Global Research

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Venezuela will not allow foreign soldiers to invade, President Nicolas Maduro said calling for dialogue with opposition forces during a televised speech Monday.

“Che, Fidel, Chavez, they are our heritage, they give us strength,” the Bolivarian head of state said, reminding the crowd of supporters of the country’s past struggle for independence dating back to the colonial era to present day.

Since the attempted coup on Jan. 23 led by opposition lawmaker Juan Guaido, the United States has aligned its forces with the self-proclaimed “interim president,” declaring his unconstitutional claim legitimate, triggering similar calls from its allies around the world and in South America.

Maduro said,

“When our Comandante Chavez passed away, I became president, but my first act was to hold elections. I wasn’t going to govern without elections…why has Sanchez Castejon governed for so long in Spain without convening elections?

Threats of militarized intervention have resurfaced as well as new rounds of suffocating sanctions against Venezuela, targeting the country’s oil companies in the United States. Although both the Lima Group and the European Union have rejected militarized force, they have recognized the Guaido’s claim and are calling for Maduro to abdicate in favor of a new election.

“The attacks against us from the so-called ‘Lima Group’ are also an attack on the whole left, on all progressives who they persecute in their countries,” President Maduro said, describing the organization’s behavior as “disgusting and laughable.”

Regarding the repeated requests for intervention made by the Venezuelan opposition, the president said it was foolish for his homeland to encourage war.

“Those who march with the US flag asking for military intervention in their own country have no idea what they’re asking for, they have no idea of the damage they will bring,” said Maduro.

“In Venezuela, a battle is being played out for the right of all countries to pursue their own paths… I want to ask the world for the highest level of solidarity to create a powerful movement against the threats of war from the US,” the Bolivarian president said.

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Those of you who have been involved in the past in the battle to protect our children from poorly made vaccines or toxic chemicals in our food or in our water know the power of these industries and how they’ve undermined every institution in our democracy that is supposed to protect little children from powerful, greedy corporations. Even the pharmaceutical companies have been able to purchase congress. They’re the largest lobbying entity in Washington D.C.. They have more lobbyists in Washington D.C. than there are congressman and senators combined. They give twice to congress what the next largest lobbying entity is, which is oil and gas… Imagine the power they exercise over both republicans and democrats. They’ve captured them (our regulatory agencies) and turned them into sock puppets. They’ve compromised the press… and they destroy the publications that publish real science. (Robert F. Kennedy Jr, from the video below)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Chairman of the Board of Directors for Children’s Health Defence (a worthy cause if you’re looking for one to donate to) has been fighting against big corporations that have taken over and undermined American government health regulatory agencies for a number of years. One of the most recent examples is when Robert F. Kennedy Jr represented Dewayne Johnson, a school groundskeeper who successfully brought forward a lawsuit alleging glyphosate caused his cancer. That’s right, he won!

There are currently thousands of cases pending against Monsanto, which is only one of multiple powerful companies influencing agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And to think, these are the agencies providing us with ‘science’ in order to get the food, medications, and other products produced by these big corporations to be deemed safe. Not only that, but these agencies are providing educational resources to medical schools, which Big Pharma has completely taken over as well.

It’s truly unbelievable that, in this day and age, education has turned into brainwashing. Science is corrupted, altered, changed, ignored, and swept under the rug just because it threatens the interests of a few powerful people and the corporations they hide behind.

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”   Dr. Marcia Angell, a physician and longtime Editor-in-Chief of the New England Medical Journal (NEMJ) (source)

Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s pesticide Round Up,  is a perfect example, as science has been showing for decades how incredibly harmful it is for human health and the environment, yet it’s approved as ‘safe’ for use in the western world. It’s no mystery why glyphosate is illegal in the majority of countries around the world. The same goes for genetically modified foods, which is what Round Up was designed to be used on. Years ago, a lawsuit forced the FDA to divulge its files on genetically engineered foods.

“As part of the process, they portrayed the various concerns as merely the ignorant opinions of misinformed individuals – and derided them as not only unscientific, but anti-science. They then set to work to convince the public and government officials, through the dissemination of false information, that there was an overwhelming expert consensus, based on solid evidence, that GMOs were safe.” – Jane Goodall

You can read more about that here.  You can also read more about the connection between GMOs and cancer as well as hundreds of scientists supporting the link here. Just like glyphosate, dozens of countries have cited health and environmental hazards for keeping GMOs out of their country.

In addition, Monsanto colluded with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stifle cancer research and any connections to their products. The European Union actually just approved the use of glyphosate, and their approval was found to be based on plagiarized science from Monsanto.

The corruption is never-ending when it comes to the link between corporations and government agencies. In fact, only a few years ago, more than a dozen scientists from within the CDC put out an anonymous public statement detailing the influence corporations have on government policies. They were referred to as the Spider Papers.

Dr. William Thompson is a longtime CDC scientist who has published some of the most commonly cited pro-vaccine studies, some of which claim that there is absolutely no link between the MMR vaccine and autism.  He pointed to a specific study that he co-authored in 2004 for the CDC, which claimed that “the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine does not cause autism or any particular subtypes of autism spectrum disorder.” This study is often cited when trying to justify the use of this vaccine, despite the fact that he later stated they deleted important findings from that study. He said that “it’s the lowest point in my career that I went along with that paper and uh, I went along with this, we didn’t report significant findings…  I’m completely ashamed of what I did, I have great shame now that I was complicit and went along with this. I have been a part of the problem.” (source)

Anxious to get this information out, Thompson sent various documents to Congressman Bill Posey, who addressed the congress, reading a statement that he had received from Dr. Thompson:

Sometime soon after the meeting, we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the [CDC] co-authors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the [MMR vaccine] study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can. (source)

As you can see, there are no shortage of examples that highlight the collusion between corporations and government regulatory agencies.

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These are the ten biggest news stories going on right now that you need to know that will, in some way, affect Britain. When Brexit arrives and the consequences start to unravel, whatever they may be, the world continues to move – one threat being that Britain becomes so self-involved it gets left behind. So keep up with these brief updates as TruePublica will now start to publish more of them from now on.

Cold war 2.0

Russia pulls out of Nuclear treaty in ‘Symmetrical’ response to U.S. move. President Putin of Russia, in a decision that was widely expected, suspended his country’s observance of a key nuclear arms control pact on Saturday in response to a similar move by the United States a day before.

Mr Putin also said that Russia would build weapons previously banned under the treaty and would no longer initiate talks with the United States on any matters related to nuclear arms control. Cold war 2.0 has clearly kicked-off. The last one was not just quite frightening, it threatened the existence of humanity.

Trade wars fall guy

While global markets would hail a U.S.-China trade deal, fears are growing that the European Union could be the fall guy in any breakthrough, which would allow Donald Trump to turn his attention to German cars or French luxury wines.

Alicia García-Herrero, Chief Economist at Natixis for Asia Pacific, and a researcher at the Bruegel think-tank, is among those who have warned that a deal “could cost Europe dearly” if China substitutes a large part of its European imports for U.S. goods in a bid to appease the Trump administration.

Brexit – Britain revives cold war emergency plans

British lawmakers instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to reopen a Brexit treaty with the European Union to replace a controversial Irish border arrangement – and promptly received a flat rejection from Brussels.

With two months left until Britain is due by law to leave the EU, investors and allies have urged the government to clinch a deal to allow an orderly exit from the club it joined in 1973. So far, it has failed.

The authorities have now revived Cold War emergency plans to relocate the royal family should there be riots in London if Britain. Thousands of MI5 are now located in Northern Ireland, the Army and army reservists are on standby and police forces all over the country have cancelled all leave from April.

EU subversion of democracy in Italy

Did the subversion of Italian democracy by the European Union play a role in Italy’s fall into recession? Italy’s pre-existing debts were already so large that the EU got an agreement from the previous Italian government that deficit spending would be restricted to 0.8% of GDP.

The new government prepared to implement the policies it had promised in its election campaign: a reduction in taxes and an increase in certain types of welfare spending, including a basic income experiment. They proposed a fiscal plan that would increase the spending deficit to 2.4% of GDP.

The EU said no. Crash.

EU-Japan trade agreement enters into force

The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and Japan entered into force on 1 February 2019. Businesses and consumers across Europe and in Japan can now take advantage of the largest open trade zone in the world.

EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said:

“This agreement has it all: it scraps tariffs and contributes to the global rulebook, whilst at the same time demonstrating to the world that we both remain convinced by the benefits of open trade.

Except, of course, Britain. It opted out of the EU and so the trade deal excluded it from day one.

‘Divide and conquer’: China puts the pressure on US allies

As tensions between China and the US mount over trade and the extradition of a senior Huawei executive, Beijing has reserved its most colourful language for America’s allies.

Analysts say China is trying to isolate the US by going after its allies. Two Canadians remain in detention in China over unspecified allegations of endangering national security and a third was sentenced to death for drug smuggling after a sudden retrial — cases widely believed to be retaliation for Ottawa’s arrest of Meng at the request of the US.

French ‘yellow vests’ in Paris face Police with banned ‘flashball’ guns

Several thousand “gilets jaunes” protesters have marched through Paris and other French cities on Saturday on the 12th weekend of action against the government.

Protesters carried French flags and held signs attacking the French president as being out of touch or calling for referendums tabled by citizens.

Protesters injured in previous weeks of violence were put at the front of the protests, some of whom wore eyepatches with a target sign on them. The government warned that police would not hesitate to use ‘flashballs’ in the event of violence by demonstrators after it was authorised by France’s highest administrative court. Flashball riot control guns are banned in much of Europe.

UK’s Info commissioner launches data protection audit after democracy bought off

The information commissioner has launched an audit into Leave.EU and the insurance company owned by the campaign’s key financial backer, Arron Banks, after fining the organisations a total of £120,000 for data protection violations during the EU referendum campaign.

Leave.EU was fined £15,000 for using Eldon Insurance customers’ details unlawfully to send almost 300,000 political marketing messages, and a further £45,000 for its part in sending an Eldon marketing campaign to political subscribers. Eldon was fined £60,000 for the latter violation.

The Geo-political struggle for Venezuela

The usual mainstream media suspects have their printing presses and news presenters set to max propaganda mode over Venezuela.

The CIA is working hard to stoke violence, and the genuine poor will soon start to die, both in those egged on to riot and in the security services. But do not get taken in by the complete nonsense that this is a popular, democratic revolution. It is not. It is yet another barefaced CIA regime change coup.

Big Banks in big trouble (again)

Eight banks are being targeted in a European Union probe that alleges traders colluded to acquire and trade euro government bonds, a month after the EU regulators implicated lenders in a separate bond-trading case.

The EU’s antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, is moving her attention to possible collusion between banks in the estimated $9.4-trillion market for European government debt. She’s already extracted huge fines from Google and a massive back-tax bill from Apple Inc. before she ends her five-year term later this year. While the EU’s powerful antitrust arm often lags far behind financial authorities in the U.S. and the U.K. in punishing collusion between traders, its fines can be hefty.

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Israel began the construction of the over-ground portion of the Gaza border barrier that will connect to the under-construction sea barrier aimed at preventing the movement of the Hamas military wing out of the coastal enclave and into Israel.

The Israeli Defense Ministry confirmed, on Sunday, that the over-ground section of the barrier will be 65 kilometers (40 miles) long and will be six meters (20 feet) high.

The Israeli Defense Ministry’s border administration said,

“The border is uniquely suited to the threats from the Gaza Strip and will give a comprehensive solution to preventing entry into Israel.”

The barrier is meant to prevent underground tunnels from Gaza.

The barrier, estimated to cost 3 billion shekels ($833 million), will include a concrete wall fitted with sensors and reaching dozens of meters deep into the ground and standing six meters high from ground level.

The barrier’s construction comes after ten months of mass protests, also known as “The Great March of Return,” launched by thousands of Palestinians civilians in protest of Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

According to the Palestinian Health Ministry’s latest statistics, 263 Palestinians, including more than 45 children, were killed by Israeli forces during the protests along the Gaza border.

The more than 2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have suffered from a nearly 12-year Israeli-imposed land, air, and sea blockade, which has plunged the small territory into poverty and some of the highest unemployment rates in the world.

The UN has reported that Gaza could be “uninhabitable” by 2020.

The video below shows the start of the barrier’s construction:

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All images in this article are from Ma’an News Agency

“The Americans need us only for the purpose of manipulation”

The former commander of the Polish Land Forces General Skrzypczak doubted the expediency of creating the American military base Fort Trump in Poland.

The Americans have their own interests – hoping to deter Russia by using Americans – that do not coincide with the expectations of Poland, explained the General.

“If the price [the appearance of a Fort Trump] is the fact that we will become quasi-allies of the Americans and suppliers of financial resources for their businesses, then a Fort Trump should not appear at all”

said the Polish General

The former commander also doubted the ability of Washington to come out as the winner in the conflicts that it provokes:

“Americans understand that beyond Iran there is China, and behind China there is Russia … Here everything is connected … America cannot win such a war”.

The US is trying to not allow the economic strengthening of Beijing in Europe and to disrupt the implementation of the Chinese infrastructure project “One Belt, One Road”. When fulfilling these tasks Washington tries to involve as many allies as possible. For example, suggesting to Poland to hold an anti-Iranian conference, without having invited representatives of Tehran.

“Why do we allow ourselves to be drawn into an anti-Iranian adventure, which is absolutely alien to us? Poland has no place in this. We are needed by the Americans today, but only for the purpose of manipulating us. Our diplomacy is so weak that it does not give an account of what levers the Americans use for the sake of achieving their goals”

noted the General

The “Nasdaq” website previously pointed out the interest of American weapons companies in the appearance of a Fort Trump in Poland. Against the background of negotiations on this topic between Washington and Warsaw, the stocks of weapons giants cooperating with the US State Department sharply increase. The stocks of the “Aero Vironment” company, which manufactures drones, rose in 2018 by 103%, “Engility Holdings” – by 21%, and “Aerojet Roketdyne Holdings” – by 8%. The Polish media says that a Fort Trump would be a pot of gold for the American military-industrial complex.

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This article was originally published in Russian on fondsk.ru, translated by Ollie Richardson & Angelina Siard

What happens in Venezuela going forward will have major consequences for the entire region and the world; and, with the U.S. already pushing countries to pick sides, the world may soon become as divided as it was immediately preceding WW II.

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Since the decision of the Trump administration on Wednesday to recognize a member of the Venezuelan opposition, Juan Guaidó, as an unelected “interim president,” the situation in the South American country has become increasingly tense, with efforts to force the current government of Venezuela — led by Nicolás Maduro — out of power having grown in intensity over the past few days.

Despite the enormous pressure his government faces from both local and international sources, Maduro has managed to maintain his position thanks to a combination of factors. These include the loyalty of the country’s well-armed military, in addition to popular support from Venezuelans who recently voted for Maduro, as well as Venezuelans who may not like Maduro but prefer him to a politician hand-picked and foisted upon them by the United States.

Yet, the long-standing campaign of the United States to effect regime change in Venezuela — a campaign that has been ongoing ever since Hugo Chávez, Maduro’s predecessor and mentor, was elected in 1998 — has shown time and again that the U.S. is unwilling to let go of its dream of installing a “friendly” government in the world’s most oil-rich country.

For that reason, if the Trump administration’s attempt to simply install a Venezuelan president fails to produce the intended result (regime change), there is substantial concern that the U.S. will turn to other means to bring about a change in government, including the instigation of a new proxy war.

While direct military intervention by the U.S. has not been ruled out, it has long been seen as more probable — based on the U.S.’ troubling history of ousting leftist Latin American governments through right-wing coups — that the U.S. would follow the roadmaps it used to push for regime change in both Syria and Ukraine. In other words, the danger of another major proxy war — this time in Latin America — looms large and, much like what has transpired in Syria and Ukraine, the manufacture of such a conflict would again pit the U.S. against both Russia and China, both of which have invested heavily in Venezuela, and by extension in the current government, for nearly two decades.

Also troubling is the fact that the U.S. has already laid much of the groundwork for such a proxy war and the chaotic situation on the Venezuelan-Colombian border offers U.S. intelligence enough cover to funnel arms, money and personnel into Venezuela to further destabilize the country. If Maduro is to be believed, the U.S. has already been doing this for much of the past year.

Raising the temperature and the stakes

Juan Guaidó, a relative newcomer to Venezuelan politics and a founding member of the Popular Will political party, declared himself to be the new president of Venezuela on Wednesday, a move that was quickly backed by the U.S. with the support of all countries closely allied with the U.S. throughout the Americas, North and South.

The U.S. decision to back Guaidó, as has been pointed out by many analysts in recent days, was significant as it shows a clear effort by the U.S. to push the already tenuous situation in the country to its boiling point. Indeed, by effectively creating two governments within Venezuela, the clearest consequence is to deepen the rift in Venezuelan society by forcing the country’s citizens to choose sides.

Though Guaidó’s relatively short time in Venezuelan national politics gives him the benefit of having relatively little political baggage, his association with the Popular Will Party, known as Voluntad Popular in Spanish, makes it clear why he so quickly won the U.S.’ support.

Popular Will was founded by Venezuelan opposition firebrand Leopoldo López. Lopez is a member of the upper echelons of Venezuela’s political aristocracy, educated in elite institutions like the Hun School of Princeton, a private boarding school whose alumni include Saudi princes as well as the children of U.S. presidents and Fortune 500 CEOs. He attended Kenyon College in Ohio and then Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Some journalists have asserted that López began a relationship with the CIA while at Kenyon.

A few years after beginning his political career, López — immediately prior to the U.S.-backed failed coup of 2002, in which he enthusiastically participated — began heading to Washington rather frequently “to visit the IRI (International Republican Institute) headquarters and meet with officials from the George W. Bush administration,” according to journalist Eva Golinger. The IRI is one of three foundations that comprise the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. government-funded NGO linked to numerous regime-change efforts abroad, including Egypt (2013) and Ukraine (2014). Notably, the IRI, along with the National Democratic Institute (NDI), both have funded Popular Will since its founding in 2010. López is currently the party’s national coordinator.

While the U.S.’ decision to back Guaidó was undeniably an effort to escalate the situation in Venezuela, the U.S. has also made it clear that it plans to continue pushing for escalation. Indeed, the U.S. has officially requested a UN Security Council meeting on Saturday “to discuss the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.” South Africa’s U.N. Ambassador Jerry Matjila stated that the “consultations” between the Security Council and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would be closed, though subsequent reports have claimed that the meeting would be open. The meeting, if it is approved by 9 out of 15 member states, will likely push for countries to choose between Guaidó and Maduro.

Given that the U.K., Spain and Germany have already backed Guaidó at the U.S.’ behest, more European nations are likely to follow, meaning that the international pressure facing the Maduro-led government will continue to grow following Saturday’s events. Thus, in addition to forcing the Venezuelan people to choose sides, the U.S. will likely be — over the weekend — forcing the international community to choose sides as well.

Notably, key countries — including Turkey, Russia, China as well as Maduro’s regional allies such as Mexico, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Cuba — have backed Maduro. Given the presence of both Russia and China, who hold veto power on the UN Security Council, any resolution by that body that would support Guaidó will be dead on arrival. Yet, if the U.S. is able to win the support of a significant number of countries in its bid to withdraw Maduro’s “legitimacy” — whether by diplomatic or more forceful means — the Trump administration may feel confident enough to take matters into its own hands. This makes the recent comments of a top Trump official stating that “all options are on the table” in regards to Venezuela equal parts significant and chilling.

Groundwork for Syria/Ukraine-style regime-change op already laid in Venezuela

In pursuit of regime-change agendas abroad and as part of a larger strategy of containment aimed at Russia and China, the U.S. has followed a roadmap in recent cases that includes some or all of the following elements: the manufacture of a “humanitarian” justification for regime change; funneling of arms and weapons into the country via its foreign borders; mass funding of the political opposition; and covert involvement of U.S. government agencies, particularly the CIA.

In the case of Syria, a CIA-backed revolt, along with a compliant international media and complex network of pro-regime-change “humanitarian” organizations, were critical in creating the current situation, which was further exacerbated by the influx of weapons and funds to “moderate rebels” via the CIA and later U.S. allies. A few years later, Ukraine followed a distinct but similar roadmap. As was noted last year by South Front, the U.S.-backed regime-change operation in Ukraine in 2014 involved an outsized role from the U.S. State Department, billions of dollars in U.S. funding of the political opposition, and the early involvement of the CIA.

Unsurprisingly, many of these elements are currently at play in Venezuela. Since the late Hugo Chávez came to power in the 1998 election, the U.S. has funded the Venezuelan opposition to the tune of over $100 million. The humanitarian justification has long been played up by the international media, which has placed sole responsibility for Venezuela’s economic and political crisis on the Maduro-led government, despite the role of U.S. sanctions and economic warfare, as well as the U.S. government and the Venezuelan opposition groups it funds colluding to create the conditions for the current political crisis in order to facilitate their regime-change plan.

Though this last point is less known, it was confirmed following a leaked 2013 phone conversation of  Maria Corina Machado, another key figure in the U.S.-funded Venezuelan opposition and another top political ally of Guaidó and his associate Leopoldo López. In the leaked conversation, Corina Machado describes what Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, the chairman of the opposition umbrella group Mesa de la Unidad Democrática, told Undersecretary for Latin American Affairs Roberta Jacobsen, whom he had recently met in Washington. During the call, Corina Machado stated:

I found out that Ramon Guillermo Aveledo told the State Department that the only way to resolve this is by provoking and accentuating a crisis, a coup or a self-coup. Or a process of tightening the screws and domesticating to generate a system of total social control.”

In addition, there is substantial evidence that the still chaotic situation on the Venezuelan-Colombian border offers plenty of opportunity for U.S. intelligence agencies to funnel arms, insurgents and other agents of destabilization into Venezuela. Furthermore, the conflict there could potentially be used as the pretext for a direct role for the U.S. military in escalating the situation in Venezuela.

For decades, the Venezuelan-Colombian border has been the sight of considerable violence, much of it the result of in-fighting among leftist and right-wing paramilitary groups vying for control of the regional drug trade. It is increasingly porous, allowing the flow of paramilitary fighters, migrants, smugglers and others between the two nations, resulting in various controversies that have seen Maduro close the border from August 2015 to July 2016 following an attack by a Colombian group on the Venezuelan military.

Since then, drug-fueled violence and Colombian concerns over the exodus of Venezuelan migrants have led Colombia to increasingly militarize its side of the border, though some analysts have claimed recent violence from the National Liberation Army (ELN) leftist paramilitary group has led the Colombian and Venezuelan authorities to leave major expanses of the border “to its fate.”

Given the precarious situation on the Venezuela-Colombia border, it is a weak point through which state actors wishing to destabilize Venezuela could easily act. Some evidence, including the aforementioned incident in August 2015, suggests that such action has already taken place. For instance, in March 2017, the Venezuelan military dismantled a right-wing paramilitary camp near the Colombian border, which was stocked with numerous supplies including stolen Venezuelan military uniforms, Colombian military uniforms and — most notable of all — U.S. army uniforms. At the time, teleSUR asserted that the discovery “substantiates claims that the U.S. Army is training right-wing paramilitaries to spread terror in the region.”

More recently, last year, Maduro asserted that Colombian paramilitary groups were “seeping through” the Venezuelan-Colombian border and had been planning to “carry out a series of provocations” before being intercepted by Venezuelan authorities. At the time, he had blamed Colombian oligarchs and the U.S. government for orchestrating the “infiltration.”

Though some may choose to discount Maduro’s claims, the CIA essentially admitted in 2017 that it was actively attempting to foment regime change in Venezuela. In July of that year, Mike Pompeo — then CIA director — stated:

We are very hopeful that there can be a transition in Venezuela and we the CIA is doing its best to understand the dynamic there, so that we can communicate to our State Department and to others.”

He then added:

I was just down in Mexico City and in Bogota a week before last talking about this very issue, trying to help them understand the things they might do so that they can get a better outcome for their part of the world and our part of the world.”

In addition, while the Venezuelan-Colombian border may be used to destabilize the situation by more covert means, the current situation along the border may also provide the U.S. a justification to intervene militarily. Indeed, the presence of the ELN group in both Venezuela and Colombia has led notable U.S. figures — such as the architect of the current coup, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) — to offer them up as reasons to list Venezuela as a “state sponsor” of terror.

Rubio has been pushing for Venezuela to be added the U.S.’ State Sponsors of Terrorism list for months. Last Saturday, however, Rubio claimed in a tweet that ELN “operates from Venezuela where Maduro has given them safe harbor,” though the group is equally active in both Colombia and Venezuela, Venezuelan soldiers are frequent targets of ELN attacks, and pro-Maduro Venezuela outlets often characterize ELN as an “illegal group”.

Donald Trump, Mike Pence and Sen. Marco Rubio meet with the wife of US-backed Venezuelan opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez. White House Photo

Though Rubio provided no evidence to support the claim that Maduro has given ELN members “safe harbor,” the growing strength of the group and its violent tactics could be just the pretext the U.S. or its regional allies would need to intervene more directly in Venezuela, especially considering that U.S.-linked think tanks have claimed that the ELN is now present in half of Venezuela. Indeed, making Venezuela an official “state sponsor of terrorism” would allow the U.S. to greatly increase its pressure on the country, both economically and diplomatically.

Left-wing terror group carried out the bombing that killed 21 people in #Colombia.

The groups leaders live in #Cuba under the protection of regime.

And the group operates from #Venezuela where Maduro has given them safe harbor. #StateSponsorsOfTerror https://t.co/5Yaz4A3GVV

— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) January 19, 2019

Other events that have occurred in the past few years have suggested that a role for the U.S. military is in the cards as well — a possibility only strengthened by the emerging “state sponsor” narrative already being fielded by Sen. Rubio. For instance, in 2017, the U.S. military held a major military drill and established a “temporary” military base in close proximity to Venezuela with the governments of Colombia, Peru and Brazil. Since then, following the recent election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, a Colombian official stated, “If Bolsonaro helps topple Maduro with military intervention, he will have Colombia’s support.” Though Bolsonaro later claimed that he has “no interest” in a military intervention in Venezuela, several of the top officials in his government — including his Vice President, Hamilton Mourao — have repeatedly called for a “humanitarian intervention” in Venezuela. The size and scope of such an intervention, however, has yet to be determined.

These complex situations along its border, the confirmed role of the U.S. in bringing about the country’s political crisis, and the looming possibility of military intervention — by either the U.S. or its regional allies — show that Venezuela currently has many of the same elements that were present in Ukraine in 2014 and Syria in 2011. The U.S. seems intent on bringing about regime change in Caracas by any means necessary, but Washington’s success will largely depend on the actions of Venezuela’s most powerful foreign allies, who incidentally are both Washington’s chief rivals — Russia and China.

Russia and China’s skin in the game

In the event that the internal situation in Venezuela — thanks largely to external pressure — devolves into a major conflict between Guaidó-supporting and Maduro-supporting sides, it will only be a matter of time before both Russia and China join the fray — either directly or indirectly — to prevent a U.S.-backed regime-change effort from succeeding.

A major reason the involvement of Russia and China is a given is that both have invested a tremendous amount of money in the country, particularly after Venezuela’s relationship with the U.S. greatly decayed during the early years of Chavista rule.

By a large margin, the largest foreign sponsors of Venezuela following the rise of the Chavista movement have been Russia and China. Though no exact measures of their investments in the South American nation are available, China is believed to have invested around $70 billion, in the form of loans as well as social projects and maintenance of the country’s oil production infrastructure. Most of those loans are set to be paid back to China in the form of Venezuelan crude. In addition, China and Venezuela have formed several joint ventures involving the production of automobiles, mobile phones and computers, among other goods. These investments and connections make China by far Maduro’s largest and most influential foreign sponsor and creditor.

However, as Foreign Policy wrote in 2017:

If Venezuela collapses …, China faces a large risk of diplomatic and financial blowback. Opposition politicians are well aware that China propped up … Maduro rule. A new Venezuelan government could well refuse to honor the Maduro-era obligations entirely and look to Washington for support instead.”

Russia is believed to have lent and invested around $17 billion in Venezuela over the past 20 years, significantly less than China. However, Russia — through state-run companies such as Rosneft — has gained significant ownership stakes in at least five major Venezuelan oil fields along with several decades worth of the future outputs of Venezuelan-held natural gas fields in the Caribbean. In addition, and most significantly from the U.S. perspective, in 2017 Venezuela offered 49.9 percent of Citgo — its wholly owned U.S. subsidiary — along with three Gulf Coast refineries and its pipeline network as collateral to Rosneft for $1.5 billion.

Rosneft’s interests in Venezuela are so great that its executive chairman, Igor Sechin, stated in 2017 that “we will never leave and no one will be able to kick us out of there.” Yet, as Leonid Bershidsky recently wrote in Bloomberg, “If Maduro falls and a U.S.-backed government takes his place, it’s highly likely that the Russian projects will be suspended and Venezuela’s debts won’t be repaid.”

In addition to the tremendous amount of money on the line for both nations, neither Russia nor China is willing to let the world’s most oil-rich country — with more proven crude oil reserves than Saudi Arabia — see its current government, which is friendly to their interests but hostile to those of the U.S., be toppled and replaced with its polar opposite. Not only would a new U.S.-backed government in Venezuela endanger the billions of dollars in loans that Maduro’s government owes to both countries, it would also endanger the independence of all of Latin America.

Indeed, many Latin American governments in recent years have been targeted by the U.S. for regime change, and most of these attempts were successful, including those in Honduras (2009), Brazil (2016) and Paraguay (2012). Venezuela, with its significant oil and gold reserves, is the obvious prize in the region but also arguably the strongest country opposed to U.S. dominance of the region. Were Venezuela to fall, it would greatly weaken the governments of Maduro’s regional allies, particularly Nicaragua and Cuba.

This is underlined by National Security Adviser John Bolton’s recent creation of a new Latin American “Axis of Evil” that he terms the “Troika of Tyranny,” encompassing Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. If Venezuela’s government is toppled, Bolton has already given the signal as to which nations will be the subsequent targets of regime-change efforts elsewhere in Latin America. Thus, Russia and China — lest they wish to see a domino effect of the toppling of most of the remaining Latin American countries not dominated by the U.S. — are more likely than not to do everything in their power to prevent the collapse of Maduro’s government.

It is also important to point out that, for its part, the United States can’t really back away either. While the U.S. strategy of “containing” Russia and China has been largely focused on starting and fomenting proxy wars in both geopolitically strategic areas and on their doorsteps, Russia and China’s strategy has been more covert and aimed at reducing their dependence on the U.S.-backed financial system, particularly the U.S. dollar.

This effort to undermine the U.S. dollar has frequently targeted the petrodollar, which has been a major factor in past U.S. military interventions, such as the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and later Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. In 2017 Maduro, like Hussein and Gaddafi before him, stopped selling Venezuelan oil in dollars. In order to shore up the petrodollar system amid its own looming economic recession, the United States needs a government in Venezuela that will denominate the sale of its oil in dollars to keep the cornerstone of its global hegemony, the U.S. dollar, in demand despite unprecedented threats to its value.

Thus, with neither the U.S. nor its rivals able to back down without ceding a major geopolitical and strategic advantage to the other, it is almost assured that, as the situation in Venezuela escalates,  the involvement of all three will soon make Venezuela the most watched country — and the most dangerous — in the world.

“Another bloody battlefield of the color revolution”?

Given the enormity of their investments in Venezuela and their eagerness to keep the world’s largest oil reserves controlled by a government friendly to them but hostile to their greatest rival, Russia and China have unsurprisingly condemned in no uncertain terms the U.S.’ recent decision to recognize Guaidó as Venezuela’s “legitimate” president.

Russia’s response not only warned the U.S. against the “catastrophic consequences” of its effort to escalate the fragile situation in Venezuela but also hinted that the U.S. decision would lay the groundwork for a civil war. On Thursday, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, told International Affairs, “We warn against this … We believe that this would be a catastrophic scenario that would shake the foundations of the development model we see in the Latin American region.” In a phone call to Maduro, Russian leader Vladimir Putin described the U.S. move as “destructive interference.”

Then the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a separate statement that described the U.S. move to recognize Guaidó as president as being ”aimed at deepening the split in Venezuelan society, increasing the conflict on the streets, sharply destabilizing the internal political system and further escalation of the conflict,” with such escalation being “fraught with catastrophic consequences.” Some media outlets compared this statement to those made by Russia during past international exchanges with the West prior to intervention in Libya and Syria.

Since then, Russian military contractors have been deployed to Venezuela, which prompted Maduro to promise that Venezuela will not become another “Syria or Libya.” Some reports have claimed that the Russian military contractors have “been charged with stopping opposition sympathizers or members of Maduro’s own forces from detaining him.”

China’s response also hinted that the U.S. decision was aimed at stoking an internal war in the country. In an article published by the Chinese government-aligned Global Times, Beijing stated:

In recent years, Washington has enhanced its interference in affairs of Venezuela and Cuba and attempted to regain influence in Latin America. The fast recognition of Guaidó signaled the strong U.S. desire to intervene in Venezuela’s internal affairs.”

The article went on to note:

All sides must keep calm and be alert about possible provocation to militarily intervene in Venezuela … The international community should encourage forces of Venezuela to peacefully solve the issue within the framework of dialogue. Picking sides will not be conducive to the solution, but intensify the rivalry, worsen the situation and possibly push the nation into long-term turmoil.”

It ultimately added, “Venezuela should not be another bloody battlefield of the color revolution.”

The fact that the responses of both the Russian and Chinese governments to the U.S. decision to back Guaidó directly stated that the U.S. move is set to create another U.S.-backed proxy war masquerading as a “color revolution” is highly significant. Indeed, such clear assertions of this reality not only show how clearly the U.S. is pushing for a major escalation in Venezuela but also show that both Russia and China are aware that their interests in the country are under threat as a direct result of this U.S. push. This greatly increases the likelihood that any continued push for escalation from Washington will trigger strong responses from both countries and could quickly devolve into a tit-for-tat that could eventually develop into a major military conflict.

Is this how WW III gets going?

The current situation in Venezuela — if the U.S. continues to push for fresh escalations — has the potential to morph into one of the world’s most dangerous proxy wars, owing to the size of the prize (world’s largest oil reserves included) and the fact none of the major parties involved can back away without making major concessions to their chief geopolitical rivals. Russia and China, as previously stated, are unlikely to stand idly by as the U.S. installs a government that would undo their years of investment in the country and refuse to pay back billions in loans. Indeed, Russia has already sent military contractors into Venezuela, setting a precedent that could see more significant Russian support for Venezuela in the coming months.

Beyond that is the fact that the U.S. has made it clear that Venezuela if it succumbs to regime change, is merely the first on the new “Troika of Tyranny” list of leftist Latin American governments that the Trump administration seeks to topple. The goal is to make a Latin America that is obedient to the U.S., a crucial part of the ultimate U.S. goal of maintaining the existing unipolar world order. However, both Russia and China know that this goal is a microcosm of Washington’s end game and that they are both the ultimate targets. Such an agenda is hardly a secret given that it is directly stated in the Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy.

However, it would be naive to assume that the U.S. will be planning to escalate only in Venezuela and not in other U.S. proxy conflicts such as Ukraine and Syria. Indeed, just two months ago, there was a flare-up in Ukraine in what is now known as the “Kerch Strait Incident” and provocations in Syria have commonly occurred throughout the conflict, particularly during moments when it seemed things were finally dying down. These flashpoints and more — such as the South China Sea, among others — can all be pressed on rotation by the U.S. in an effort to disorient its Russian and Chinese rivals.

Thus, Venezuela may become host to the latest in what is now a series of proxy wars and flashpoints across the world that Washington has erected as part of its long-term goal of preventing the formation a multipolar world order. And it may quickly become the most dangerous in terms of drawing larger world powers into the conflict, making the risk of a wider world war a striking possibility that cannot be ignored. What happens in Venezuela going forward will have major consequences for the entire region and the world; and, with the U.S. already pushing countries to pick sides, the world may soon become as divided as ever, with the risk of another “great war” looming large.

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Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann’s Truth in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently lives with her family in southern Chile.

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The Israeli narrative of a nation/state returning to its homeland after a fifteen hundred year exile requires ongoing deft work by the David Ben-Gurion initiated Governmental Names Committee (Va’adat Hashemot Hamimshaltit, 1949). The Hebraization of Palestine is described in Nur Masalha’s “Palestine – A Four Thousand Year History” a strong scholarly academic addition to the subject of delegitimization of an indigenous people.

The first part of the book covers the era from the Bronze Age – roughly 25 hundred years ago – to the mid Ottoman era and the autonomous governance of al-’Umar and Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar.  It concentrates its analysis mostly on the name Palestine and its historical precedents in other languages from ancient maps and historical writings.

It does provide a few glimpses into the kind of society represented by the name, but is mostly concerned with the philology of the name itself.

As the work reaches the Ottoman empire, many more sources are used for reference and provide a much stronger perspective on the lifestyles of the indigenous Palestinian people and a split between the urban elites and the majority living in smaller villages and working the land.  In the late Ottoman empire, the early years of Christian Zionism/Orientalism/Biblicism, and in the early years of European based secular nationalist Zionism, more diverse sources are used to emphasize the denial of the indigenous Palestinians through language usage.

Masalha’s theme is simple:  to demonstrate the existence of Palestine through the centuries by studying the language used, its reference in historical works, and how the modern Hebraization brought on by the western Christian Biblical traditions combined with the Zionist enterprise attempts to deny the existence of Palestine and its people.

From that thesis he succeeds remarkably well, providing strong references of the use of the word Palestine up to and including Israeli usage after the 1948 nakba.   But well before that, the Orientalist Christian perspective had already begun the assault on Arabic/Palestinian historical geographic names previously supported by earlier works.

As the study continues into the modern era, many devices are used to erase and cover over any sign of Palestinian geographic inheritance.  Much of the initial changes in western knowledge were brought about by various biblical study groups searching for archeological evidence for their story.  When not finding much of that evidence, biblical names were simply appropriated and used for different regions, down to specific geographic features.  This latter methodology was continued by the early Jewish settlers and strongly reinforced after the creation of Israel.

Appropriation of Arabic names occurred through the process of alliteration, finding – or even inventing – a Hebraic word resembling the Arabic word.  A similar process was used for personal names of the Jewish European settlers by choosing a Hebrew word or as frequently an appropriated Arabic word to create a new patronymic.

One of the strongest methods is simply erasure.  This occurred before, during and after the nakba as many villages were physically destroyed, many others expropriated, and most being renamed using some form of Biblical/Hebraic names.  Erasure continues both geographically and culturally ranging from street signs to educational texts and instructions.

From the general trend of Musalha’s presentation, modern Hebrew is a contrived language, based on a confined liturgical element incorporating by necessity many modern terms, many Arabic/Palestinian terms, and many biblical terms rendered into a semblance of an ancient Hebraic language.  It also clearly demonstrates a history of a region called Palestine at the geographical crossroads of ancient and modern history, surviving under various rulers, some with more autonomy than others, but distinctly Palestinian.

