local communities, linked together as part of global networks, whose economies are in word and deed 100% fossil-fuel free (FFF). Creating such economic, social and political units at the local level, even if they can only support 100 people, or 500 people at first, will offer the public a viable alternative. Those fossil-fuel free FFF communities will make it possible for those with a deep ethical sense to fully commit to a fossil fuel free Earth in word and in deed—not just “recycling” plastic at the supermarket, but never touching plastic again.

Moreover, the first steps towards FFF (fossil fuel free) communities can be taken immediately. There is no need to wait for some cynical politician to implement a carbon-neutral economy twenty or thirty years in the future.

Creating FFF Communities

Creating FFF (fossil fuel free) communities will require considerable bravery and sacrifice at first, and the number willing to commit will be limited. But we have that critical mass already. Remember, because 100% FFF (fossil-fuel free) communities will not be dependent for food, for energy or for finance on corporations, or banks tied to fossil fuels in any way, they will be able to speak freely in a manner that communities cannot today. Their power will be far greater than their initial scale would suggest.

Such will be a model for other communities around the world, and they will produce journalism and educational systems that others cannot because their dependency on funding linked to fossil fuels compromises their efforts from the start.

It will not be long before small-scale FFF communities will become powerful economic and political players capable of taking on multinational investment banks and oil companies and can offer a vision for an immediate and unconditional end to the use of fossil fuels-rather of a vague and open-ended plan to phase out fossil fuels in a manner that does not impact profits.

Scientific data shows that the date given in reports of governments and corporations of 2050 for the creation of a carbon-neutral economy is laughably late. Many experts write that we have only a matter of years, or months, to avoid a scenario in which billions of humans (and other species) will die, whether from floods and storms, from rising seas, spreading deserts, from starvation, and unbearable heat, or from hybrid wars waged for control of remaining scarce resources.

Although the main-stream media covers protests and declarations by governments of a climate emergency, there has been zero change for the majority. You may see a solar panel go up on an occasional house, but there are few laws even being considered (let alone being enforced) that require all food be locally and organically produced, all buildings be fully insulated and equipped with solar and wind power, and all transportation to powered by 100% renewable energy.

We must gather together a small group of people who will pledge to support the community, and each other, for the long term, and to rely for their needs exclusively on the FFF products produced by the community at the local level (until 100% FFF transportation systems are established). If we have activists who are willing to be arrested, we can find among them those who are willing to make a commitment to a FFF community.

Such a commitment must be a serious one. There must be a binding contract that commits new members to the community and commits the community to those members. FFF communities cannot operate in accord with the superficial culture of consumption, distraction and short-term thinking that got us in this trouble in the first place.

Perhaps new members of the community will commit their assets to the FFF community in return for a commitment from the community to care for them for a lifetime. Or some other form of deep social and ethical commitment is possible.

The fossil-fuel free community will provide a model, first on a small scale, for what human society could be if we embrace a consistently sustainable approach. We have few models now—and that is no accident.

The core of the economy of the FFF community will be organic farms that produce 100% organic food and transport it without the use of fossil fuels. At the beginning, citizens of the communities will encounter a significant drop in the diversity of their diet, but through their efforts and sacrifices, they will lay the foundations for a truly fossil fuel free economy. The food will be grown at home, on roofs and in empty lots in the neighborhood, or be brought in from local farms.

A revolution in thinking is essential: we must recognize that working together with neighbors to create a society free of fossil fuels is at least as important as writing articles for newspapers, lobbying the rich and powerful or giving (fossil-fuel tainted) money to environmental NGOs. The struggle to create a community free of fossil fuels in the full sense (no plastics, no products produced using fossil fuels, no products transported using fossil fuels) can be the defining effort for those who are involved.

Food should be sold (or exchanged through barter) in communal markets that encourage collaboration between farmer and citizen (rather than a transaction between a corporation and consumer). Those markets can serve as the foundation for new patterns of economic exchange entirely detached from fossil fuels and they can be expanded across the region, and then around the world. There is nothing radical about such organic farming communities. They are how humans managed to survive for thousands of years without destroying the climate.