Further, while not denying the existence of an Israeli entity, it is seen as an ongoing part of many different peoples and cultures that inhabited the area at one time or another.   The Israeli myth of a sudden influx of Arabs during the Muslim conquests is compared to the historical record of a gradual introduction of Arabic ideas and peoples into the region before the conquest.  Of note as well are the frequent references to the peaceful mixing and coexistence of the three major religions in the more modern landscape before the advent of the Orientalist Christian Zionism began to usurp the region.

Unfortunately for all that, Palestine – A Four Thousand Year History, has a problem that does not deny its academic argument.  The work for the purpose of spreading this information to the general public is far too scholarly and academic, something I can work through because of my background reading and my intentions as a reviewer, but would prove very difficult to attract attention to a general reader. The first section in particular, while referencing many maps using the word Palestine or its linguistic equivalents, does not provide any visuals – no maps.  A reference section with some plates showing the range of maps from ancient histories through to the British maps of Mandatory Palestine would be a valuable addition to the work.

Having said that, I must reiterate that his arguments support the main thesis very well. The latter half of the book both instructs this thesis and at the same time provides a more reader friendly discussion of not only the geography, but the essence of the people of Palestine.

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Jim Miles is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

TRNN Correspondent Dimitri Lascaris reports from the ground in Caracas about Saturday’s pro- and anti-government marches, highlighting their peacefulness and equal size

Full transcript below.

 

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DIMITRI LASCARIS: This is Dimitri Lascaris, reporting for The Real News from Caracas, Venezuela, on Saturday, February 2. I am standing at the main intersection in the quarter of Mercedes in Caracas. This is an affluent, if not the most affluent, part of the city. And today the opposition led by Guaido has called a massive protest to continue to exert pressure upon the government of Nicolas Maduro to resign.

I would estimate I’ve walked for about six or seven kilometers with protesters who are converging on this point of the city. I’ve been with them now for about an hour, and certainly I would say the crowd is–consists of at least tens of thousands of people. You only see a small part of it here. And by any rational measure it is a very large protest.

And it certainly does indicate, at least for the capital, Caracas, that there is a very significant degree of opposition to the government of Nicolas Maduro. What is also interesting is that the protesters have been quite peaceful. And law enforcement authorities, on their side, have been virtually invisible. I think I’ve seen no more than 25 police officers during the entire six, seven kilometre route that I walked. I’ve seen no military personnel. I haven’t seen any police officers dressed in riot gear. The ones that I did see, the few that I did see, seemed to be there for no other purpose than directing traffic.

What is notable about this, of course, is that Western leaders have characterized Nicolas Maduro as a brutal dictator, and have accused the security forces under his command of having committed numerous atrocities against Venezuelan protesters and those who support the opposition. I’ve seen absolutely no evidence of that here. The one small sign I saw of military presence was that at one point what appeared to be a military helicopter flew overhead as we were walking towards this point. And the crowd waved at the helicopter, and smiled, and started clapping, as if to to send a message of welcome to whoever was piloting the helicopter.

But in any case, one has to contrast these claims that Nicolas Maduro is a brutal dictator to what I’ve seen here today, and to what we see oftentimes in the West. I’ve attended numerous protests in Canada and the United States which were far smaller than this, and sometimes–almost routinely–you’ll see police officers, dozens of them, at sizable protests, dressed in riot gear. And sometimes the police dressed in riot gear, in protests I’ve seen in the United States even outnumbered the protesters.

And let us recall that the figurehead of this opposition, the self-proclaimed president, is openly asking the military to rebel against the elected President Nicolas Maduro, and is effectively fomenting a military coup. Despite that fact, and despite the fact that these protesters are here to show their support for that politician, who has never been elected as president of Venezuela, there’s absolutely no indication, at least at this protest, that the government seeks to suppress the right of those who are opposed to the Maduro regime to express their dissent, and even to call for the removal of the president.

Here I’m in the western part of the city, standing on Avenida Bolivar. And it’s a little bit difficult to tell, I think, from this angle, but this crowd of pro-Maduro Chavista supporters extends all the way down to the end of the Avenue, where that tall building is situated. There are, I would say with confidence, tens of thousands of people out here today just as I saw probably tens of thousands of people at the pro-opposition rally. The people here are very peaceful. The atmosphere is rather festive. Just as I noticed at the opposition rally, there is absolutely no detectable presence of riot police, and no military presence at all. And to the extent there are any police officers at all–and I’ve only seen a smattering of them–they seem to be there to do nothing more than ensure an orderly flow of the protesters and the traffic. Which is quite a contrast to what you see at protests, whether they’re–especially when they’re against the regime, the governing regime, in the West, and Europe, and Canada, and the United States. Nowadays there’s routinely some contingent of riot police present, and sometimes a rather large contingent of riot police.

But here that’s just not the case, and it’s difficult to square the claims that Maduro is a brutal dictator with what one sees on the streets here in Caracas today.

This is Dimitri Lascaris, reporting for The Real News from Caracas, Venezuela.

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Cold War 2.0 has hit South America with a bang – pitting the US and expected minions against the four key pillars of in-progress Eurasia integration: Russia, China, Iran and Turkey.

It’s the oil, stupid. But there’s way more than meets the (oily) eye.

Caracas has committed the ultimate cardinal sin in the eyes of Exceptionalistan; oil trading bypassing the US dollar or US-controlled exchanges.

Remember Iraq. Remember Libya. Yet Iran is also doing it. Turkey is doing it. Russia is – partially – on the way. And China will eventually trade all its energy in petroyuan.

With Venezuela adopting the petro crypto-currency and the sovereign bolivar, already last year the Trump administration had sanctioned Caracas off the international financial system.

No wonder Caracas is supported by China, Russia and Iran. They are the real hardcore troika – not psycho-killer John Bolton’s cartoonish “troika of tyranny” – fighting against the Trump administration’s energy dominance strategy, which consists essentially in aiming at the total lock down of oil trading in petrodollars, forever.

Venezuela is a key cog in the machine. Psycho killer Bolton admitted it on the record;

“It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

It’s not a matter of just letting ExxonMobil take over Venezuela’s massive oil reserves – the largest on the planet. The key is to monopolize their exploitation in US dollars, benefitting a few Big Oil billionaires.

Once again, the curse of natural resources is in play. Venezuela must not be allowed to profit from its wealth on its own terms; thus, Exceptionalistan has ruled that the Venezuelan state must be shattered.

In the end, this is all about economic war. Cue to the US Treasury Department imposing new sanctions on PDVSA that amount to a de facto oil embargo against Venezuela.

Economic war redux

By now it’s firmly established what happened in Caracas was not a color revolution but an old-school US-promoted regime change coup using local comprador elites, installing as “interim president” an unknown quantity, Juan Guaido, with his Obama choirboy looks masking extreme right-wing credentials.

Everyone remembers “Assad must go”. The first stage in the Syrian color revolution was the instigation of civil war, followed by a war by proxy via multinational jihadi mercenaries. As Thierry Meyssan has noted, the role of the Arab League then is performed by the OAS now. And the role of Friends of Syria – now lying in the dustbin of history – is now performed by the Lima group, the club of Washington’s vassals. Instead of al-Nusra “moderate rebels”, we may have Colombian – or assorted Emirati-trained – “moderate rebel” mercenaries.

Contrary to Western corporate media fake news, the latest elections in Venezuela were absolutely legitimate. There was no way to tamper with the made in Taiwan electronic voting machines. The ruling Socialist Party got 70 percent of the votes; the opposition, with many parties boycotting it, got 30 percent. A serious delegation of the Latin American Council of Electoral Experts (CEELA) was adamant; the election reflected “peacefully and without problems, the will of Venezuelan citizens”.

The American embargo may be vicious. In parallel, Maduro’s government may have been supremely incompetent in not diversifying the economy and investing in food self-sufficiency. Major food importers, speculating like there’s no tomorrow, are making a killing. Still, reliable sources in Caracas tell that the barrios – the popular neighborhoods – remain largely peaceful.

In a country where a full tank of gas still costs less than a can of Coke, there’s no question the chronic shortages of food and medicines in local clinics have forced at least two million people to leave Venezuela. But the key enforcing factor is the US embargo.

The UN rapporteur to Venezuela, expert on international law, and former secretary of the UN Human Rights Council, Alfred de Zayas, goes straight to the point; much more than engaging in the proverbial demonization of Maduro, Washington is waging “economic war” against a whole nation.

It’s enlightening to see how the “Venezuelan people” see the charade. In a poll conducted by Hinterlaces even before the Trump administration coup/regime change wet dream, 86% of Venezuelans said they were against any sort of US intervention, military or not,

And 81% of Venezuelans said they were against US sanctions. So much for “benign” foreign interference on behalf of “democracy” and “human rights”.

The Russia-China factor

Analyses by informed observers such as Eva Golinger and most of all, the Mision Verdad collective are extremely helpful. What’s certain, in true Empire of Chaos mode, is that the American playbook, beyond the embargo and sabotage, is to foment civil war.

Dodgy “armed groups” have been active in the Caracas barrios, acting in the dead of night and amplifying “social unrest” on social media. Still, Guaido holds absolutely no power inside the country. His only chance of success is if he manages to install a parallel government – cashing in on the oil revenue and having Washington arrest government members on trumped-up charges.

Irrespective of neocon wet dreams, adults at the Pentagon should know that an invasion of Venezuela may indeed metastasize into a tropical Vietnam quagmire. The Brazilian strongman in waiting, vice-president and retired general Hamilton Mourao, already said there will be no military intervention.

Psycho killer Bolton’s by now infamous notepad stunt about “5,000 troops to Colombia”, is a joke; these would have no chance against the arguably 15,000 Cubans who are in charge of security for the Maduro government; Cubans have demonstrated historically they are not in the business of handing over power.

It all comes back to what China and Russia may do. China is Venezuela’s largest creditor. Maduro was received by Xi Jinping last year in Beijing, getting an extra $5 billion in loans and signing at least 20 bilateral agreements.

President Putin offered his full support to Maduro over the phone, diplomatically stressing that “destructive interference from abroad blatantly violates basic norms of international law.”

By January 2016, oil was as low as $35 a barrel; a disaster to Venezuela’s coffers. Maduro then decided to transfer 49.9% of the state ownership in PDVSA’s US subsidiary, Citgo, to Russian Rosneft for a mere $1.5 billion loan. This had to send a wave of red lights across the Beltway; those “evil” Russians were now part owners of Venezuela’s prime asset.

Late last year, still in need of more funds, Maduro opened gold mining in Venezuela to Russian mining companies. And there’s more; nickel, diamonds, iron ore, aluminum, bauxite, all coveted by Russia, China – and the US. As for $1.3 billion of Venezuela’s own gold, forget about repatriating it from the Bank of England.

And then, last December, came the straw that broke the Deep State’s back; the friendship flight of two Russian nuclear-capable Tu-160 bombers. How dare they? In our own backyard?

The Trump administration’s energy masterplan may be indeed to annex Venezuela to a parallel “North American-South American Petroleum Exporting Countries” (NASAPEC) cartel, capable of rivaling the OPEC+ love story between Russia and the House of Saud.

But even if that came to fruition, and adding a possible, joint US-Qatar LNG alliance, there’s no guarantee that would be enough to assure petrodollar – and petrogas – preeminence in the long run.

Eurasia energy integration will mostly bypass the petrodollar; this is at the very heart of both the BRICS and SCO strategy. From Nord Stream 2 to Turk Stream, Russia is locking down a long-term energy partnership with Europe. And petroyuan dominance is just a matter of time. Moscow knows it. Tehran knows it. Ankara knows it. Riyadh knows it.

So what about plan B, neocons? Ready for your tropical Vietnam?

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Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst, writer and journalist.

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President Trump, Vice President Pence and National Security Advisor John Bolton escalated threats to launch a war against Venezuela, as large pro- and anti-government demonstrations filled Venezuela’s streets on Saturday.

In an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation” program that aired before the Super Bowl yesterday, Trump reiterated that military intervention “is an option.” Pence assured a crowd of far-right Venezuelan exiles in Miami on Friday that

“this is no time for dialogue, it is the moment for action, and the time has come to end the Maduro dictatorship once and for all… Those looking on should know this: all options are on the table.”

Bolton, who helped author the playbook that was used to launch the 2003 invasion of Iraq, issued a blunt threat Friday that the US would kill or jail and torture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro if he did not resign. Comparing Maduro to Nicolae Ceaușescu and Benito Mussolini—both of whom were killed—Bolton told right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt:

“The sooner he takes advantage of that [i.e., resignation], the sooner he’s likely to have a nice quiet retirement on a pretty beach rather than being in some other beach area like Guantanamo.”

Self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, the US and their allies in South America and Europe are preparing a new provocation aimed at forcing the Venezuelan military to abandon Maduro, with Guaidó announcing that the US will deliver aid at three locations along the Venezuelan border in the coming days.

While Maduro and the Venezuelan military leadership have said they will refuse the aid, the US hopes that images of crowds gathering to receive food and medication will either provoke the military to defect to the opposition and help distribute the aid or provide valuable propaganda footage justifying the need for a “humanitarian” intervention.

Over the weekend, hundreds of armed Colombian soldiers dressed in battle fatigues deployed to one of the three “aid distribution” centers, Cúcuta, on the Venezuela-Colombia border. Colombia’s far-right President Iván Duque issued a statement proclaiming, “Few hours remain to the Venezuelan dictatorship.” At a press conference last week announcing Washington’s moves to topple Maduro, Bolton held under his arm a note pad with the words written in plain view: “5,000 troops to Colombia.”

Guaidó also announced that one of the “aid” locations would be on the border with Brazil, which deployed troops to the border last year, while the third would be on an island in the Caribbean.

The stepped-up pressure produced an initial crack in the Venezuelan military, which remains the backbone of the Maduro government. Over the weekend, one Air Force general and a small group of mid-level Air Force officials defected and issued public statements calling on their colleagues to join them.

Germán Ferrer, a sitting Venezuelan legislator and United Socialist Party member who opposes Maduro, told the CBC that Maduro has disabled combat aircraft for fear the Air Force will turn on the government.

The US is imposing blanket sanctions on Venezuelan oil that amount to a blockade on oil exports. This act of economic war is intended to increase social misery.

Shannon O’Neil of the Council on Foreign Relations told a conference call of bankers, government officials and oil executives last week that the sanctions will lead to “more deprivation, even given the low base we’re at, more among the population.” The sanctions will force thousands to flee the country, she added:

“You’re going to see more refugees pouring into countries throughout the hemisphere and elsewhere around the world.”

The Brookings Institution explained that the present stage of the coup operation is aimed at “building an off-ramp for the Maduro regime.” In the parlance of US imperialism, countries whose leaders do not take the “off-ramp” are, like Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Gaddafi in Libya and Assad in Syria, subject to a hailstorm of bombs and missiles from the air and US troops or proxy armies on the ground.

As the Council on Foreign Relations’ O’Neil told the corporate conference call,

“If it [sanctions] doesn’t work in dislodging this regime, then there’s not a lot left in the toolkit besides things like military intervention.”

A military intervention in Venezuela—population 30 million—could kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people and transform Latin America into an imperialist slaughterhouse.

The geopolitical intelligence think tank Stratfor recently noted,

“A military intervention could quickly snowball into one of the largest worldwide military operations since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”

Francisco Toro, a Washington Post columnist and anti-Maduro think tank analyst, told the Council on Foreign Relations gathering that a military intervention would lead to “a kind of Syrian civil war” and confrontation between nuclear-armed powers.

He said:

“There is this definite threat that if a military operation takes any amount of time in Venezuela, that other countries then start to move in too. And you can imagine, easily, Brazil moving into the southeast, Colombia into the southwest. You can imagine Russia trying to defend its oil interests, because Russia has big oil investments in Venezuela. You can imagine China doing I don’t know what. And Cuba has already intelligence penetration into the Venezuelan armed forces.”

Maduro’s strategy is three-fold. First, he is seeking to present himself as palatable to US imperialism and open to negotiation with the far-right opposition. Second, he is using the threat of “another Vietnam” as bargaining leverage against a US military intervention. Third, he is violently crushing working class opposition over inflation, poverty and record levels of social inequality.

Maduro rejected the demand of several European imperialist powers that he announce by February 2 the holding of new presidential elections. As the deadline passed, European governments—including the UK, France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany—officially joined the US in recognizing Guaidó as president.

Maduro will now participate in large military exercises scheduled to last from February 5 to February 10. His government has also reportedly armed tens of thousands of members of a civilian reserve force with World War Two-era bolt-action rifles in anticipation of a possible invasion.

Key to the government’s strategy is a ferocious military crackdown on working class demonstrations and food riots. While the military and police have maintained a more passive presence at “official” demonstrations held by the right-wing opposition, government forces have murdered dozens of workers and youth participating in demonstrations over lack of access to food, water and other basic necessities.

The Maduro regime has responded to these demonstrations, which largely take place at night in the slum areas, with midnight raids by death squads, “disappearing” working class opponents in an effort to terrorize the areas that once were bastions of support for Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez Frias. The corporate media does not report these crackdowns.

In this way, Maduro is attempting to prove to his opponents in the US and Europe—as well as his backers in Russia and China—that he remains the best option for ending instability and keeping the oil flowing.

At its roots, Washington’s intensifying efforts at regime-change in Venezuela are part of a “pivot to Latin America” aimed at eradicating Chinese and Russian influence and transforming the whole Western Hemisphere into the exclusive cheap-labor and primary resource platform for US imperialism.

In November 2018, when Bolton announced the “Troika of Tyranny”—Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua—he was elaborating the strategic view that the US cannot successfully conduct operations against Russia in Eastern Europe, against China in South Asia, or against both Russia and China in Central Asia, without eliminating their presence in “America’s backyard” and freeing up the region’s resources for the US war machine. The establishment of a US-ruled “Fortress Americas” was a central foreign policy component of the “America First” movement in the early 1940s.

In a March 2018 document published by the US Army War College titled “The Strategic Relevance of Latin America in the US National Security Strategy,” the Army notes that in the aftermath of the fall of the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s, “most democratic societies in the Western Hemisphere” are “feckless and unconsolidated, thereby representing a threat to the national security of the United States by external actors (such as China and Russia) opposing US interests in the region.”

The strategy document indicated another reason for possible military operations in Venezuela: the need for the US military to test its operating capacities in heavily populated urban areas.

“Latin American megacities are also a laboratory for the US Army in cooperation with its strategic partners in addressing another important issue, or, perhaps, an old issue in the post-Cold War international system: how to fight a conventional war in an unconventional environment,” the document states. “Megacities are the new arena for conflicts in the 21st century. Therefore, the US Government and Army cannot afford to be caught off guard when called upon to exercise and accomplish its mission.”

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The White House decision to withdraw American troops from Syria as soon as possible may or may not be on track depending on whom one believes. But one thing that is for sure is that the recent suicide bomber attack in Manbij, Syria, which killed four Americans and has been attributed to ISIS, has inspired the opponents of the drawdown to renew their claim that the terrorist group is still an active threat to the United States. President Donald Trump is now being subjected to heavy bipartisan and media pressure to reverse his decision.

It is perhaps a coincidence that the attack should take place not long after the White House announcement of the withdrawal, thereby giving ammunition to those who wish to stay in Syria, admittedly illegally, for the foreseeable future. Or is it perhaps something else? Why, one must ask, did ISIS do something against its own interests by attacking Americans and thereby increasing the odds that U.S. armed forces would remain in Syria? Wouldn’t it have been preferable to just let the American military leave, thereby eliminating one enemy from the playing field?

Former arms inspector Scott Ritter, in a detailed analysis of what is going on in Syria, has asked those questions and comes up with an explanation. Far from being an enemy of ISIS, the U.S. has actually served to protect the group. American presence in northeast Syria, where the ISIS remnants are still holding on, has actually prevented the final destruction of the terrorist group. Without the U.S. serving as an impediment, the armed forces of Syria aided by Russia and Iran would have already crushed ISIS in its remaining enclaves.

Thus it is, against all conventional wisdom, the United States that is serving as ISIS’s protector, and the group staged the bombing deliberately with that in mind because it is better from their viewpoint to have American forces remain. They also clearly understood enough about American politics and its media to realize that they would be giving fuel to those in Congress and among the mainstream punditry to put more pressure on Trump to have the troops remain in place.

That is how you start a war, or at least keep one going. It is called deception, or, when carried out by a state actor, a false flag in that the event is capable of being misinterpreted or mis-attributed to produce a desired result. There have been numerous deception operations throughout history used to start wars. The battleship Maine was not blown up by the Spaniards in Havana Harbor in 1898, but it served as a useful pretext to start a war that stripped Spain of its colonies. The Zimmerman telegram in World War I was a phony, but it helped bring the U.S. into the war against Germany. More recently there were the two Gulf of Tonkin incidents, both lies, which dramatically increased American involvement in Vietnam. And one should not forget the largely fabricated humanitarian and national security arguments made to attack Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

If one goes by the message coming out of the White House and State Department, it would appear that the next country being targeted by the U.S. for regime change is Iran. And the best way to start the war would be to have the Iranians, or someone pretending to be the Iranians, attack a U.S. naval vessel in the Persian Gulf. If it were carried out by, let us suggest, the Israelis or Saudis, both of whom have motive to do so, it would be a false-flag operation leading to war. It would also be a false flag if the U.S. itself were to carry out the attack pretending to be Iranians. One recalls from the movie “Patton” the general’s hatred of the Russians and his rant at the end of the film, “In 10 days I’ll have us at war with those sons of b****** and I’ll make it look like their fault.” There are, unfortunately, many in D.C. who would support such an approach, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Some observers are concerned that the current lineup of administration hotheads is so devoid of scruples that it might well be planning to either provoke or false-flag the United States into the longed-for war against Iran.

Unfortunately, to a certain extent, Iran is playing into the scheming by America’s hawks. Early in December, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani threatened to stop all shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz if Washington moves to block Iranian oil exports when sanctions kick in early in May. He said,

“If someday, the United States decides to block Iran’s oil, no oil will be exported from the Persian Gulf.”

Washington for its part is also upping the ante, having sent an aircraft carrier, the USS John C. Stennis, to the Persian Gulf recently as part of a “show of force.” Iran has also beefed up its forces by deploying a considerable naval force to the Indian Ocean near the Persian Gulf, ready to move into the strait and close it if ordered to do so. Iran claims that it “completely controls the strait.”

As nearly 30% of all seaborne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz with the Stennis and Iranian forces on standby in the same area, the possibility of a fight starting either deliberately or by accident is growing. In early December, State Department Special Representative on Iran Brian Hook declared during a press conference that Washington would “not hesitate to use military force when our interests are threatened . . . the military option on the table.”

One does not have to suggest that either the United States or one of its alleged allies in the Middle East will inevitably take the low road and stage an incident, but the possibility remains it will occur to someone that this would be the easiest path to war. Others, who want war but are more cautious in terms of how they will initiate it, are probably waiting for the May 5 deadline when the U.S. embargo on Iranian oil sales kicks in. Iran will be forced to react, and the U.S. is no doubt preparing to strike back. We will thereby have a new war that serves no one’s interest apart from Israel and the Saudis and which will potentially devastate the region.

The American people will have to do the actual fighting and dying while also paying the bills afterwards and will emerge as the biggest losers.

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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. Other articles by Giraldi can be found on the website of the Unz Review.

Featured image is from American Free Press

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by Michel Chossudovsky

ISBN Number: 9780973714715

List Price: $24.95

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

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

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

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

American Herald Tribune: Why did the US suspend the INF treaty with Russia? Is it a matter of Trump breaking treaties or is it the will of the establishment?

Paul Craig Roberts: Washington withdrew from the INF treaty as part of the attempt, ongoing since the Clinton regime, to achieve military hegemony over Russia. Clinton broke Washington’s word and moved NATO to Russia’s borders. George W. Bush withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty in order to create a shield that would give Washington a first-strike advantage over Russia. Russia responded with hypersonic missiles that cannot be intercepted. Trump withdrew from the INF treaty in order to place missiles on Russia’s borders that permit Russia no reaction time.

A second reason for Washington’s withdrawal is that Washington wants to deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles against China.

A third reason is that the additional $1 trillion budgeted by the Obama regime for more nuclear weapons needs an excuse, and restarting an arms race by withdrawing from the INF treaty creates an excuse for Washington to hand over $1 trillion more of taxpayers’ money to the military/security complex.

American Herald Tribune: How do you think the government of Nicolas Maduro can survive the US coup? What measures should be employed to secure their economy against US sanctions?

Paul Craig Roberts: Maduro would have to arrest Juan Guaido who without any doubt is guilty of sedition. Maduro would have to arrest the Venezuelan elites who are cooperating with the CIA against the duly elected government of Venezuela, and he would have to nationalize the media to take it out of the hands of coup plotters.  He would also have to ensure that the country’s oil revenues make it into the government’s budget instead of into the hands of thieves and use the resulting financial stability to stop the high inflation.  He should also arrange for Russian troops to protect their airbase and for Chinese troops to protect their oil investment.  The presence of these troops would likely prevent a US invasion from Columbia.

American Herald Tribune: Does Europe have the will to set up its own monetary system independent of the US?

Paul Craig Roberts: Europe has its own central bank and its own currency.  One problem with European financial independence is that large European banks have the same problem as the large New York banks and the European Central Bank cooperates with the Federal Reserve in managing the problem.  The necessity of keeping crisis at bay prevents European independence.  If Europe were to create a payment and clearing system independent of Washington, the likely response would be US sanctions against European firms and banks doing business in the US.  If European firms are unwilling to give up their US business, there is not much Europe can do.

American Herald Tribune: Some say the ‘special purpose vehicle’ SPV, called INSTEX, is an important milestone in the European effort to counterbalance U.S. economic power. What’s your take on that?

Paul Craig Roberts: The same consideration makes it difficult for the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and INSTEX, a bartering mechanism that bypasses dollar transactions to continue Europe’s trade with Iran.  Washington has told Europe that if your enterprises want their access to US markets to continue, do as we say with regard to Iran and Russia.  With this being Washington’s attitude, Europe would have to break with the US and redirect its business to other parts of the world.  This would require nationalist leaders such as France’s Marine Le Pen.

American Herald Tribune: Sec. Pompeo tweeted in Farsi against Iran’s government and called Iran’s revolution “40 years of failure”. What is the reason for his disgust of Iran’s Islamic Revolution?

Paul Craig Roberts: Washington’s campaign against Iran reflects Israel’s hold over US foreign policy.  Israel wants to expand in the Middle East, which requires removing the obstacles to that expansion.  On Israel’s agenda is the water resource in southern Lebanon.  Twice Israel has sent its army to occupy the territory and twice was driven out by the Hezbollah militia.  Hezbollah is supplied with funds and arms by Syria and Iran.  Thus, the Israeli-directed US attack on Syria and Iran. If these two countries can be destabilized like Iraq and Syria, Hezbollah will be left without support and unable to oppose Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon.

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This article was originally published on American Herald Tribune.

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The U.S. military has long insisted that it maintains a “light footprint” in Africa, and there have been reports of proposed drawdowns in special operations forces and closures of outposts on the continent, due to a 2017 ambush in Niger and an increasing focus on rivals like China and Russia. But through it all, U.S. Africa Command has fallen short of providing concrete information about its bases on the continent, leaving in question the true scope of the American presence there.

Documents obtained from AFRICOM by The Intercept, via the Freedom of Information Act, however, offer a unique window onto the sprawling network of U.S. military outposts in Africa, including previously undisclosed or unconfirmed sites in hotspots like Libya, Niger, and Somalia.  The Pentagon has also told The Intercept that troop reductions in Africa will be modest and phased-in over several years and that no outposts are expected to close as a result of the personnel cuts.

According to a 2018 briefing by AFRICOM science adviser Peter E. Teil, the military’s constellation of bases includes 34 sites scattered across the continent, with high concentrations in the north and west as well as the Horn of Africa. These regions, not surprisingly, have also seen numerous U.S. drone attacks and low-profile commando raids in recent years. For example, Libya — the site of drone and commando missions, but for which President Donald Trump said he saw no U.S. military role just last year — is nonetheless home to three previously undisclosed outposts.

“U.S. Africa Command’s posture plan is designed to secure strategic access to key locations on a continent characterized by vast distances and limited infrastructure,” Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, the AFRICOM commander, told the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year, though he didn’t provide specifics on the number of bases. “Our posture network allows forward staging of forces to provide operational flexibility and timely response to crises involving U. S. personnel or interests without creating the optic that U. S. Africa Command is militarizing Africa.”

According to Adam Moore, an assistant professor of geography at the University of California, Los Angeles and an expert on the U.S. military’s presence in Africa,

“It is getting harder for the U.S. military to plausibly claim that it has a ‘light footprint’ in Africa. In just the past five years, it has established what is perhaps the largest drone complex in the world in Djibouti — Chabelley — which is involved in wars on two continents, Yemen, and Somalia.”

Moore also noted that the U.S. is building an even larger drone base in Agadez, Niger.

“Certainly, for people living in Somalia, Niger, and Djibouti, the notion that the U.S. is not militarizing their countries rings false,” he added.

For the last 10 years, AFRICOM has not only sought to define its presence as limited in scope, but its military outposts as small, temporary, and little more than local bases where Americans are tenants. For instance, this is how Waldhauser described a low-profile drone outpost in Tunisia last year: “And it’s not our base, it’s the Tunisians’ base.” On a visit to a U.S. facility in Senegal this summer, the AFRICOM chief took pains to emphasize that the U.S. had no intension of establishing a permanent base there. Still, there’s no denying the scope of AFRICOM’s network of outposts, nor the growth in infrastructure. Air Forces Africa alone, the command’s air component, has recently completed or is currently working on nearly 30 construction projects across four countries in Africa.

“The U.S. footprint on the African continent has grown markedly over the last decade to promote U.S. security interests on the continent,” Navy Cmdr. Candice Tresch, a Pentagon spokesperson, told The Intercept.

While China, France, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates have increased their own military engagement in Africa in recent years and a number of countries now possess outposts on the continent, none approach the wide-ranging U.S. footprint.  China, for example, has just one base in Africa – a facility in Djibouti.

According to the documents obtained by The Intercept through the Freedom of Information Act, AFRICOM’s network of bases includes larger “enduring” outposts, consisting of forward operating sites, or FOSes, and cooperative security locations, or CSLs, as well as more numerous austere sites known as contingency locations, or CLs. All of these are located on the African continent except for an FOS on Britain’s Ascension Island in the south Atlantic. Teil’s map of AFRICOM’s “Strategic Posture” names the specific locations of all 14 FOSes and CSLs and provides country-specific locales for the 20 contingency locations. The Pentagon would not say whether the tally was exhaustive, however, citing concerns about publicly providing the number of forces deployed to specific facilities or individual countries. “For reasons of operational security, complete and specific force lay-downs are not releasable,” said Tresch.

While troops and outposts periodically come and go from the continent, and some locations used by commandos conducting sensitive missions are likely kept under wraps, Teil’s map represents the most current and complete accounting available and indicates the areas of the continent of greatest concern to Africa Command.

“The distribution of bases suggests that the U.S. military is organized around three counter-terrorism theaters in Africa: the Horn of Africa — Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya; Libya; and the Sahel — Cameroon, Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso,” says Moore, noting that the U.S. has only one base in the south of the continent and has scaled back engagement in Central Africa in recent years.

U.S. Africa Command’s “Strategic Posture” — listing 34 military outposts — from a 2018 briefing by Science Advisor Peter E. Teil. (Source: U.S. Africa Command)

Niger, Somalia, and Kenya

Teil’s briefing confirms, for the first time, that the U.S. military currently has more sites in Niger — five, including two cooperative security locations — than any other country on the western side of the continent. Niamey, the country’s capital, is the location of Air Base 101, a longtime U.S. drone outpost attached to Diori Hamani International Airport; the site of a Special Operations Advanced Operations Base; and the West Africa node for AFRICOM’s contractor-provided personnel recovery and casualty evacuation services. The other CSL, in the remote smuggling hub of Agadez, is set to become the premier U.S. military outpost in West Africa. That drone base, located at Nigerien Air Base 201, not only boasts a $100 million construction price tag but, with operating expenses, is estimated to cost U.S. taxpayers more than a quarter-billion dollars by 2024 when the 10-year agreement for its use ends.

Officially, a CSL is neither “a U.S. facility or base.” It is, according to the military, “simply a location that, when needed and with the permission of the partner country, can be used by U.S. personnel to support a wide range of contingencies.” The sheer dimensions, cost, and importance of Agadez seems to suggest otherwise.

“Judging by its size and the infrastructure investments to date, Agadez more resembles massive bases that the military created in Iraq and Afghanistan than a small, unobtrusive, ‘lily pad,’” says Moore.

The U.S. military presence in Niger gained widespread exposure last year when an October 4 ambush by ISIS in the Greater Sahara near the Mali border killed four U.S. soldiers, including Green Berets, and wounded two others. A Pentagon investigation into the attack shed additional light on other key U.S. military sites in Niger including Ouallam and Arlit, where Special Operations forces (SOF) deployed in 2017, and Maradi, where SOF were sent in 2016. Arlit also appeared as a proposed contingency location in a formerly secret 2015 AFRICOM posture plan obtained by The Intercept. Ouallam, which was listed in contracting documents brought to light by The Intercept last year, was the site of an SOF effort to train and equip a Nigerian counterterrorism company as well as another effort to conduct operations with other local units. Contracting documents from 2017 also noted the need for 4,400 gallons per month of gasoline, 1,100 gallons per month of diesel fuel, and 6,000 gallons of aviation turbine fuel to be delivered, every 90 days, to a “military installation” in Dirkou.

While the five bases in Niger anchor the west of the continent, the five U.S. outposts in Somalia are tops in the east. Somalia is the East Africa hub for contractor-provided personnel recovery and casualty evacuation services as well as the main node for the military’s own personnel recovery and casualty evacuation operations. These sites, revealed in AFRICOM maps for the first time, do not include a CIA base revealed in 2014 by The Nation.

All U.S. military facilities in Somalia, by virtue of being contingency locations, are unnamed on AFRICOM’s 2018 map. Previously, Kismayo has been identified as a key outpost, while the declassified 2015 AFRICOM posture plan names proposed CLs in Baidoa, Bosaaso, and the capital, Mogadishu, as well as Berbera in the self-declared state of Somaliland. If locations on Teil’s map are accurate, one of the Somali sites is located in this latter region. Reporting by Vice News earlier this year indicated there were actually six new U.S facilities being constructed in Somalia as well as the expansion of Baledogle, a base for which a contract for “emergency runway repairs” was recently issued.

According to top secret documents obtained by The Intercept in 2015, elite troops from a unit known as Task Force 48-4 were involved in drone attacks in Somalia earlier this decade. This air war has continued in the years since. The U.S. has already conducted 36 air strikes in Somalia this year, compared to 34 for all of 2017 and 15 in 2016, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Somalia’s neighbor, Kenya, boasts four U.S. bases. These include cooperative security locations at Mombasa as well as Manda Bay, where a 2013 Pentagon study of secret drone operations in Somalia and Yemen noted that two manned fixed-wing aircraft were then based. AFRICOM’s 2015 posture plan also mentions contingency locations at Lakipia, the site of a Kenyan Air Force base, and another Kenyan airfield at Wajir that was upgraded and expanded by the U.S. Navy earlier in this decade.

Libya, Tunisia, and Djibouti

Teil’s map shows a cluster of three unnamed and previously unreported contingency locations near the Libyan coastline. Since 2011, the U.S. has carried out approximately 550 drone strikes targeting al Qaeda and Islamic State militants in the restive North African nation. During a four-month span in 2016, for example, there were around 300 such attacks, according to U.S. officials. That’s seven times more than the 42 confirmed U.S. drone strikes carried out in Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan combined for all of 2016, according to data compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a London-based nonprofit news organization. The Libya attacks have continued under the Trump administration, with the latest acknowledged U.S. drone strike occurring near Al Uwaynat on November 29. AFRICOM’s 2015 posture plan listed only an outpost at Al-Wigh, a Saharan airfield near that country’s borders with Niger, Chad, and Algeria, located far to the south of the three current CLs.

Africa Command’s map also shows a contingency location in neighboring Tunisia, possibly Sidi Ahmed Air Base, a key regional U.S. drone outpost that has played an important role in air strikes in Libya in recent years.

“You know, flying intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones out of Tunisia has been taking place for quite some time,” said Waldhauser, the AFRICOM commander, last year.  “[W]e fly there, it’s not a secret, but we are very respectful to the Tunisians’ desires in terms of, you know, how we support them and the fact that we have [a] low profile…”

Djibouti is home to the crown jewel of U.S. bases on the continent, Camp Lemonnier, a former French Foreign Legion outpost and AFRICOM’s lone forward operating site on the continent. A longtime hub for counterterrorism operations in Yemen and Somalia and the home of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF–HOA), Camp Lemonnier hosts around 4,000 U.S. and allied personnel, and, according to Teil, is the “main platform” for U.S. crisis response forces in Africa. Since 2002, the base has expanded from 88 acres to nearly 600 acres and spun off a satellite outpost — a cooperative security location 10 kilometers to the southwest, where drone operations in the country were relocated in 2013. Chabelley Airfieldhas gone on to serve as an integral base for missions in Somalia and Yemen as well as the drone war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

“United States military personnel remain deployed to Djibouti, including for purposes of posturing for counterterrorism and counter-piracy operations in the vicinity of the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and to provide contingency support for embassy security augmentation in East Africa,” President Donald Trump noted in June.

Cameroon, Mali, and Chad

AFRICOM’s strategic posture also includes two contingency locations in Cameroon. One is an outpost in the north of the country, known as CL Garoua, which is used to fly drone missions and also as a base for the Army’s Task Force Darby, which supports Cameroonian forces fighting the terrorist group Boko Haram. Cameroon is also home to a longtime outpost in Douala as well as U.S. facilities in Maroua and a nearby base called Salak, which is also used by U.S. personnel and private contractors for training missions and drone surveillance.  In 2017, Amnesty International, the London-based research firm Forensic Architecture, and The Intercept exposed illegal imprisonment, torture, and killings by Cameroonian troops at Salak.

In neighboring Mali, there are two contingency locations. AFRICOM’s 2015 posture plan lists proposed CLs in Gao and Mali’s capital, Bamako.  The 2018 map also notes the existence of a CSL in Chad’s capital N’Djamena, a site where the U.S. began flying drones earlier this decade; it’s also the headquarters of a Special Operations Command and Control Element, an elite battalion-level command. Another unidentified contingency location in Chad could be a CL in Faya Largeau, which was mentioned in AFRICOM’s 2015 posture plan.

In Gabon, a cooperative security location exists in Libreville. Last year, U.S. troops carried out an exercise there to test their ability to turn the Libreville CSL into a forward command post to facilitate an influx of a large number of forces. A CSL can also be found in Accra, Ghana, and another CSL is located on a small compound at Captain Andalla Cissé Air Base in Dakar, Senegal.

“This location is very important to us because it helps mitigate the time and space on the continent the size of Africa,” said AFRICOM commander Waldhauser while visiting the Senegalese capital earlier this year.

Only one base lies in the far south of the continent, a CSL in Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, that is run by the Army. To its north, CSL Entebbe in Uganda has long been an important air base for American forces in Africa, serving as a hub for surveillance aircraft. It also proved integral to Operation Oaken Steel, the July 2016 rapid deployment of troops to rescue U.S. personnel after fighting broke out near the American Embassy in Juba, South Sudan.

“We Have Increased the Firepower”

In May, responding to questions about measures taken after the October 2017 ambush in Niger, Waldhauser spoke of fortifying the U.S. presence on the continent.

“We have increased, which I won’t go into details here, but we have increased the firepower, we’ve increased the ISR [intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance] capacity, we’ve increased various response times,” he said. “So we have beefed up a lot of things posture-wise with regard to these forces.” This firepower includes drones. “We have been arming out of Niger, and we’ll use that as appropriate,” Waldhauser noted this summer, alluding to the presence of armed remotely piloted aircraft, or RPAs, now based there.

AFRICOM did not respond to multiple requests to interview Waldhauser.

After months of reports that the Defense Department was considering a major drawdown of Special Operations forces in Africa as well as the closure of military outposts in Tunisia, Cameroon, Libya and Kenya, the Pentagon now says that less than 10 percent of 7,200 forces assigned to AFRICOM will be withdrawn over several years and no bases will close as a result. In fact, U.S. base construction in Africa is booming. Air Forces Africa spokesperson Auburn Davis told The Intercept that the Air Force recently completed 21 construction projects in Kenya, Tunisia, Niger and Djibouti and currently has seven others underway in Niger and Djibouti.

“The proliferation of bases in the Sahel, Libya, and Horn of Africa suggests that AFRICOM’s counterterrorism missions in those regions of the continent will continue indefinitely,” Moore told The Intercept.

Hours after Moore made those comments, the Pentagon announced that six firms had been named under a potential five-year, $240 million contract for design and construction services for naval facilities in Africa, beginning with the expansion of the tarmac at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

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O presidente francês, Emmanuel Macron, ordena a Nicolas Maduro que não reprima a oposição MAS ELE ESQUECE as 3 300 prisões e os 2 000 feridos ligados à repressão do movimento dos coletes amarelos.

O presidente do governo espanhol, Pedro Sanchez, dá oito dias a Nicolas Maduro para organizar eleições MAS ELE ESQUECE que não está no seu posto senão graças a uma moção de censura e não por eleições livres.

O presidente dos Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, acusa Nicolas Maduro de não ser legítimo por o presidente venezuelano foi eleito senão por 30,45% dos inscritos, MAS ELE ESQUECE que apenas 27,20% dos eleitores estado-unidenses o escolheram.

O presidente colombiano, Ivan Duque, grita à “narco-ditadura venezuelana” MAS ELE ESQUECE que 65% da cocaína no mundo é fabricada na Colômbia, sob o olhar complacente das autoridades do país.

O presidente brasileiro, Jair Bolsonaro, está preocupado quanto aos direitos humanos na Venezuela MAS ELE ESQUECE ter declarado que os movimentos sociais que se opusessem à sua política seriam considerados como organizações terroristas.

O presidente argentino, Mauricio Macri, acusa Nicolas Maduro de ser um corrupto MAS ELE ESQUECE que só o seu nome aparece nos Panama Papers, não o do presidente venezuelano.

Portugal deplora a crise venezuelano que, segundo a ONU, empurrou 7,2% dos venezuelanos para os caminhos da emigração MAS ELE ESQUECE que 21% dos portugueses tiveram de abandonar seu país e vivem no estrangeiro, segundo as mesmas fontes.

O presidente peruano, Martin Vizcarra, grita à ditadura na Venezuela MAS ELE ESQUECE que foi nomeado à frente do seu país sem o menor voto popular, apenas em substituição do presidente anterior destituído por corrupção.

No Reino Unido, os dirigentes denunciam os atentados à liberdade de expressão na Venezuela MAS ELES ESQUECEM que mantém, sem nenhum motivo válido, o jornalista Julian Assange em reclusão.

A Bélgica alarma-se com a situação da economia venezuelana MAS ELA ESQUECE que em Bruxelas a empresa Euroclear retém 1,25 mil milhões de dólares pertencentes ao Estado venezuelano.

Estas inversões acusatórias, próprias desta ” Escola do mundo invertido ” descrita por Eduardo Galeano, fazem parte do modus operandi da propaganda contra a Venezuela. Elas visam preparar a opinião pública internacional para a legitimidade de uma acção violenta contra o Povo venezuelano.

As bombas mediáticas já começaram a chover.

O original encontra-se em www.romainmigus.info/2019/01/propagande-contre-le-venezuela.html

Propagande contre le Venezuela 

Par Romain Migus, 28 janvier 2019
l
Traduçao : http://resistir.info/

Há duas semanas, Washington proclamou Presidente da Venezuela, Juan Guaidò, apesar de ele nem sequer ter participado nas eleições presidenciais e declarou ilegítimo, o Presidente Maduro, juridicamente eleito, anunciando a sua deportação para Guantánamo.

Na semana passada, anunciou a suspensão USA do Tratado INF, atribuindo a responsabilidade à Rússia e, assim, abriu uma fase ainda mais perigosa da corrida aos armamentos nucleares.

Esta semana, Washington dá mais um passo: amanhã, 6 de Fevereiro, a NATO sob comando USA, expande-se ainda mais, com a assinatura do protocolo de adesão da Macedónia do Norte, como seu 30º membro.

Não sabemos que outro passo Washington dará na próxima semana, mas sabemos qual é a direcção: uma sucessão cada vez mais rápida de acções de força com as quais os USA e outras potências ocidentais tentam manter o domínio unipolar, num mundo que se está a tornar multipolar. Essa estratégia – expressão não de força, mas de fraqueza, todavia não menos perigosa – espezinha as normas mais elementares do Direito Internacional.

Facto exemplificador é o lançamento de novas sanções USA contra a Venezuela, com o “congelamento” de activos de 7 biliões de dólares pertencentes à estatal petrolífera, com o objectivo declarado de impedir a Venezuela, país com as maiores reservas de petróleo do mundo, de exportar petróleo.

A Venezuela, além de ser um dos sete países do mundo com reservas de coltan, também é rica em ouro, com reservas estimadas em mais de 15 mil toneladas, usadas pelo Estado para adquirir moeda de reserva e comprar produtos farmacêuticos, alimentares e outros géneros de primeira necessidade. Por esta razão, o Departamento do Tesouro USA, juntamente com os ministros das Finanças e com os governadores dos Bancos Centrais da União Europeia e do Japão, concretizaram uma operação secreta de “expropriação internacional” (documentada pelo ‘Il Sole 24 Ore’).

Apreendeu: 31 toneladas de lingotes de ouro pertencentes ao Estado venezuelano:

–  14 toneladas depositadas no Banco da Inglaterra,

– 17 toneladas transferidas para este banco, pelo Deutsche Bank alemão, que as havia prometido como garantia de um empréstimo, totalmente reembolsado pela Venezuela em moeda de reserva.

Uma rapina, verdadeira e oportuna, ao estilo da que, em 2011, levou ao “congelamento” de 150 biliões de dólares dos fundos soberanos da Líbia (agora em grande parte desaparecidos), com a diferença de que, esta contra o ouro venezuelano, foi levada a cabo secretamente. O objectivo é o mesmo: estrangular economicamente o Estado alvo a fim de acelerar o seu colapso, fomentar a oposição interna e, se não for suficiente, atacá-lo militarmente, do exterior.

Com o mesmo desrespeito pelas regras mais elementares de conduta nas relações internacionais, os Estados Unidos e os seus aliados acusam a Rússia de violar o Tratado INF, sem apresentar provas, enquanto ignoram as fotos de satélite divulgadas por Moscovo, que provam que os Estados Unidos começaram a preparar a produção de mísseis nucleares proibidos pelo Tratado, numa fábrica da Raytheon, dois anos antes de acusarem a Rússia de violar o Tratado.

Finalmente, no que diz respeito ao novo alargamento da NATO, que será ratificado amanhã, deve recordar-se que, em 1990, na véspera da dissolução do Pacto de Varsóvia, o Secretário de Estado dos EUA, James Baker, assegurou ao Presidente da URSS, Mikhail Gorbachev, que “a NATO não se estenderá, nem uma polegada para Leste». Em vinte anos, depois de ter demolido com a guerra, a Federação Jugoslava, a NATO aumentou de 16 para 30 países, expandindo-se cada vez mais para Leste, em direcção à Rússia.

Manlio Dinucci

 

Artigo em italiano :

Washington, la ragione della forza

il manifesto, 05 de Fevereiro de 2019

Tradutora Luisa Vasconcelos

VIDEO (PandoraTV) :

Due settimane fa Washington ha incoronato presidente del Venezuela Juan Guaidò, pur non avendo questi neppure partecipato alle elezioni presidenziali, e ha dichiarato illegittimo il presidente Maduro, regolarmente eletto, preannunciando la sua deportazione a Guantanamo.

La scorsa settimana ha annunciato la sospensione USA del Trattato INF, attribuendone la responsabilità alla Russia, e ha in tal modo aperto una ancora più pericolosa fase della corsa agli armamenti nucleari.

Questa settimana Washington compie un altro passo: domani 6 febbraio, la NATO sotto comando USA si allarga ulteriormente, con la firma del protocollo di adesione della Macedonia del Nord quale 30° membro.

Non sappiamo quale altro passo farà Washington la settimana prossima, ma sappiamo qual è la direzione: una sempre più rapida successione di atti di forza con cui gli USA e le altre potenze dell’Occidente cercano di mantenere il predominio unipolare in un mondo che sta divenendo multipolare. Tale strategia – espressione non di forza ma di debolezza, tuttavia non meno pericolosa – calpesta le più elementari norme di diritto internazionale.

Caso emblematico è il varo di nuove sanzioni USA contro il Venezuela, con il «congelamento» di beni per 7 miliardi di dollari appartenenti alla compagnia petrolifera di Stato, allo scopo dichiarato di impedire al Venezuela, il paese con le maggiori riserve petrolifere del mondo, di esportare petrolio. Il Venezuela, oltre ad essere uno dei sette paesi del mondo con riserve di coltan, è ricco anche di oro, con riserve stimate in oltre 15 mila tonnellate, usato dallo Stato per procurarsi valuta pregiata e acquistare farmaci, prodotti alimentari e altri generi di prima necessità.  Per questo il Dipartimento del Tesoro USA, di concerto con i ministri delle Finanze e i governatori delle Banche Centrali di Unione europea e Giappone, ha condotto una operazione segreta di «esproprio internazionale» (documentata da Il Sole 24 Ore).

Ha sequestrato: 31 tonnellate di lingotti d’oro appartenenti allo Stato venezuelano:

Ø  14 tonnellate depositate presso la Banca d’Inghilterra, più altre

Ø  17 tonnellate trasferite a questa banca dalla tedesca Deutsche Bank che li aveva avuti in pegno a garanzia di un prestito, totalmente rimborsato dal Venezuela in valuta pregiata.

Una vera e propria rapina, sullo stile di quella che nel 2011 ha portato al «congelamento» di 150 miliardi di dollari di fondi sovrani libici (ormai in gran parte spariti), con la differenza che quella contro l’oro venezuelano è stata condotta segretamente. Lo scopo è lo stesso: strangolare economicamente lo Stato-bersaglio per accelerarne il collasso, fomentando l’opposizione interna, e, se ciò non basta, attaccarlo militarmente dall’esterno.

Con lo stesso dispregio delle più elementari norme di condotta nei rapporti internazionali, gli Stati uniti e i loro alleati accusano la Russia di violare il Trattato INF, senza portare alcuna prova, mentre ignorano le foto satellitari diffuse da Mosca le quali provano che gli Stati Uniti avevano cominciato a preparare la produzione di missili nucleari proibiti dal Trattato, in un impianto della Raytheon, due anni prima che accusassero la Russia di violare il Trattato.

Riguardo infine all’ulteriore allargamento della NATO, che sarà sancito domani, va ricordato che nel 1990, alla vigilia dello scioglimento del Patto di Varsavia, il Segretario di Stato USA James Baker assicurava il Presidente dell’URSS Mikhail Gorbaciov che «la NATO non si estenderà di un solo pollice ad Est». In vent’anni, dopo aver demolito con la guerra la Federazione Jugoslava, la NATO si è estesa da 16 a 30 paesi, espandendosi sempre più ad Est verso la Russia.

Manlio Dinucci

il manifesto, 05 febbraio 2019

VIDEO (PandoraTV) :

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Donald Trump’s Twenty Biggest Follies

By Prof Rodrigue Tremblay, February 04, 2019

The list of Trump’s ineptitudes is very long, and we tend to forget previous ones as the next one hits the headlines. Many suspect that the rise of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency has been tainted by fraud. The biggest folly of all is to enter politics when one is inexperienced and incompetent

Afghanistan: From “Soviet” Occupation to American “Liberation”

By Nauman Sadiq, February 04, 2019

During the election campaign of 2008 before he was elected president, Barack Obama made an artificial distinction between the supposedly “just war” in Afghanistan and the unjust war in Iraq.

The Venezuelan Coup and Gilets Jaunes: Great-Power Politics in a Multipolar World Order

By Federico Pieraccini, February 04, 2019

The protests seen in France and the interference in the domestic politics of Venezuela highlight Western double standards, which stand in contrast to the respect for international law maintained by China, India and Russia.

As Malaysia and Ireland Find Out, You Stand Up for Palestinian Rights at Your Peril

By Miko Peled, February 04, 2019

It takes an enormous effort for any country to oppose Israel, but particularly a small country that has to rely on bigger powers. It is even harder to impose effective pragmatic measures against Israel, as in the case of Ireland and Malaysia.

Back to the Dear Old Cold War

By Eric Margolis, February 04, 2019

Later this month, the US and China are due to try to end their long-running trade war which has damaged the economies of both nations. At the heart of the trade dispute are soya beans and pork, the two principal American exports to China, as well as China’s efforts to grab US technology.

Canada’s Left Party Blinks at US-led Coup in Venezuela

By Yves Engler, February 04, 2019

Ottawa has adopted illegal sanctions, supported opposition groups, built an anti-Venezuela regional coalition, pressured Caribbean countries to join their campaign and taken a complaint about the Venezuelan government to the International Criminal Court.

John Bolton’s Plan to Starve Millions of Venezuelans into Submission

By Kurt Nimmo, February 04, 2019

It is true that some of Venezuela’s economic problems are due to the ineptitudes of the Bolivarian government’s  “socialist command” economy, but this overlooks the role played by the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union.

The US Is Orchestrating a Coup in Venezuela

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, February 04, 2019

As Venezuela’s second president, Simon Bolivar, noted in the 19th century, the US government continues to “plague Latin America with misery in the name of liberty.”

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American President Donald Trump has done a lot of unheard-of things since his 2016 election, most of them have been controversial and some have been utterly scandalous. The latest one to date was his shutting down of part of the U.S. government for 35 long days, on a whim, with the intention of bullying the newly elected Democratic majority of the House of Representatives. However, this time he hit a wall—a democratic wall—as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called his bluff and defeated him at his own game.

But the list of Trump’s ineptitudes is very long, and we tend to forget previous ones as the next one hits the headlines. For the record, here are 20 among his more damning ones.

1. Donald Trump has been accused of having cheated to get elected

Many suspect that the rise of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency has been tainted by fraud. This was made clearer on August 21, 2018, when his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was convicted on eight felony counts, in a Virginia courtroom.

The confessions made by Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to eight felony charges in a New York courtroom, are possibly even more damaging. Mr. Cohen, Trump’s enabler and “fixer”, also confessed under oath that he had openly violated U.S. campaign laws, with the coordination and under the direction of Mr. Trump, besides having arranged illicit payments to two women to keep them silent on damaging revelations about Mr. Trump, with the explicit purpose of influencing the results of the November 2016 American presidential election. Cohen has also confessed that he paid a company to rig online polls with the purpose of influencing the electorate, at “the direction of and for the sole benefit of” Donald Trump.

2. Donald Trump has surrounded himself with ideologues and incompetent yes-men and he runs a disorganized administration

The background: When hotel and casino mogul Donald Trump entered politics, he had no experience in public office or in government. This is not an insurmountable liability if such a person can surround himself with knowledgeable and experienced people. In Donald Trump’s case, he did exactly the reverse. He did not tolerate for very long competent people around him and he ended up attracting only people with no reputation to lose but who could flatter his clinical narcissism.

Indeed, Donald Trump has fired or forced to resign experienced and competent people (Exxon President Rex Tlllerson, General James Mattis, general H.R. McMaster, economist Gary Cohn, etc.) who were ready to serve their country but who were not ready to swear allegiance to a mafia-like boss. Because Donald Trump was on the lookout for people who would only work for himself and could contribute to his aggrandizement, he finally succeeded in attracting clones of himself, essentially sycophants of the likes of Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Peter Navarro, etc.

Thereafter, he has run a government mired in chaos, dysfunction, improvisation and irresponsibility, even boasting that he trusted his “guts” above everything else, while shamelessly pursuing his own private interests, political and financial, in making important public policies. As a result, Donald Trump has made a travesty of the American presidency. — This is not how a democratic government ought to function. It must exhibit competence, trust, inspire confidence, show integrity and honesty, and be devoted to the pursuit of the common good.

According to an author who has served in Trump’s White House and who has witnessed first-hand the chaos, the disorganization and the daily intrigues in and around the Oval Office, the current U.S. President has surrounded himself with a team of vipers. In the final analysis, it may be New York Times renowned economist Paul Krugman who best summarized the situation when he branded the Trump administration as a team of morons, under the direction of an undignified, unprepared and incompetent president.

3. Donald Trump‘s relations with other politicians, journalists, personalities and some foreign leaders have been marred by insults, lies and threats

The list of persons and places that a boorish Donald Trump has insulted verbally or on Twitter, since taking office, is very long. Indeed, he is a champion in the art of insultery to the point of childishness, sometimes using crude and offensive language. As of last December, the New York Times has estimated that he has insulted some 551 politicians, journalists, personalities, heads of state and places. He does not seem to have any decency or restraint in dealing with people. And ironically, when someone throws an insult at him, he makes a terrible fuss about it.

Here are only a few examples:

Donald Trump insulted his Democratic presidential adversary, Hillary Clinton, by calling her “crooked” and “shrill”. Trump, who found a way to avoid being drafted in the army to go to Vietnam, declared the late Senator John McCain “not being a hero” because he had been captured, even though the latter spent five years in a Vietnamese jail as an American combat man.

Donald Trump has insulted scores of personalities. He has lashed out at famous actress Meryl Streep, calling her an “overrated actress”. He called NBA football player Lebron James “stupid” and he has repeated that insult to many other persons.

Trump has called the President of North Korea Kim Jong-Un “short and fat”. He called Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “very dishonest and weak”. He insulted German Chancellor Angela Merkel by saying that she “was ruining Germany” and that “the German people will throw her out”. During a visit to France, Trump found a way to insult his host, French President Emmanuel Macron, saying that it was “very insulting” for him (Macron) to suggest that Europe should have a European army, etc.

Donald Trump has even found a way to insult the population of an entire continent. In January 2018, he branded African nations as “shithole countries”! Need we say more?

4. Donald Trump has violated time and again the Free Press Guarantee enshrined in the U.S. Constitution

Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. [The U.S. Constitution]

Trump has often violated the Free Press Guarantee in the U.S. Constitution by lying constantly to journalists, by abusing them with false accusations and by encouraging distrust and even hatred of professional journalists, and by constantly disregarding veracity. More generally speaking, Donald Trump, as an individual, does not know nor understand history and the way a democratic government functions under a constitution, and his incoherent statements on these topics are a fair reflection of such ignorance and disability.

Through his statements and by his behavior, Donald Trump resembles more and more Turkey’s de facto dictator Recep Erdoğan. He has stirred up violence against journalists, because they do not think like him or do not praise him enough.

Trump does not seem to have any decency and any limits when his personal interests are at stake. According to his biographers, that is what he has done all his life.

5. In 2017, Trump bombed Syria on false flag information

As a show of force, Donald Trump launched a bombing attack against the country of Syria, on Friday morning, April 7, 2017, under the spurious pretext that the inhabitants of a Syrian town had been the victims of a chemical attack. All this, not only in the absence of proof but also after there were numerous indications that such an attack was a false flag operation that had been staged by U.S.-backed Islamist rebels to embarrass the Syrian government, to blame Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to manipulate the American president and to hoodwink the American public.

Nevertheless, thinking only about his own persona and wanting a PR show as a “strong man”, Trump launched an illegal military attack against the sovereign country of Syria, under false pretenses, just as George W. Bush had done in 2003 against the country of Iraq. —In Washington DC, under the influence of money and neo-conservatives in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy, « plus ça change, plus c’est pareil »!

6. Trump has stirred more hatred and created more problems in the Middle East, especially in Syria, in Palestine and in Yemen

US President Donald Trump, flanked by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L), delivers remarks after a wreath-laying at the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial in Jerusalem on 23 May, 2017

By acquiescing to demands from his Zionist campaign donors, especially casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and to cancel the Iran nuclear deal, Donald Trump has fulfilled his main campaign promises to them. For Trump, U.S. foreign policies seem to be for sale to the highest campaign bidders, whatever the consequences.

And, to make sure that this would be the case, Trump designated Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and a fervent Zionist, to frame American foreign policy in the Middle East, in association with neocon John Bolton. It is no wonder that the Middle East is a daily human tragedy, with refugees fleeing in droves to Europe.

More generally, it can be said that the U.S. government under Donald Trump, as it was also the case under George W. Bush and previous American presidents since WWII, has an unchecked hubristic complex, and thinks it has a god-given  right to meddle in other sovereign countries’ domestic affairs.

7. Trump may have compromised himself and his office by being complicit with foreign governments

In pursuing his own private financial interests, even while in government, Donald Trump has been accused of soliciting favors from foreign governments.

The entire issue of complicity of conspiracy with foreign governments will most likely be front-page news when the report by the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is made public.

8. Trump has befriended foreign dictators and despots while attacking allies and foreign democratic leaders

With his autocratic style of government, Donald Trump has been more at ease with foreign dictators than with democratic leaders. The list of strongmen and despots he has befriended and endorsed is long. Equally long is the list of democratic leaders and countries he has insulted and snubbed.

Trump has distanced himself from other democratic countries, in particular when he abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and when he pulled out of a global climate agreement.

9. Trump has extended huge tax reductions to corporations and rich individuals, who in turn bought stock shares and created a stock market bubble

Possibly the Trump administration’s biggest economic and social blunder was the huge tax bonanza given to large corporations and super rich individuals, thus exacerbating income and wealth inequalities in the United States. Such large tax reductions are pushing the federal fiscal deficit above $1 trillion a year, thus saddling future generations with a huge public debt.

This is more surprising if one considers that during the 2016 political campaign, presidential candidate Donald Trump promised he would eliminate the U.S. public debt in eight years. — In fact, Trump did just the reverse. As a result of Trump’s fiscal policies, it is estimated that his administration will add $8.3 trillion to the public debt during his first term. Meanwhile, the U.S. public debt will balloon to a total of $25 trillion. There is a term for that and it is called fiscal irresponsibility and campaign promise cynicism.

In the year 2018, for example, the S&P 500 companies (Qualcomm, Apple, Oracle, etc.) used their Trump tax cut bonuses to spend an estimated staggering $770 billion to buy back their own shares, thus contributing to generating a stock market bubble. For CEOs, whose compensation is tied to the stock price because it makes the stock more valuable, this was the best of times, i.e. high salaries and lower taxes.

Many small investors, however, who bought at the top of the market, will be singled out to lose a lot of their savings when the stock market bubble bursts, while workers’ real wages are still lingering.

10. Trump has implemented pro-cyclical economic policies that will worsen the next economic downturn and hurt the poorest Americans

Through large tax cuts and large increases in deficits and debt, the Trump administration has pursued a pro-cyclical fiscal policy at the top of the business cycle, when economic growth is positive and unemployment is low. In so doing, this is likely to reduce the federal government’s capability to fight the next recession.

With wise fiscal policy, the public budget deficit usually falls during economic upswings and rises during downswings of the economy. For short-term political considerations, the Trump administration has done the contrary. If the next recession is unusually severe, people will know whom to blame.

11. Donald Trump has bullied the Fed, thus endangering its independence and its credibility

Donald Trump has made disparaging and damaging remarks about the Fed and its Chairman, thus endangering the Fed’s independence and credibility internationally. A central bank has no responsibility to cater to politicians’ short-term political interests. Its sole responsibility is to stabilize the economy, smooth the business cycle, avoid financial bubbles and prevent inflation.

As mentioned above, the Trump administration has pursued a pro-cyclical fiscal policy, increasing deficits and the public debt at the top of the business cycle, besides feeding a stock market price bubble. Such a policy can temporarily stimulate economic growth, but at the expense of higher inflation and lower growth later on. Thereafter, the Fed was placed in a difficult position and it felt obligated to adopt a monetary policy of adjusting upward extraordinary low interest rates. Indeed, negative real interest rates, i.e. when market short-term interest rates are lower than inflation rates, can result in unviable investments and encourage risky speculation.

The Fed has embarked on a policy of slowly reducing its bloated balance sheet, a result of the financial crisis of 2008, when the central bank bought mortgage bonds from the banks (Fed’s assets) and when it increased the banks’ reserves (Fed’s liabilities) to prevent the largest banks from failing. This means a gradual adjustment of short-term interest rates upward. What has been unusual was Trump’s attempt to attack the independence of the Federal Reserve System and to undermine its reputation.

12. Trump’s known numerous instances of sexual misconduct and legal entanglements thereof have been an albatross around his neck, which has impaired his credibility

There have been many instances when Donald Trump has publicly degraded women. There also have been numerous assertions of sexual misconduct made about Mr. Trump. Nobody expects a politician to be a saint. However, because the person in the White House used to be looked upon as a model for American youth, his character and his behavior count. Instead, Donald Trump has projected a personal image of depravation.

13. Trump’s penchant for abuse of power, and autocratic and demagogic government, could lead to a constitutional crisis

Even before his official inauguration on January 22, 2017, Donald Trump projected himself as a de facto American would-be dictatorwho has utter contempt for the sanctity of the division of powers (the system of Checks and Balances) inscribed in the U.S. Constitution (Article 1). His first instinct was to govern by decree, with as little congressional input as possible.

In the past, other American presidents have attempted to concentrate power in the Oval Office. One thinks of Andrew Johnson in the 19^thCentury, and Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton in the 20^th Century. They were all politicians who tried to stretch the U.S. Constitution in their favor. But none has strained American democratic institutions as Donald Trump has done. Trump seems to have a profound disrespect for American institutions.

14. Donald Trump has been a factor of division and of polarization in the United States

With his tactic of confrontation and through his incendiary speeches, his attacks ad hominem, his tantrums and his bullying tactics toward Congress and toward American celebrities, Donald Trump has divided and polarized the United States and widened divisions among the public like no other politician before. Indeed, it is a safe to say that with Donald Trump in the White House, the United States is more divided than ever.

15. Trump’s inhumanity and lack of compassion towards immigrant children is appalling

Every country has the right to defend its borders against illegal immigration. Nowadays, human traffickers encourage fake refugees to bypass the legal immigration system. This is a problem in Europe but also in North America. But there are humane ways and inhuman ways to deal with such a problem.

On that score, the Trump administration has pursued a reprehensible family separation policy for children of immigrants who have entered the U.S. illegally. Maybe fake refugees should have their requests analyzed before being allowed to enter the country. But separating children from their parents is uncivilized.

Indeed, a majority of Americans have decried such a policy of establishing detention camps for children. In so doing, the Trump administration has demonstrated a frightening absence of moral probity and compassion.

Americans in general are more moral and ethical than the Trump administration and its family-separation policy.  Various polls have shown that such a policy is unpopular, with about two-thirds of Americans opposing it.

Donald Trump has also played political games with the lives of the so called DACA children, i.e. children who were allowed in the United States when they were at a very young age, after natural and political disasters in their countries (in Haiti and in some other countries), and who have since grown up and worked as Americans. Many of these children are now young adults who speak only English and have no memory of or connection to their country of birth—but they have been threatened with deportation by the Trump administration.

There are about 800,000 young adults in that precarious situation. They are called DREAMers because of a proposed act, the DREAM Act, which would have provided a conditional pathway to U.S. citizenship or legal residency to a certain number of them, in order to allow them to go to college, to be employed and/or to serve in the military, while maintaining a good record. A large proportion of Americans, in fact 82 percent according to a CNN poll, would support such a humanist approach to a very specific human problem.

However, on Saturday January 19, 2019, President Trump tried to bargain the fate of these young adults in exchange for $5.7 billion, if the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives voted funds for his project of building a steel wall between the United States and Mexico. This is tantamount to placing narrow political interests above the fate of young people who find themselves in a very precarious situation.

16. Trump’s promise to fight political corruption in Washington D.C. has been an empty promise

The promise that Donald Trump made while on the campaign trail to fight political corruption—to drain the Washington corruption swamp, as he said—has fallen flat. In fact, he has done anything but drain that swamp. Trump has been accused of having indulged in political corruption by accepting huge sums of money from lobbyists, thus placing himself in conflicts of interest. Some observers have concluded that the Trump presidency is the most corrupt in modern history.

His position on conflicts of interest since the beginning of his mandate has raised a lot of suspicion. He does not seem to be able to separate the affairs of the state from his personal affairs. Trump has surrounded himself with family members and he has appointed advisers who’ve been accused of conflicts of interest, many of whom have either been convicted or pleaded guilty, etc.

He has gone as far as giving the keys of the Pentagon to the arms industry in naming a Boeing executive as the acting secretary of the Department of Defense. —What he has done is to simply reorganize corruption to his own advantage.

17. Trump has ignored the problems related to global warming

The phenomenon of a warming planet may be the biggest challenge facing humanity in the future. It has been observed that summers are warmer and winters are colder, both in the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

Some believe that a slight increase in the tilt of the Earth’s axis toward the Sun could play a role. Indeed, many people think that because of this increase the observed temperature changes can be caused by the Earth being closer to the Sun in summer and farther from the Sun in winter. Others place more emphasis on a rise in the level of the gas CO2 and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, creating a greenhouse effect, for the observed warming of the climate.

Whatever the causes or combination of causes, the Earth’s warming and its consequences are undeniable. The year 2018 was the Earth’s fourth warmest on record. Indeed, the world suffered last year from severe heat waves that killed people, from extreme rain that created huge flooding, and from drought that destroyed crops.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration has been oblivious to the problem, and has even denied that the Earth’s warming could be a problem. Rather than acting, the Trump administration has made matters worse by reducing regulation to control pollution and by making it easier for companies to pollute.

A new poll, however, reveals that Americans are increasingly worried about global warming. It is the children of today and of tomorrow who will pay for the heedlessness and irresponsibility of the Trump administration.

18. Trump has started a trade war and a new arms race, which could have negative consequences for global prosperity and for world peace

There is presently an intense technological competition around the fifth-generation (5G) chipset, which is bound to influence the global smartphone industry, telecommunications and cellular networks in the future. Many governments, not the least the U.S. government, are worried that Chinese companies such as Huawei could dominate that next-generation technology.

The Trump administration fears that the Chinese advances in that field could make it possible for the Chinese government to spy on other countries. For example, it has imposed restrictions and sanctions on Huawei and barred that company and other Chinese companies from installing telecommunications equipment in the United States. The Chinese company has also been accused of “violating American extraterritorial sanctions against the country of Iran” and of “stealing trade secrets” from an American partner.

No country should be allowed to impose its domestic laws on other countries. When this is the case, we have to talk about imperialism. However, a country has always the right to protect its own companies against industrial espionage.

In the final analysis, nobody can understand the rationale behind the trade war that the Trump administration has initiated against China without understanding the technological conflict that is going on.

Similarly, the Trump administration has launched a new arms race against Russia and China, both in space and in Europe, which could degenerate into a military conflict. It has also placed nuclear missiles in countries bordering Russia, a provocation, thus openly threatening Russia’s security. If it were the reverse, the United States would surely object to having Russian nuclear missiles in a neighboring country. As a matter of fact, this was precisely the basis of the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962, under President John F. Kennedy. —If Nikita Khrushchev was wrong, in 1962, in provoking the United States, Donald Trump, in 2019, is wrong in provoking Russia.

19. Donald Trump gambled with the fate of humanity with his decision to unilaterally cancel the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

When Donald Trump announced, in October 2018 and when this was officially confirmed on Friday, February 1, 2019 that, without consultation with European allies, his administration is unilaterally withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), he opened a huge Pandora Box from which a lot of human misery could come out. That important treaty was first signed in December 1987 by Republican President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev. One of its objectives was to make sure that Europe would not become the theater of a disastrous nuclear war. But Trump does not care: “Après moi le déluge“.

That reckless decision has been called Trump’s Nuclear Folly as it indicates that allies don’t count for the Trump administration. It seems that Trump and his neocon advisors want a war with Russia. First, they place nuclear missiles in countries bordering Russia; then they get out of a nuclear treaty to prevent a nuclear war in Europe. Pitiful!

20. The biggest folly of all is to enter politics when one is inexperienced and incompetent

The list of Donald Trump’s very close associates and aides who have worked with him and who have declared him to be a “man-child”, a “moron” or an “idiot”, and to be unfit to be U.S. president, is very long. This is most unusual and most relevant.

The first person to call Donald Trump a “moron” was the former president of Exxon and Trump’s Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Indeed, NBC News reported that Mr. Tillerson made the devastating comment after a meeting at the Pentagon, on July 20, 2017, with other members of Trump’s national security team and Cabinet officials.

Then followed a string of similar disparaging assessments of Trump’s character and capabilities. Veteran journalist Bob Woodward, in his 2018 book “Fear: Trump in the White House”, has documented the chaos and disrepute that Donald Trump brought into the American White House: His own first chief of staff Reince Priebus called him an “idiot”. Trump’s second chief of staff, General John Kelly, has also called him “an idiot”, and he added that he was “unhinged”! —Mind you, these are experienced people who worked with Donald Trump on a daily basis. Now it is reported that Trump has chosen his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to be his de facto chief of staff, thus turning the White House into an exclusively family enterprise.

Also, Defense Secretary General James Mattis has declared that Donald Trump had the understanding of “a fifth- or sixth-grader”. Such a severe assessment coming from a retired United States Marine Corps general, who served in the Persian Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. Such an evaluation cannot be brushed aside.

Another noteworthy book, by Michael Wolff, entitled “Fire and Fury”, disclosed other negative assessments of Mr. Trump by his close associates. For example, it reveals that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has also called Trump an “idiot”; that former national security adviser, general H.R. McMaster, has referred to the president as a “dope”; and that Trump’s former economic adviser Gary Cohn has said that Donald Trump is “dumb as s_***”!

A former FBI counterintelligence officer who now lectures at Yale University, Ms Asha Rangappa has concluded, in a piece for Politico,that Mr. Trump cannot distinguish fact from fiction. For a head of state, this is a huge liability!

On his part, former FBI Director James Comey, a man who has seen a lot, went one step further and he has said that Mr. Trump has the character of a “Mob boss”.

— Does one not get the picture!

Conclusion

Let us remind ourselves of the fact that Donald Trump is the only post WWII American president who has never been able to rally 50 percent or more of the American people behind him. Not only was he elected in 2016 with some 3,000,000 fewer votes than his main opponent, Hillary Clinton, but his approval ratings have always been below 50 percent, ranging between 34 and 44 percent.

Trump’s basic unpopularity has been undeniable and persistent, to the point of making him an illegitimate president. And there are profound reasons for that, as outlined above.

That may also be why a 57 percent majority of Americans do not want Donald Trump to run for re-election in 2020, according to a 2019 January poll. —They seem to have had enough!

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay.

International economist Dr. Rodrigue Tremblay is the author of the book “The Code for Global Ethics, Ten Humanist Principles”, of the book “The New American Empire”, and the recent book, in French “La régression tranquille du Québec, 1980-2018“.

Please visit Dr. Tremblay’s site: http://rodriguetremblay100.blogspot.com/

We are by nature electric; but the man-made ‘synthetic’ variety, that apes nature’s version, is not helping us to live a full and healthy life, but is rather stultifying that condition. In fact Edison, Tesla et al. were not really doing the world a favour when they invented and put to use ‘synthetic electricity’ on this planet. 

It is not that they didn’t mean well, no doubt they did, but the revolution that electric light first brought about, also took man a further step away from his origins as ‘a being of nature’.

In a medical hypothesis by Samuel Milham of Washington State Department of Health (2009) entitled “Historical evidence that electrification caused the 20^th century epidemic of diseases of civilisation” Milham reveals that once Thomas Edison began electrifying New York City in 1880, the onward march of electrification correlated with sharp rises in cardiovascular disease, diabetes, suicide and cancer.

Whereas on farms and countryside areas which lagged a long way behind urban areas in acquiring electrification, incidences of such disease were barely ever seen. It was not until the 1950’s that the majority of US farms got hooked-up onto electrical power.

Somehow this information which has been known about for decades, never got into the public domain. Milham states

“It seems unbelievable that mortality differences of this magnitude could go unexplained for over 70 years after they were first reported  – and 40 years after they were first noticed.”

So, long before WiFi, cell phones, Dect’s and tablets hit the scene, thousands were already dying from sicknesses brought-on by living tight-up against electromagnetic currents. To be more precise, power frequency magnetic fields typically of 60 Hz output. Later on, the introduction of fluorescent light bulbs, halogen lamps, wireless routers and dimmer switches added significantly to the ‘dirty electricity’ already prevalent. 

According to the author, in 1900 heart disease and cancer in the USA were 4^th and 8^th on the list of leading causes of death, and by 1940 heart disease had risen to 1^st and cancer to 2^nd place and have remained in that position ever since. The authors of a separate study of 1930 mortality statistics noted that the cancer rates for cities were 58.2% higher than those for rural areas; yet diets were very similar. 

I am communicating this evidence in order to focus our minds on the background to the explosion of microwaved EMF ‘dirty electricity’ (Electromagnetic Field) which first arrived on the scene around 30 years ago and which has grown exponentially ever since. To a point where some 2 billion people carry a mobile phone or similar device.

What all this appears to tell us is that ‘advanced’ technology and ‘un-advanced man’ present a very dangerous equation. Almost all forms of what are sometimes referred to as ‘sophisticated technologies’ have caused havoc in the hands of a population with an undeveloped appreciation of what such man made energetic devices actually do – to man, to nature and to the biosphere.

People – well beyond the age of childhood – still love toys. And for the boys, mechanical one’s in particular. A large number of adults, it seems, never develop the instinct that all animals have, to be wary of something they know nothing about. So instead of taking a precautionary approach, millions rush to buy the latest device which, they are informed, will make their lives so much more pleasurable, so much easier and so much more comfortable. For which – if one is using one’s wits –one can substitute “so much more complicated, so much more stressful and so much more dangerous”.

But when corporations are in charge of planetary life and ever larger profits are the be and end to all of existence, that other story is never available, except perhaps in the very small print. So much of mankind continues to walk into a trap, set by itself to imprison itself, while thinking it has found the new freedom. And this has never been more true than with the advent of the ‘smart phone’, ‘smart meter’, ‘smart watch’, ‘smart city’ –  ‘smart everything’.