We can find models in the communities of the Amish and the Mennonites. Although we grew up considering these groups who far, without machinery or artificial fertilizers as odd, they alone have pursued a sustainable economy while the rest of the United States embraced an insane system of industrialized agricultural production tied to global trade.

Organic farming for the immediate community will provide youth real jobs in agriculture and distribution that will be both paid and morally dignified. The ability to create food which is not contributing to the destruction of our Earth is a moral action that can inspire many to join in the effort.

The creation of fossil-fuel free (FFF) transportation for food and other goods is the other critical condition for such communities. Our citizens must understand that vowing to use only FFF transportation offered, even if it is profoundly limited at first, must not be viewed as unpleasant inconvenience, but rather as a pledge of moral bravery. We cannot wait for politicians to provide such “clean” energy (as politicians are easily persuaded to consider natural gas, electricity and even nuclear power to be clean).

Another critical part of the FFF community will be manufacturing. We must completely rethink manufacturing: the production of, and the use of, the necessary items for life. We must ask first how we will produce all the items we use without ever employing fossil fuels or plastic. At the same time, we must definitively end the promotion of, and consumption of, frivolous and status-related products.

Manufacturing for the FFF community should start out 100% local (until we have 100% FFF transportation we can use to link communities in the region, and across the world).

Eliminating fossil fuels means that we must cut back on how we use daily and we must manufacture items that will last for a long time. We need desks and chairs, bookshelves and chopping boards, shirts and sweaters, cups and pots that will last for 20-50 years, or longer. That shift in our economy means both an end to a commercial, consumption-driven culture and a focus on well-made products that are built to last, and that are valued for what they are, not what images they are associated with. No IKEA or GAP will be found in FFF communities.

The production and the distribution of 100% fossil fuel free products will create long-term jobs for our children and for our neighbors’ children. Manufacturing must be local and the return of crafts that produce durable goods will contribute much to our environment. We must move away from the dangerous concepts of competitiveness, free trade and industrialization. The misguided concept of growth must go also.

Changing culture, concepts, and attitudes

Fossil-Fuel Free Communities must be free of fossil fuel propaganda and the ideological assumptions planted by corporations that we cannot live meaningful lives without consuming large amounts of energy, seen or unseen. The response to climate change starts with an attitudinal revolution, not with progressive innovations in technology and governance. The FFF community must be a space wherein such a cultural transformation can take place without commercials that promote automobiles and the thoughtless consumption of food.

Not only must all citizens comprehend that climate change is an immediate and overwhelming threat in the community, we must create a culture wherein the practices required to respond, whether shoveling mulch, recycling glass and scrap metal, collecting human feces for use as fertilizer transporting food by cart, or generating electricity on an exercise bike (which is also good exercise) are perceived as an ethical imperative, as the valuable contribution to society. The cult of the self and immediate gratification promoted by a commercialized economy must be replaced by a culture based on moral philosophy, frugality, humility and the simple virtue of participation in society.

This shift is not entirely “progressive.” In a sense it is also a return to conservative values like modesty, frugality, and the importance of intellectual and spiritual engagement. The larger these communities become the more powerful will be this alternative to the commercial culture that dominates globally. We must unmask the false assumptions promoted by the insidious ideology of modernity that the human condition is improved by electrification, consumption, a vast increase in possessions, urbanization and transportation via private automobiles and airplanes. Unless we challenge the larger ideological framework, we cannot bring about the fundamental shift we require for survival.

Going green must not be limited to cosmetic changes in an economy that is based on the consumption of goods and services and that is rooted in the production and distribution of those fossil fuels.

We must make visible the hidden hierarchy behind the myth of modernity, one that is hammered home for all citizens in the movies (and in the commercials that come before and after them) and in news reports that we watch. The insidious assumption is that those who employ I Phones and who work multinational corporations, those who are shuttled around from capital to capital around the world in expensive automobiles, or luxurious planes, those who live in spacious homes and eat fine meals, are somehow doing more important work than those who transport goods, who clean our public spaces, who grow our food and cook our meals.

The criminal waste of resources, the pollution of our environment by fossil fuels and the concentration of wealth in a tiny handful of people is presented in the commercial media as a moral good.

The FFF community also must undertake a complete reform of the misleading concepts of real estate, private property and ownership that have done so much damage. Our society is controlled by contract law and corporate law which citizens are made completely ignorant of by the media. But we have no binding contracts between members of our community to help each other, or to preserve the ecosystem. The FFF community will be the complete opposite.

A pledge of loyalty by those joining the FFF community to end their ties to fossil fuels should be central to membership. We need the equivalent of a village contract, once central to agricultural communities in Europe, Asia, the Americas before the promulgation of the concept of real estate and the concentration of capital in the hands of the few. Such a village contract should spell out in a binding, rather than symbolic, the manner the responsibilities that each individual has to contribute to the production of food, tools, furniture, transportation and governance, and the commitment of the community to provide for the members of the community for a lifetime.

Reviving the Constitution of the Iroquois Nations, which made the relationship of human settlements with the environment central to governance, can be help us to overcome the legal distortions born of a focus on finance, property rights and real estate.

Currently, it is perfectly acceptable for progressives to participate in protests about climate change while investing their assets in companies making profits related to fossil fuels. We must demand zero tolerance and make sure all investment is tied of the community’s activities and tied to the creation of a FFF economy.

Membership in a fossil-fuel free community must be open to everyone and not segregated in accord with assets, level of education or cultural sensitivities. We must abandon the delusion that somehow a green economy focused on the upper middle class, those who can afford Teslas or big layouts for solar panels, will save humanity. Everyone should have access to information about the climate crisis as part of their education and of the media which surrounds them.

It is as critical that we explain the climate crisis to the poor and to the working class in terms that they can understand and to make a commitment to help them obtain quality educations, and economic opportunities, in return for their participation in the response. Addressing climate change by gala dinners, handouts from billionaires, and other stunts cannot effect a transformation of our society.

The establishment of our own FFF currency can be immensely helpful in this process. Our currency will represent the contribution of the individual to society and be backed by agricultural products, and other manufactured goods, produced in the community. That currency, even if extremely limited in its use at first, will have tremendous value for us in that it will not be linked to fossil fuels at any level. That means that as that FFF currency expands its use across the local economy, and eventually extends to the global economy, it can serve as currency without any links to fossil fuels, and the core of a similarly independent financial system.

The greatest travesty of our age is the silence about the link between global trade and climate change. Shipping goods across the Earth in the search of financial advantages for investment banks does tremendous damage to the environment because of pointless carbon emissions and the destruction of forests and jungles to produce factory farms and just plain factories in the eternal search for profit at the expense of nature. The inhuman mass production of foodstuffs (especially of meat) that is pushed in global trade does long-term damage to soil, forests and rivers and oceans. Moreover, the industrial approach to production and distribution of food and products has destroyed local economies and encouraged an unprecedented concentration of wealth. Fossil-fuel free communities offer the citizen a way to opt out of this destructive nightmare for the first time.

Conclusion

We witness a battle in the media, and in discussion groups, between those who argue that we must focus on changing our habits and our thinking first as a means of saving our Earth and those who hold that because most emissions can be traced back to a handful of multinational corporations we must first deal with them first, rather than allowing us to naively assume that because our own lives have less of a carbon footprint we are saving the world.

Although there is a danger that we can be distracted from the deep contradictions in our economy if we become overly myopic in our pursuit of personal sustainability that should not lead us to underestimate the importance of changing how we act daily. As the number of people out there increase who will not compromise on certain principles, we will start to shift the global culture and that culture will radiate up even to the most protected elites deeply imbedded in the fossil fuel economy.

That said, the best route is to combine the two strategies: to make personal choices into community choices and to make that community into an economic unit which will serve as the building block for an alternative economy from the ground up.

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Idlib liberated villages in the province’s eastern countryside are being rehabilitated by state’s workshops which helped the return of the majority of the IDPs to their homes.

Over the past 1.5 years since cleaning these villages form NATO terrorists, and despite the hardship due to the sanctions and continuous terror threats by al-Qaeda and their chief Turkish Erdogan, the public workshops are working on restoring the living conditions to the state it was prior to the US-waged War of Terror against the country.

The infrastructure was completed destroyed with Erdogan stealing power plants, and his al-Qaeda FSA terrorists destroying the roads, clinics, schools, utilities, and even the fresh drinking water networks.