Yes, everybody wants to be ‘smart’; after all, smart accessories are fun, fashionable and cool, right? But you must first sacrifice your intelligence in order to have ‘fun’ in this toxic playground. In this world, there’s little doubt that you have to be stupid to be smart.

The paradox is making itself felt everywhere. It took half a century and millions of deaths to get a ban on cigarettes. How long will it take to get the same end with EMF’s?

If Barrie Trower, a world leading expert on electro magnetic microwave frequencies, is to be heeded – and there is very good reason to believe he should be – within less than a decade, a world wide ban of WiFi and all transmissions of EMF’s must be in place. If not, Barrie Trower warns that within 3 generations only 1in 8 children will be born healthy; and within 5 generations animals and insects will be wiped out. *

Today, just 27 minutes of a day of cell phone exposure leads to a 40% chance of developing cancer. Children pick-up 60% more radiation than adults, and because the blood-brain barrier only hardens after 20 years, the brain of children is highly susceptible. 

The effect of 2 minutes on a cell phone lasts for 2 hours. The neurological disturbances involved mean it can take 6 weeks for brain patterns to return to normal for people using cell phones regularly. There are 64 peer reviewed papers linking cell phone use to cancer, and Russian research has revealed high rates of miscarriages and stillborns resulting from mothers who use cell phones during pregnancy. 

WiFi is a weapon of war. It should never have been invented, let alone used, even for military purposes. It is now almost impossible to go anywhere where it is not active. The frequencies to be used in the present 5G roll-out involve a further drastic raising of the transmission levels already described above. 5G uses a frequency almost identical to that used by the US military police for intensive crowd control. 

Arthur Firstenberg, author and administrator of the International Appeal ‘Stop 5G on Earth and in Space’ states 

“Despite widespread denial, the evidence that radio frequency (RF) radiation is harmful to life is already overwhelming. The accumulated clinical evidence of sick and injured human beings, experimental damage to DNA, cells and organ systems in a wide variety of plants and animals in large part caused by electromagnetic pollution – forms a literature of well over 10,000 peer reviewed studies.” 

He continues

“If the telecommunications industry’s plans for 5G come to fruition, no person, no animal, no bird, no insect and no plant on Earth will be able to avoid exposure, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, to levels of RF radiation that are tens of hundreds of times greater than what exists today, without ant possibility of escape anywhere on the planet.”

A number of professors from Jageillonian University Medical College in Krakow, Poland and the Janus Maxwell Institute for Electromagnetics Research, Krakow, co-writing a paper under the title ‘Electromagnetic Field Induced Biological Effects in Humans’ state:

“The intensity of electromagnetic radiation in the human environment is increasing and currently reaches astronomical levels that have never before been experienced on our planet. In today’s maximum exposure, standard EMF’s are 10 ‘to the power of 15’ and 10 ‘to the power of 18’ times higher than the natural Earth electromagnetic field.. The current phase of environmental degradation by artificial microwave frequency electromagnetic fields have become dangerous for biological life. The most influential process of EMF impact on living organisms, is its direct tissue penetration.”

As our planet – and indeed all planetary life, including humans – reel under the attack of institutionalised toxic pollutants that are considered ‘essential’ for ‘economic growth and expansion’ we have cause to reflect on the nature of our disposition for self destruction.

It is a salutary exercise which I believe everybody, who still has the capacity to function humanly, needs to meditate on from time to time. Then one can assess how many features of this disease each of us contributes to in our daily lives. Then, providing one is capable of taking rational actions, one can start the process of detoxifying and regaining a level of internal balance through establishing and maintaining a direct connection with natural background resonance; The Schuman Resonance of 8.73 Hertz.

For it is here that we find balance, peace of mind and natural wisdom. It is the electricity of truth. Whereas the synthetic electricity which we have lived amongst for the past century, turns out to be a poor copy of this truth; a force essentially alien to our natural biology. 

What one does with this information is up to each individual. But, if by the grace of God and sheer human guts, we manage to save this planet and ourselves, from the suicidal addictions that obsess us, then let us build a new society without the interference of that which fails to resonate with our deepest nature. For, not doing so, simply fast forwards oncoming death. Whereas to nurture our true rhythmic relationship with the pulses and resonances of nature and of love, has the potential to make actual – the gift of eternal life.  

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Julian Rose is an international activist, writer, organic farming pioneer and actor.  In 1987 and 1998, he led a campaign that saved unpasteurised milk from being banned in the UK; and, with Jadwiga Lopata, a ‘Say No to GMO’ campaign in Poland which led to a national ban of GM seeds and plants in that country in 2006. Julian is currently campaigning to ‘Stop 5G’ WiFi. He is the author of two acclaimed titles: Changing Course for Life and In Defence of Life and is a long time exponent of yoga/meditation. See Julian’s web site for more information and to purchase his books www.julianrose.info He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

During the election campaign of 2008 before he was elected president, Barack Obama made an artificial distinction between the supposedly “just war” in Afghanistan and the unjust war in Iraq. In accordance with the flawed distinction, he pledged that he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, but at the same time, he indicated that he would increase the number of US forces stationed in Afghanistan.

The unilateral intervention in Iraq in 2003 by the Bush Administration was highly unpopular among the American electorate. Therefore, Obama’s election pledge of complete withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq struck a chord with the voters and they gave an overwhelming mandate to the ostensibly “pacifist” contender during his first term as the president.

In keeping with the election pledge, President Obama did manage to successfully withdraw American troops from Iraq in December 2011 during the first term as the president, but only to commit thousands of American troops and the US Air Force to Iraq just a couple of years later during the second term as the president when the Islamic State overran Mosul and Anbar in early 2014.

The borders between Iraq and Syria are poorly guarded and highly porous. The Obama Administration’s policy of nurturing militants against the Syrian government for the first three years of Syria’s proxy war from 2011 to 2014 was bound to backfire sooner or later.

Regardless, when President Obama decided to withdraw American troops from the unjust war in Iraq, at the same time, he pledged that he would commit additional American troops and resources into the purportedly “just war” in Afghanistan.

Consequently, the number of US troops in Afghanistan spiked from 30,000 during the tenure of the neocon Bush Administration to more than 140,000 during the term of the supposedly “pacifist” Obama Administration.

No one can dispute the assertion that the notions of “just wars” and “good militants” do exist in the geopolitical lexicon; empirically speaking, however, after witnessing the instability, violence and utter chaos and anarchy in the war-ravaged countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen, the onus lies on any interventionist hawk to prove beyond doubt that the wars and militants that he justifies and upholds are indeed just and good.

More surprisingly, however, if Afghanistan was perceived as an occupied country by the gullible audience of the mainstream media during the years of Soviet occupation from 1979 to 1988, then how did it become an independent state after the American occupation of Afghanistan since 2001-onward?

Furthermore, if the Afghan so-called “mujahideen” (freedom fighters) nurtured by the Reagan administration with the help of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies and Saudi money constituted a legitimate resistance against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, then by what principle of consistent logic, the resistance against the American occupation of Afghanistan can be reviled as “terrorism”?

In international politics, the devil always lies in the definitions of the terms that are employed by the spin-doctors of the foreign policy think tanks and the political commentators of the corporate media. And the definition of the term “terrorism” has been deliberately left ambiguous by the Western powers to use it as a catch-all pretext to justify their military presence and interventionist policy in the energy-rich countries of the Middle East.

After invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq and when the American “nation-building” projects failed in those hapless countries, the US policymakers immediately realized that they were facing large-scale and popularly rooted insurgencies against foreign occupation; consequently, the occupying military altered its CT (counter-terrorism) approach in favor of a COIN (counter-insurgency) strategy.

A COIN strategy is essentially different from a CT approach and it also involves dialogue, negotiations and political settlements, alongside the coercive tactics of law enforcement and military and paramilitary operations on a limited scale.

The root factors that are primarily responsible for spawning militancy and insurgency anywhere in the world are not religion but socio-economics, ethnic differences, marginalization of disenfranchised ethno-linguistic and ethno-religious groups and the ensuing conflicts; socio-cultural backwardness of the affected regions, and the weak central control of the impoverished developing states over their remote rural and tribal areas make them further susceptible to armed insurrections.

Additionally, if we take a cursory look at some of the worst insurgency-wracked regions in Asia and Africa, deliberate funding, training and arming of certain militant groups by regional and global powers for their strategic interests has played the key role.

Back in the 1980s during the Soviet-Afghan War, the Afghan jihadists did not spring up spontaneously out of nowhere. The Western powers with the help of Saudi money and Pakistan’s intelligence agencies trained and armed the erstwhile “freedom fighters” against their archrival the former Soviet Union. Those very same Afghan jihadists later mutated into al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Similarly, during the proxy wars in Libya and Syria, the Western powers with the help of their regional client states once again trained and armed Islamic jihadists and tribal militiamen against the governments of Colonel Gaddafi and Bashar al-Assad.

And isn’t it ironic that those very same “moderate rebels” later mutated into Ansar al-Sharia and Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in Libya; and the Islamic State, al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al-Islam and scores of other jihadist groups in Syria?

Notwithstanding, on November 9, Russia hosted talks between Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, the members of the Taliban from its Doha, Qatar office and representatives from eleven regional states, including China, India, Iran and Pakistan. The meeting showcased Russia’s re-emergence as an assertive global power and its regional clout.

At the same time when the conference was hosted in Moscow, however, the Taliban mounted concerted attacks in the northern Baghlan province, the Jaghori district in central Ghazni province and the western Farah province bordering Iran.

In fact, according to a recent report by the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the US-backed Kabul government only controls 55% of Afghanistan’s territory. It’s worth noting, however, that SIGAR is a US-based governmental agency that often inflates figures.

Factually, the government’s writ does not extend beyond a third of Afghanistan. In many cases, the Afghan government controls district-centers of provinces and outlying rural areas are either controlled by the Taliban or are contested.

If we take a cursory look at the insurgency in Afghanistan, the Bush administration toppled the Taliban regime with the help of the Northern Alliance in October 2001 in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack. Since the beginning, however, Afghanistan was an area of lesser priority for the Bush administration.

The number of US troops stationed in Afghanistan did not exceed beyond 30,000 during George Bush’s tenure as president, and soon after occupying Afghanistan, Washington invaded Iraq in March 2003 and American resources and focus shifted to Iraq.

It was the Obama administration that made the Afghanistan conflict the bedrock of its foreign policy in 2009 along with fulfilling then-President Obama’s electoral pledge of withdrawing American forces from Iraq in December 2011. At the height of the surge of the US troops in Afghanistan in 2010, the American troops numbered around 140,000 but they still could not manage to have a lasting effect on the relentless Taliban insurgency.

The Taliban are known to be diehard fighters who are adept at hit-and-run guerrilla tactics and have a much better understanding of the Afghan territory compared to foreigners. Even by their standards, however, the Taliban insurgency seems to be on steroids during the last couple of years.

The Taliban have managed to overrun and hold vast swathes of territory not only in the traditional Pashtun heartland of southern Afghanistan, such as in Helmand, but have also made significant inroads into the northern provinces of Afghanistan which are the traditional strongholds of the Northern Alliance comprising the Tajik and Uzbek ethnic groups.

The main factor behind the surge in Taliban attacks during the last couple of years appears to be the drawdown of American troops which now number only 14,000, and are likely to be significantly scaled back after Donald Trump’s announcement of withdrawal of American forces from Syria and the reports of Trump’s decision – which hasn’t been officially announced yet – that the Trump administration has decided in principle to reduce the number of US troops in Afghanistan by at least several thousand.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from 21st Century Wire

Late on February 2^nd, a US-led coalition warplane attacked an artillery position of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in the area of al-Sukkariya west of the town of al-Bukamal in the province of Deir Ezzor. According to the Syrian Defense Ministry, one artillery piece was destroyed and 2 SAA soldiers were injured.

In December, the Syrian military accused the US-led coalition of launching ground-to-ground rockets at positions of the SAA’s 21st Brigade around the area of al-Tanaf. However, the coalition claimed that the attack targeted an ISIS commander.

It’s interesting to note that the February 2 strike came a day after the SAA ambushed a group of ISIS members and destroyed their vehicle. Government forces seized weapons, IEDs and medical equipment belonging to the ISIS members.

Some sources say that the terrorists had attempted to deliver medical supplies to their counter-parts operating within the US-occupied area of al-Tanf. ISIS successfully exploits the US-led coalition hostile behavior towards the Damascus government and hide from SAA operations in the US-proclaimed “security zone” near al-Tanf.

 

More than 800 foreign terrorists from over 40 countries are detained by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Department of Defense spokesman Cmdr. Sean Robertson told CNN on February 2. According to reports, U.S. officials believe that the number of detained foreign terrorists is likely to grow as many of those fighters remaining in the ISIS-held pocket in the middle Euphrates River Valley will fail to escape.

Despite this, at least one group of ISIS members was able to reach the border during a recent counter-attack in the Euphrates pocket and to flee to western Iraq.

Meanwhile, reports circulate that the US Special Operations Forces have deployed a special unit in eastern Syria to search and capture wanted ISIS members, including Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

In the Idlib de-escalation zone, clashes and artillery duels continue to erupt in northern Hama, southern Idlib and western Aleppo. The situation is expected to become even worse as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has once again found understanding with another al-Qaeda-like terrorist group operating in the area, Houras al-Din.

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Rome has effectively derailed an EU statement meant to recognize Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s interim leader if President Nicolas Maduro fails to set up snap elections, a Five Star Movement source confirmed to RT.

The protests seen in France and the interference in the domestic politics of Venezuela highlight Western double standards, which stand in contrast to the respect for international law maintained by China, India and Russia.

In France on November 17, 2018, hundreds of thousands of citizens, angered by the diminishing quality of their lives, the social iniquity in the country, and the widening gap between rich and poor, took to the streets in protest. The protests can easily be encapsulated in the following slogan: “We the people against you the elite.”

This slogan has been a recurring theme throughout the West over the last three years, shaking up the British establishment with the pro-Brexit vote, discombobulating the United States with Trump’s victory, overturning Italy with the Lega/Five-Star government, and bringing Merkel’s star crashing down in Germany. Now it is the turn of Macron and France, one of the least popular leaders in the world, leading his country into chaos, with peaceful protests drawing a bloody response from the authorities following ten weeks of unceasing demonstrations.

In Venezuela, Western elites would like us to believe that the situation is worse than in France in terms of public order, but that is simply a lie. It is a media creation based on misinformation and censorship. In Europe, the mainstream media has stopped showing images of the protests in France, as if to smother information about it, preferring to portray an image of France that belies the chaos in which it has been immersed for every weekend over the last few months.

In Caracas, the right-wing, pro-American and anti-Communist opposition continues the same campaign based on lies and violence as it has customarily conducted following its electoral defeats at the hands of the Bolivarian revolution. The Western mainstream media beams images and videos of massive pro-government Bolivarian rallies and falsely portrays them as anti-Maduro protests. We are dealing here with acts of journalistic terrorism, and the journalists who push this narrative, instigating clashes, should be prosecuted by a criminal court of the Bolivarian people in Caracas. Instead, the West continues to tell us that Assange is a criminal for doing his job, that Wikileaks is a terrorist organization for publishing true information, and that Russia interfered in the US elections. All of these deceptions are carried out by the same Western journalists, media publications and US government that are currently plying their mendacious trade in Venezuela. What double standards!

In Venezuela, the people are with Maduro, and before him they were with Chavez. The reason is simple and easy to understand, having everything to do with the economic policies adopted by the government of Caracas, which during just over a decade in power, reduced the level of poverty, illiteracy and corruption in the country, lengthening life expectancy and increasing access to education. The leftist model followed by dozens of South American countries during the 2000s favored the poorest layer of society by redistributing the wealth of the top 1%.

The contrast between events in France and Venezuela perfectly encapsulate the state of the world today. In France, the people are fighting against Macron, austerity policies and globalist superstructure. In Venezuela, the the opposition (synonymous with the rich population) is leveraging external interference from the governments of Colombia, Brazil and the United States to try and overthrow a government that enjoys the full support of the people thanks to its domestic policies. Even as many in France are not conscious of it, they are actually protesting against an unjust, ultra-capitalist system imposed by the globalist elite of which Macron is a major cheerleader. In Venezuela, the ultra-capitalist class, backed by the transnational globalists, seek to overthrow a socialist system that places the interests of the 99% before those of the 1%.

Maduro has an approval rating of around 65%, higher than any European or American leader. In France, Macron’s approval ratings hover around the single digits, with only Ukraine’s Poroshenko scoring lower. Poroshenko, quite naturally, dutifully joined the chorus of those egging on a coup against the Bolivarian government of Maduro, even as he leads a country besieged by out-of-control neo-Nazis.

The protests in France are driven by two decades of impoverishment as a result of European diktats that prescribe austerity and the need to strip the middle class of its wealth to favor the influx of cheap labor. This strategy of reducing labor costs has already been employed in other countries, the aim being to increase profits for multinational companies without the need to relocate production to low-wage countries. The large-scale importation of exploited people from Africa has continued unabated for years, and now the average French citizen not only finds himself in an increasingly multi-ethnic society (with the government giving little incentive for newcomers to integrate) but also sees his lifestyle suffering due to a combination of lower wages and increasing taxes, making it increasingly difficult for him to make ends meet every month.

In Venezuela, the crisis stems entirely from external interference coming from the United States, which has economically strangled Venezuela for over a decade. The methodology is that of sanctions and economic destabilization, the same as has been applied against Cuba over more than 50 years, albeit in that case unsuccessfully. Chavez and Maduro have drawn the ire of the global elites by blocking their international oil corporations from access to Venezuela’s oil reserves, the largest in the world. It must be noted that Venezuela is one of the most important members of OPEC, with Riyadh and Moscow advancing the creation of an oil conglomerate known as OPEC +, with Russia, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela as influential members. The West is of course deploying the “democracy promotion” canard to justify its shenanigans in Venezuela, one of its go-to tactics drawn from its well-used PSYOP toolkit.

The French and Venezuelan situations also serve as a barometer for the general state of international relations in a multipolar context. While the US has little trouble interfering in Venezuela’s internal affairs, Russia, China and India employ a completely different approach, maintaining a uniform foreign-policy line on Paris and Caracas. They express total support for their Bolivarian ally, which is an important source of trade for New Delhi, a strategic military-oil partner for Moscow, and a major seller of crude oil for Beijing. Each of the three Eurasian powers has every interest in actively opposing Washington’s attempts to subvert the Maduro government, given that Venezuela performs important regional-stability functions, as well as, above all, offering these Eurasian powers an opportunity to respond asymmetrically to Washington’s destabilization efforts in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. There has been talk of creating particular synergies between Venezuela and other countries similarly struggling to free themselves from under Washington’s boot. China and Russia’s sending of naval ships and military aircraft to the Americas, violating the Monroe doctrine, represents a riposte to the continued pressure placed on the borders of Russia and China by the US and NATO as part of their containment strategy.

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Federico Pieraccini is an independent freelance writer specialized in international affairs, conflicts, politics and strategies. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from SCF

As internationalists, we don’t shy away from defending a people’s right to determine their fate. That is why we have been so ardent in opposing the illegal U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Read and share our statement on Venezuela. (If you already have done so, please share it again!)

We are proud to say BAP members have been on the forefront of U.S.-based voices against U.S interventions. BAP member and Black Agenda Report publisher Glen Ford writes this week,

“The same forces that resist Black community control of police and schools in the United States seek to overthrow any government in the formerly colonized world—that is, non-white nations—that claims the right of self-determination and national sovereignty.”

BAP Coordinating Committee member Margaret Kimberley condemns warmongering Democrats in her latest piece, writing,

“Venezuela is the proverbial line in the sand. One either supports the right of self-determination or not. The obvious fascists like Trump and Bolton and their smarter, smoother collaborators like Trudeau are cut from the same cloth. They must all be opposed.”

As you can see below, BAP member Asantewaa Mawusi Nkrumah-Ture spoke January 26 on behalf of BAP at a Philadelphia rally in opposition to the U.S. intervention in Venezuela.

BAP member Margaret Kimberley also spoke about BAP’s position on Venezuela and the U.S. occupation of Africa on the Wider View Radio podcast and Sputnik Radio’s “Fault Lines with Nixon & Stranahan”. BAP Coordinating Committee member Netfa Freeman appeared on RT America’s “Watching the Hawks” to discuss the link between the United States interfering in Venezuela and in Africa.

In the coming weeks, we ask you to join anti-war groups that are organizing demonstrations to oppose NATO and the U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Check out the United National Antiwar Coalition’s rally on March 30. Sign the Alliance for Global Justice’s petition to oppose the U.S. intervention in Venezuela. Attend the “No to NATO, Yes to Peace Fest” on April 3.

Then join us April 4 for our event that celebrates both our second anniversary and condemns the 70th anniversary of NATO, which falls on the 51st anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. BAP member Glen Ford will keynote the event. He will be joined by organizers and activists including Jaribu Hill, Jacqueline Luqman, Netfa Freeman, Thenjiwe McHarris, Margaret Kimberley and Vanessa Beck. We’ll provide more information on the event in the coming weeks.

Curiously, a story that should be big news is not getting the attention it deserves. The United States is involved in talks that could end the 18-year-old quagmire of Afghanistan. Soon, we will have more to say on this matter.

Another important item to follow is the Trump administration’s decision to suspend its participation in the 32-year-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which escalates the possibility for a global nuclear war. In response to this dangerous move, Russia suspended its participation as well.

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Featured image is from Black Agenda Report

1996 C-SPAN interview with Gary Webb

Gary Webb died mysteriously in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner’s office.

Investigative journalist Robert Parry credits Gary Webb for being responsible for the following government investigations into the Reagan-Bush administration’s conduct of the Contra war: On December 10, 1996, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block announced the conclusion of his investigation into the issue, publishing a summary of the investigation at a press conference. He announced at the press conference that “We have found no evidence that the government was involved in drug trafficking in South-Central.” Nevertheless, the report included information that supported some of the charges. Charles Rappleye reported in the L.A. Weekly that Block’s “unequivocal statement is not backed up by the report itself, which raises many questions.”[20] Much of the LAPD investigation centered on allegations made in a postscript article to the newspaper’s “Dark Alliance” series.

On January 29, 1998, Hitz published Volume One of his internal investigation. This was the first of two CIA reports that eventually substantiated many of Webb’s claims about cocaine smugglers, the Nicaraguan contra movement, and their ability to freely operate without the threat of law enforcement.[21]

On March 16, 1998, Hitz admitted that the CIA had maintained relationships with companies and individuals the CIA knew were involved in the drug business. Hitz told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that “there are instances where CIA did not, in an expeditious or consistent fashion, cut off relationships with individuals supporting the Contra program who were alleged to have engaged in drug-trafficking activity or take action to resolve the allegations.”[22] Senator John Kerry reached similar conclusions a decade earlier in 1987. (See:[5])

On May 7, 1998, Rep. Maxine Waters, revealed a memorandum of understanding – item 24 between the CIA and the Justice Department from 1982, which was entered into the Congressional Record. This letter had freed the CIA from legally reporting drug smuggling by CIA assets, a provision that covered the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan rebels.[4]

On July 23, 1998, the Justice Department released a report by its Inspector General, Michael R. Bromwich. The Bromwich report claimed that the Reagan-Bush administration was aware of cocaine traffickers in the Contra movement and did nothing to stop the criminal activity. The report also alleged a pattern of discarded leads and witnesses, sabotaged investigations, instances of the CIA working with drug traffickers, and the discouragement of DEA investigations into Contra-cocaine shipments. The CIA’s refusal to share information about Contra drug trafficking with law-enforcement agencies was also documented. The Bromwich report corroborated Webb’s investigation into Norwin Meneses, a Nicaraguan drug smuggler.[23]

On October 8, 1998, CIA I.G. Hitz published Volume Two of his internal investigation. The report described how the Reagan-Bush administration had protected more than 50 Contras and other drug traffickers, and by so doing thwarted federal investigations into drug crimes. Hitz published evidence that drug trafficking and money laundering had made its way into Reagan’s National Security Council where Oliver North oversaw the operations of the Contras.[5] According to the report, the Contra war took precedence over law enforcement. To that end, the internal investigation revealed that the CIA routinely withheld evidence of Contra crimes from the Justice Department, Congress and even the analytical division of the CIA itself. Further, the report confirmed Webb’s claims regarding the origins and the relationship of Contra fundraising and drug trafficking. The report also included information about CIA ties to other drug traffickers not discussed in the Webb series, including Moises Nunez and Ivan Gomez. More importantly, the internal CIA report documented a cover-up of evidence which had led to false intelligence assessments.

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A lot has happened and we have learned more since last week when we wrote, Venezuela: What Activists Need To Know About The US-Led Coup. This article updates activists so we remain well-informed and can educate others in the face of a bi-partisan and corporate media narrative supporting the coup.

This weekend, there were competing protests in Venezuela. At a protest celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Bolivarian Process, the day Hugo Chavez was sworn into office, tens of thousands watched as President Maduro called for National Assembly elections. The current Assembly has been in contempt of court since July 2016 and their decisions were nullified because they have refused to remove illegally-elected members. The defunct legislature’s president, Juan Guaido, appointed himself president of the country in violation of Venezuelan law and is under investigation.

Some scenes at Guaido’s rallies were surreal. At the Caracas rally where Guaido spoke, the stage featured massive US and Israeli flags and in the crowd, there were pro-Trump puppets, one with Trump as the Statute of Liberty with a Christian cross around his neck. At another rally, opposition protesters removed the Venezuelan flag replacing it with the US flag.

Numerous US and pro-Trump symbols at Venezuela's opposition march today. pic.twitter.com/ezrC672VlJ

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) February 2, 2019

Opposition protesters today in Punto Fijo lower the Venezuelan flag to raise the US flag. pic.twitter.com/nXOg1YBS3L

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) February 2, 2019

Images from the pro-Guaido rally in Caracas. From Twitter, Telesur.

Details of long term plan for Venezuela’s oil and domination of Latin America

First, it is important to understand why the US is supporting this poorly thought out and poorly planned coup. The Trump coup is a new phase of the long-term goals of US foreign policy when it comes to Venezuela and Latin America.

Vijay Prashad describes the long-term reality of US coups and domination of Latin America in The U.S. 12-Step Method to Conduct Regime Change, writing what is happening in Venezuela is “nothing unique in American history.” Prashad describes the coup in Chile, which Nixon and Kissinger began in 1970 and completed in 1973. In Venezuela, the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID and CIA have been involved in regime change operations and building opposition to Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro from the beginning of this century. The US spends tens of millions of dollars annually to support opposition oligarchs and big business interests.

The Grayzone Project documents the more than ten-year effort by US regime change operatives that created a series of young opposition leaders including fake president Juan Guaido. Guaido was a little known right-wing politician who came in second in a legislative election in the second smallest state in Venezuela. He was thrust on the national scene by the coup. In our last article, we described how Canadian and US officials encouraged him to become a self-appointed president.

In our next Clearing the FOG, we interview Dan Cohen of the Grayzone Project. You’ll find it here.

The Wall Street Journal, in “U.S. Push to Oust Venezuela’s Maduro Marks First Shot in Plan to Reshape Latin America,” reveals the motive is to place Latin America back under US control. Commenting on this article, Yves Smith expresses how the US seems to have not learned from the failed wars in the Middle East, which cost the US trillions and created chaos and suffering while weakening the US’ global standing.

Eric Draitser at Counterpunch focuses on how this coup is about defeating what is perceived as socialism in Venezuela. The defeat of Chavismo is critical to the US controlling the region. Venezuela cannot be allowed to refuse US domination. John Bolton made the coup very personal this week, threatening Maduro to accept Guaido’s offer of amnesty or find himself in the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Mexico and Uruguay announced an international conference set to take place in Montevideo on February 7,  but the US is rejecting dialogue. The US and coup plotters do not want dialogue, they want regime change and nothing less.

Dimitri Orlov points to the end of the fracking boom in the US as a reason why there is haste in trying to dominate Venezuela.  He writes “the fracking bonanza is ending. Most of the sweet spots have already been tapped; newer wells are depleting faster and producing less while costing more.” Fracking is already losing billions and soon will be losing trillions of dollars. As a result, a “rather large oil shortage is coming, and it will rather specifically affect the US, which burns 20% of the world’s oil.” While a sensible country would use this as a reason for a rapid transition to a clean energy economy, the US seeks to prop up its oil companies by stealing Venezuela’s oil.

The US signaled how abusive it could become by appointing war criminal Elliot Abrams to the coup team. The Intercept details Abrams’ long-term work of violently crushing democracy. His record: In the 1980s, 75,000 Salvadorans died mostly from government death squads; in Guatemala, he supported a government that committed widespread human rights violations in a war that killed 200,000 people; in the Contra War in Nicaragua, Abrams pled guilty to lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra Deal that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths. After he was pardoned by George H.W. Bush, Abrams returned to the White House of George W. Bush where among other things he gave the green light to the failed coup against Hugo Chavez in 2002.

The Economic War as An Excuse for Humanitarian Intervention

The Grayzone Project reports on documents that expose US plans for economic war in Venezuela. Ben Norton writes, the “documents acknowledge that Washington has been using what it clearly describes as ‘financial weapons’ to wage ‘economic warfare’ on the oil-rich South American nation.” Sanctions began under Bush in 2004, escalated under Obama when he declared Venezuela a national security threat in 2015 and escalated under Trump. Sanctions imposed by Trump have bled Venezuela of billions of dollars.

WikiLeaks published an excerpt from what it titled the “US coup manual,” which describes how the US uses “financial weapons” to wage “economic warfare.” These documents describe how sanctions and other punitive economic policies are not a mere prelude to war; they are a form of war. As Norton writes, the US is not considering war, but has “already been waging a war, for years.”

Even under this tremendous economic war, which worsened with a drop in oil prices, the Maduro government has focused on uplifting people. Telesur describes gains made under Maduro’s administration:

• Venezuela expanded its free health care coverage to more than 60 percent of the population.
• Earlier this year, the United Nations Program for Development placed Venezuela among the countries with the highest Human Development Index, surpassing most Latin American countries.
• Venezuela has built 3 million homes for the poor and working class, 1.6 million under Maduro, to house up to ten million people in a population of 30 million.
• Maduro’s administration has provided more than 4,800,000 computers, over 100 million technology textbooks to students across the country, and more than 20,000 schools have received new computer equipment.
• Venezuela ranks sixth in the world in terms of enrollment in primary education and has increased its coverage of secondary education to 73 percent of the population.
• There have also been gains in civil rights of historically oppressed sectors of Venezuelan society, like women, Afro-Indigenous people and the LGBTQ community.

These gains do not make Venezuela a socialist economy, indeed Norway is more socialist than Venezuela. Venezuela remains a capitalist country with 70% of the economy in private businesses. Some on the left criticize Maduro for not moving the country more rapidly to institute a socialist economy. Why is Venezuela attacked and not Norway? Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report argues another reason they are targeted is racism. Another is that Venezuela has rejected US domination.

The combination of tremendous drops in oil prices, the US economic war and oligarch’s undermining the economy has resulted in the economy shrinking by 50% in five years – worse than the US depression.

This week, John Bolton offered to send humanitarian assistance at the request of Guaido. When Venezuela has tried to buy essential goods and pharmaceuticals, they have been blocked and offered humanitarian aid instead. This presents a problem because if Venezuela accepts humanitarian aid, then it would provide an excuse for the Organization of American States (OAS) to intervene. And it would allow US institutions such as USAID into the country to bring the aid.

The irony of the US offering aid while conducting an economic war is evident. The UN rapporteur said that sanctions are killing people in Venezuela. Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies writes that the US is seeking to take control of Venezuela even if their actions are illegal and kill thousands of people.

Venezuela wouldn’t need aid if it were not for the sanctions and blockade. Venezuela, which has the second largest gold reserves, is currently raising hundreds of billions of dollars by selling 29 tons of gold reserves to UAE as well as selling gold to Russia.

The Flawed Coup is Failing Because of Mistaken Assumptions

An eye witness account from Venezuela describes how the coup is lacking popularity. A protest called earlier in the week had a very small turnout. Jessica Dos Santos, who writes about daily life in Venezuela, describes people trying to live normal lives and while people have criticisms of Maduro, they are more opposed to US intervention. She writes

“when it comes to fighting against foreign intervention, then there isn’t much to think about: Our home country is and must be first. And this is because of our love for it, but also because we have historical awareness. There isn’t one single nation that has come out better after a US or NATO intervention. In addition to that, intervention presupposes that we don’t have the capacity to solve our own problems.”

Moon of Alabama described big flaws in the poorly thought out Trump coup. This includes false perceptions on the ground in Venezuela where they underestimated support for Maduro and opposition to US imperialism among people and the military. He describes the lack of support for the coup in the Venezuelan constitution, with their misinterpretation of Article 233, which requires the president to be unable to serve in order for the president of the National Assembly to replace him. Further, he describes how Guaido has no support base and how the coup was rushed without input from the Pentagon, Southcom, or Department of Justice, who were likely to oppose such a measure.

Guaido is now being investigated in Venezuela. His assets have been frozen and he is not allowed to leave the country. In most countries, he would already have been imprisoned. The vast majority of the military has stood by Maduro.  CNN interviewed fake “veterans” not even in Venezuela asking for US military aid. And there have been false reports that the military was recruiting minors (youth) to rise up against Maduro.

Support the Venezuelan People: End the Sanctions and Prevent War

Maduro sent a video message to the people of the United States describing the false media coverage and urging people of the United States to stop their government from intervening in Venezuela. He said “If the U.S. intends to invade us, they will have a Vietnam worse than they can imagine. Let’s not allow violence,” urging viewers to “not permit a new Vietnam in Venezuela.”

People in the United States have a lot of work to do to convince the government not to intervene in Venezuela, i.e. end economic sanctions, stop military threats. Max Blumenthal interviewed members of Congress and asked them about whether the US was meddling in Venezuela. Most denied it or were misinformed and those that understood what was going on refused to speak out. Some have spoken out against the coup, notably, Tulsi Gabbard, Ro Khanna, Barbara Lee, Bernie Sanders, and the Progressive Caucus, although even some of them perpetuate falsehoods about the situation.

Being in solidarity with the people of Venezuela means opposing war and intervention. A recent poll found 86% of Venezuelans oppose war and 81% oppose the economic sanctions.

The threat of war against Venezuela is real. The US already has military bases in Colombia. There was more evidence this week. John Bolton displayed a notepad that said “5,000 troops to Colombia” and US military transport planes are flying over and landing in Colombia.

Activists must demand the United States follow the rule of law. The coup and sanctions violate international law as this letter from NGOs to the United Nations explains. Idriss Jazairy, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures, explains how the US economic sanctions violate international law.  He wrote, “Coercion, whether military or economic, must never be used to seek a change in government in a sovereign state. The use of sanctions by outside powers to overthrow an elected government is in violation of all norms of international law.” The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recognized Maduro as president and rejected Guaido’s claim to the presidency.

The OAS, which is dominated by the United States, refused to recognize Guaido and rejected intervening in Venezuela. Even the Lima Group, made up of right-wing governments in Latin America that oppose Venezuela, has rejected military intervention.

This article and Venezuela: What Activists Need To Know About The US-Led Coup, provide people with the information they need to combat the false media narrative about Venezuela. The Alliance for Global Justice has prepared an activist tool kit on Venezuela.

Protests have already been held in the US and around the world have already been held and more are being organized. On Monday, February 4, 2019 at 3PM, at the United States Permanent Mission to the United Nations located on the corner of 45th Street and First Avenue, NYC. On February 23, the one month anniversary of the soup, there will be a national day of actions protesting the coup.

This week Popular Resistance joined a call for a national march on Saturday, March 16, in Washington, D.C. against the Trump administration’s effort to engineer a coup in Venezuela and start a new devastating war there. If we unite and mobilize, we can stop this war and end US sanctions in Venezuela.

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

It takes an enormous effort for any country to oppose Israel, but particularly a small country that has to rely on bigger powers. It is even harder to impose effective pragmatic measures against Israel, as in the case of Ireland and Malaysia.

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In a move consistent with the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions, BDS, against Israel, the Malaysian government has refused entry visas to athletes representing Israel in the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships that were slated to be held in Sarawak, Malaysia this July. As might be expected, the Malaysian government has come under severe attack as a result of this move and has, in fact, been stripped of the of the right to host the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships altogether. The move to punish Malaysia was made by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC).

Holding Firm

In an interview with the BBC, Syed Saddiq, Malaysia’s Minister of Youth and Sports, stated:

If hosting an international sporting event is more important than safeguarding the interests of our Palestinian brothers and sisters, than we have lost our moral compass.”

Malaysia’s prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad, said, “Israel is a criminal state and deserves to be condemned,” according to a piece in the Malay Mail. Dr. Mahathir also called for “those who sympathize with the Palestinian cause to voice their condemnation.”

In the summer of 2013, I had the opportunity to visit Malaysia on a speaking tour. The tour coincided with a visit by guests from Gaza, who included Yousef Aljamal and Dr. Mahmoud Alhirthani. Dr. Alhirthani subsequently translated my memoir, The General’s Son to Arabic. During this visit, we all had the opportunity to meet and speak to Dr. Mahathir, who at that time was not in office, and with the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. It was clear that the stance taken by Malaysia was one of the most favorable in the world towards the issue of Palestinian rights.

The Irish Parliament

Ireland too has shown that it is serious about supporting the rights of the Palestinian people. According to a report in the Middle East Monitor, the Irish lower house of parliament passed what is officially known as the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill, which penalizes anyone importing or selling goods or services originating in the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem or West Bank settlements. In response, the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, canceled a planned visit by Israeli parliamentarians to Ireland. Furthermore, according to the Irish Examiner, the passing of the bill resulted in Israel threatening Ireland with retaliatory measures.

It takes an enormous effort for any country to oppose Israel, but particularly a small country that has to rely on bigger powers. It is even harder to impose effective pragmatic measures against Israel, as in the case of Ireland and Malaysia. Israel invests in diplomacy and in actual on-the-ground work by supporting governments around the world, supplying expertise and equipment — be it military, agricultural, intelligence or anything else — that a particular government might want. A country that manages to bypass all of that and still break through with meaningful sanctions against Israel has managed to do the impossible.

Preparing for retaliation

The next step is retaliation. In the fall of 2015, the Icelandic capital Reykjavik voted to boycott Israeli products. By the time I visited the country several months later, the city council had voted to withdraw that decision. When I asked why, it was explained to me that they were intimidated by the reaction of Israel and Jewish-Zionist organizations in the United States that were promising to retaliate. Israel was not going to allow a European capital to declare a boycott without fighting back, and a severe reaction and retaliation were to be expected.