Now, thanks to these state’s efforts, 70% of the displaced Syrian families have returned and returning at an average of 100 – 200 families a day to their homes in the terror-free villages in Idlib.

The following report by Saer Salim of the Lebanese al-Mayadeen news channel adds some info:

The transcript of the English translation of the above report

The countryside liberated from the Idlib governorate in Syria is witnessing several government projects to restore life to liberated areas.

About 70% of the people of the liberated villages in the eastern countryside of Idlib have returned to it during the past two years. Since then, service workshops have continued through the rehabilitation and rehabilitation of infrastructure.

The technical study was prepared for this project and we have been granted this subsidy of 110 million Syrian pounds for reconstruction with government support and with the support of the ministry and the maintenance of this project.

As part of the Government’s reconstruction plan in the liberated area of Sinjar, we have 3 projects, two projects have been implemented and the third is being executed.

Service workshops of various government sectors carry out their work in paving roads, extending water networks and lighting public utilities with alternative energy in the liberated villages, It also works to install doors and windows for damaged houses in these villages to ease the financial burden on the people and encourage the rest to return to their homes and help them to rehabilitate them.

When citizens returned a year and a half ago, there was no infrastructure that existed as a result of terrorist acts. thanks to God after 1.5 years the roads paving projects are being concluded.

Hawa’s municipality projects have served more than 8,000 people and the return of residents to safe areas is increasing daily by 100 to 200 families.

The Syrian government is working on new service projects such as installing the electrical network, activating health clinics and providing living necessities for citizens returning to their homes.

Rehabilitation and opening of courts, agricultural departments, petrol stations, and bakeries have contributed to the revitalization of the movement in the liberated villages east of Idlib which was the main reason for the return of the population to their homes.

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Meanwhile, the USA and its European stooges and regional cronies continue to impose and tighten their illegal draconian sanctions against the Syrian state with Trump forces turning into mercenaries and bandits looting Syria’s much-needed oil to help rebuild the country.

Not only they sponsored the terror that caused all the mayhem in Syria, but NATO and stooges also block the country’s trade, invade it from all sides, sponsor al-Qaeda and Israeli IDF terrorists bombingits cities, and steal its resources. If there’s anything the uncivilized West will be remembered for is their Ottoman-style ongoing genocide of the Syrian people, but we will prevail, just like how Syrians have seen throughout their history all the other empires rise and when those empires harmed Syria they were doomed.

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Featured image is from Syria News

According to a PressTV Report of 24 November, 2019, Iran and China are working on a trade or barter deal that would circumvent US sanctions. It would bypass US-dollar denominated transactions, exchanging Iranian oil for Chinese goods and services and investments. The head of the Tehran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (TCCIMA), Masoud Khansari told Teheran’s Tasnim news agency, on 19 November 2019 that “The mechanism, aiming to increase economic exchanges between Iran and China, is in the process of being finalized and implemented.” He meant indeed, a barter deal between the two countries, avoiding a monetary exchange, is being worked out.

This is nothing new. Already in July 2011, the Financial Times reported that du to US sanctions against Iran, China, Iran’s largest hydrocarbon client was unable to pay Iran in cash, as monetary transactions were blocked. China had at that time accumulated at leas US$ 30 billion in unpaid bills, which deprived Iran from necessary hard currency to purchase goods, and mainly medication and medical equipment from countries that were either daring to go against the US sanctions, or clandestinely on the black market.

The case was similar with India which, together with China purchased then almost 50% of Iran’s oil – Iran’s lifeblood. While India exports almost nothing to Iran, China is a key exporter of a myriad of goods and services to Iran, including building infrastructure and investing in expansion of Iran’s oil sector. That’s when the two countries started making barter arrangements.

In the meantime, agreement was reached in July 2015 on Iran’s Nuclear Deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which for a short time lifted all sanctions, until on 8 May 2018 President Trump canceled Washington’s engagement in the deal – most likely on the behest of Israel – and new deadly US sanctions were imposed, stronger and more brutal as before – “the strongest ever sanctions imposed on any nation” – Trump boasted. And with these sanctions came the threat of punishment for every country that would do business with Iran, including the European Union members who were part of signing the Nuclear Deal, Germany, UK, France.