Here again was an attempt by a small country to do what the U.S., the U.K., and even Russia, did not dare — to stand up to Israel and act to stop to the crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

Spineless politicians

As this drama unfolded in Kuala Lumpur and Dublin, in Washington the United States Senate was prepared to vote on a bill that would do the exact opposite of what these smaller countries dared to do. S-1, the first bill proposed in 2019, includes a clause which would penalize companies who boycott Israel. It was a challenge to get this bill on the calendar for a vote thanks to the U.S. government shutdown, but once that hurdle was cleared S-1 passed with 74 senators voting in favor. A large majority of spineless politicians who care little for the rights or the lives of Palestinians and have lost what moral compass they may have had in the past.

If people of conscience want to see justice, freedom and peace in Palestine, then they must urge, and indeed pressure, their elected representatives and their governments to follow the Malaysian and Irish examples and place real sanctions on Israel. Israel has learned a great deal from the history of other oppressive regimes, not the least of which was the apartheid regime in South Africa. One of those lessons is to pre-empt any attempts to boycott or impose sanctions on it.

The Senate bill, and hundreds of local bills that had been passed throughout the United States, are also part of the pre-empting campaign. Israel is relying on spineless politicians who will succumb to Zionist pressure and ignore the plight of the Palestinian people.

There is a call to boycott the 2019 Eurovision song contest, which is slated to be held in Tel Aviv, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry is already hard at work trying to convince Europeans to ignore this call.

One can expect that the pressure and retaliation against Malaysia and Ireland will continue, not only from Israel but the also from the U.S. and the U.K., and this may impact these countries for the foreseeable future. However, if Palestinians are to one day see the justice they deserve, other countries must follow in these countries’ courageous footsteps, and the pressure on Israel must grow.

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Miko Peled is an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is the author of “The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”

President Donald Trump and the neocon sofa samurais who surround him seem determined to pick a fight with China or Russia, or both at the same time.

Later this month, the US and China are due to try to end their long-running trade war which has damaged the economies of both nations. At the heart of the trade dispute are soya beans and pork, the two principal American exports to China, as well as China’s efforts to grab US technology.

I find it amazing that, in 2019 high-tech America, the most important exports to China, aside from aircraft, are the humble soya bean and pigs. Of course, they come from farm country, the heartland of Trump’s political support.

Not a thought has been given to the hellish mistreatment of the pigs themselves, intelligent animals who are turned into inanimate objects known as ‘pork’, or the foul conditions their industrial breeding creates.

China will likely be the first to blink in this test of national wills. It imports less from the US than it exports and is thus vulnerable to trade pressure.
But history amply shows that it’s a bad idea to push China into a corner and make it lose face.

Suave diplomacy is the way to deal with the proud, prickly Chinese. They have refused to play by world trade rules, it is true, and need some serious arm-twisting. But not at a time when the Pentagon is ostentatiously planning a war against China in the western Pacific. The fuse has already been lit.

Meanwhile, the far right neocons, led by the unbalanced John Bolton, have convinced Trump to break the 1987 US-Soviet short and intermediate missile treaty signed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. This landmark agreement led to the removal of all US and Soviet land-based missiles from Europe. The pact was regarded as the first major step in reducing nuclear weapons.

The 1987 treaty was a godsend for Europe, which would have been ground zero in any nuclear exchange. It was also a huge relief for Moscow which rightly feared that the highly accurate US Pershing missiles based in Europe could deliver a devastating surprise strike, known as decapitation, on Soviet government leadership targets. Moscow’s retaliation would have razed Paris, London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Amsterdam and other important targets.

Over recent months, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has been responding to growing US nuclear threats by vaunting new developments in his nation’s missile technology. If accurate and actually deployed, these new hypersonic and nuclear-powered missiles with immense range will make obsolete all of US anti-missile defenses, a topic much loved by Trump.

Now, Trump & Co. are preparing to junk this crucial piece of Cold War architecture and resume the arms race with Russia. Pentagon sources say the real reason is to counter China’s missiles, which were not a factor in 1987, and have proliferated in recent years. Increasingly accurate, these Chinese tactical and strategic missiles are a major source of concern to the US Navy and US Asian bases.

But the US still has ample land, air and ocean-based nuclear forces to inflict immense damage on China. Violating the bedrock 1987 treaty with Moscow hardly seems worth adding some US nuclear-armed missiles in Guam, Japan or South Korea.

We must also suspect that the Trump White House has resurrected the old Cold War notion of bankrupting the Soviets/Russia by drawing them into a ruinous arms race. The US and its NATO satraps and Japan had a five times larger military capability than the old Soviet Union or today’s threadbare Russia. ‘We’ll spend them into the ground,’ went the old battle cry in Washington. This at least is preferable to a nuclear exchange.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev just denounced the Trump administration’s nuclear policies as a gigantic mistake and threat to mankind. NATO, showing its subservience to Washington, bleated its support for US plans to deploy new medium-ranged missiles in Europe. But, in truth, Europeans are aghast at the prospect of a nuclear war fought in their backyards.

When the history of our era is written, Trump’s reincarnation of Cold War nuclear missile rattling will surely rank as a monumental historic folly. No amount of soya bean or pig sales can make up for that.

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Featured image is from The Seattle Times

In a desperate attempt to cover its tracks, the propaganda network linked to Britain’s security services, the Integrity Initiative (II), has wiped its website and locked its Twitter account “pending an investigation into the theft of data.”

The decision was taken shortly after the Anonymous hacking group released new II documents targeting Russia as supposedly the greatest threat to world peace, based on claims that it is the country most likely to use nuclear weapons.

The documents reveal yet more of the disinformation campaign used to justify NATO preparations for war with Russia, including the use of nuclear weapons.

Minutes from a joint workshop of the Institute for Statecraft (IfS), which runs the II, and the US government-funded Center for Naval Analyses discuss what would happen if the “West” intervened to “push back” a Russian advance in the case of a localized conflict.

“The reality of the Russian nuclear doctrine is that it will not back down. … War games usually start with Russia about to, or using a nuclear weapon,” the minutes conclude.

Citing the inevitability of Russian use of nuclear weapons is used to justify their “pre-emptive” use by the NATO powers in the type of “pre-emptive war” made infamous by President George Bush’s criminal invasion of Iraq and which now forms the bedrock of the Pentagon’s National Security Strategy. Last Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced US withdrawal from the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty as part of the reorientation of the US military toward “great-power” conflict with Russia and China.

Registered as a Scottish charity promoting good “governance and statecraft” and working to “counter disinformation,” the IfS and II privately list their “top three” objectives as:

• “Developing and proving the cluster concept and methodology”—that is, creating various national networks of assets in government, the military, the media and academia to covertly coordinate anti-Russian propaganda. The “silencing [of] pro-Kremlin voices on Serbian TV” by the Serbian political analyst and director of the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies, Jelena Milic, is given as an example.
• “Making people (in Government, think tanks, military, journalists) see the big picture, making people acknowledge that we are under concerted, deliberate hybrid attack by Russia,” as seen in the II’s coordination of the media response to the Skripal affair.
• “Increasing the speed of response, mobilising the network to activism in pursuit of the ‘golden minute.’” That is, creating fraudulent “popular” campaigns and “independent” news stories to push an anti-Russian agenda, as with the successful effort to prevent the promotion of an insufficiently Russophobic general in Spain and the attack on Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

This work is overseen by military intelligence operatives and run in service to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) on behalf of a network of pro-British and US imperialist outfits.

The IfS co-founder and director, Daniel Lafyeedney, is a Senior Member, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford. His online university biography notes,

“As Senior Associate Fellow at the Advanced Research and Assessment Group at the Defence Academy of the UK (2004-2010) he specialised in the development and implementation of capacity-building projects for high-level governance of the security sector in European and middle-Eastern countries …”

It adds,

“His military service, legal background and career as an entrepreneur have given him an understanding of the importance of the link between business and national security.”

Speaking in Israel in 2018, Lafyeedney explained,

“We have supported the creation of special Army reserve units (e.g., 77 Bde and SGMI—Specialist Group Military Intelligence) with which we now have a close, informal relationship” and how the work of the IfS and II feeds “into the highest levels of MoD and the armed forces.”

In return, the IfS and II receives £2.6 million in funding for 2018-19 as well as office space in central London provided by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Funding also comes from HQ NATO Public Diplomacy, the US State Department, the “German business community,” the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence, the US think tank the Smith Richardson Foundation and other named “partner institutions.”

II is involved in a concerted anti-Russian offensive in Eastern European states. Ukraine, the Baltic states, Moldova and Armenia are all referenced as crucial areas of II work. One document on the Baltics refers to the need to be “educating our audience to understand how Russia sees this world as being at war.” Another on the war in Eastern Ukraine claims “aggression is inherent in the Russian condition.”

A file called “Moldova Democracy” explicitly argues for regime change, demanding that “A new team of people with integrity must come to power” or else “Moldova will remain a captured state forever, under Russian direct influence.”

During the 2018 protests in Armenia, the II published articles and intervened in social media to encourage a break with Russia after a change in government.

One of its key partners in Ukraine is Stopfake, which defends the far-right Ukrainian regime and the fascist forces which put it in power. An II document resolves to “Provide guest articles from … our clusters for StopFake’s printed material published and distributed along the contact line in Eastern Ukraine.”

In the UK the II is engaged in efforts to shut down uncooperative media outlets, accusing them of precisely the dirty tricks that it itself engages in. The most notable target is Russia Today (RT), which, II laments, is finding an audience because of “growing mistrust of western media among westerners.”

RT has been the target of an escalating campaign of attempted censorship with MPs demanding its broadcasting license be revoked. In December, the regulator Ofcom threatened to fine RT, claiming it had broken impartiality rules. There was no prior announcement from Ofcom that any RT shows had received more than 10 complaints from the public—as is standard practice. The II’s hidden hand is suggested in an II “Production timetable” document, which included the item in “eight complaints forwarded to Ofcom on RT’s failure to ensure due impartiality with request to launch a formal investigation.”

Other II plans include efforts to investigate “likely target[s] (e.g., a university with an anti-fracking agenda)” in receipt of Russian funding—even where those organisations are not in breach of the law.

A 2016 report by Péter Krekó and Lóránt Győri of the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute on “pro-Russian far-left parties in Europe” names parties such as Syriza in Greece, the Left Party in Germany, and Unsubmissive France and essentially accuses them of being Russian stooges. Invoiced for payment to the II, the report ends with the recommendation that states “need to assess in more detail the security implications” of these parties’ alleged Russian connections.

In the UK—and this helps explain the complete absence of media coverage of its sordid activities—the leaked II documents list the names of a “cluster” of top journalists and TV reporters including the Times’ David Aaronovitch and Dominic Kennedy, the Guardian’s Natalie Nougayrede, Carole Cadwalladr and Paul Canning, the BBC’s Jonathan Marcus, the Financial Times’ Neil Buckley, the Economist’s Edward Lucas and Sky News’ Deborah Haynes.

Leading Blairite Labour MP Ben Bradshaw is listed, as are “individuals who are very senior civilian experts in some relevant area, such as Hedge Fund managers, senior bankers, Heads of PA companies, etc., i.e., people whom the Army could never afford to hire, but who donate their time and expertise as patriots.”

The drawing together of such figures is a manifestation of the strategy laid out in the recent British National Security Capability Review, which singled out Russia as enemy number one for British imperialism. It called for a “Fusion Strategy” to advance the UK’s strategic interests against Moscow, which would make use “of all our capabilities; from economic levers, through cutting-edge military resources to our wider diplomatic and cultural influence on the world’s stage” to “project our global influence.” The BBC and “collaborative programmes with industry and academia” are listed as examples.

The II is proof that these plans are far-advanced and have been able to proceed without a word of criticism from a complicit bourgeois media.

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What should the leader of Canada’s left wing party say about what’s happening in Venezuela? Here are a few suggestions: “Canada should respect international law in its dealings with Venezuela.” Or, “Canada shouldn’t select the president of Venezuela.” How about, “The US has a long history of overthrowing governments in Latin America and Canada should never take part.”

Any (or all) of these statements would be clear, reasonable positions for a social democratic party that claims to be in favour of international law and to represent the interests of ordinary people, rather than billionaires, to express. Instead, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh has issued vague, contradictory words about the Liberal government’s aggressive effort to topple Venezuela’s elected president.

Over the past two years, Justin Trudeau’s government has steadily ramped up its campaign to oust Nicolas Maduro’s government. Ottawa has adopted illegal sanctions, supported opposition groups, built an anti-Venezuela regional coalition, pressured Caribbean countries to join their campaign and taken a complaint about the Venezuelan government to the International Criminal Court. Last week, it recognized a little-known opposition politician — who has never garnered even 100,000 votes — as president of the country. And before making this Trumpian, anti-democratic, over-the-top-interference-in-another-country’s-internal-affairs decision, Canadian diplomats spent months preparing the move with the opposition to ratchet up tensions in the South American country. It seems the “Trudeau Doctrine” has been proclaimed, similar in purpose to the USA’s “Munroe Doctrine” first issued in 1823.

All of which should have offered a wonderful opportunity for a political party of the left to differentiate itself from the pro-big business, pro-American, pro-imperialist Liberals. But, despite Ottawa openly violating the UN and Organization of American States charters, the NDP leadership has barely mustered any criticism of Canadian policy. After Ottawa recognized National Assembly head Juan Guaido as president of Venezuela last week Jagmeet Singh tweeted a largely meaningless general message. Under pressure from activists — and with NDP MP Niki Ashton, as well as current candidates Svend Robinson and Jesse McClendon, making much stronger interventions —the party subsequently published a slightly better statement.

The Canadian Green and Communist parties’ statements are far better. So are those released by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canadian Labour Congress, Vancouver and District Labour Council, Common Frontiers, Rights Action, Kingston Peace Council, Hugo Chavez People’s Defence Front, Canadian Network on Cuba, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the NDP Courage Coalition.

While many of the party’s activists are probably confused by the leadership’s indifference to Canada’s push for a coup/invasion, NDP foreign-policy is run by a former Canadian diplomat who has aligned herself with Venezuela’s far right. A year ago I published an article in the Canadian Dimension titled “Has it become NDP policy to support US-backed coups in Latin America?” Among numerous criticisms of Venezuela’s government, foreign affairs critic Hélène Laverdière called the vice-president “a drug lord” from whom “the American government has seized billions of dollars of his assets for drug trafficking.” Laverdière should have been removed as foreign critic the day after repeating this obviously absurd claim from Venezuela’s lunatic far right. (In what may be the first ever resolution to an NDP convention calling for the removal of a party critic, the NDP Socialist Caucus submitted a motion to last February’s convention titled “Hands Off Venezuela, Remove Hélène Laverdière as NDP Foreign Affairs Critic.”)

Beyond Laverdière, the party leadership is largely aligned with the foreign policy establishment or those, as long time NDP MP Libby Davies put it, who believe a “Time Magazine version” of international affairs. As I detail in Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada, the party leadership fears corporate media backlash and only challenges official international policy when activists force the issue. (Can you imagine if the NDP never challenged government policy inside Canada? There would be no reason, aside from providing a third set of faces, for the party to exist.)

On Venezuela, the party leadership would probably prefer the issue simply disappear from public discussion. But, that’s unlikely. The Liberal government has made Venezuela, reports the Globe and Mail, “one of the government’s top foreign policy priorities.” In a town hall speech on Thursday that Global News headlined “Trudeau says clause in Venezuela constitution shows Guaido is interim president,” the PM boasted that “I’ve been making calls to a significant number of global leaders” (including the heads of France, Spain, Ireland, Colombia, Italy and the EU) to convince them to join their campaign against Venezuela.

For his part, Donald Trump, reports the Wall Street Journal, has “long viewed Venezuela as one of his top three foreign-policy priorities, including Iran and North Korea.” The clique of extremists driving US policy have set up a situation that may require an invasion to succeed.

On Monday the “Lima Group” of governments opposed to Venezuela’s elected government are meeting in Ottawa. A protest is planned there, as well as in at least two other Canadian cities. Before the “Lima Group” summit the NDP should release a statement challenging Canada’s coup planning and Niki Ashton, or another MP, should be allowed to speak at the rally.

It’s not too late to do the right thing.

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One would have to have had his head in the sand for the past two years not to know that Donald Trump is committed to the idea of building a wall between the United States and Mexico.

Trump famously said during his official announcement that he was a Republican candidate for president,

I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.

It has been two years now since Trump was inaugurated and still no wall.

According to the “Immigration” section on the White House website,

The United States must adopt an immigration system that serves the national interest. To restore the rule of law and secure our border, President Trump is committed to constructing a border wall and ensuring the swift removal of unlawful entrants. To protect American workers, the President supports ending chain migration, eliminating the Visa Lottery, and moving the country to a merit-based entry system. These reforms will advance the safety and prosperity of all Americans while helping new citizens assimilate and flourish.

Some of Trump’s more conservative supporters are furious that he agreed to reopen the government without first obtaining funding from Congress for a border wall. For many of them, the issue of a border wall seems to be the only issue they care about. It doesn’t matter what Trump says, what he believes, or what he does, as long as he gets the wall built before the end of his term.

Trump is not the only one preoccupied with building a border wall. An Air Force veteran and Purple Heart recipient who lost three of his limbs while deployed to Iraq started a GoFundMe page late last year to raise money to help build Trump’s wall. Said the page’s initial description,

Like a majority of those American citizens who voted to elect President Donald J. Trump, we voted for him to Make America Great Again. President Trump’s main campaign promise was to BUILD THE WALL. And as he’s followed through on just about every promise so far, this wall project needs to be completed still.

It’s up to Americans to help out and pitch in to get this project rolling. “If the 63 million people who voted for Trump each pledge $80, we can build the wall.” That equates to roughly 5 Billion Dollars; even if we get half, that’s half the wall. We can do this.

If we can fund a large portion of this wall, it will jumpstart things and will be less money Trump has to secure from our politicians. This won’t be easy, but it’s our duty as citizens. This needs to be shared every single day by each of you on social media. We can do it, and we can help President Trump make America safe again!

More than $20 million has been raised so far.

But wall or no wall, there are many things that will still be true about life in “the land of the free.” Here are twenty-five of them.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have an income tax that robs them of the fruits of their labor.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a government that subsidizes some Americans at the expense of other Americans.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a national debt of more than $22 trillion.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have civil asset-forfeiture laws that allow police to seize and sell any property they allege to have been involved in a crime even if the property owner is never arrested or convicted of a crime.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a military that bombs, maims, and kills foreigners who are no threat to the United States.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have socialist programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have occupational-licensing laws that make them get permission from the government to work or engage in commerce.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a national government with a budget of more than $4 trillion a year.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a war on drugs that is a monstrous evil and has ruined more lives than drugs themselves.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a U.S. global empire of troops and bases that occupy the world.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have laws that forbid legal adults younger than 21 years old from purchasing alcohol even though they can get married, serve in the military, and enter into contracts.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still be subject to laws that forbid them from engaging in certain kinds of commerce on Sundays.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have anti-discrimination laws that restrict freedom of thought, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and property rights.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a government with a foreign policy that is reckless, belligerent, interventionist, and meddling.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have federal gun-control laws that violate the Second Amendment.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a government that owns millions of acres of land, including more than half of the land in some states.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a welfare state that transfers wealth from some Americans to other Americans.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a TSA that treats the traveling public as potential terrorists.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a police state where government spying, surveillance, and searches continue unabated.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still be restricted from freely traveling to Cuba.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have laws that criminalize the commission of victimless crimes.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a government that forces some Americans to pay for the health care of other Americans.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a Patriot Act that endangers civil liberties.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a deep state and a military-industrial complex.

Wall or no wall, Americans will still have a Constitution that is violated every day that Congress is in session.

If the wall is ever built, America will merely go from being a welfare/warfare/police state to a walled-in welfare/warfare/police state. The United States has deep systemic problems that building a wall will never solve.

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Laurence M. Vance is a columnist and policy advisor for the Future of Freedom Foundation, an associated scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and a columnist, blogger, and book reviewer at LewRockwell.com. He is the author of Gun Control and the Second Amendment, The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom, and War, Empire and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy. His newest books are Free Trade or Protectionism? and The Free Society. Visit his website: www.vancepublications.com. Send him e-mail.

As Venezuela’s second president, Simon Bolivar, noted in the 19th century, the US government continues to “plague Latin America with misery in the name of liberty.”

From engineering coups in Chile and Guatemala, to choreographing a troop landing at the Bay of Pigs intended to establish an exile government in Cuba, to training Latin American strongmen at the School of the Americas in torture techniques to control their people, the United States has meddled, interfered, intervened and undermined the democracies it claims to protect.

Now, Vice President Mike Pence, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, National Security Adviser John Bolton, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) and the infamous Elliott Abrams are working with opposition groups in Venezuela to carry out a coup d’état.

In 2002, the George W. Bush administration, through the CIA, aided and abetted an attempted coup, according to attorney Eva Golinger, an award-winning author and journalist. Golinger, a close confidante of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, obtained evidence of US intervention from multiple Freedom of Information Act requests, which she discusses in her new book, Confidante of ‘Tyrants’: The Inside Story of the American Woman Trusted By the US’s Biggest Enemies.

There is a major difference, however, between the 2002 coup attempt and the Trump administration’s current effort to change the regime in Venezuela, Golinger says. She told Truthout that unlike the situation in 2002,

“when the Bush administration worked behind the scenes to back a coup d’état against Chávez with multimillion-dollar funding and political support to the opposition, the Trump administration is now pursuing regime change in Venezuela in plain sight.”

US Aided and Abetted 2002 Coup Attempt

Golinger came to Chávez’s attention after her investigation revealed proof of US involvement in the 2002 attempted coup. Since Chávez was elected president of Venezuela in 1998, the United States tried overtly and covertly to overthrow his “Bolivarian Revolution” by furnishing opposition groups working for regime change with millions of dollars, Golinger writes. Chávez used Venezuela’s vast oil wealth to eradicate illiteracy and poverty, and to provide education and universal health care.

After Chávez’s death in 2013, Nicolás Maduro was elected president after promising to carry on the Bolivarian Revolution. But the punishing sanctions President Obama imposed in 2015, combined with corruption, mismanagement and autocratic leadership, caused economic hardship. Falling oil prices in 2016 led to hyperinflation two years later, and Venezuela’s economy collapsed.

Nevertheless, Maduro was re-elected in 2018. The opposition’s boycott of the election and the US government’s support of that boycott resulted in Maduro’s victory over Henri Falcón.

Team Trump Is Engineering Regime Change in Venezuela

Elliott Abrams is a disturbing, but not surprising, choice to serve as US special envoy to Venezuela. Abrams was convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra scandal and later pardoned by George H.W. Bush. The new envoy supported General Efraín Ríos Montt, the Guatemalan dictator who directed the torture and mass murder of Indigenous people in the 1980s, and was later convicted of genocide. Moreover, Abrams was linked to the 2002 attempted US coup in Venezuela.

“The naming of notorious ‘dirty war’ expert Elliott Abrams to oversee the Venezuela operation, the public threats against Venezuela of ‘consequences’ should they defy the US made by Trump’s hawkish John Bolton, and Trump’s own multiple statements that a military option is ‘on the table’ for Venezuela, clearly show that the table is set,” Golinger told Truthout.

The “US is not just ‘behind’ this coup,” Ben Norton wrote in a series of tweets. “The US is openly leading the coup.”

Indeed, The Wall Street Journal reported that on January 22, Pence called Juan Guaidó and “pledged” US support “if he seized the reins of government from Nicolás Maduro.” Guaidó was a little-known player whom the United States had long cultivated to undermine the Bolivarian Revolution. Guaidó swore himself in as “interim president” of Venezuela the following day.

“That late-night call set in motion a plan that had been developed in secret over the preceding several weeks, accompanied by talks between U.S. officials, allies, lawmakers, and key Venezuelan opposition figures, including Mr. Guaidó himself,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “Almost instantly, just as Mr. Pence had promised, President Trump issued a statement recognizing Mr. Guaidó as the country’s rightful leader.”

“Opposition leaders have already met in the White House with Pence, and Trump himself telephoned Guaidó to express US support for his de facto regime. If this is what they are doing overtly, we can only imagine the depth of their covert ops in Venezuela,” Golinger told Truthout.

In fall of 2017, Trump broached the subject of invading Venezuela with top White House officials, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and then National Security Ddviser HR McMaster. Although they tried to dissuade him, Trump was “preoccupied with the idea of an invasion.” He raised the issue with the president of Colombia at a private dinner during a UN General Assembly meeting. McMaster finally talked Trump out of it.

But as recently as a few weeks ago, Trump reportedly asked Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina),

“What do you think about using military force?”

Bolton held a yellow legal pad with the words “5,000 troops to Colombia” prominently written on it at a January 28 press briefing. Although Bolton didn’t mention sending troops to Colombia, which shares a border with Venezuela, his well-placed prop serves as an ominous warning.

Sanctions Hurt the Venezuelan People

On January 28, the Trump administration imposed sanctions against Venezuela that amount to an oil embargo. They forbid Venezuela’s state-owned oil company from doing business with most US companies (except Chevron and Halliburton).

These penalties are projected to deprive Venezuela of $7 billion in assets, resulting in $11 billion in export losses during the next year. That’s on top of the $6 billion that Trump’s August 2017 financial sanctions cost Venezuela in one year.

The new sanctions against Venezuela “could turbocharge what is already the world’s worst inflation, worsening fuel shortages and compromise the state’s ability to buy and distribute food,” the New York Times reported.

“[A] problematic idea driving current US policy is the belief that financial sanctions can hurt the Venezuelan government without causing serious harm to ordinary Venezuelans,” Francisco Rodríguez, a Venezuelan economist, wrote in Foreign Policy. “That’s impossible when 95 percent of Venezuela’s export revenue comes from oil sold by the state-owned oil company. Cutting off the government’s access to dollars will leave the economy without the hard currency needed to pay for imports of food and medicine.”

As a result, Rodríguez, added,

“Starving the Venezuelan economy of its foreign currency earnings risks turning the country’s current humanitarian crisis into a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe.”

The United States used the same flawed strategy in 1960 when the Eisenhower administration imposed an embargo on Cuba. A State Department memo had proposed “a line of action that makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the [Fidel Castro] government.” Although the embargo continues to hurt the Cuban people, it failed in its stated goal.

In addition to the oil sanctions, the US State Department turned over control of Venezuela’s property and bank accounts in the United States to Guaidó, in what The New York Times called “one of Washington’s most overt attempts in decades to carry out regime change in Latin America.”

Regime Change and Sanctions Are Illegal and Unwanted

Forcible regime change in Venezuela is illegal under international law.

“The shocking aggression and illegal interference against a sovereign nation by the Trump administration is a blatant violation of the charters of the United Nations and Organization of American States, which recognize the principles of national sovereignty, peaceful settlement of disputes, and a prohibition on threatening or using force against the territory of another state,” the National Lawyers Guild said in a statement.

Moreover, the organization states

“directly fomenting a coup in a sovereign nation is not only illegal and outright shunned by the international community, it fundamentally undermines any pretextual concern about interference by other nations in U.S. elections.”

Indeed, the United Nations Charter requires that countries settle their disputes peacefully and forbids the use or threat of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another country. Military force is only permissible in self-defense or with the assent of the Security Council. Further, the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS) says no country can intervene, for any reason, in the internal or external affairs of another country.

US imposition of economic sanctions against Venezuela is also illegal. The OAS Charter proscribes the use of coercive economic or political measures to force the sovereign will of another country and obtain any advantages from it.

“Coercion, whether military or economic, must never be used to seek a change in government in a sovereign state,” said Idriss Jazairy, a UN special rapporteur concerned with the negative impact of sanctions. “The use of sanctions by outside powers to overthrow an elected government is in violation of all norms of international law.” Jazairy also noted that, “Precipitating an economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes.”

Former UN Special Rapporteur Alfred-Maurice de Zayas says the United States is waging “economic warfare” against Venezuela. In his report to the Human Rights Council, de Zayas recommends that the International Criminal Court investigate whether “economic war, embargoes, financial blockades and sanctions regimes amount to geopolitical crimes and crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.”

Moreover, in order to impose sanctions under US law, the president must declare a national emergency and state that Venezuela constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security of the United States. That claim is patently false.

De Zayas is a signatory to an open letter released last week, signed by 70 experts and academics who condemned the US-backed coup attempt against the Maduro government.

Although ostensibly aimed at helping the Venezuelan people, Team Trump’s sanctions and threats of military invasion are overwhelmingly unpopular in Venezuela. Eighty-six percent of Venezuelans oppose US military intervention and 81 percent are against sanctions.

It’s the Oil, Stupid

Why is the United States so intent on regime change? Because Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, and the United States is its biggest customer.

Within two days of his self-inauguration as “interim president,” Guaidó began a process to restructure and privatize Venezuela’s oil industry for the benefit of multinational corporations.

Drawing a parallel with George W. Bush’s Iraq war, Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) tweeted, “It’s about the oil … again.” Indeed, Halliburton, exempted from the new sanctions against Venezuela, is once again benefitting from regime change, like it did in Iraq.

Bolton didn’t pull any punches when he stated at a press conference that, “We’re in conversation with major American companies now. … It would make a difference if we could have American companies produce the oil in Venezuela. We both have a lot of stake here.”

The Trump administration appears intent on privatizing Venezuela’s oil in order to maximize the profits of US oil companies at the expense of the Venezuelan people and the rule of law.

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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.

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Cutting to the chase, if you consider yourself to be ‘On the Left’ then you have to be a Socialist. Period!

Now, there are many different levels under the banner of Socialism. Some may be Marxist, Trotskyite, Syndicalism etc. Yet, the unifying denominator is that all believe in the common ownership of the means of production and services.

Many socialists do honor the existence of Mom and Pop private ownership of small business. Under a truly socialist system banking, energy, health & dental care, housing and all necessary services would be owned and operated by the community, whether it be local, state or federal.

Imagine if you would if we had real community owned and run mortgage banks, where the only interest charges would be for overhead. Translated: Even in these so called ‘low rates’ times, where a mortgage rate is around 4 or 5%, with non- profit community banks the rate would be perhaps 1%. Plus, the mortgage paper would remain with that bank. Today’s renters would be tomorrow’s owners of their own abode.

A truly socialist system would similarly own and operate the energy that goes into your home or apartment. For perhaps a fraction of what we pay now, everyone would have complete medical and dental coverage. (This writer has already spent $ 5000 this past year, CASH, with no insurance, for root canals, crowns and one extraction).

The real crime of it all is when we have less than  1/2 of 1% of our populace earning over a million dollars a year, and being treated in the same tax basket as those earning a couple of hundred thousand a year. In 1961, when JFK took office, the top rate was at 91% for a joint return of a couple earning $ 400,000 or more a year. By the time their accountant sharpened his or her pencil, the couple perhaps paid 40-50% of that. Nowadays,  couples filing jointly and earning between $ 400,000 – $ 600,000 pay at the rate of 35%. After their accountant does the deed, maybe they pay at 20%. See the loss for Uncle Sam? I could go on and on but you should be getting my drift.

A truly socialist society would not need to have our military all over the world, pointing our majestic force and power at everyone. There is no way, if we curtailed the Corporate War Economy being run by private individuals and investors, that all those phony wars we conducted (or plan to conduct) would ever occur! Cutting the obscene military spending, which is over 50% of our federal tax revenues at present, to  maybe 25% or much less than that, would ensure money for safety net programs (like National Health and Dental  for All). In addition, we would still be as safe as we are now… NO, actually safer. Why? Well, with no phony wars and excursions into all those Middle Eastern countries (and soon to be Venezuela) the question of ‘Why do they hate us’ would not even be brought up.

Now let’s look at the group I name the ‘Phony Left’. The Democratic Party, continued to be subsidized by the super rich, have a large segment (especially recently) considering themselves as ‘Left wing’. Really? Bottom line: They all still serve the Military Industrial Empire. When do you see them advocating a real pullback of this empire by closing a majority of our nearly 1000 foreign bases, and cutting with muster this fiscally bankrupting military spending?

Matter of fact, Bernie Sanders, who is in reality a decent and caring guy, calls himself a ‘Democratic Socialist’. Yet, his group supported both John Kerry’s run in ’04 and Obama’s run in 2008.

Sanders supported the NATO (US led) carpet bombing and destruction of Libya in 2011 and our incursions into Syria… and now our banging the drums for a new Cold War with Russia. Sadly, he referred to the late Hugo Chavez, democratically elected leader of Venezuela, as a ‘Dead Dictator’! 

This ‘Phony Left’ still won’t come out in favor of nationalizing Big Business, especially the real  culprits, the Wall Street banks! Do you ever hear these folks ditto that in regard to Big Pharma or Corporate Absentee Landlords? As far as taking on the Super Rich, new ‘Phony Left ‘ presidential candidate Sen. Warren wants to assess a whopping 2% surtax on any assets over 50 million dollars. Wow! You got to be kidding me! The real tragedy is that this ‘Peanut plan’ of hers is already being slammed by the embedded mainstream media. When will this comedic material, right out of a Marx Brothers film, cease?

Ok, now as to the title of this column, what’s left on the Amerikan plate?

Well, and again sadly, we have over a hundred million of our fellow citizens who still buy into this ‘Free Enterprise’ garbage that the right wing and centrist Phony Left have been selling for seems forever. So many decent working stiffs still will defend to their (fiscal?) death the right for anyone to earn as much as possible.

Why? Well, any mention of true socialism as been tangled together with what we have been propagandized to believe as the hated and feared Communism. Orwell’s Big Brother hangs over them like a vulture, ready to devour. Little do they realize that the Nazi gang sold this same Kool- Aid to the masses of Germans in the 1920s and 30s. Thus, Fascism became the antidote, and you should know the rest folks.

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Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn, NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust, whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ‘It’s the Empire… Stupid’ with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at [email protected]

It is true that some of Venezuela’s economic problems are due to the ineptitudes of the Bolivarian government’s  “socialist command” economy, but this overlooks the role played by the United States, the United Nations, and the European Union.

Over the last five years, the US has imposed financial sanctions on Venezuela. It has cut it off from western financial markets and this has resulted in oil production shortfalls. Venezuela is unable to raise capital to address deficiencies in the oil sector of its economy. This situation was exacerbated when the price of petroleum fell sharply around the world. Venezuelan debt instruments are banned by the US Treasury, thus preventing it from acquiring loans to address its severe economic problems and feed the people. 

Trump’s national security adviser has tweeted in Spanish:

Al alto rango militar venezolano, ahora es el momento de estar al lado del pueblo de Venezuela. ¡Es su derecho y responsabilidad defender la constitución y la democracia para Venezuela! https://t.co/3z0R4XtSAU

— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) February 3, 2019

This is unprecedented—Bolton publicly announcing a military coup (usually with hundreds if not thousands of deaths). He deliberately showed off his notebook with scribbled invasion plans, so there would be no question about the agenda. 

But that’s how the neocons operate. Lies, falsifications, grandiose claims, and invasions to forcibly install “democracy,” which is nothing of the sort. 

Bolton’s “democracy” is doublespeak in action. It’s a thinly disguised euphemism used to obscure the actual objective—the destruction of entire nations, cultures, and societies at the cost of hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives. Untold millions of lives have been destroyed by the sort of “democracy” Bolton is talking about.  It was put into action when Bolton was a toddler. 

Let’s get real. Bolton doesn’t care about the people of Venezuela. If he did the US would not be imposing harsh sanctions that are resulting in malnutrition and starvation. Bolton is using the age-old technique of starving and depriving people so they will overthrow the government (this tactic rarely works—leading me to believe it is inflicted out of pure sadism—leading to the exact opposite reaction). 

The people know the rule of the elite in Venezuela results in endless poverty and a large underclass of desperate people. This is primary reason they voted for Hugo Chávez and his version of the Bolivarian Revolution. His Bolivarian missions provided access to food, housing, healthcare, and education. Standard socialist nationalization took control away from transnational corporations and banks eager to financialize everything in sight. 

At this point it appears Trump’s neocon and CFR wizards will strive to get the military to go against Maduro, who is dedicated to not backing down. Trump may convince (bribe, threaten) the generals to go over to the self-proclaimed president, Juan Guaidó, but there is one very large obstacle—the National Boliviarian Militia and the so-called Peasant Militia, the latter “responsible for protecting poor farmers from mercenary groups organized and financed by ranchers and wealthy landowners,” that is to say the people supporting Guaidó. 

“The peasant militia will also assist the regular army ‘against any foreign aggressor,’ wrote Chavez, who has warned that the U.S. military could invade Venezuela in order to seize control of its vast oil reserves,” explains Kiraz Janicke. 

“The peasant militias, which are active in rural areas, will complement the primarily urban-based Bolivarian Militias, which were incorporated into the reform of the Armed Forces Law that came into force on October 22, 2009.”

In short, if the US invades, it won’t be a clean sweep like Bush the Elder’s invasion of Panama. It also won’t be a “cakewalk” like Iraq where the army was defeated in short order. It will be guerrilla warfare in a rugged tropical environment, not a sprawling Iraqi desert where there is no place to hide.

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Another Day in the Empire.

Kurt Nimmo is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from South China Morning Post

On the subject of the Islamic State’s weaponry, it is generally claimed by the mainstream media the Islamic State came into possession of state-of-the-art weapons when it overran Mosul in June 2014 and seized large caches of weapons that were provided to Iraq’s armed forces by Washington during the occupation years from 2003 to 2011.

Is this argument not a bit paradoxical, however, that Islamic State conquered large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq before it overran Mosul and Anbar in early 2014 when it supposedly did not have those sophisticated weapons, and after allegedly coming into possession of those sophisticated weapons, it lost ground?

The only conclusion that can be drawn from this fact is the Islamic State had those weapons, or equally deadly weapons, before it overran Mosul and that those weapons were provided to all the militant groups operating in Syria, including the Islamic State, by the intelligence agencies of none other than the Western powers, Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf states.

In fact, Washington exercised such an absolute control over Syria’s theater of proxy war that although the US openly provided the American-made antitank (TOW) weapons to Syrian militant groups, it strictly forbade its clients from providing anti-aircraft weapons (MANPADS) to the militants, because Israel frequently flies surveillance aircrafts and drones and occasionally carries out airstrikes in Syria, and had such weapons fallen into the wrong hands, they could have become a long term security threat to the Israeli Air Force.

In the final years of Syria’s proxy war, some anti-aircraft weapons from Gaddafi’s looted arsenal in Libya made their way into the hands of the Syrian militants, but for the initial years of the conflict, there was an absolute prohibition on providing MANPADS to the insurgents.

Last year, a report by the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) on the Islamic State’s weapons found in Iraq and Syria was prominently featured in the mainstream media. Before the story was picked up by the corporate media, it was first published [1] in the Wired News in December 2017, which has a history of spreading dubious stories and working in close collaboration with the Pentagon and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

The Britain-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) is a relatively unknown company of less than 20 employees. Its one-man Iraq and Syria division was headed by a 31-year-old Belgian researcher Damien Spleeters.

The main theme of Spleeters’ investigation was to discover the Islamic State’s homegrown armaments industry and how the jihadist group’s technicians had adapted the East European munitions to be used in the weapons available to the Islamic State. Spleeters had listed 1,832 weapons and 40,984 pieces of ammunition recovered in Iraq and Syria in the CAR’s database.

But Spleeters had only tangentially touched upon the subject of the Islamic State’s weapons supply chain, documenting only a single PG-9 rocket found at Tal Afar in Iraq bearing a lot number of 9,252 rocket-propelled grenades which were supplied by Romania to the US military, and mentioning only a single shipment of 12 tons of munitions which was diverted from Saudi Arabia to Jordan in his supposedly ‘comprehensive report.’

In fact, the CAR’s report was so misleading that of thousands of pieces of munitions investigated by Spleeters, less than 10% were found to be compatible with NATO’s weapons and more than 90% were found to have originated from Russia, China and the East European countries, Romania and Bulgaria in particular.

By comparison, a joint investigation by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) uncovered [2] the Pentagon’s $2.2 billion arms pipeline to the Syrian militants.

It bears mentioning that $2.2 billion was earmarked only by Washington for training and arming the Syrian militants, and tens of billions of dollars [3] that Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf states pumped into Syria’s proxy war have not been documented by anybody so far.

More significantly, a Bulgarian investigative reporter, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, authored a report [4] for Bulgaria’s national newspaper, Trud News, which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company, Silk Way Airlines, was regularly transporting weapons to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Turkey under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program to supply militant groups in Syria.

Gaytandzhieva documented 350 such ‘diplomatic flights’ and was subsequently fired from her job for uncovering the story. Not surprisingly, both these well-researched and groundbreaking reports didn’t even merit a passing mention in any mainstream news outlet.

It’s worth noting, moreover, that the Syrian militant groups, including the Islamic State, were no ordinary bands of ragtag jihadist outfits. They were trained and armed to the teeth by their patrons in the security agencies of Washington, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Jordan in the training camps located in Syria’s border regions with Turkey and Jordan.

Alongside Saddam’s and Egypt’s armies, the Syrian Baathist armed forces are one of the most capable fighting forces in the Arab world. But the onslaught of militant groups during the first three years of the proxy war was such that had it not been for the Russian intervention in September 2015, the Syrian defenses would have collapsed.

The only feature that distinguished the Syrian militants from the rest of regional jihadist groups was not their ideology but their weapons arsenals that were bankrolled by the Gulf’s petro-dollars and provided by the CIA in collaboration with regional security agencies of Washington’s traditional allies in the Middle East.

Fact of the matter is that the distinction between Islamic jihadists and purported ‘moderate rebels’ in Syria was more illusory than real. Before it turned rogue and overran Mosul in Iraq in June 2014, Islamic State used to be an integral part of the Syrian opposition and enjoyed close ideological and operational ties with other militant groups in Syria.

It bears mentioning that although turf wars were common not just between the Islamic State and other militant groups operating in Syria but also among rebel groups themselves, the ultimate objective of the Islamic State and the rest of militant outfits operating in Syria was the same: to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad.

Regarding the Syrian opposition, a small fraction of it was comprised of defected Syrian soldiers who go by the name of Free Syria Army, but the vast majority was comprised of Islamic jihadists and armed tribesmen who were generously funded, trained, armed and internationally legitimized by their regional and global patrons.

Islamic State was nothing more than one of numerous Syrian militant outfits, others being: al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, Jaysh al Islam etc. All the militant groups that were operating in Syria were just as fanatical and brutal as the Islamic State. The only feature that differentiated the Islamic State from the rest was that it was more ideological and independent-minded.

The reason why the US turned against the Islamic State was that all other Syrian militant outfits only had local ambitions that were limited to fighting the Syrian government, while the Islamic State established a global network of transnational terrorists that included hundreds of Western citizens who became a national security risk to the Western countries.

Notwithstanding, Damien Spleeters of the Conflict Armament Research (CAR) authored another report [5] in November in which he stated that South Sudan’s neighbors, Uganda in particular, had breached an arms embargo by funneling East European weapons to the South Sudan conflict.

South Sudan is the world’s youngest nation which gained independence from Sudan in 2011. The United States is often said to have midwifed South Sudan by leading the negotiations for its independence from Sudan, because South Sudan is an oil-rich country and produces about half a million barrels crude oil per day.

But a civil war began in 2013 between Dinka tribal group of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and Nuer rebels led by warlord Riek Machar, and has triggered one of the world’s largest humanitarian emergencies. Millions of South Sudanese have sought refuge in displacement camps in the country or in neighboring countries.

The Conflict Armament Research’s report on the weapons found in South Sudan notes:

“One of the most astonishing findings is that 99 percent of the ammunition tracked by CAR is of Chinese origin. Some of it was legally transferred to South Sudan, but much of it was delivered secretly to the opposition via Sudan in 2015 and is still being used.”

Unsurprisingly, the Britain-based monitoring group has implicated China, Eastern Europe and South Sudan’s neighbors for defying the embargo and providing weapons to the belligerents, and has once again given a free pass to the Western powers in its supposedly ‘comprehensive and credible’ report.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Tracing Islamic State’s weapons supply chain:

https://www.wired.com/story/terror-industrial-complex-isis-munitions-supply-chain/

[2] The Pentagon’s $2.2 billion Soviet arms pipeline to Syria:

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/the-pentagon-s-2-2-billion-soviet-arms-pipeline-flooding-syria-09-12-2017

[3] Mark Curtis’ book review, Secret Affairs: How Britain Colluded with Radical Islam?

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/how-britain-engaged-covert-operation-overthrow-assad-1437573498

[4] Journalist Interrogated, Fired For Story Linking CIA And Syria Weapons Flights:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-28/journalist-interrogated-fired-story-linking-cia-and-syria-weapons-flights

[5] Uganda breached arms embargo in funneling European weapons to South Sudan:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2018/11/29/uganda-funneled-european-weapons-south-sudan-breaching-arms-embargo-report/

Featured image is from Zero Hedge

Selected excerpts of article published in the South China Morning Post in April 2018.

Recent US foreign policy initiatives led by Trump’s National Security Advisor John Bolton corroborate the statements of Lawrence Wilkinson, former chief of staff of Colin Powell.

Both John Bolton and Mike Pompeo are prepared to risk a military conflict involving the use of nuclear weapons with Russia and China. 

According to the SCMP:

Bolton would use military force to coerce compliance from China, which US President Donald Trump has painted as an adversary, the Post was toldThe new US national security adviser is willing to risk a military conflict with China to achieve President Donald Trump’s goals for America, two former senior US officials have told the South China Morning Post. 

John Bolton, who is fond of quoting the ancient Roman battle philosophy, “If you want peace, prepare for war”, would use military force to coerce compliance from China – which an increasingly hawkish White House has painted as a competitor, if not an adversary, the former officials who worked with Bolton said in interviews. (…)

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, told the Post he doubted Trump would tolerate Bolton’s disagreeing with him at any point, in light of the bad endings that have come to Trump’s relationships with White House officials who have questioned the president’s past actions on trade, foreign policy and other issues.

However, “if Trump surprises me and does warm to Bolton, we are all in trouble – from North Korea to China,” Wilkerson said.

A major witness during Bolton’s Senate UN ambassadorship hearing in 2005, Wilkerson has labelled Bolton “the most dangerous American” for US foreign security policy.

Bolton’s views on ending the North Korean nuclear crisis are already well-known. He has advocated launching a pre-emptive strike on North Korea over its threat to use nuclear weapons against the US.

It is unclear what Bolton’s endgame for China would be.

It remains unclear now whether an aggressive Bolton could work with his new colleagues on the president’s national security team, including incoming Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis.

When Mattis met Bolton in late March at the Pentagon, he was captured in an off-microphone exchange saying [jokingly]: “I heard you’re actually the devil incarnate.”

To read complet SCMP article click here

First published by Global Research on January 24, 2017

Flemish Father Daniël Maes (78) lives in Syria in the sixth-century-old Mar Yakub monastery in the city of Qara, 90 kilometers north of the capital Damascus. Father Daniel has been a witness to the “civil war” and according to him, Western reports on the conflict in Syria are very misleading. In short: “the Americans and their allies want to completely ruin the country.”

Interviewer: You are very critical of the media coverage on Syria. What is bothering you?

Father Daniel: “The idea that a popular uprising took place against President Assad is completely false. I’ve been in Qara since 2010 and I have seen with my own eyes how agitators from outside Syria organized protests against the government and recruited young people. That was filmed and aired by Al Jazeera to give the impression that a rebellion was taking place. Murders were committed by foreign terrorists, against the Sunni and Christian communities, in an effort to sow religious and ethnic discord among the Syrian people. While in my experience, the Syrian people were actually very united.

Before the war, this was a harmonious country: a secular state in which different religious communities lived side by side peacefully. There was hardly any poverty, education was free, and health care was good. It was only not possible to freely express your political views. But most people did not care about that.”

Interviewer: Mother Agnès-Mariam, of your Mar Yakub (“Saint Jacob”) monastery, is accused of siding with the regime. She has friends at the highest level.

Father Daniel: “mother Agnès-Mariam helps the population: she has recently opened a soup kitchen in Aleppo, where 25,000 meals are prepared five times a week. Look, it is miraculous that we are still alive. We owe that to the army of Assad’s government and to Vladimir Putin, because he decided to intervene when the rebels threatened to take power.

When thousands of terrorists settled in Qara, we became afraid for our lives. They came from the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Europe, Turkey, Libya, there were many Chechens. They formed a foreign occupation force, all allied to al-Qaeda and other terrorists. Armed to the teeth by the West and their allies with the intention to act against us, they literally said: “This country belongs to us now.” Often, they were drugged, they fought each other, in the evening they fired randomly. We had to hide in the crypts of the monastery for a long time. When the Syrian army chased them away, everybody was happy: the Syrian citizens because they hate the foreign rebels, and we because peace had returned.”

Interviewer: You say that the Syrian Army protects civilians, yet there are all sorts of reports about war crimes committed by Assad’s forces, such as the bombardments with barrel bombs.

Father Daniel: “Do you not know that the media coverage on Syria is the biggest media lie of our time? They have sold pure nonsense about Assad: It was actually the rebels who plundered and killed. Do you think that the Syrian people are stupid?Do you think those people were forced to cheer for Assad and Putin? It is the Americans who have a hand in all of this, for pipelines and natural resources in this region and to thwart Putin.”

Saudi Arabia and Qatar want to establish a Sunni state in Syria, without religious freedom. Therefore, Assad must go. You know, when the Syrian army was preparing for the battle in Aleppo, Muslim soldiers came to me to be blessed. Between ordinary Muslims and Christians, there is no problem. It is those radical Islamic, Western-backed rebels who want to massacre us. They are all al Qaeda and IS. There are not any moderate fighters anymore.”

Interviewer: You once mentioned Hillary Clinton to be a ‘devil in holy water’, because as foreign minister, she deliberately worsened the conflict.

Father Daniel: “I am happy with Trump. He sees what every normal person understands: That the United States should stop undermining countries which possess natural resources. The Americans’ attempt to impose a unipolar world is the biggest problem. Trump understands that radical Islam is a bigger threat than Russia.

What do I care whether he occasionally takes off his pants? If Trump practices geopolitics the way he has promised to do so, then the future looks bright. Then it will become similar to Putin’s approach. And hopefully then, there will be a solution for Syria, and peace will return.”

Interviewer: You understand that your analysis is controversial and will encounter much criticism?

Father Daniel: “I speak from personal observation. And no one has to believe me, right? But I know one thing: The media can either contribute to the massacre of the Syrian people or help the Syrian people, with their media coverage. Unfortunately, there are too many followers and cowards among journalists.”

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Venezuela Confirms Coltan Deposits, $100 Billion in Gold Reserves

By Latin American Herald Tribune, February 03, 2019

The Venezuelan government has confirmed the existence of “significant” coltan deposits south of the Orinoco River, as well as proven gold reserves valued at $100 billion.

Is Oil Behind Washington’s Venezuela Coup Madness?

By F. William Engdahl, February 03, 2019

The Washington “recognition” of Guaido as “legitimate” president of Venezuela is not only a blatant breach of international law. It goes back on Donald Trump’s repeated campaign promises to stop US meddling in internal affairs of other countries.

In Zimbabwe, Capitalist Crisis + Ultra-neoliberal Policy = “Mugabesque” Authoritarianism

By Prof. Patrick Bond, February 03, 2019

The 14-17 January nationwide protests were called by trade unions against an unprecedented fuel price hike, leading to repression reminiscent of former leader Robert Mugabe’s iron fist.

US Intervention in Venezuela Portrayed as a “Humanitarian Mission”. “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P)

By Marc Vandepitte, February 03, 2019

Great powers invariably disguise foreign interference or military intervention as a humanitarian mission. The refrain may vary but in fact always comes down to the same thing: out of concern for the local population we have no other choice than to intervene.

Does the US Provide Covert Support to the Islamic State in Afghanistan?

By Nauman Sadiq, February 03, 2019

Last year, Russia’s seasoned Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington of providing material support to the Islamic State Khorasan militants based in Afghanistan in order to divide and weaken the Taliban resistance against American occupation of Afghanistan.

China-US Trade Negotiations Approach Final Phase

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, February 02, 2019

China continues publicly to offer concessions to the US on market access to China, US corporate and bank majority ownership of China companies, and China resumption of purchases of US farm and other goods.

Will Iran Sanctions Herald the Fall of the Imperial Dollar?

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, February 02, 2019

When the Trump administration unilaterally pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement in May 2018 and announced it would reimpose sanctions against Iran, the European Union (EU) declared its commitment to preserving the agreement and finding ways for its companies to circumvent U.S. sanctions.

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It is truly an amazing site: monstrous US hotels and casinos, just a few hundred meters from the Mainland China. All that kitsch that one usually associates with Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but bigger, much bigger! In fact, Macau is the biggest casino sprawl in the world.

Casinos, most of them confined inside the US mega-hotels, make approximately 5 times more money here, than in Las Vegas.

You want Venetian; a tremendous mind-blowing temple of bad taste, complete with a fake San Marco Square, canals, gondolas (gondoliers don’t sing O Sole Mio, thank God, as they are mostly from Portugal) and overcooked pasta – it is all here; one of the largest buildings on earth, and the biggest casino in the universe!

Biggest casino in the world – Venetian Macau

You want Parisian; yet another vulgar monstrosity, complete with a fake Eiffel Tower which lightens up right after dark to the great delight of the armies of selfie-takers? It is also here, in Cotai, Macau, together with the fake Champ de Mars that doubles as an (phony again) ice-skating rink.

Parisian Macau – fake tower

Macau is tiny, measuring only some 115 km square. But with around 650,000 people, it is one of the most over-populated places in the world. There is no space to move around here, anymore. Macau is a total, thorough urban nightmare and failure, propelled and ‘justified’ only by greed. But its plans are still Napoleonic. The territory wants more and more. Or more precisely: the Macau government, together with big business from the West, want more and more visitors, more and more casinos, luxury retail stores, and of course, profits.

24 hours a day, 365 days a week, Macau sucks in like a monstrous turbine, millions, in fact billions of dollars, yuan or whatever currency manages to enter its territory. It attracts like a magnet, masses of people from the PRC, who are often still naïve, innocent and defenseless when confronted by brutal and extreme forms of capitalism and its advertisements.

In January 2019, I visited several casinos in Macau, and not surprisingly, there are very few traditional roulette tables there, but masses of electronically controlled machines. Everything is noisy, confusing and lacking transparency. Western casinos treat Chinese people like some brainless children. At least the classic roulette mainly wins (for casino) on ‘neutral’ 0 (zero), giving a gambler very fair chance. But electronic, futuristic machines are a sham, and can ‘strip’ an unseasoned gambler of everything, in just a few hours, even minutes. But that is, obviously, precisely the goal.

Fake canals inside Venetian Macau

I am horrified to see hordes of good Chinese (PRC) citizens who work hard, building their beautiful country, and then crossing to that fake universe of Macau, where they are literally blowing their savings in spasmodic, insane sprees.

On 23 January, 2019, CNN reported from Hong Kong:

Chinese authorities say they have busted an underground money-smuggling ring used to launder more than $4.4 billion through the Asian gambling hub of Macau.

The case is a high-profile example of Beijing’s crackdown on attempts to dodge its capital controls, which it has tightened in recent years to prevent money from flooding out of the country and destabilizing the economy.

Macau’s Judicial Police said the syndicate was formed in 2016 and relied on point-of-sale machines — the devices used by shops to conduct transactions with credit cards or debit cards — which were smuggled in from China. 

These in theory would allow Chinese citizens to make withdrawals from their bank accounts that appeared to be domestic transactions, thereby avoiding China’s strict limits on how much money people can move across its borders.

In theory, Chinese citizens are only allowed to take out of the country no more than 100,000 Yuan, which amounts to approximately $15,000 annually. But local businessmen and gangs are always looking for loopholes.

Macau gangs are brutal and they are dealing with huge amounts of money. Antagonizing them is dangerous. Even journalists and academics connected to this tiny but super rich territory, prefer not to speak openly; only on condition of anonymity. One of my good colleagues replied, sarcastically, to my request for a quote:

“I don’t think I could contribute anything to your open eyes approach – and for me to write the truth on what I see in this fishing village making firecrackers turned capitalist paradise of Macau would be like you risking lèse-majesté in Bangkok by mocking the golden towers of the royal palace.”

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In the old, Portuguese historic area of Macau, which happens to be a UNESCO-inscribed world heritage site, there is hardly any place left to move. Weekends are the ‘deadliest’, with monstrous ‘pedestrian traffic jams’ and more than one hour-long taxi lines. However, weekdays are not much better.

Beijing tried to crack down on gambling and for some time it worked, but during the last months, casinos have been bouncing back. The loopholes are too numerous. In the meantime, the territory panicked (‘God forbid it could not make as much money as before!’) and began trying to attract even more tourists, mainly from the Mainland, by all means available: a new bridge, advertisements…  It also began to cater to the lowest of tastes; historic houses have been painted in kitschy pink, vulgar bluish and greenish, as well as yellow colors. Culture and art has almost disappeared. And everything has become mass-produced and fake, including ‘Portuguese food’.

Frankly, all that Macau represents is wrong: it has already ruined millions of human lives through mass gambling. It robs Mainland China of billions of dollars. Instead of educating people, it offers fake culture, in fact a disgusting parody ‘Las Vegas-style’. It is brainwashing Chinese people, so they see ‘the world according to Disney, Hollywood and big US hotel chains’.

Many hotel managers come from Portugal (for ‘authenticity’, I suppose). They are arrogant, more North American than North Americans themselves, ambitious and unscrupulous. Many of them speak about Mainland China sarcastically, with spite. Typical Western ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom of speech’ nonsense.

In historic Macau pedestrian traffic jams

Stripped of authenticity and decency, Macau adopted a gold-digging, repulsive culture. Talk about ‘fake news’ and fake culture! Everything that is fake, is here, in Macau.

Across the water, in the PRC, beautiful modern cities are growing, simple, elegant, and confident; built for the people.

In Macau, morale, socialist spirit, as well as family savings, are getting ruined and burned.

‘One country two systems’ has gone too far in Macau. This territory produces nothing. Not even those traditional firecrackers, perhaps. It only consumes, and perverts.

One of Sheraton Macau’s employees, a Philippine lady born in Macau, explained:

“I don’t recognize my own home city, anymore! It used to be a dormant, beautiful place. Now it is thoroughly ruined.”

I don’t recognize Macau either. And people who come here, from Mainland China, tend to change, quickly. Is this yet another Western subversion, an attempt to break China into pieces? Definitely. The government of the PRC should take more decisive action, soon; protecting its people and funds.

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This article was originally published on New Eastern Outlook.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are China and Ecological Civilization with John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.  He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author. Featured image: Venetian Casino Macau – the biggest casino on earth

On February 2, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minuster Sergey Shoigu briefed Vladimir Putin on the history of US Treaty breaches – since the Clinton co-presidency.

It’s nothing new, ongoing for the past 20 years or longer. In 1987, the treaty was agreed on by Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, a landmark agreement.

According to Lavrov, the US has been violating the treaty at least since 1999 – by “testing combat unmanned aerial vehicles that have the same characteristics as land-based cruise missiles banned by the treaty,” adding:

Since then or perhaps earlier, the US has been “us(ing) ballistic target missiles for testing their missile defense system, and in 2014 they began (deploying) their missile defense system in Europe” close to Russia’s borders – capable of carrying nuclear warheads for offense.

“(T)his is an outright violation of the treaty,” Putin stressed. Russia has been aware of US treaty breaches at least for the past 20 year. Moscow is in full compliance. No evidence suggests otherwise, none cited by the Trump regime in its pullout announcement.

According to Lavrov, the US deployed illegal missiles in Romania. Preparations are underway to position them in Poland, Japan, and elsewhere, including in US territory.

The Trump regime’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review calls for developing low-yield mini-nukes, capable of being mounted on INF Treaty banned intermediate-range missiles. They’re being produced in America, Lavrov explained.

Last October, the Trump regime declared its intention to withdraw from the INF Treaty.

“We did everything we could to save the treaty, considering its importance in terms of sustaining strategic stability in Europe, as well as globally,” said Lavrov – its efforts in vain based on Friday’s US pullout announcement.

Russia’s Defense Ministry “proposed unprecedented transparency measures that went far beyond our obligations under the INF Treaty in order to persuade the US that Russia was not in violation of this essential instrument.”

“However, the US torpedoed these proposals. Instead, the US presented yet another ultimatum. It is obvious that we cannot accept it since it contradicts the INF Treaty in both letter and spirit.”

Trump’s selection of neocon extremists Pompeo at State and Bolton as national security advisor doomed the treaty, along with any possibility for improved relations with Russia – all the moreso because of overwhelming congressional hostility.

Only five congressional lawmakers (3 House members and 2 senators) opposed the Orwellian July 2017 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA – imposing stiff illegal sanctions on Russia, Iran and North Korea besides others in place. Only Security Council members can legally impose sanctions on UN member states.

The Trump regime’s INF Treaty pullout increases the risk of nuclear confrontation by accident or design.

Despite Russia’s best efforts, the Bush/Cheney regime withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty between the Soviet Union and US in 2002.

It limited the number of anti-ballistic missile systems in defending against ballistic missiles able to carry nuclear warheads.

The treaty dissolved because of “the unwillingness of the United States to take up Russia’s concerns in earnest,” Lavrov explained, adding:

“In 2007, we made another gesture of good will at your instructions by coming forward with an initiative that consisted of working together to resolve the problems related to US missile defense system’s third positioning area in Europe. Once again, the US” rejected the proposal.

In 2010, Russia urged the US and Europe to work cooperatively on a continental missile defense system. The Obama regime rejected the idea.

The US demands all other countries “come to terms with its missile defense approach,” said Lavrov – despite “the obvious risks and threats to our security posed by this approach” – by positioning its missile defense systems for offense close to Russia’s borders for a preemptive first strike advantage with nuclear weapons.

Further Russian outreach to the US on this issue achieved nothing. In 2014, US dialogue on missile defense ended when the Obama regime declared its intention to deploy its missile-defense systems for offense in Eastern Europe, East Asia, Alaska, and on America’s east coast.

Time and again, the US breaches its treaty obligations, including the landmark 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – agreed to by all nations except Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and South Sudan.

“(D)espite numerous reminders on our part, the United States commits serious violations of the Treaty in its actions within NATO. The Treaty commits nuclear powers to refrain from transferring the corresponding nuclear technologies,” Lavrov explained.

US-led NATO engages in so-called joint nuclear drills with non-nuclear states, a flagrant NPT violation. The Obama regime failed to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), breaking a campaign promise.

Russia is a CTBT signatory. Its entry into force requires US participation, what it refuses to do. Notably it’s “completely off the radar,” now, said Lavrov – given the Trump regime’s rage to increase the power and destructiveness of its nuclear arsenal.

Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties I and II remain in force. START I expired in 2009. The US and Russia agreed to continue observing its terms. For how much longer remains uncertain.

New START agreed on by Obama and Russian President Medvedev in 2010 expires in 2021 if not renewed. Given extreme US hostility toward Russia, renewal is highly unlikely.

According to Lavrov, talks with the US to assure it complies with its treaty obligations have achieved no results since 2015, adding:

“(R)epeated proposals by Russia to launch talks on extending the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty beyond 2021, when its first term is set to expire, have fallen on deaf ears in the United States. All we hear is that the decision on the New START has yet to be taken.”

“(T)he situation is quite alarming. (T)he decision taken by the United States on the INF Treaty is of course a matter of serious concern for the entire world, especially for Europe.”

“Nevertheless, the Europeans followed in the footsteps of the United States with all NATO members, speaking out in explicit support of the position adopted by the United States to refrain from any discussions on mutual concerns.”

“All we hear are groundless ultimatums requiring us to take unilateral measures without any evidence to support unfounded accusations.”

Defense Minister Shoigu explained that US treaty violations have been going on for years, including development and production of short-and-intermediate-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, serious INF Treaty breaches before Friday’s announcement.

Shoigu proposed the following retaliatory measures:

1. Undertaking R & D efforts to “creat(e) land-based modifications of the sea-based Kalibr launching systems.”

2. R & D “followed by development and engineering to create land-based launchers for hypersonic intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles.”

Putin agreed, saying

“(t)his is what we will do. Our response will be symmetrical,” including by “suspending” Russia’s participation in the INF Treaty in response to the US pullout.

At the same time, Putin wants to avoid an expensive arms race, asking if the above proposals can be accomplished through existing budget allocations.

Shoigu believes so in 2019.

Putin: “This should not entail any increases in the Defense Ministry’s budget.”

Shoigu: “Yes.”

Putin: “Good,” adding he proposes modifying the format of meeting every six months “to discuss the implementation of the state defense order with the commanders of the armed forces and the defense sector representatives.”

He wishes to stay current on how defense initiatives are progressing, including for Russia’s most advanced weapons systems.

The US announced plans to weaponize space. Putin wants to know what’s being done to neutralize them.

He asked Lavrov and Shoigu not to initiate talks with the US on arms control issues unless and until the US is “ready to engage in equal and meaningful dialogue on this subject that is essential for us,” Russia’s allies, “and the entire world, adding:

Moscow will develop and produce but not deploy weapons violating the INF Treaty unless the US takes this step first.

If this occurs, which is highly likely, he asked Lavrov and Shoigu to “closely monitor developments and promptly submit proposals on ways to respond.”

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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.

Shrugging off what’s called cabin fever, I depart, slowly, to test my car and traction on the roadway. I follow the country road along the Beaverkill River to town.

A mile out, I notice something unusual—cars standing in front of each of two neighbors’ houses. I regularly pass these houses. I know that their owners aren’t here during winter months. And with several inches of snow already on the ground, I’m wondering: Why are they here at all? (A blizzard is forecast.)

Not suspicious; just curious.

As I drive on, this curiosity leads to fantasy. They’ve come simply to enjoy a day of softly falling snow. Having lived here year-round when the children were young, they’re recalling the enchantment of fresh snow, how they frolicked at night in the fluffy heaps, flakes still descending on them. After the children sleep, she and her husband walked together under a bright midnight sky.

The stillness of fresh snowfall is unsurpassed. Early morning is glorious… before rumbling plows arrive. Gentle whiteness obliterates flaws on the fields– all that debris flung down by November winds. Through today’s leafless trees, they’ll see a whole new landscape; hopefully they’ll sight the great bald eagles, identify their nests.

Possibly they’ll spot a snowy owl, some winter finches, maybe a sapsucker. Juncos, snow buntings and the tit mouse will be plentiful. Cardinals too, their redness even more pronounced in winter. The best treat would be a pileated woodpecker. Gold finches and grosbeaks too.

(So maybe she’s come simply to refill bird feeders.)

If they don’t see those wild winter turkeys, they’ll certainly hear them. What a noisy lot, sometimes a herd of 60 or more, clacking in the woods. They’re such fun to watch, but skittish. Even months after hunting season ends, those creatures don’t like people.

Source: author

These neighbors’ visits are brief and practical. After loading the feeders, they’ll check the water. Frozen pipes are a threat; trees too. But what can be done about ice-laden trees falling on wires? With a forecast for freezing temperatures, shut the water main and pour antifreeze through the pipes.

Before leaving they’ll check with Big Tim to have him plow the drive and leave a sack of dirt or rock salt on the porch. Never know, you may really need it, he warns. (Although residents near the river shouldn’t apply salt to the roads.)

Driving slowly at 20 mph feels comfortable. Remember: there are patches of ice under this snow.

The scanty tracks I follow signal that not many villagers have been out. The few vehicles coming from the other direction are pickup trucks, plows fixed in front. Despite hazards, their drivers welcome these snow days—the time when they become heroes. They’ll stop and help anyone, delighted to clear a driveway, often without charging. Need some dirt on that ice outside your door? “Sure. Me and my brother will get some tonight.”

And what if these fellows vote for Trump or local Republicans? What if they like hunting too? (We assume pickup truck owners here will be Trump supporters.) Should I check their politics before I ask them to plow?

Remember gearshift cars? Now I recall that feeling of control in snow with a gearshift car. Whatever mechanics and dealers say, gears in snowy weather are unbeatable. Anyway, never brake on ice. Seeing an oncoming truck, I’m tempted. Those snow packed shoulders narrow the roadway. Don’t, I warn myself.

It’s not a trip where you want to let your mind wander. Forgot to pick up some munchies? The Mail? Never mind.

Don’t go out unless absolutely necessary, newscasters advise. Well, I’ve decided I must, as least drive out this cabin fever. I bundled up, cleared the passage to the car, placed the shovel in the trunk, etc. and made my way into town. That’s when I’d spotted those cars out of season; maybe their owners were just chucking their urban apartment fever.

And it’s still January!!

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Barbara Nimri Aziz is a New York based anthropologist and journalist. She is the author of “Tibetan Frontier Families” and numerous articles on Tibet and Nepal, has been working in Nepal in recent weeks. Find her work at www.RadioTahrir.org. She was a longtime producer at Pacifica-WBAI Radio in NY.

This article was first published 6 years ago in February 2013. It recounts how the Venezuelan government  helped Americans by donating free heating oil.

And this is the country that President Trump wants to destroy.  

The program was initiated during the Bush Administration at the height of the Katrina hurricanes.

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For the eighth straight year [2005-2013], Venezuela’s state oil company is donating free heating oil to hundreds of thousands of needy Americans.

The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program has helped more than 1.7 million Americans in 25 states and the District of Columbia keep warm since it was launched back in 2005. The program is a partnership between the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), its subsidiary CITGO and Citizens Energy Corporation, a nonprofit organization founded by former US Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II that provides discounted and free home heating services and supplies to needy households in the United States and abroad. It has been supported from the beginning by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

In 2005, a pair of devastating hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, led to dwindling oil supplies and skyrocketing fuel costs. Some of the poorest and most vulnerable Americans, including many elderly people on fixed incomes, found themselves having to choose between heating their homes or providing food, clothing or medicine for themselves and their families. Since that first winter, CITGO has provided 227 million gallons of free heating oil worth an estimated $465 million to an average of 153,000 US households each year. Some 252 Native American communities and 245 homeless shelters have also benefited from the program. This winter, more than 100,000 American families will receive Venezuelan aid. With the US government estimating that households heating primarily with oil will pay $407 (19 percent) more this year than last, the program remains an invaluable helping hand to many needy Americans.

“The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program has been one of the most important energy assistance efforts in the United States,” CITGO CEO Alejandro Granado said at the Night of Peace Family Shelter in Baltimore, Maryland, where he and Citizens Energy Corporation Chairman Kennedy launched the 2013 program. “This year, as families across the Eastern Seaboard struggle to recover from the losses caused by Hurricane Sandy, this donation becomes even more significant.”

Last year, President Barack Obama and Congress reduced Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) funding by 25 percent, cutting off an estimated one million US households from desperately needed assistance just as winter’s worst chill, accompanied by record heating oil prices, set in. Fortunately, the CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program was able to assist an estimated 400,000 Americans last year.

“The federal fuel assistance program reaches only one-fifth of all the eligible households in the US,” Kennedy said in Baltimore. “Millions of families just go cold at night in their own homes.”

US Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who was on hand at the Baltimore launch, expressed his gratitude to CITGO.

“The demand is greater and the resources are shorter,” Cummings said to widespread “amens” from the packed house. “We must not turn our heads away from the working poor– remember, we could be in the same position. The help you provide to families is bigger than just the oil. It’s about helping children lead stable lives.”

The people gathered at the shelter prayed for the recovery of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, whose condition is reportedly improving following cancer surgery in Havana, Cuba.

Chávez is often demonized as a dictator by many US politicians and by the US corporate mainstream media. But he remains wildly popular in Venezuela, where he has won four straight presidential elections. He was reelected last October with 54.4 percent of the vote. Although his leadership style is increasingly authoritarian, his Bolivarian Revolution– characterized by popular democracy, economic independence, equitable distribution of national wealth and reduced corruption– has improved the lives of millions of Venezuela’s poorest citizens and inspired tens of millions of Latin Americans seeking more just societies to vote in leftist governments throughout the region.

US critics claim that Chávez is anti-American. This oversimplifies matters– while he is an ardent anti-imperialist who raised eyebrows and ire in Washington and on Wall Street by nationalizing the assets of foreign petroleum companies which many Venezuelans asserted were exploiting the country’s natural resources, the US remains Venezuela’s most important trading partner. And while Chávez is highly critical of US policies and actions around the globe, he is far from alone in his opposition. His distaste for Washington has also no doubt been influenced by the fact that senior officials in the George W. Bush administration were deeply involved in an attempted 2002 coup d’état against his popular regime.

All of this matters little to most of the 1.7 million Americans who have received free fuel from the CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program.

“All I know is he was kind to the people of the United States,” program recipient Alice Maniotis, a New York grandmother on a fixed income, said of Chávez. “He rules differently, like Obama rules differently,” Maniotis told RT last year. “Who are we to tell these people how to live? Are they invading our country? They’re not. They’re being generous to give us what comes out of their earth at no charge. So could you really have ill feelings against them?”

Kennedy thanked CITGO, Venezuela and Chávez for “help[ing] more than 400,000 people stay warm and safe this winter,” adding that he has approached numerous major oil-producing nations as well as some of the largest US oil companies and asked them if they were interested in helping the poor heat their homes.

“I don’t see Exxon responding,” he told the crowd in Baltimore. “I don’t see other major oil companies heating the homes of the poor.”

“They all said no,” Kennedy added, “except for CITGO, President Chávez and the people of Venezuela.”

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WARNING: DISTURBING FOOTAGE

Water cannon & blood: Paris 'Yellow Vest' protest turns violent#YellowVests https://t.co/TfWk7jR4sU pic.twitter.com/bljkWYcZUv

— RT (@RT_com) December 1, 2018

Tick Tock. The good folks at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientistshave returned to wind their Doomsday Clock. Last Thursday at the National Press Club a group of well-credentialed speakers, including former California Governor Jerry Brown and former Secretary of Defense William Perry, underscored the organization’s warning that we have established residence in “the new abnormal.” Watch the press conference and supportive videos here.

The Doomsday Clock was set last year at a two-minutes until midnight, (midnight being the endgame), and there it now remains. There’s little comfort to be had in standing on what University of Chicago astrophysicist Robert Rosner characterized as a precipice we’d best quickly leap back from. Bulletin president and CEO Rachel Bronson stressed that the clock remaining where it is, the closest it has been to world catastrophe, is not stability, but “a stark warning to leaders and citizens around the world.”

William Perry said the organization views our current situation as precarious as it was in 1953, in the gloom of the Cold War while the Korean War still raged. Jerry Brown said,

“The blindness and stupidity of the politicians and their consultants is truly shocking in the face of nuclear catastrophe and danger….the business of everyday politics blinds people to the risk, we’re playing Russian Roulette with humanity,” with the danger of an incident that will kill millions if not igniting a conflict that will kill billions.

Brown told journalists while they may love the Trump tweets and news of the day, “the leads that get the clicks,” the final click could be a nuclear accident, a mistake.

“It’s hard to even feel or sense the peril and danger we are in, but these scientists know what they’re talking about, and I can say, based on my understanding of the political process, the politicians, for the most part, do not.”

Referring to Congress’s inaction on related matters, Brown called it “massive sleep walking all over the place.” He committed to spending the next few years doing everything he can to “sound the alarm and get us back on the track to dialogue, collaboration and arms control.”

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and the Doomsday Clock are creations of a group of scientists who participated in the Manhattan Project. The clock’s current position was determined by a group of scholars and scientists that includes fifteen Nobel Laureates. These are serious people. It is heartening to see their avoidance of political talking points or partisan tilt in favor of Joe Friday’s focus on “just the facts, ma’am.” Just the chilling facts that let the chips fall where they may. About thirty-three minutes into the conference Jerry Brown gave a Dutch uncle talk to Democrats who maintain the attack mode on Putin on all matters without holding open the option for nuclear dialogue. It brought to mind the discussions of Washington’s bipartisan War Party prompted by William Atkin’s recent critique of NBC and MSNBC.

The Bulletin has been criticized for going beyond the original nuclear realm to include a number of other perils. But it seems if there is one thing we’re learning now from climate and polar ice studies and being slapped around by extreme weather events, it’s that seemingly unrelated factors cascade and overlap, interacting and accelerating in ways we hadn’t understood. No doubt more surprises will come. Certainly the impacts of climate change on food and water supplies, on ocean health and on migration will bear on political systems and on future tensions and conflicts. Perhaps it is too far afield, but a case could be made to include prospects of financial meltdowns from bankers behaving badly. Economic calamities have lit a lot of fuses throughout history.

Stanford cyber expert Herb Lin focused on the ongoing debasement of institutions that hold leaders accountable. While nuclear risks and climate change lead the concerns, that witches brew is now put into the blender by the misinformation on steroids enabled by the Internet. Says Lin,

“Events in 2018 have helped us to better understand an ongoing and intentional corruption of the information environment. Our leaders complain about fake news and invoke alternative facts when reality is inconvenient. They are shamelessly inconsistent.”

So we have Information warfare combining with information overload to compromise the public’s ability to absorb and analyze critical issues. Among other things, information warfare delegitimizes the values and truths embodied by science, causing a cheapening and distrust of all information, opening a Pandora’s Box of distortions that allow the public and politicians to avoid grappling with the serious issues before them.

Fine by me if the experiences of the past few years inoculate the public with a healthy cynicism, offering some protection from the gatling guns spewing talking points. But if the public discards the legitimacy of scientific thought and proof, not so good.

Here’s a few excerpts from The Bulletin statement on the Doomsday Clock:

Humanity now faces two simultaneous existential threats, either of which would be cause for extreme concern and immediate attention. These major threats– nuclear weapons and climate change– were exacerbated this past year by the increased use of information warfare to undermine democracy around the world, amplifying risk from these and other threats and putting the future of civilization in extraordinary danger.

In the nuclear realm, the United States abandoned the Iran nuclear deal and announced it would withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), grave steps towards a complete dismantlement of the global arms control process. Although the United States and North Korea moved away from the bellicose rhetoric of 2017, the urgent North Korean nuclear dilemma remains unresolved. Meanwhile, the world’s nuclear nations proceeded with programs of “nuclear modernization” that are all but indistinguishable from a worldwide arms race, and the military doctrines of Russia and the United States have increasingly eroded the long-held taboo against the use of nuclear weapons.