While at the outset the Europeans did not want to appear as Washington vassals – and more – their corporations had already signed new business deals with Iran and were not keen on canceling them, The EU had attempted to design an international payment system outside of the dollar-dominated SWIFT transfer system, the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX). Designed in January 2019, it is a special European transfer system, serving only European purposes to trade with Iran outside of US-dollar controlled sanctions. However, to this date not one single transaction has been carried out under INSTEX, mostly because of European’s are captive of an unexplainable puppetry dependence on Washington. The leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei called Instex “a bitter joke”.

In comes China – again, establishing a barter deal with Iran. A TCCIMA delegation recently visited Beijing and concluded a barter trade agreement that would be carried out both through mainland China and through Hong Kong. Among other potential deals for Iran petrol and gas deliveries, are investments in Iran’s power sector, by Chinese companies in, for example, energy and infrastructure projects. Rejecting US objections, Beijing says, dealing with Iran was legitimate under any international law. Iran is an integral link in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Earlier this year, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Beijing was seeking to develop a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Tehran; and that “No matter how the international and regional situation changes, China’s resolve to develop a comprehensive strategic partnership with Iran will remain unchanged.” President Xi emphasized that the two sides should work together, “accelerate the building of a new type of international order and a community with a shared future for mankind,” – A Community with a shared future for mankind is indeed China’s long-term objective for decades to come. It converges with those of the BRI. An objective towards a multi-polar world and a peaceful coexistence among nations.

Barter deals do not provide Iran with the necessary cash to purchase needed imports. There are other avenues than barter, for a rapprochement outside the dollar-domain in trade between Beijing and Tehran, or Moscow and Tehran, for that matter. It should be relatively simple to open swap accounts between the Chinese and the Iranian central banks and to use the Chinese Interbank Payment System (CIPS) for monetary transfers. Such a solution should also leave Iran with sufficient revenues to pay for her imports. The reason such options may not be pursued with more vigor is perhaps that Iran is still very much divided between those Euro-US-centered Atlantists and those Iranians who follow the Ayatollah’s vision – towards a future in the East. A strong Fifth Column in Iran is also omni-present and rears its ugly neck when ever an opportunity arises, like the recent 50% hike in gasoline prices.

Its is a mystery for most observers why the gasoline price increase was not announced and explained by President Rouhani or Iranian Authorities prior to being implemented. It may have prevented much of the violence that is as of this day lingering on, causing bloodshed and mayhem. Most anywhere in the world, people would take to the streets if they would be hit with an unexplained price hike of a major commodity. It is as if the price for bread would double over night – an uproar foretold. That the opportunity would be taken advantage of by foreign-instigated violent elements was also foreseeable. And in this case, I dare say, preventable.

Demonstrations began peacefully and then suddenly on day two turned violent. It does not require rocket science to figure out that the violent was planted by outside forces trained and paid for by such notorious organizations like the NED (National Endowment for Democracy), the extended arm of CIA, funded with hundreds of millions from the US State Department. Those are the same people who are funding the unrests in Hong Kong. Their brand is chaos, crisis and destabilization – that’s what they do all over the world where ‘regime change’ is on Washington’s agenda. These forces are a clear impediment for Iran to go full-fledged their way to the East, associating wholeheartedly with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and de-coupling from the western economy.

In the face of a deeply divided Iran, barter deals with China, and why not with Russia, may be a first step towards a more serious move to de-dollarize, to decouple from the west. Iranian people deserve to live well, deserve to get out from under the misery-imposing boots of Washington. Even the Euro-centered and Washingtonites must recognize the US-western hypocrisy and realize that the US will never let go until she has a total grasp on Iran’s resources – that a resolute move to the east will give them relief from shortages of food, medicine – and western oppression and colonization.