On the climate change front, global carbon dioxide emissions– which seemed to plateau earlier this decade– resumed an upward climb in 2017 and 2018. To halt the worst effects of climate change, the countries of the world must cut net worldwide carbon dioxide emissions to zero by well before the end of the century. By such a measure, the world community failed dismally last year. At the same time, the main global accord on addressing climate change– the 2015 Paris agreement– has become increasingly beleaguered.The United States announced it will withdraw from that pact, and at the December climate summit in Poland, the United States allied itself with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait (all major petroleum-producing countries) to undercut an expert report on climate change impacts that the Paris climate conference had itself commissioned.

Amid these unfortunate nuclear and climate developments, there was a rise during the last year in the intentional corruption of the information ecosystem on which modern civilization depends. In many forums, including particularly social media, nationalist leaders and their surrogates lied shamelessly, insisting that their lies were truth, and the truth “fake news.” These intentional attempts to distort reality exaggerate social divisions, undermine trust in science, and diminish confidence in elections and democratic institutions. Because these distortions attack the rational discourse required for solving the complex problems facing humanity, cyber-enabled information warfare aggravates other major global dangers– including those posed by nuclear weapons and climate change– as it undermines civilization generally.

First clock, 1947

Worrisome nuclear trends continue. The global nuclear order has been deteriorating for many years, and 2018 was no exception to this trend. Relations between the United States and both Russia and China have grown more fraught. The architecture of nuclear arms control built up over half a century continues to decay, while the process of negotiating reductions in nuclear weapons and fissile material stockpiles is moribund. The nuclear-armed states remain committed to their arsenals, are determined to modernize their capabilities, and have increasingly espoused doctrines that envision nuclear use. Brash leaders, intense diplomatic disputes, and regional instabilities combine to create an international context in which nuclear dangers are all too real.

A number of negative developments colored the nuclear story in 2018.

First, the United States abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the multilateral agreement that imposed unprecedented constraints on Iran’s nuclear program and allowed unprecedented verification of Iran’s nuclear facilities and activities. On May 8, President Trump announced that the United States would cease to observe the agreement and would instead launch a campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran. So far, Iran and the other parties have continued to comply with the agreement, despite the absence of US participation. It is unclear whether they will keep the agreement alive, but one thing is certain: The Trump administration has launched an assault on one of the major nuclear nonproliferation successes of recent years and done so in a way that increases the likelihood of conflict with Iran and further heightens tensions with long-term allies.

Second, in October the Trump administration announced that it intends to withdraw from the INF Treaty, which bans missiles of intermediate range. Though bedeviled by reciprocal complaints about compliance, the INF agreement has been in force for more than 30 years and has contributed to stability in Europe. Its potential death foreshadows a new competition to deploy weapons long banned. Unfortunately, while treaties are being eliminated, there is no process in place that will create a new regime of negotiated constraints on nuclear behavior. For the first time since the 1980s, it appears the world is headed into an unregulated nuclear environment– an outcome that could reproduce the intense arms racing that was the hallmark of the early, unregulated decades of the nuclear age.

…even as arms control efforts wane, modernization of nuclear forces around the world continues apace. In his Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly on March 1, Russian President Vladimir Putin described an extensive nuclear modernization program, justified as a response to US missile defense efforts. The Trump administration has added to the enormously expensive comprehensive nuclear modernization program it inherited from the Obama administration.

Andrew Wheeler by Nancy Ohanian

Ominous climate change trends. The existential threat from human-caused global warming is ominous and getting worse. Every year that human activities continue to add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere irreversibly ratchets up the future level of human suffering and ecosystem destruction that will be wrought by global climate disruption. The key measure of improvement on the climate front is the extent of progress toward bringing global net carbon dioxide emissions to zero. On this measure, the countries of the world have failed dismally.

Global carbon dioxide emissions rates had been rising exponentially until 2012 but ceased growing from 2013 to 2016. Even if this emissions plateau had continued, it would not have halted the growth of warming. Net emissions need to ultimately be brought to zero to do so, given the persistence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for up to thousands of years. The ominous news from 2017 and 2018 is that world emissions appear to have resumed their upward climb.

Even nations that have strongly supported the need to decarbonize are not doing enough. Preliminary estimates show that almost all countries contributed to the rise in emissions. Some countries, including the United States and some members of the EU, increased their emissions after years of making progress in reducing them.

The United States has also abandoned its responsibilities to lead the world decarbonization effort. The United States has more resources than poorer nations have; its failure to ambitiously reduce emissions represents an act of gross negligence. The United States stood alone while the other G20 countries signed on to a portion of a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to tackle climate change. Then in 2018, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poland, the United States joined with Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait– all major oil producers– to undercut a report on the impacts of climate change.

Freedom of the Press, Money and the Media by Nancy Ohanian

The threat of information warfare and other disruptive technologies. Nuclear war and climate change threaten the physical infrastructure that provides the food, energy, and other necessities required for human life. But to thrive, prosper, and advance, people also need reliable information about their world– factual information, in abundance.

Today, however, chaos reigns in much of the information ecosystem on which modern civilization depends. In many forums for political and societal discourse, we now see national leaders shouting about fake news, by which they mean information they do not like. These same leaders lie shamelessly, calling their lies truth. Acting across national boundaries, these leaders and their surrogates exacerbate existing divisions, creating rage and increasing distrust in public and private institutions. Using unsupported anecdotes and sketchy rhetoric, denialists raise fear and doubt regarding well-established science about climate change and other urgent issues. Established institutions of the government, journalism, and education– institutions that have traditionally provided stability– are under attack precisely because they have provided stability.

In this environment, communication inflames passions rather than informing reason.

Many countries have long employed propaganda and lies– otherwise known as information warfare– to advance their interests. But a quantitative change of sufficient magnitude qualifies as a qualitative change. In the Internet age, the volume and velocity of information has increased by orders of magnitude. Modern information technology and social media allow users easy connectivity and high degrees of anonymity across national borders. This widespread, inexpensive access to worldwide audiences has allowed practitioners of information warfare to broadcast false and manipulative messages to large populations at low cost, and at the same time to tailor political messages to narrow interest groups.

By manipulating the natural cognitive predispositions of human beings, information warriors can exacerbate prejudices, biases, and ideological differences. They can invoke “alternative facts” to advance political positions based on outright falsehoods. Rather than a cyber Armageddon that causes financial meltdown or nationwide electrical blackouts, this is the more insidious use of cyber tools to target and exploit human insecurities and vulnerabilities, eroding the trust and cohesion on which civilized societies rely.

The Enlightenment sought to establish reason as the foundational pillar of civilized discourse. In this conception, logical argument matters, and the truth of a statement is tested by examination of values, assumptions, and facts, not by how many people believe it. Cyber-enabled information warfare threatens to replace these pillars of logic and truth with fantasy and rage. If unchecked, such distortion will undermine the world’s ability to acknowledge and address the urgent threats posed by nuclear weapons and climate change and will increase the potential for an end to civilization as we know it. The international community should begin multilateral discussions that aim to discourage cyber-enabled information warfare and to buttress institutions dedicated to rational, fact- based discourse and governance.

Particularly regarding the 2016 election, Russia and fake news have become inseparable to many. My lingering view remains that any impact from Internet mischief the Russians did during elections was a blip next to all the rot that’s been flying about for years, much of it funded by homegrown dark money and most of it owing to good old-fashioned American lack of integrity. On the other hand, I don’t have a cell phone, am not on cable and have never been on Facebook, so maybe I’m just clueless about how easily people are significantly swayed by a select few of the gazillion bits of information firehosing them, even those bits that people happily cobble into personal echo-chambers. But it seems that folks who are birthers and such don’t have to depend on the far flung for nonsense readily available and riding down a hotel escalator. The American realm of carefully calculated election misinformation from incognito sources is wonderfully underscored by the POV film Dark Money. It shows how dark money, ramped up by Citizens United, distorted elections in Montana, targeting both Democrats and Republicans who didn’t do a sufficient kowtow to the big money. Not to Putin’s druthers, but to the big money, to polluters, Koch brothers allies, ALEC objectives and such. But I digress, because that’s the beauty of a blog post.

Back to bombs. According to the Federation of American Scientists, nine nations together have about 15,000 nuclear bombs, most far more powerful than those used on Japan, 1,800 of those possessed by the US and Russia are kept on high-alert status. Ride along with Major Kong here, and sing along with Vera Lynn here on “We’ll Meet Again,” as humanity exits stage left. Here’s a version picking some of the 331 atmospheric tests the US conducted from 1945 to 1962. Try the comfort of the largest bomb exploded, the Tsar Bomba, aka Ivan, aka Vanya, here. If you’d like to explore the impacts of a single one megaton bomb, (eighty times larger than the Hiroshima bomb but tiny compared to some modern bombs), as well as the global impacts of an exchange of 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs, perhaps a conflict between Pakistan and India, here you go. Perhaps pass these along to George W. Bush so he has a better idea of how to look for a WMD, maybe at a correspondents dinner.

By the way, do you think kids in the Fifties might have had a few issues to work out later?

Actions and statements by Trump figure significantly in the clock’s advancement in 2017 to two and a half minutes before midnight. A then-incoming President Trump made alarming statements regarding nuclear proliferation, the prospect of using nuclear weapons and his opposition to US commitments on climate change. And in 2018 he helped move the clock ahead thirty seconds with actions like pulling out of the Iran agreement. By the way, that idiocy is greased by nuclear power Israel, Sheldon Adelson and their American neocon minions like John Bolton. Invading Iraq wasn’t enough horror.

Trump also announced his intent to scrap the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) that for decades was a lynchpin for global arms control.

I do wish Trump luck for a good follow-through with North Korea that might relax the minute hand a bit. The world needs a win.

Trump recently reincarnated the illusion of a global defense system. A worthy critique by Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, is his essay Donald Trump’s Mission Impossible: Making His Unrealistic Missile Plan Work, is here.

That man behind the curtain has nothing on Trump. Now we have the news of Trump’s latest misdirection, Venezuela. In 1975 I traveled overland to South America. Two impressions of Venezuela linger, the startling transition over a few hours going from snow in the Andes to the streamy tropics below, and the surreal feel while waterskiing between the oil derricks in Lake Maracaibo. Like slicks on the water, oil money was everywhere, a pleasant-looking lifestyle for many of the privileged youths darting about in convertibles filled with cheap gas. I can’t grasp the changes since then. Whatever way out of the miseries of a failed state might be found, it’s hard to imagine lighting the fuse for a civil war would prove beneficial. Perhaps Venezuelans will come knocking seeking asylum, quoting Trump’s description of their plight, never mind contributing US pressures. In any case, Venezuela should give us pause at how fast things can change.

Tick Tock.

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Featured image is from The Swamp by Nancy Ohanian while all other images in this article are from the author unless otherwise stated.

The following article was initially published in 1997. It is in part based on the work of William Blum. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War II, 1995 (GR Ed. M. Ch.)

By Steve Kangas

The following timeline describes just a few of the hundreds of atrocities and crimes committed by the CIA. (1)

CIA operations follow the same recurring script. First, American business interests abroad are threatened by a popular or democratically elected leader. The people support their leader because he intends to conduct land reform, strengthen unions, redistribute wealth, nationalize foreign-owned industry, and regulate business to protect workers, consumers and the environment. So, on behalf of American business, and often with their help, the CIA mobilizes the opposition. First it identifies right-wing groups within the country (usually the military), and offers them a deal: “We’ll put you in power if you maintain a favorable business climate for us.”

The Agency then hires, trains and works with them to overthrow the existing government (usually a democracy). It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator.

The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be “communists,” but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.

This scenario has been repeated so many times that the CIA actually teaches it in a special school, the notorious “School of the Americas.” (It opened in Panama but later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia.) Critics have nicknamed it the “School of the Dictators” and “School of the Assassins.” Here, the CIA trains Latin American military officers how to conduct coups, including the use of interrogation, torture and murder.

The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (2) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an “American Holocaust.”

The CIA justifies these actions as part of its war against communism. But most coups do not involve a communist threat. Unlucky nations are targeted for a wide variety of reasons: not only threats to American business interests abroad, but also liberal or even moderate social reforms, political instability, the unwillingness of a leader to carry out Washington’s dictates, and declarations of neutrality in the Cold War. Indeed, nothing has infuriated CIA Directors quite like a nation’s desire to stay out of the Cold War.

The ironic thing about all this intervention is that it frequently fails to achieve American objectives. Often the newly installed dictator grows comfortable with the security apparatus the CIA has built for him. He becomes an expert at running a police state. And because the dictator knows he cannot be overthrown, he becomes independent and defiant of Washington’s will. The CIA then finds it cannot overthrow him, because the police and military are under the dictator’s control, afraid to cooperate with American spies for fear of torture and execution. The only two options for the U.S at this point are impotence or war. Examples of this “boomerang effect” include the Shah of Iran, General Noriega and Saddam Hussein. The boomerang effect also explains why the CIA has proven highly successful at overthrowing democracies, but a wretched failure at overthrowing dictatorships.

The following timeline should confirm that the CIA as we know it should be abolished and replaced by a true information-gathering and analysis organization. The CIA cannot be reformed — it is institutionally and culturally corrupt.

1929

The culture we lost — Secretary of State Henry Stimson refuses to endorse a code-breaking operation, saying, “Gentlemen do not read each other’s mail.”

1941

COI created — In preparation for World War II, President Roosevelt creates the Office of Coordinator of Information (COI). General William “Wild Bill” Donovan heads the new intelligence service.

1942

OSS created — Roosevelt restructures COI into something more suitable for covert action, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Donovan recruits so many of the nation’s rich and powerful that eventually people joke that “OSS” stands for “Oh, so social!” or “Oh, such snobs!”

1943

Italy — Donovan recruits the Catholic Church in Rome to be the center of Anglo-American spy operations in Fascist Italy. This would prove to be one of America’s most enduring intelligence alliances in the Cold War.

1945

OSS is abolished — The remaining American information agencies cease covert actions and return to harmless information gathering and analysis.

Operation PAPERCLIP – While other American agencies are hunting down Nazi war criminals for arrest, the U.S. intelligence community is smuggling them into America, unpunished, for their use against the Soviets. The most important of these is Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler’s master spy who had built up an intelligence network in the Soviet Union. With full U.S. blessing, he creates the “Gehlen Organization,” a band of refugee Nazi spies who reactivate their networks in Russia.

These include SS intelligence officers Alfred Six and Emil Augsburg (who massacred Jews in the Holocaust), Klaus Barbie (the “Butcher of Lyon”), Otto von Bolschwing (the Holocaust mastermind who worked with Eichmann) and SS Colonel Otto Skorzeny (a personal friend of Hitler’s). The Gehlen Organization supplies the U.S. with its only intelligence on the Soviet Union for the next ten years, serving as a bridge between the abolishment of the OSS and the creation of the CIA. However, much of the “intelligence” the former Nazis provide is bogus. Gehlen inflates Soviet military capabilities at a time when Russia is still rebuilding its devastated society, in order to inflate his own importance to the Americans (who might otherwise punish him). In 1948, Gehlen almost convinces the Americans that war is imminent, and the West should make a preemptive strike. In the 50s he produces a fictitious “missile gap.” To make matters worse, the Russians have thoroughly penetrated the Gehlen Organization with double agents, undermining the very American security that Gehlen was supposed to protect.

1947

Greece — President Truman requests military aid to Greece to support right-wing forces fighting communist rebels. For the rest of the Cold War, Washington and the CIA will back notorious Greek leaders with deplorable human rights records.

CIA created — President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, creating the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council. The CIA is accountable to the president through the NSC — there is no democratic or congressional oversight. Its charter allows the CIA to “perform such other functions and duties… as the National Security Council may from time to time direct.” This loophole opens the door to covert action and dirty tricks.

1948

Covert-action wing created — The CIA recreates a covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination, led by Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities include “propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world.”

Italy — The CIA corrupts democratic elections in Italy, where Italian communists threaten to win the elections. The CIA buys votes, broadcasts propaganda, threatens and beats up opposition leaders, and infiltrates and disrupts their organizations. It works — the communists are defeated.

1949

Radio Free Europe — The CIA creates its first major propaganda outlet, Radio Free Europe. Over the next several decades, its broadcasts are so blatantly false that for a time it is considered illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S.

Late 40s

Operation MOCKINGBIRD — The CIA begins recruiting American news organizations and journalists to become spies and disseminators of propaganda. The effort is headed by Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham is publisher of The Washington Post, which becomes a major CIA player. Eventually, the CIA’s media assets will include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service and more. By the CIA’s own admission, at least 25 organizations and 400 journalists will become CIA assets.

1953

Iran – CIA overthrows the democratically elected Mohammed Mossadegh in a military coup, after he threatened to nationalize British oil. The CIA replaces him with a dictator, the Shah of Iran, whose secret police, SAVAK, is as brutal as the Gestapo.

Operation MK-ULTRA — Inspired by North Korea’s brainwashing program, the CIA begins experiments on mind control. The most notorious part of this project involves giving LSD and other drugs to American subjects without their knowledge or against their will, causing several to commit suicide. However, the operation involves far more than this. Funded in part by the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, research includes propaganda, brainwashing, public relations, advertising, hypnosis, and other forms of suggestion.

1954

Guatemala — CIA overthrows the democratically elected Jacob Arbenz in a military coup. Arbenz has threatened to nationalize the Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company, in which CIA Director Allen Dulles also owns stock. Arbenz is replaced with a series of right-wing dictators whose bloodthirsty policies will kill over 100,000 Guatemalans in the next 40 years.

1954-1958

North Vietnam — CIA officer Edward Lansdale spends four years trying to overthrow the communist government of North Vietnam, using all the usual dirty tricks. The CIA also attempts to legitimize a tyrannical puppet regime in South Vietnam, headed by Ngo Dinh Diem. These efforts fail to win the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese because the Diem government is opposed to true democracy, land reform and poverty reduction measures. The CIA’s continuing failure results in escalating American intervention, culminating in the Vietnam War.

1956

Hungary — Radio Free Europe incites Hungary to revolt by broadcasting Khruschev’s Secret Speech, in which he denounced Stalin. It also hints that American aid will help the Hungarians fight. This aid fails to materialize as Hungarians launch a doomed armed revolt, which only invites a major Soviet invasion. The conflict kills 7,000 Soviets and 30,000 Hungarians.

1957-1973

Laos — The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections. The problem is the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an “Armee Clandestine” of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA’s army suffers numerous defeats, the U.S. starts bombing, dropping more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World War II. A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves.

1959

Haiti — The U.S. military helps “Papa Doc” Duvalier become dictator of Haiti. He creates his own private police force, the “Tonton Macoutes,” who terrorize the population with machetes. They will kill over 100,000 during the Duvalier family reign. The U.S. does not protest their dismal human rights record.

1961

The Bay of Pigs — The CIA sends 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade Castro’s Cuba. But “Operation Mongoose” fails, due to poor planning, security and backing. The planners had imagined that the invasion will spark a popular uprising against Castro -– which never happens. A promised American air strike also never occurs. This is the CIA’s first public setback, causing President Kennedy to fire CIA Director Allen Dulles.

Dominican Republic — The CIA assassinates Rafael Trujillo, a murderous dictator Washington has supported since 1930. Trujillo’s business interests have grown so large (about 60 percent of the economy) that they have begun competing with American business interests.

Ecuador — The CIA-backed military forces the democratically elected President Jose Velasco to resign. Vice President Carlos Arosemana replaces him; the CIA fills the now vacant vice presidency with its own man.

Congo (Zaire) — The CIA assassinates the democratically elected Patrice Lumumba. However, public support for Lumumba’s politics runs so high that the CIA cannot clearly install his opponents in power. Four years of political turmoil follow.

1963

Dominican Republic — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Juan Bosch in a military coup. The CIA installs a repressive, right-wing junta.

Ecuador — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows President Arosemana, whose independent (not socialist) policies have become unacceptable to Washington. A military junta assumes command, cancels the 1964 elections, and begins abusing human rights.

1964

Brazil — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart. The junta that replaces it will, in the next two decades, become one of the most bloodthirsty in history. General Castelo Branco will create Latin America’s first death squads, or bands of secret police who hunt down “communists” for torture, interrogation and murder. Often these “communists” are no more than Branco’s political opponents. Later it is revealed that the CIA trains the death squads.

1965

Indonesia — The CIA overthrows the democratically elected Sukarno with a military coup. The CIA has been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor, General Suharto, will massacre between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being “communist.” The CIA supplies the names of countless suspects.

Dominican Republic — A popular rebellion breaks out, promising to reinstall Juan Bosch as the country’s elected leader. The revolution is crushed when U.S. Marines land to uphold the military regime by force. The CIA directs everything behind the scenes.

Greece — With the CIA’s backing, the king removes George Papandreous as prime minister. Papandreous has failed to vigorously support U.S. interests in Greece.

Congo (Zaire) — A CIA-backed military coup installs Mobutu Sese Seko as dictator. The hated and repressive Mobutu exploits his desperately poor country for billions.

1966

The Ramparts Affair — The radical magazine Ramparts begins a series of unprecedented anti-CIA articles. Among their scoops: the CIA has paid the University of Michigan $25 million dollars to hire “professors” to train South Vietnamese students in covert police methods. MIT and other universities have received similar payments. Ramparts also reveals that the National Students’ Association is a CIA front. Students are sometimes recruited through blackmail and bribery, including draft deferments.

1967

Greece — A CIA-backed military coup overthrows the government two days before the elections. The favorite to win was George Papandreous, the liberal candidate. During the next six years, the “reign of the colonels” — backed by the CIA — will usher in the widespread use of torture and murder against political opponents. When a Greek ambassador objects to President Johnson about U.S. plans for Cyprus, Johnson tells him: “Fuck your parliament and your constitution.”

Operation PHEONIX — The CIA helps South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in South Vietnamese villages. According to a 1971 congressional report, this operation killed about 20,000 “Viet Cong.”

1968

Operation CHAOS — The CIA has been illegally spying on American citizens since 1959, but with Operation CHAOS, President Johnson dramatically boosts the effort. CIA agents go undercover as student radicals to spy on and disrupt campus organizations protesting the Vietnam War. They are searching for Russian instigators, which they never find. CHAOS will eventually spy on 7,000 individuals and 1,000 organizations.

Bolivia — A CIA-organized military operation captures legendary guerilla Che Guevara. The CIA wants to keep him alive for interrogation, but the Bolivian government executes him to prevent worldwide calls for clemency.

1969

Uruguay — The notorious CIA torturer Dan Mitrione arrives in Uruguay, a country torn with political strife. Whereas right-wing forces previously used torture only as a last resort, Mitrione convinces them to use it as a routine, widespread practice. “The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect,” is his motto. The torture techniques he teaches to the death squads rival the Nazis’. He eventually becomes so feared that revolutionaries will kidnap and murder him a year later.

1970

Cambodia — The CIA overthrows Prince Sahounek, who is highly popular among Cambodians for keeping them out of the Vietnam War. He is replaced by CIA puppet Lon Nol, who immediately throws Cambodian troops into battle. This unpopular move strengthens once minor opposition parties like the Khmer Rouge, which achieves power in 1975 and massacres millions of its own people.

1971

Bolivia — After half a decade of CIA-inspired political turmoil, a CIA-backed military coup overthrows the leftist President Juan Torres. In the next two years, dictator Hugo Banzer will have over 2,000 political opponents arrested without trial, then tortured, raped and executed.

Haiti — “Papa Doc” Duvalier dies, leaving his 19-year old son “Baby Doc” Duvalier the dictator of Haiti. His son continues his bloody reign with full knowledge of the CIA.

1972

The Case-Zablocki Act — Congress passes an act requiring congressional review of executive agreements. In theory, this should make CIA operations more accountable. In fact, it is only marginally effective.

Cambodia — Congress votes to cut off CIA funds for its secret war in Cambodia.

Wagergate Break-in — President Nixon sends in a team of burglars to wiretap Democratic offices at Watergate. The team members have extensive CIA histories, including James McCord, E. Howard Hunt and five of the Cuban burglars. They work for the Committee to Reelect the President (CREEP), which does dirty work like disrupting Democratic campaigns and laundering Nixon’s illegal campaign contributions. CREEP’s activities are funded and organized by another CIA front, the Mullen Company.

1973

Chile — The CIA overthrows and assassinates Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first democratically elected socialist leader. The problems begin when Allende nationalizes American-owned firms in Chile. ITT offers the CIA $1 million for a coup (reportedly refused). The CIA replaces Allende with General Augusto Pinochet, who will torture and murder thousands of his own countrymen in a crackdown on labor leaders and the political left.

CIA begins internal investigations — William Colby, the Deputy Director for Operations, orders all CIA personnel to report any and all illegal activities they know about. This information is later reported to Congress.

Watergate Scandal — The CIA’s main collaborating newspaper in America, The Washington Post, reports Nixon’s crimes long before any other newspaper takes up the subject. The two reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, make almost no mention of the CIA’s many fingerprints all over the scandal. It is later revealed that Woodward was a Naval intelligence briefer to the White House, and knows many important intelligence figures, including General Alexander Haig. His main source, “Deep Throat,” is probably one of those.

CIA Director Helms Fired — President Nixon fires CIA Director Richard Helms for failing to help cover up the Watergate scandal. Helms and Nixon have always disliked each other. The new CIA director is William Colby, who is relatively more open to CIA reform.

1974

CHAOS exposed — Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh publishes a story about Operation CHAOS, the domestic surveillance and infiltration of anti-war and civil rights groups in the U.S. The story sparks national outrage.

Angleton fired — Congress holds hearings on the illegal domestic spying efforts of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA’s chief of counterintelligence. His efforts included mail-opening campaigns and secret surveillance of war protesters. The hearings result in his dismissal from the CIA.

House clears CIA in Watergate — The House of Representatives clears the CIA of any complicity in Nixon’s Watergate break-in.

The Hughes Ryan Act — Congress passes an amendment requiring the president to report nonintelligence CIA operations to the relevant congressional committees in a timely fashion.

1975

Australia — The CIA helps topple the democratically elected, left-leaning government of Prime Minister Edward Whitlam. The CIA does this by giving an ultimatum to its Governor-General, John Kerr. Kerr, a longtime CIA collaborator, exercises his constitutional right to dissolve the Whitlam government. The Governor-General is a largely ceremonial position appointed by the Queen; the Prime Minister is democratically elected. The use of this archaic and never-used law stuns the nation.

Angola — Eager to demonstrate American military resolve after its defeat in Vietnam, Henry Kissinger launches a CIA-backed war in Angola. Contrary to Kissinger’s assertions, Angola is a country of little strategic importance and not seriously threatened by communism. The CIA backs the brutal leader of UNITAS, Jonas Savimbi. This polarizes Angolan politics and drives his opponents into the arms of Cuba and the Soviet Union for survival. Congress will cut off funds in 1976, but the CIA is able to run the war off the books until 1984, when funding is legalized again. This entirely pointless war kills over 300,000 Angolans.

“The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence” — Victor Marchetti and John Marks publish this whistle-blowing history of CIA crimes and abuses. Marchetti has spent 14 years in the CIA, eventually becoming an executive assistant to the Deputy Director of Intelligence. Marks has spent five years as an intelligence official in the State Department.

“Inside the Company” — Philip Agee publishes a diary of his life inside the CIA. Agee has worked in covert operations in Latin America during the 60s, and details the crimes in which he took part.

Congress investigates CIA wrong-doing — Public outrage compels Congress to hold hearings on CIA crimes. Senator Frank Church heads the Senate investigation (“The Church Committee”), and Representative Otis Pike heads the House investigation. (Despite a 98 percent incumbency reelection rate, both Church and Pike are defeated in the next elections.) The investigations lead to a number of reforms intended to increase the CIA’s accountability to Congress, including the creation of a standing Senate committee on intelligence. However, the reforms prove ineffective, as the Iran/Contra scandal will show. It turns out the CIA can control, deal with or sidestep Congress with ease.

The Rockefeller Commission — In an attempt to reduce the damage done by the Church Committee, President Ford creates the “Rockefeller Commission” to whitewash CIA history and propose toothless reforms. The commission’s namesake, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, is himself a major CIA figure. Five of the commission’s eight members are also members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a CIA-dominated organization.

1979

Iran — The CIA fails to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran, a longtime CIA puppet, and the rise of Muslim fundamentalists who are furious at the CIA’s backing of SAVAK, the Shah’s bloodthirsty secret police. In revenge, the Muslims take 52 Americans hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Afghanistan — The Soviets invade Afghanistan. The CIA immediately begins supplying arms to any faction willing to fight the occupying Soviets. Such indiscriminate arming means that when the Soviets leave Afghanistan, civil war will erupt. Also, fanatical Muslim extremists now possess state-of-the-art weaponry. One of these is Sheik Abdel Rahman, who will become involved in the World Trade Center bombing in New York.

El Salvador — An idealistic group of young military officers, repulsed by the massacre of the poor, overthrows the right-wing government. However, the U.S. compels the inexperienced officers to include many of the old guard in key positions in their new government. Soon, things are back to “normal” — the military government is repressing and killing poor civilian protesters. Many of the young military and civilian reformers, finding themselves powerless, resign in disgust.

Nicaragua — Anastasios Samoza II, the CIA-backed dictator, falls. The Marxist Sandinistas take over government, and they are initially popular because of their commitment to land and anti-poverty reform. Samoza had a murderous and hated personal army called the National Guard. Remnants of the Guard will become the Contras, who fight a CIA-backed guerilla war against the Sandinista government throughout the 1980s.

1980

El Salvador — The Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, pleads with President Carter “Christian to Christian” to stop aiding the military government slaughtering his people. Carter refuses. Shortly afterwards, right-wing leader Roberto D’Aubuisson has Romero shot through the heart while saying Mass. The country soon dissolves into civil war, with the peasants in the hills fighting against the military government. The CIA and U.S. Armed Forces supply the government with overwhelming military and intelligence superiority. CIA-trained death squads roam the countryside, committing atrocities like that of El Mazote in 1982, where they massacre between 700 and 1000 men, women and children. By 1992, some 63,000 Salvadorans will be killed.

1981

Iran/Contra Begins — The CIA begins selling arms to Iran at high prices, using the profits to arm the Contras fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. President Reagan vows that the Sandinistas will be “pressured” until “they say ‘uncle.’” The CIA’s Freedom Fighter’s Manual disbursed to the Contras includes instruction on economic sabotage, propaganda, extortion, bribery, blackmail, interrogation, torture, murder and political assassination.

1983

Honduras — The CIA gives Honduran military officers the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual – 1983, which teaches how to torture people. Honduras’ notorious “Battalion 316” then uses these techniques, with the CIA’s full knowledge, on thousands of leftist dissidents. At least 184 are murdered.

1984

The Boland Amendment — The last of a series of Boland Amendments is passed. These amendments have reduced CIA aid to the Contras; the last one cuts it off completely. However, CIA Director William Casey is already prepared to “hand off” the operation to Colonel Oliver North, who illegally continues supplying the Contras through the CIA’s informal, secret, and self-financing network. This includes “humanitarian aid” donated by Adolph Coors and William Simon, and military aid funded by Iranian arms sales.

1986

Eugene Hasenfus — Nicaragua shoots down a C-123 transport plane carrying military supplies to the Contras. The lone survivor, Eugene Hasenfus, turns out to be a CIA employee, as are the two dead pilots. The airplane belongs to Southern Air Transport, a CIA front. The incident makes a mockery of President Reagan’s claims that the CIA is not illegally arming the Contras.

Iran/Contra Scandal — Although the details have long been known, the Iran/Contra scandal finally captures the media’s attention in 1986. Congress holds hearings, and several key figures (like Oliver North) lie under oath to protect the intelligence community. CIA Director William Casey dies of brain cancer before Congress can question him. All reforms enacted by Congress after the scandal are purely cosmetic.

Haiti — Rising popular revolt in Haiti means that “Baby Doc” Duvalier will remain “President for Life” only if he has a short one. The U.S., which hates instability in a puppet country, flies the despotic Duvalier to the South of France for a comfortable retirement. The CIA then rigs the upcoming elections in favor of another right-wing military strongman. However, violence keeps the country in political turmoil for another four years. The CIA tries to strengthen the military by creating the National Intelligence Service (SIN), which suppresses popular revolt through torture and assassination.

1989

Panama — The U.S. invades Panama to overthrow a dictator of its own making, General Manuel Noriega. Noriega has been on the CIA’s payroll since 1966, and has been transporting drugs with the CIA’s knowledge since 1972. By the late 80s, Noriega’s growing independence and intransigence have angered Washington… so out he goes.

1990

Haiti — Competing against 10 comparatively wealthy candidates, leftist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide captures 68 percent of the vote. After only eight months in power, however, the CIA-backed military deposes him. More military dictators brutalize the country, as thousands of Haitian refugees escape the turmoil in barely seaworthy boats. As popular opinion calls for Aristide’s return, the CIA begins a disinformation campaign painting the courageous priest as mentally unstable.

1991

The Gulf War — The U.S. liberates Kuwait from Iraq. But Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, is another creature of the CIA. With U.S. encouragement, Hussein invaded Iran in 1980. During this costly eight-year war, the CIA built up Hussein’s forces with sophisticated arms, intelligence, training and financial backing. This cemented Hussein’s power at home, allowing him to crush the many internal rebellions that erupted from time to time, sometimes with poison gas. It also gave him all the military might he needed to conduct further adventurism — in Kuwait, for example.

The Fall of the Soviet Union — The CIA fails to predict this most important event of the Cold War. This suggests that it has been so busy undermining governments that it hasn’t been doing its primary job: gathering and analyzing information. The fall of the Soviet Union also robs the CIA of its reason for existence: fighting communism. This leads some to accuse the CIA of intentionally failing to predict the downfall of the Soviet Union. Curiously, the intelligence community’s budget is not significantly reduced after the demise of communism.

1992

Economic Espionage — In the years following the end of the Cold War, the CIA is increasingly used for economic espionage. This involves stealing the technological secrets of competing foreign companies and giving them to American ones. Given the CIA’s clear preference for dirty tricks over mere information gathering, the possibility of serious criminal behavior is very great indeed.

1993

Haiti — The chaos in Haiti grows so bad that President Clinton has no choice but to remove the Haitian military dictator, Raoul Cedras, on threat of U.S. invasion. The U.S. occupiers do not arrest Haiti’s military leaders for crimes against humanity, but instead ensure their safety and rich retirements. Aristide is returned to power only after being forced to accept an agenda favorable to the country’s ruling class.

EPILOGUE

In a speech before the CIA celebrating its 50th anniversary, President Clinton said: “By necessity, the American people will never know the full story of your courage.”

Clinton’s is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing the CIA because they don’t know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform. Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked.

Furthermore, Clinton’s statement is simply untrue. The history of the agency is growing painfully clear, especially with the declassification of historical CIA documents. We may not know the details of specific operations, but we do know, quite well, the general behavior of the CIA. These facts began emerging nearly two decades ago at an ever-quickening pace. Today we have a remarkably accurate and consistent picture, repeated in country after country, and verified from countless different directions.

The CIA’s response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern. (Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church’s fight against the Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA’s criminal behavior were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners. (See Philip Agee’s On the Run for an example of early harassment.) However, over the last two decades the tide of evidence has become overwhelming, and the CIA has found that it does not have enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is especially true in the age of the Internet, where information flows freely among millions of people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency must now defend itself with apologetics. Clinton’s “Americans will never know” defense is a prime example.

Another common apologetic is that “the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all.” There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants. The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.

Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: “Which American interests?” The CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country’s cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama. The second begged question is: “Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples’ human rights?”

The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity. Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal of collecting and analyzing information. As for covert action, there are two moral options. The first one is to eliminate covert action completely. But this gives jitters to people worried about the Adolf Hitlers of the world. So a second option is that we can place covert action under extensive and true democratic oversight. For example, a bipartisan Congressional Committee of 40 members could review and veto all aspects of CIA operations upon a majority or super-majority vote. Which of these two options is best may be the subject of debate, but one thing is clear: like dictatorship, like monarchy, unaccountable covert operations should die like the dinosaurs they are.

The Venezuelan government has confirmed the existence of “significant” coltan deposits south of the Orinoco River, as well as proven gold reserves valued at $100 billion.

Basic Industries and Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz told a press conference that only seven countries in the world have reserves of coltan – a valuable black mineral that combines niobite and tantalite and is used in cell phones and computer chips – in sufficient quantities for export.

Sanz said that “strategic mineral,” also known as “blue gold,” is an irreplaceable material in products such as cellular phones and electromagnetic instruments for aviation and other hi-tech industries.

“Without coltan, there are no cell phones,” the minister said in illustrating the importance of that mineral.

Reserves of coltan and other strategic minerals were located south of the Orinoco River – in eastern Venezuela – as part of an aerial survey carried out with Iranian cooperation.

Sanz did not reveal the quantity of the coltan reserves nor their precise location, but he said that diamond, phosphate, titanium and lead deposits also were found.

He also referred to gold resources and said Venezuela has the world’s largest reserves of that precious metal after South Africa. According to the minister, Venezuela’s potential reserves total some 15,500 tons and its certified reserves are valued at some $100 billion.

Separately, Science and Technology Minister Jesse Chacon, who accompanied Sanz at Friday’s press conference, confirmed that important deposits of kaolinite have been found and are being developed with assistance from Russia.

He also said Russia will offer Venezuela the technological assistance it needs for the treatment of recently discovered uranium deposits.

Chacon, who said uranium will be used for energy production “because oil will run out,” ruled out the possibility of using that mineral for military purposes.

The minister said the idea is to use the country’s natural resources and not sell them in their raw, unprocessed form, to international clients.

“We have all the right to use our uranium for the benefit of Venezuelans and not sell it at bottom-of-the-barrel prices to the French or Americans,” Chacon said.

The minister did not give a timeframe for the development of Venezuela’s nuclear sector nor an estimate of the size of the country’s available uranium reserves.

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Featured image is from LAHT

Trump’s recolonization is the right description of what has progressively become a plan for a military invasion of Venezuela by the United States: an event never before seen in our history.

It is essential to emphasize that, despite the maneuvers carried out abroad to manufacture a non-existent reality in Venezuela, today our country is at peace and calm. The Constitutional Government of President Nicolás Maduro is, as it has always been, in full and effective control of the national territory. The Venezuelan State’s institutions are functioning normally, in accordance with our Constitution.

It is therefore a dangerous manipulation to think that Venezuela could represent a threat to peace and regional or international security, a deception that was attempted with false information at the United Nations Security Council on Saturday, January 26. We were all witness to what happened there and to the calls made by the vast majority of the international community of our region in favor of respecting the sovereignty and self-determination of our people. The majority of the region supports our territorial integrity and a political solution without foreign interference and without a military invasion.

Trump Imposes His Puppet Dictator

The manufacturing of a case to promote and justify the recolonization of Venezuela through the imposition of a puppet government in our country entered its latest phase with the self-proclamation of a legislator as the alleged president of Venezuela.  This action, which is without any basis in our National Constitution, represents an attack against the democratic institutions of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and a usurpation, not just of the constitutional powers of President Maduro, who was reelected for the 2019-2025 term, but also of the will of the Venezuelan people who, through a universal, direct and secrete vote, freely elected him in a vote held on May 20, 2018.