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Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a water resources and environmental specialist. He worked for over 30 years with the World Bank and the World Health Organization around the world in the fields of environment and water. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research; ICH; RT; Sputnik; PressTV; The 21^st Century; Greanville Post; Defend Democracy Press, TeleSUR; The Saker Blog, the New Eastern Outlook (NEO); and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image is from Zero Hedge

Of relevance to the ongoing debate on the health impacts of cell phones. First published on July 10, 2019

A landmark Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the City of Berkeley’s cell phone right to know ordinance rejecting industries argument that the ordinance violates the first amendment.  The Berkeley ordinance requires retailers to inform consumers that cell phones emit radiation and that “if you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation.” In upholding this decision, the panel concluded that the public health issues at hand were “substantial” and that the “text of the Berkeley notice was literally true,” and “uncontroversial.”

Further, the panel determined that the Berkeley ordinance did not constitute preemption.

“Far from conflicting with federal law and policy, the Berkeley ordinance complemented and enforced it.”

The panel held that Berkeley’s required disclosure simply alerted consumers to the safety disclosures that the Federal Communications Commission required, and directed consumers to federally compelled instructions in their user manuals providing specific information about how to avoid excessive exposure.

Industry is expected to appeal for a full court en banc review, but this reviewing “panel concluded that CTIA had little likelihood of success based on conflict preemption.”

In response to this court ruling CTIA-v-Berkeley-9th-Circuit-opinion-7-2-2019 Devra Davis, PhD, MPH, President of Environmental Health Trust (EHT)  issued the following statement:

“Congratulations to the hard-working indomitable Town Council and Citizens of Berkeley, California for upholding The Right to Know.  More than a decade in the making this decision assures the right to know that cell phones emit radiation and that when the phone is touching the body levels can be exceeded.

Democracy rests on an informed public that freely consents to be governed.  Reliable information is key to the functioning of our system. The right to know is essential to all citizens. And the duty to warn about potential hazards is an obligation of any company. Wherever the right to know and the duty to warn are not followed democracy itself is imperiled. 

Thanks to the Berkeley ordinance billions more will learn that cell phones are two-way microwave radios and our bodies absorb this microwave radiation. New scientific studies, the work of the Phonegate Association and investigations from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation confirm that cellphones can exceed the US FCC limits up to eleven times when held next to the body.

We at the Environmental Health Trust want to extend a great big thank you to Professor Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law. And to all the many individuals who have dedicated their time to this important work including Joel Moskowitz PhD, Ellie Marks, Llyod Morgan, and many more.” 

The Berkeley Cell Phone Right To Know Ordinance has been in effect since  March 21, 2016 and requires retailers post a notice with the following text.

“The City of Berkeley requires that you be provided the following notice: 

“To assure safety, the Federal Government requires that cell phones meet radiofrequency (RF) exposure guidelines. If you carry or use your phone in a pants or shirt pocket or tucked into a bra when the phone is ON and connected to a wireless network, you may exceed the federal guidelines for exposure to RF radiation. Refer to the instructions in your phone or user manual for information about how to use your phone safely.”

Dr. Davis, Visiting Professor of Medicine, The Hebrew University, and the author of more than 220 scientific publications, is also the author of Disconnect–the truth about cellphone radiation.  Prof. Davis testified on this issue before the Berkeley City Council in 2011 and 2015  alongside Joel Moskowitz, PhD, the Director of the Center for Family and Community Health at the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Lessig of Harvard Law who has represented Berkeley pro bono. In addition, Davis also testified in the 2009 Congressional Hearings on cell phone radiation regarding the fine print warnings on cell phone radiation buried in cell phones, urging public access to that information.

Wells’ snide remarks were obviously driven by double standards whereby the US diplomat is making it clear that only Western loans to developing countries are allowed, not Chinese ones.

As the concentration of atmospheric CO₂ has risen to 408 ppm and the total greenhouse gas level, including methane and nitrous oxide, combine to near 500 parts per million CO2-equivalent, the stability threshold of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, currently melting at an accelerated rate, has been exceeded. The consequent expansion of tropics and the shift of climate zones toward the shrinking poles lead to increasingly warm and dry conditions under which fire storms, currently engulfing large parts of South America (Fig. 1), California, Alaska, Siberia, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Angola, Australia and elsewhere have become a dominant factor in the destruction of terrestrial habitats.

Fig. 1. Sensors on NASA satellites Terra and Aqua captured a record of thousands of points of fire in Brazil in late August. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Since the 18^th century, combustion of fossil fuels has led to the release of more than 910 billion tons of carbon dioxide (GtCO₂) by human activity, raising CO₂ to about 408.5 ppm (Fig. 2), as compared to the 280-300 ppm range prior to the onset of the industrial age. By the early-21^st century the current CO₂ rise rate has reached of 2 to 3 ppm/year.

Fig. 2.  Global temperature and carbon dioxide. Climate Central.

Allowing for the transient albedo enhancing effects of sulphur dioxide and other aerosols, mean global temperature has potentially reached ~2.0 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures. Current greenhouse gas forcing and global mean temperatures are approaching Miocene-like (5.3-23 million years-ago) composition.

The current carbon dioxide rise rate exceeds the fastest rates estimated for the K-T asteroid impact (66.4 million years-ago) and the PETM (Paleocene-Eocene Temperature Maximum) hyperthermal event (55.9 million years ago) by an order of magnitude (Fig. 3). The current growth rate of atmospheric greenhouse gases, in particular over the last 70 years or so, may appear gradual in our lifetime but it  constitutes an extreme event in the recorded history of Earth.

Fig. 3. Cenozoic CO₂ and temperature rise rates. Current rise rates of CO₂ (2.86 ppm CO₂/year) and temperature (0.15-0.20°C per decade since 1975) associated with extreme weather events raise doubt regarding gradual linear climate projections. Instead, chaotic climate conditions may arise from the clash between northward-shifting warm air masses which intersect the weakened undulating Arctic jet stream boundary and freezing polar air fronts penetrating Siberia, North America and Europe.

The definition of a “tipping point” in the climate system is a threshold which, once exceeded, can lead to large changes in the state of the system, or where the confluence of individual factors combines into a single stream. The term “tipping element” describes subcontinental-scale subsystems of the Earth system that are susceptible to being forced into a new irreversible state by small perturbations. In so far as a tipping point can be identified in current developments of the climate system, the weakening of the Arctic boundary, indicated by slowing down and increased disturbance of the jet stream heralds a likely tipping point, an example being the recent ‘Beast from the East” freeze in northern Europe and North America (Fig. 4).

A report by the National Academy Press 2011 states:

“As the planet continues to warm, it may be approaching a critical climate threshold beyond which rapid (decadal-scale) and potentially catastrophic changes may occur that are not anticipated.”

Direct evidence for changing climate patterns is provided by the expansion of the tropics and migration of climate zones toward the poles, estimated at a rate of approximately 56-111 km per decade. As the dry subtropical zones shift toward the poles, droughts worsen and overall less rain falls in temperate regions. Poleward shifts in the average tracks of tropical and extratropical cyclones are already happening. This is likely to continue as the tropics expand further. As extratropical cyclones move, they shift rain away from temperate regions that historically rely on winter rainfalls for their agriculture and water supply. Australia is highly vulnerable to expanding tropics as about 60 percent of the continent lies north of 30°S.

Low-lying land areas, including coral islands, delta and low coastal and river valleys would be flooded due to sea level rise to Miocene-like (5.3-23 million years ago) sea levels of approximately 40±15 meters above pre-industrial levels. Accelerated flow of ice melt water flow from ice sheets into the oceans is reducing temperatures over tracts in the North Atlantic and circum-Antarctic oceans. Strong temperature contrasts between cold polar-derived fronts and warm tropical-derived air masses lead to extreme weather events, retarding habitats, in particular over coastal regions. As partial melting of the large ice sheets proceeds the Earth’s climate zones continue to shift polar-ward (Environmental Migration Portal, 2015). This results in an expansion of tropical regions such as existed in the Miocene, reducing the size of polar ice sheets and temperate climate zones.

Fig. 4. The cold fronts penetrating Europe from Siberia and the North Atlantic and North America from the Arctic, 2018. UK Met Office.

According to Berger and Loutre (2002) the effect of high atmospheric greenhouse gas levels would delay the next ice age by tens of thousands of years, during which chaotic tropical to hyper-tropical conditions including extreme weather events would persist over much of the Earth, until atmospheric CO₂ and insolation subside. Humans are likely to survive in relatively favorable parts of Earth, such as sub-polar regions and sheltered mountain valleys, where cooler conditions would allow flora and fauna to persist.

To try and avoid a global calamity abrupt reduction in carbon emissions is essential, but since the high level of CO₂-equivalent is activating amplifying feedbacks from land and ocean, global attempts to down-draw about of 50 to 100 ppm of CO₂ from the atmosphere, using every effective negative emissions, is essential. Such efforts would  include streaming air through basalt and serpentine, biochar cultivation, sea weed sequestration, reforestation, sodium hydroxide pipe systems and other methods.

But while $trillions continue to be poured into preparation of future wars, currently no government is involved in any serious attempt at the defense of life on Earth.

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Dr Andrew Glikson, Earth and climate scientist, ANU Planetary Science Institute, ANU Climate Change Institute. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

For most people nowadays, their smartphone is within arm’s reach 24 hours a day. It’s in their pocket while they’re at work, it’s in their hand on the train ride home and it’s on their bedside table as they go to sleep. With this level of proximity and usage, many can’t quite shake the niggling feeling that they might be risking damage to themselves in the long run.

While conclusive longitudinal research on the effects of cell phone radiation is still hard to come by, for those looking to hedge their bets, Statista’s Martin Armstrong shows in the infographics below, the phones that emit the most (and least) radiation when held to the ear while calling.

The German Federal Office for Radiation Protection (Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz) has a comprehensive database of smartphones – new and old – and the level of radiation they emit.

Following the criteria set for this chart (see footnotes), the smartphones creating the lowest level of radiation are the Samsung Galaxy Note8 and the ZTE Axon Elite – with a specific absorption rate of 0.17 watts per kilogram.

You will find more infographics at Statista

In fact, alongside Nokia, Samsung handsets feature prominently, with eight of the smartphones on this ranking coming from the South Korean company.

This contrasts starkly with their major rival Apple. Two iPhones occupy a place in the list of phones which emit the most radiation, compared to none from Samsung, but, as Statista’s Martin Armstrong notes, the current smartphone creating the highest level of radiation is the Mi A1 from Chinese vendor Xiaomi.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Another Xiaomi phone is in second place – the Mi Max 3. In fact, Chinese companies are represented heavily in this list, accounting for 7 of the top 15 handsets. Premium Apple phones such as the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 8 are also here to be seen, though, as are the latest Pixel handsets from Google.

While there is no universal guideline for a ‘safe’ level of phone radiation, the German certification for environmental friendliness ‘Der Blaue Engel’ (Blue Angel) only certifies phones which have a specific absorption rate of less than 0.60 watts per kilogram.

All of the phones shown in the second chart above come in at more than double this benchmark.

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Featured image is from Zero Hedge

The Syrian Army is developing its advance on positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other radical groups in Greater Idlib.

Following the liberation of Misherfah in southern Idlib, the army pushed militants back from the villages of Um Khalakhil, Dahret Zarzour as well as al-Sayeer and al-Musheirfeh farms. Government forces also advanced on al-Farjah, where clashes are now ongoing.

Pro-militant sources claim that intense airstrikes by the Syrian Air Force and the Russian Aerospace Forces were the main reason of the army success. Pro-government sources argue that the participation of the 25th Special Mission Forces (formerly the Tiger Forces) is the corner stone of the operation.

The Russian military has deployed a special unit of military medics to northeastern Syria in order to provide assistance to locals, the Defense Ministry’s Zvezda TV reported on November 25. The unit with all needed supplies and meds was deployed by a Mi-8 helicopter. According to the report, the medical point established near Kobani allow to provide medical assistance to about 100 people per day.

At the same time,.  along the agreed safe-zone area. The recent patrols came without any notable provocations by Kurdish radicals. Their leadership likely realized that they put themselves on the edge of the start of a new Turkish military operation by their own actions.

The Turkish National Defense Ministry announced that its forces had found 683 rocket launchers and 93 cases of handmade explosives were seized in Ras al-Ayn, which was captured as a part of Operation Peace Spring. The Turkish side did not comment on recent attempts of pro-Turkish armed groups to advance towards Ayn Issa.

The situation in northeastern Syria remains tense.

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