We must say it clearly: on January 23, 2018, there was a coup d’état in Venezuela promote, organized and financed by the government of the United States, with a small group of countries from our region and Europe, as the Wall Street Journal reported on January 26 after an investigation that included information from high level officials from the Trump administration, and as the AP and the New York Times reported in September 2018.

This involves a new style of coup d’état spurred by the United States, implemented through the political and legal manipulation of Article 233 of the National Constitution. They are ostensibly using the “reestablishment” of democratic order in Venezuela as an excuse to impose a dictatorial government with a concentration of power similar to those employed by the tyrannical regimes our region experienced in the 20th century.

The final objective of this criminal campaign of aggression against our Homeland is the establishment of a façade that will allow the United States to govern directly through their employees, as if they were part of the staff of a foreign oil company. The media then tries to present these men as if they were legitimate representatives of the Venezuelan political opposition, when in reality they are the representatives of the United States in Venezuela. The dictatorship they are imposing does not exist in our Constitution and it is clearly a euphemism for what we all know to be regime change, exactly as it was applied in Libya in 2011 with the National Transitional Council.

In the days prior to the coup d’état, the Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; National Security Advisor John Bolton; and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FLO), among other officials, threatened the Venezuelan people, their institutions and their civil and military authorities with the use of violence. Moreover, they made public calls for a military uprising with the deliberate intent to break the chain of command of the Armed Forces, while they reiterated that “all options are on the table”, including the military option, which President Donald Trump himself has threatened on prior occasions, and for which European countries have now announced they are preparing themselves.

Trump and Europe Loot the Riches of the Venezuelan People

Using the same methods of European colonial powers in Africa in the 19th century or the United States in the Americas in the 20th century, Trump has reintroduced the criminal behaviors of looting the riches of conquered peoples, with contempt for international law.

These actions are a demonstration that it is the government of the United States that represents the greatest threat to peace and regional stability of Latin America and the Caribbean. As it is now their custom, they threaten other States through extortion and coercion so that these will recognize a puppet president, thereby carrying out the greatest theft in history, characteristic of a racist and supremacist regime that is only guided by greed and hate. Unfortunately, the European Union, following the worst of its tradition, has joined the looting and the military adventure in Venezuela, as was announced by Portugal’s Defense Minister on January 30, 2019.

Meanwhile, the first act of the puppet of the United States was to ask for that country to intervene in Venezuela. When has a citizen ever been seen to ask for military action that could provoke so much suffering amongst his own people while asking to be called president? When has a citizen ever been seen to accept the theft of his own people’s resources while asking to be called president?

That same person does not recognize anyone in Venezuela apartment from himself: he ignores the Supreme Court, the National Electoral Council (the same organ through which he was elected as a legislator for the National Assembly in 2015), the Attorney General, the Public Ombudsperson and the Comptroller General. So far, the legislator has proclaimed himself head of two branches of the state: the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch, which lays bare the dictatorial nature of the regime that they are attempting to impose today in Venezuela. The United States justifies all of these actions in the name of freedom, but the only interest is in looting the riches of our people.

At this time the plan for invading Venezuela is carrying out the greatest theft of our people in our history. Trump, with the support of European countries, is appropriating refineries, diplomatic headquarters and other assets and bank accounts in the United States. The United Kingdom is similarly stealing our gold reserves, which is consistent with the British Empire’s grand tradition of looting. It is a return to colonialist exploitation. The arrogance of the British elite, who are so used to looting, leads them to believe they can rob the wealth of all Venezuelans with impunity just because they have become Trump’s minority partners in the Venezuelan colony. What country in the world could think that its monetary reserves have any degree of security in the banks of a former empire built on theft and supported by a racist fanatic?

While he sleeps protected by marines at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas in Caracas, the employee of the United States in Venezuela calls for an uprising of the Armed Forces and a civil rebellion, he asks public officials to ignore the principle of authority, he ratifies diplomatic representatives named by Trump to multilateral bodies and other States, he tries to bribe Venezuelan foreign service offers on social media, he calls for the confiscation of the Venezuelan State’s financial resources and assets abroad, and he accepts the plundering of our sacred territory.

An example is the naming of Venezuela’s supposed representative to the White House, Mr. Carlos Vecchio, who was named by Senator Marco Rubio on Twitter and then ratified by the Naitonal Assembly. This person was previously a lawyer with Exxon Mobil in our country. That is to say, he is literally an employee of a U.S. oil companies in Venezuela. There can be no clearer sign of a colonial government than this.

From External Theft to War for Internal Looting

In light of all of the above and the defeats of the government of the United States in the international arena, both in the Organization of American States (OAS) and in the United Nations Security Council, we must warn of the next step: a military invasion. Using an alleged “humanitarian crisis” or using the discredited “responsibility to protect” as justification, Trump wants to militarily intervene in our sacred national territory. We must prevent Venezuela from becoming the excuse Trump is looking for in order to save his skin as president. We cannot allow war profiteers to satisfy their ambitions and greed using our people as cannon fodder.

International law is the only framework for addressing Venezuelan issues from abroad.

The solution for Venezuela’s current circumstances requires, above all, respect for the fundamental principles that are clearly established in the United Nations Charter. This is about respect for sovereignty and the self-determination of people, non-interference in the internal affairs of States, respect for their democratic institutions, and abstention from threats or use of force. We are not asking for anything different than what every other government demands and expects from the international community. Just as it is not Venezuela that should decide the internal affairs of other states, no other country can attempt to determine the future of our homeland, including who is president of our nation. That is why we value the dignified and principled position adopted by our sibling countries of the Caribbean, as well as their efforts in favor of reducing tensions and a political solution to the current situation.

The Government of President Nicolás Maduro, for its part, has expressed and demonstrated its willingness to dialogue. Our tools our politics, respect for the law, reason and diplomacy. We are aware that there are dark interests that wish to lead us to war, as President Trump is intending, and that we are the target of a possible military invasion, which coincides with the calls by the propaganda apparatuses of the United States and Europe.

We understand these risks, even more so after President Trump designated a war criminal, convicted in his own country, named Elliot Abrams in charge of managing the Venezuelan situation. We will never sacrifice our sovereignty to the pressures, the extortion and the conspiracies that the countries that promote this plan for recolonization insist on manufacturing.

We make a respectful call for defending the norms of international law, for reiterating the validity of the purposes and principles enshrined in the U.N. Charter as guarantors of international peace, security and stability. It is our duty to stop this war of recolonization. Venezuela remains firm and in peace; nobody can isolate and divide us. We are in the process of a second liberation of our homeland.

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Authors of a major new scientific review of the catastrophic decline of insects say a “serious reduction in pesticide usage” is key to preventing the extinction of up to 41 percent of the world’s insects within the “next few” decades.

The review, published online this week in Biological Conservation, highlights that reversing the insect declines will require an “urgent” push to replace the ever-escalating use of harmful synthetic pesticides and fertilizers with more ecologically based, sustainable farming practices.

“This analysis is an alarming wake-up call that we need to dramatically reduce pesticide use,” said Tara Cornelisse, an entomologist and senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Dumping more and more insecticides on our food crops is like fixing a noise under the hood by yanking out the car’s engine. Insects are the foundation of every healthy ecosystem, so we need to quit poisoning landscapes with millions of pounds of toxic pesticides every year.”

Among the authors’ most sweeping conclusions is that

“A rethinking of current agricultural practices, in particular a serious reduction in pesticide usage and its substitution with more sustainable, ecologically-based practices, is urgently needed to slow or reverse current trends, allow the recovery of declining insect populations and safeguard the vital ecosystem services they provide.”

The meta-analysis of 73 studies assessing insect declines over a period of at least 10 years found that industrial farming practices driving habitat loss and extensive use of pesticides and fertilizers is associated with 47 percent of reported declines.

The authors found clear evidence for decline in all insect groups reviewed, but especially for butterflies and moths, native bees, beetles, and aquatic insects like dragonflies. It is estimated that half of butterflies, moths and beetles are declining at about 2 percent per year, and one in six bee species has disappeared in many regions.

A growing body of research indicates that insects are declining about twice as fast as vertebrates.

Earlier studies of insect loss showed declines of insect specialists — those that need specific habitat for nesting, or pollinate only one type of flower. But more and more studies are now documenting large-scale insect loss that includes generalist species, like the endangered rusty patched bumble bee, that were once common throughout their range.

The decline of widely ranging generalist insect species shows that habitat loss, alone, is not enough to explain insect declines. Mounting evidence now demonstrates that a significant driver is the widespread use of pesticides and fertilizers.

“We know neonicotinoid pesticides are a major cause of bee decline and are working to ban them, but this review highlights the urgent need for sweeping pesticide reform,” Cornelisse said. “That reform must start with the EPA replacing its long, troubling embrace of pesticide makers with a truly independent review process for assessing these dangerous poisons.”

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Last week Trump, his VP Mike Pence, US State Dept. director Mike Pompeo and Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton, plus a bunch of Central American countries that are pretty much US colonies and don’t have foreign policies of their own, synchronously announced that Venezuela has a new president: a virtual non-entity named Juan Guaidó, who was never even a candidate for that office, but who was sorta-kinda trained for this job in the US. Guaidó appeared at a rally in Caracas, flanked by a tiny claque of highly compensated sycophants. He looked very frightened as he self-appointed himself president of Venezuela and set about discharging his presidential duties by immediately going into hiding.

His whereabouts remained unknown until much later, when he surfaced at a press conference, at which he gave a wishy-washy non-answer to the question of whether he had been pressured to declare himself president or had done so of his own volition. There is much to this story that is at once tragic and comic, so let’s take it apart piece by piece. Then we’ll move on to answering the question of Why Venezuela must be destroyed (from the US establishment’s perspective).

What stands out immediately is the combination of incompetence and desperation exhibited by all of the above-mentioned public and not-so-public figures. Pompeo, in voicing his recognition of Guaidó, called him “guido,” which is an ethnic slur against Italians, while Bolton did one better and called him “guiado” which could be Spanish for “remote-controlled.” (Was that a Freudian slip or just another one of Bolton’s senior moments?) Not to be outdone, Pence gave an entire little speech on Venezuela—a sort of address to the Venezuelan people—which was laced with some truly atrocious pseudo-Spanish gibberish and ended with an utterly incongruous “¡Vaya con Dios!” straight out of a hammy 1950s Western.

Some more entertainment was provided at the UN Security Council, where the ever-redoubtable Russian representative Vasily Nebenzya pointed out that the situation in Venezuela did not pose a threat to international security and was therefore not within the purview of the Security Council. He then proceeded to ask Pompeo, who was present at the meeting, a pointed question: “Is the US planning to yet again violate the UN Charter?”

Pompeo failed to give an answer. He sat there looking like a cat that’s pretending that it isn’t chewing on a canary, then quickly fled the scene. But then most recently Bolton, as he was presumably exiting a national security meeting and walking to a White House press briefing, accidentally flashed his notepad before reporters’ cameras. On it were written the words “5000 troops to Colombia” (that’s a US military base/narco-colony on Venezuela’s northern border). Was this another one of Bolton’s senior moments? In any case, it does seem to answer Nebenzya’s question in the affirmative. The appointment as special envoy to Venezuela of Elliott Abrams, a convicted criminal who was complicit in the previous, failed Venezuelan coup attempt against Hugo Chávez, automatically making him persona non grata in Venezuela, is also indicative of hostile intent.

It would be quite forgivable for you to mistake this regime change operation for some sort of absurdist performance art. It is certainly a bit too abstract for the real-world complexities of the international order. Some poor frightened minion is thrust in front of a camera and declares himself President of Narnia, and then three stooges (Pence, Pompeo and Bolton) plus Bozo the Trump all jump up and yell “Yes-yes-yes, that’s surely him!” And a pensioned-off failure is pulled off the bench, dusted off and dispatched on a mission to a country that won’t have him.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the Venezuelan army and the Venezuelan courts remains squarely behind the elected president Nicolas Maduro and a list of countries that comprise the vast majority of the world’s population, including China, Russia, India, Mexico, Turkey, South Africa and quite a few others speak out in Maduro’s support. Even the people in the remote-controlled Central American countries know full well what a dangerous precedent such a regime change operation would set if it were to succeed, and are thinking: “¡Hoy Venezuela, mañana nosotros!”

To be thorough, let’s look at the arguments being used to advance this regime change operation. There is the contention that Nicolas Maduro is not a legitimate president because last year’s elections, where he was supported by 68% of those who turned out, lacked transparency and were boycotted by certain opposition parties, whereas Juan Guaidó is 100% legit in spite of him and his inconsequential National Assembly being opposed by 70% of Venezuelans according to the opposition’s own polling numbers. There were also some unfounded allegations of “ballot-box stuffing”—except that the Venezuelans do not use paper ballots, while according to international election-watcher and former US president Jimmy Carter, “the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”

There is the contention that Maduro has badly mismanaged Venezuela’s economy, leading to hyperinflation, high unemployment, shortages of basic goods (medicines especially) and a refugee crisis. There is some merit to this contention, but we must also note that some of Venezuela’s neighbors are doing even worse in many respects in spite of Maduro not being their president. Also, many of Venezuela’s economic difficulties have been caused by US sanctions against it. For instance, right now around 8 billion dollars of Venezuela’s money is being held hostage and is intended to be used to finance a mercenary army which would invade and attempt to destroy Venezuela just as was done with Syria.

Finally, a lot of Venezuela’s predicament has to do with the oil curse. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, but its oil is very viscous and therefore expensive to produce. During a period of high oil prices Venezuelans became addicted to the oil largess, which the government used to lift millions of people out of abject poverty and to move them out of slums and into government housing. And now low oil prices have caused a crisis. If Venezuela manages to survive this period, it will be able to recover once oil prices recover (which they will once the fracking Ponzi scheme in the US has run its course). We will return to the topic of Venezuelan oil later.

As a side comment, a lot of people have been voicing the opinion that Venezuela’s woes are due to socialism. According to them, it’s fine if lots of people are suffering as long as their government is capitalist, but if it is socialist then that’s the wrong kind of suffering and their government deserves to be overthrown even if they all voted for it. For example, the site ZeroHedge, which often publishes useful information and analysis, has been pushing this line of thinking ad nauseam. It is unfortunate that some people imagine that they are being principled and right-thinking whereas they are just being dumb jerks at best and somebody’s useful idiots at worst. The politics of other nations are not for them to decide and they should stop wasting our time with their nonsense.

This naked attempt at regime change would set a very dangerous precedent for the US itself. The doctrine of legal precedent is by no means universal. It comes to us from the dim dark ages of tribal English common law and is only followed in former British colonies. To the rest of the world it is a barbaric form of injustice because it grants arbitrary power to judges and lawyers. The courts must not be allowed to write or alter laws, only to follow them. If your case can be decided on the basis of some other case that has nothing to do with you—well then, why not let somebody else pay your legal fees and your fines and serve out your sentence for you? But there is an overarching principle of international law, which is that sovereign nations have a right to keep to their own laws and legal traditions. Therefore, the US will be bound by the precedents which it establishes. Let’s see how that would work.

The precedent established by the US government’s recognition of Juan Guaidó allows Nicolas Maduro to declare Donald Trump’s presidency as illegitimate for virtually all of the same reasons. Trump failed to win the popular vote but only gained the presidency because of a corrupt, gerrymandered electoral system. Also, certain opposition candidates were unfairly treated within the electoral process. Trump is also a disgrace and a failure: 43 million people are on food stamps; close to 100 million are among the long-term unemployed (circularly referred to as “not in labor force”); homelessness is rampant and there are entire tent cities springing up in various US cities; numerous US companies are on the verge of bankruptcy; and Trump can’t even seem to be able to keep the federal government open! He is a disaster for his country! Maduro therefore recognizes Bernie Sanders as the legitimate president of the United States.

Vladimir Putin could then build on these two precedents by also recognizing Bernie Sanders as the rightful US president. In a public speech, he could say the following: “I freely admit that we installed Donald Trump as US president as was our right based on the numerous precedents established by the US itself. Unfortunately, Trump didn’t work out as planned. Mueller can retire, because this flash drive contains everything that’s necessary to nullify Trump’s inauguration. Donny, sorry it didn’t work out! Your Russian passport is ready for pick-up at our embassy, as are your keys to a one-bedroom in Rostov, right next door to the Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovich who was violently regime-changed by your predecessor Obama.”

Why the unseemly haste to blow up Venezuela? The explanation is a simple one: it has to do with oil. “It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.” said John Bolton on Fox News. You see, Venezuelan oil cannot be produced profitably without high oil prices—so high that many oil consumers would go bankrupt—but it can certainly be produced in much higher quantities at a huge financial loss.

Huge financial losses certainly wouldn’t stop American oil companies who have so far generated a $300 billion loss through fracking—financed by looting retirement savings, saddling future generations with onerous debt and other nefarious schemes. Also keep in mind that the single largest oil consumer in the world is the US Dept. of Defense, and if it has to pay a little more for oil in order to go on blowing up countries—so it will. Or, rather, you will. It’s all the same to them. The US is already well beyond broke, but its leaders will do anything to keep the party going for just a while longer.

Here’s the real problem: the fracking bonanza is ending. Most of the sweet spots have already been tapped; newer wells are depleting faster and producing less while costing more; the next waves of fracking, were they to happen, would squander $500 billion, then $1 trillion, then $2 trillion… The drilling rate is already slowing, and started slowing even while oil prices were still high. Meanwhile, peak conventional (non-fracked) oil happened back in 2005-6, only a few countries haven’t peaked yet, Russia has announced that it will start reducing production in just a couple years and Saudi Arabia doesn’t have any spare capacity left.

A rather large oil shortage is coming, and it will rather specifically affect the US, which burns 20% of the world’s oil (with just 5% of the world’s population). Once fracking crashes, the US will go from having to import 2.5 million barrels per day to importing at least 10—and that oil won’t exist. Previously, the US was able to solve this problem by blowing up countries and stealing their oil: the destruction of Iraq and Libya made American oil companies whole for a while and kept the financial house of cards from collapsing. But the effort to blow up Syria has failed, and the attempt to blow up Venezuela is likely to fail too because, keep in mind, Venezuela has between 7 and 9 million Chavistas imbued with the Bolivarian revolutionary spirit, a large and well-armed military and is generally a very tough neighborhood.

Previously, the US resorted to various dirty tricks to legitimize its aggression against oil-rich countries and its subsequent theft of their natural resources. There was that vial of highly toxic talcum powder Colin Powell shook at the UN to get it to vote in favor of destroying Iraq and stealing its oil. There was the made-up story of humanitarian atrocities in Libya to get the votes for a no-fly zone there (which turned out to be a bombing campaign followed by a government overthrow). But with Venezuela there isn’t any such fig leaf. All we have is open threats of naked aggression and blatant lies which nobody believes, delivered incompetently by clowns, stooges and old fogies.

If Plan A (steal Venezuela’s oil) fails, then Plan B is to take all of your US dollar-denominated paper waste—cash, stocks, bonds, deeds, insurance policies, promissory notes, etc.—and burn it in trash barrels in an effort to stay warm. There is a definite whiff of desperation to the whole affair. The global hegemon is broken; it fell down and it can’t get up.

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Featured image is from Club Orlov

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Human rights and democracy?

Great powers invariably disguise foreign interference or military intervention as a humanitarian mission. The refrain may vary but in fact always comes down to the same thing: out of concern for the local population we have no other choice than to intervene. In Iraq democracy had to be restored, in Libya it was a massacre the population had to be saved from and in Syria the refrain was that of human rights and democracy that had to be defended. After the foreign interference, the three countries were completely destroyed or left behind in chaos.

Today again noble motives are put forward when it comes to Venezuela:

“President Trump stands with the people of Venezuela as they demand democracy, human rights, and prosperity denied to them by Maduro,” according to the White House.

Let’s check. Had Trump been so concerned about democracy, why did he congratulate Juan Orlando Hernández on his election victory in Honduras in December 2017? To friend and foe it was clear that those presidential elections were one big farce.

And what about human rights? If Trump really considers them so important, why does he not immediately impose economic sanctions on Colombia, Venezuela’s neighbour? Since the signing of the peace agreement in 2016, more than 300 community leaders, trade unionists and human rights activists have been murdered there. That is much more than in Venezuela during the same period. In Venezuela, by the way, the deadly victims feel as a result of the unrest triggered by the opposition.

It is illuminating to note that Trump has so far consistently championed freedom and democracy in only three countries altogether: Cuba, Iran and Venezuela.

It’s the oil stupid!

Alfred de Zayas, former head of the UN Human Rights Council, exposes the humanitarian rhetoric.

“What’s at stake is the enormous, enormous natural resources of Venezuela. And I sense that if Venezuela had no natural resources no one would give a damn about Chavez or Maduro or anybody else there.”

John Bolton, a hawk in Trump’s cabinet, as usual says what it is all about:

“We’re looking at the oil assets. That’s the single most important income stream to the government of Venezuela. We’re looking at what to do to that. It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.”

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Potentially, depending on the oil price, annual oil revenues amount to at least 50 to 100 billion dollars. It is this bonanza that the energy giants of the US have their eye on. John Bolton, is at their beck and call.

“We’re in conversation with major American companies now. I think we’re trying to get to the same end result here.”

Foreign policy at the service of multinationals, you cannot put it more clearly.

The sanctions

In 2015, the US launched economic sanctions against Venezuela. These sanctions disrupt financial transactions, freeze assets abroad and hamper the import of food, medicines and other basic necessities. It is well possible to question Maduro’s economic policy, but in any case, the sanctions have not missed their effect. Since their launch, the social situation has deteriorated significantly. Child mortality and malnutrition have increased. Venezuela plunged down 16 places in the overall global Human Development Index rankings of the UNDP. Many people are leaving the country as a result of this decline.

De Zayas, quoted above, was UN rapporteur for Venezuela at the time. He wrote a report on the consequences of the sanctions. He unquestionably labels them as a crime against humanity.

“I think when the magnitude of the suffering that sanctions cause is as it was in Iraq or as is now becoming apparent in Venezuela, I can say that the sanctions against Venezuela entail a crime against humanity, which could be brought against the International Criminal Court as a violation of Article 7 of the Statute of Rome.”

The three protagonists

In Venezuela’s current approach, three men play a leading role: Trump, Bolton and Abrams.

Elliott Abrams is the special US envoy to Venezuela. Under President Reagan, he was involved in the dirty counter-revolutionary wars that the US waged in Central America, in which hundreds of thousands were killed. He supported Rios Montt, the dictator of Guatemala, who committed genocide against the Indian population in the 1980s. He was one of the masterminds of the failed coup against Chávez in 2002. Former presidential candidate Jesse Jackson sums up the man’s profile:

“Elliott Abrams, ardent advocate of dictators and war criminals, a cheerleader for virtually every catastrophic U.S. intervention from Reagan’s covert war on Nicaragua to the Bushes’ invasions of Iraq, and a convicted perjurer (withholding information about the Iran-Contra scandal).”

John Bolton, the US national security advisor, whom we quoted above, is another hawk. He was one of the architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a war that caused hundreds of thousands of victims and led to the creation of IS. Bolton is an ardent critic of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. He once summed up his vision of the UN in a powerful way:

“There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along.”

And then we have Trump. He has his own reasons for a regime change in Venezuela. His foreign policy has so far been quite catastrophic. He has lost a lot of influence in the Middle East at the expense of Russia. He has also been unable to present results in the conflicts with Iran and North Korea. Perhaps Venezuela can offer him a long-awaited victory. A large part of the Venezuelan elite has left the country. Many moved to Florida and bought condo units in Trump properties. Financial Times writes that “it is impossible to draw a line between Mr Trump’s business ties and his support for democracy in Venezuela”. Nor should we forget that Florida is an important swing state. A hard stance towards Maduro can give Trump the votes of the increasing number of Venezuelans who have settled there and may thus make sure that the state tilts to his advantage.

The fact that the foreign policy of the United States is determined by not very noble motives is not new and should not really come as a surprise. But the fact that Canada and the EU are getting dragged down by these three worrying fellows makes it all the more painful.

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Last year, Russia’s seasoned Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington of providing material support [1] to the Islamic State Khorasan militants based in Afghanistan in order to divide and weaken the Taliban resistance against American occupation of Afghanistan. The accusations were also echoed by Iran. 

Referring to news reports [2] that unmarked military helicopters had touched down in known Islamic State Khorasan strongholds in Afghanistan, Lavrov alleged:

“Unidentified helicopters, most likely helicopters to which NATO in one way or another is related, fly to the areas where the [Islamic State] insurgents are based, and no one has been able to explain the reasons for these flights yet.”

Moreover, a news report leaked [3] in March last year, during the trial of the widow of Orlando nightclub shooter, Omar Mateen (image below right), who had killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a mass shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016, that his father, Seddique Mateen, was an FBI informant for eleven years.

In an email, the prosecution revealed to the defense attorney of Noor Salman, the widow of Omar Mateen, that Seddique Mateen was an FBI informant from January 2005 to June 2016 and that he had been sending money to Afghanistan and Turkey, possibly to fund violent insurrection against the government of Pakistan.

Although the allegation that Washington provides money and arms to its arch-foe in Afghanistan, the Taliban, to mount an insurrection against the government of Pakistan might sound far-fetched, we need to keep the background of the Taliban insurgency in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in mind.

In Pakistan, there are three distinct categories of militants: the Afghanistan-focused Pashtun militants; the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants; and foreign transnational terrorists, including the Arab militants of al-Qaeda, the Uzbek insurgents of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Chinese Uyghur jihadists of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Compared to tens of thousands of native Pashtun and Punjabi militants, the foreign transnational terrorists number only in a few hundred and are hence inconsequential.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is mainly comprised of Pashtun militants, carries out bombings against Pakistan’s state apparatus. The ethnic factor is critical here. Although the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) like to couch their rhetoric in religious terms, it is the difference of ethnicity and language that enables them to recruit Pashtun tribesmen who are willing to carry out subversive activities against the Punjabi-dominated state apparatus, while the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants have by and large remained loyal to their patrons in the security agencies of Pakistan.

Although Pakistan’s security establishment has been willing to conduct military operations against the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which are regarded as a security threat to Pakistan’s state apparatus, as far as the Kashmir-focused Punjabi militants, including the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, and the Afghanistan-focused Quetta Shura Taliban, including the Haqqani network, are concerned, they are still enjoying impunity because such militant groups are regarded as “strategic assets” by Pakistan’s security agencies.

Therefore, the allegation that Washington had provided material support to the Islamic State-affiliate in Afghanistan and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) as a tit-for-tat response to Pakistan’s security agencies double game of providing support to the Afghan Taliban to mount attacks against the Afghan security forces and their American backers cannot be ruled out.

In November, for instance, infighting between the main faction of the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada and a breakaway faction led by Mullah Mohammad Rasul left scores of fighters dead in Afghanistan’s western Herat province.

Mullah Rasul was close to Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, and served as the governor of southwestern Nimroz province during the Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. After the news of the death of Mullah Omar was made public in 2015, Mullah Rasul broke ranks with the Taliban and formed his own faction.

Mullah Rasul’s group is active in the provinces of Herat, Farah, Nimroz and Helmand, and is known to have received arms and support [4] from the Afghan intelligence, as he had expressed willingness to recognize the Washington-backed Kabul government.

Regarding Washington’s motives for providing covert support to breakaway factions of the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan, the US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack, and toppled the Taliban regime with the help of the Northern Alliance comprised of ethnic Tajik and Uzbek warlords.

The leadership and fighters of the Taliban found sanctuary in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, and mounted an insurgency against the Washington-backed Kabul government. Throughout the occupation years, Washington kept pressuring Islamabad to mount military operations in the tribal areas in order to deny safe havens to the Taliban.

However, Islamabad was reticent to conduct military operations, which is a euphemism for all-out war, for the fear of alienating the Pashtun population of the tribal areas. After Pakistan’s military’s raid in July 2007 on a mosque in the heart of Islamabad, which also contained a religious seminary, scores of civilians, including students of the seminary, died.

The Pakistani Taliban made the incident a rallying call for waging a jihad against Pakistan’s military. Thereafter, terror attacks and suicide bombings against Pakistan’s state apparatus peaked after the July 2007 incident. Eventually, Pakistan’s military decided in 2009 to conduct military operations against militants based in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

The first military operation was mounted in the Swat valley in April 2009, the second in South Waziristan tribal agency in October the same year, and the third ongoing military operation was launched in North Waziristan and Khyber tribal agencies in June 2014. In the ensuing violence, tens of thousands of civilians, security personnel and militants lost their lives.

Although Pakistani political commentators often point fingers at the Washington-backed Kabul government in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s arch-foe India for providing money and arms to the Pakistani Taliban for waging a guerrilla war against Pakistan’s state establishment, according to inside sources of Pakistan’s security agencies, Washington had provided covert support to the Pakistani Taliban in order to force Pakistan’s military to conduct military operations against militants based in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Keeping this background of Washington’s covert support to breakaway factions of the Afghan Taliban that had waged an insurgency against the US-backed Kabul government and to the Pakistani Taliban that had mounted a guerrilla war against Pakistan’s state establishment in mind, the allegations by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Washington had provided material support to the Islamic State’s affiliate in the Af-Pak region in order to divide and weaken the Taliban resistance against American occupation of Afghanistan cannot be ruled out.

Finally, the distinction between the Taliban and the Islamic State lies in the fact that the Taliban follow Deobandi sect of Sunni Islam which is a sect native to South Asia and the jihadists of the Islamic State mostly belong to Saudi Arabia’s Wahhabi denomination.

Secondly, and more importantly, the insurgency in Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan is a Pashtun uprising which is an ethnic group native to Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, whereas the bulk of the Islamic State’s jihadists in Syria and Iraq was comprised of Arab militants and included foreign fighters from neighboring countries, North Africa, the Central Asian states, Russia, China and even radicalized Muslims from as far away as Europe and the United States.

The so-called “Khorasan Province” of the Islamic State in the Af-Pak region is nothing more than a coalition of several breakaway factions of the Taliban and a few other inconsequential local militant outfits that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in order to enhance their prestige and to draw funds and followers, but which doesn’t have any organizational and operational association, whatsoever, with the Islamic State proper in Syria and Iraq.

The total strength of the Islamic State Khorasan is estimated to be between 3,000 to 5,000 fighters. By comparison, the strength of the Taliban is estimated to be between 60,000 to 80,000 militants. The Islamic State Khorasan was formed as a merger between several breakaway factions of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban in early 2015. Later, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a Pakistani terrorist group Jundullah and Chinese Uyghur militants pledged allegiance to it.

In 2017, it split into two factions. One faction based in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province is led by a Pakistani militant commander Aslam Farooqi, and the other faction based in the northern provinces of Afghanistan is led by a former Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) commander Moawiya. The latter faction also includes Uzbek, Tajik, Uyghur and Baloch militants.

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Nauman Sadiq is an Islamabad-based attorney, columnist and geopolitical analyst focused on the politics of Af-Pak and Middle East regions, neocolonialism and petro-imperialism. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Moscow accuses Washington of aiding Islamic State Khorasan:

https://www.voanews.com/a/us-military-rejects-russia-numbers-of-islamic-state-fighters-in-afghanistan/4268999.html

[2] Hamid Karzai’s interview: ISIS in Afghanistan is US tool:

https://www.rt.com/news/407134-isis-afghanistan-us-tool-karzai/

[3] Pulse Nightclub Gunman’s Father Was an FBI Informant:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pulse-gunman-s-father-was-secret-fbi-informant-court-filing-n860116

[4] Mullah Rasul faction of Taliban has received support from Kabul:

https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-infighting-leaves-dozens-of-militants-dead-in-afghanistan/29630816.html

Featured image is from Long War Journal

It’s all keen and mean on the artificial intelligence (AI) front in China, which is now vying with the United States as the top dog in the field.  US companies can still boast the big cheese operators, but China is making strides in other areas.  The UN World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Thursday report found that IBM had, with 8,920 patents in the field, the largest AI portfolio, followed by Microsoft with 5,930. China, however, was found dominant in 17 of 20 academic institutions involved in the business of patenting AI. 

The scramble has been a bitter one.  The Trump administration has been inflicting various punitive measures through tariffs, accusing Beijing of being the lead thief in global intellectual property matters.  But it is also clear that China has done much to play the game.

“They are serious players in the field of intellectual property,” suggests WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry. 

Machine learning is high up in this regard, as is deep learning, which saw a rise from a modest 118 patent applications in 2013 to a sprightly 2,399 in 2016.  All this is to the good on some level, but the ongoing issue that preoccupies those in the field is how best to tease out tendencies towards bias (racism, sexism and so forth) that find their way into machine-learning algorithms. Then comes that problem of technology in the broader service of ill, a point that never really goes away.

In other areas, China is making springing efforts.  Moving in the direction of developing an AI chip has not been missed, propelled by moves away from crypto mining. 

“It’s an incredibly difficult to do,” claims MIT Technology Review senior editor Will Knight.  “But the fact that you’ve got this big technological shift like it once in a sort of generation one means that it’s now possible, that the playing field is levelled a little bit.”

The nature of technological advancement often entails a moral and ethical lag.  Functionality comes before philosophy.  AI has been seen to be a fabulous toy-like thing, enticing and irresistible.  But what is good in one field is bound to be inimical in another.  The implications for this should be clear with the very idea of deep learning, which stresses the use of neural networks to make predictions on collected data.  Enter, then, those fields of natural language processing, facial recognition, translation, recommendation algorithms.   

Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, regarded as a storming pioneer in the field of deep learning along with Yann LeCun and Geoff Hinton, has felt his conscience prick in this regard. 

“This is the 1984 Big Brother scenario,” he observed in quotidian fashion in an interview.  “I think it’s becoming more and more scary.” 

Bengio seems a bit late to the commentary on this point, given the prevailing dangers posed by existing technologies in the private sector in the field of surveillance.  He could hardly have missed the fact that the tech company sector took the lead in matters of surveillance, leaving governments in the lurch on how best to get data on their citizens. Where there are the confessional solicitations of social media, monitoring officials have their work cut for them, a result which seems attempts to find backdoors and encourage compliance. 

The PRC has enthusiastically embraced elements of facial recognition in its quest to create a total surveillance society, one that sorts the desirable wheat from the undesirable chaff.  Anti-social behaviour is monitored.  The way services are used by citizens is also controlled through its National Credit Information Sharing Platform, which is fast becoming a model for other states to emulate.  Algorithmic tyranny has become a reality.

In January, George Soros, problematic as he has been in his financial meddling, noted how AI had supplied “instruments of control” which gave “an inherent advantage of totalitarian regimes over open societies.” (It was a pity that his speech was delivered before the failed managers and plunderers of the global economy at that holiday gathering known as the World Economic Forum in Davos.)  China had become “the wealthiest, strongest and most developed in machine learning and artificial intelligence.”

The AI frontier, in short, teems with prospects dire and fascinating.  But the way technology companies deal with data remain as important as those of the states that either sponsor them as champions or see them as collaborators on some level.  The point is, both are out, through their use of artificial intelligence, to get at the basic liberties of citizens even as they claim to be advancing their interests. For some, is the making of a buck; for others, it’s that old issue of control.

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

Featured image is from MIT Technology Review

On Friday, the neocon running Trump’s foreign policy, John Bolton, threatened to send the elected president of Venezuela to the indefinite torture camp at Guantanamo. 

Maduro should be relieved. The previous neoliberal regime in DC had the disfavored leader of Libya assassinated, but not before NATO-backed Islamists sadistically raped him with a bayonet. The longer Maduro resists, the more likely a variation of the above scenario will play out in Venezuela. Indefinite detention without charge is no doubt the preferable option. 

Bolton is a well-seasoned neocon. He knows instinctively how to play the game. It was of course not a mistake his notepad said troops may be sent to neighboring Columbia. 

His hint about sending the president of Venezuela to Camp Gitmo is also not a mistake. These are the guys who set-up Saddam Hussein and arranged to have him sent to the gallows. 

On Hugh Hewitt’s show, John Bolton suggested that Venezuelan president Maduro could be sent to Guantanamo https://t.co/5B85dU44CH pic.twitter.com/feivveWHRn

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) February 1, 2019

In all cases—with the exception of Afghanistan—the primary objective is to control the vast oil reserves in Iraq, Iran, Libya, and now Venezuela, the country with the largest known oil reserve in the world. 

It is well-known that a Unocal pipeline and its rejection by the Taliban served as the pretext for an invasion of Afghanistan—and before the events of 9/11. 

In the former, the objective is to make Israel the undisputed hegemon of the Middle East and a forward base in the effort to contain the vassals, as former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski called the victims of neocolonialism. 

Considering Israel’s long-standing barbaric treatment of the Palestinians—and the establishment of an apartheid state—its multiple invasions and occupations of Lebanon, and its history of border provocations and false flag schemes (the Lavon Affair most prominent), it’s quite natural Israel’s Arab and Muslim neighbors are skeptical peace will ever be realized. This is exacerbated by the fact the peacemaker—the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner—is a confirmed Zionist and Likudnik. 

The neocon plan was designed for creative destruction in the name of neoliberal-corporate domination and secondarily in service of the geopolitical goals of the Zionist state. 

Creative destruction, as the neocon way of doing business is known, was carried out in Iraq and Libya, reducing both from the status of relatively modern nations to failed states. Iran is the remaining target, which Trump will turn his attention to after he deals with Venezuela. 

Controlling the vast majority of the world’s oil—in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, the emirates, and Iran—will however not save the petrodollar system or the dollar’s eroding status as the world’s reserve fiat currency. 

Russia, China, Venezuela—all are in the process of moving away from the dollar and neoliberal institutions. Before he was murdered, Gaddafi planned to implement a state currency for the trade of oil. Now the country lays in ruin as competing factions fight it out in the streets. 

It’s not likely Maduro will end up in Gitmo, although he may find a home in Cuba if the Bolton-Pompeo plan for Venezuela is finally realized. It certainly won’t come as a surprise if he is executed by his own military. This indeed may be Maduro’s fate now that generals are defecting from his administration. 

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Another Day in the Empire.

Kurt Nimmo is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from YourNewsWire

“What is going on – is the launch of a global campaign to usher in a required consensus for the Paris Agreement, the New Green Deal and all climate related policies and legislation written by the power elite – for the power elite.”

– Cory Morningstar [1]

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One Swedish teenager, 16 year old Greta Thunberg, captured the imagination of the world with her resolute determination to demand urgent action on climate.

For three weeks last year, in the lead up to the Swedish general election, she refused to attend classes at school and instead sat outside the Swedish Parliament as a visible presence demanding climate action. Since the election she has continued to take Fridays off of school. [2]

Greta herself has become a celebrity climate activist. She has given a Tedx Talk, she was invited to speak at the most recent UN Climate talks in Katowice, Poland, and in late January, she participated in a panel at the World Economic Forum (WEC) in Davos, which included U2 frontman Bono, acclaimed conservationist Jane Goodall, and the UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.

Her climate strike for climate action has garnered attention the world over and inspired young people by the tens of thousands to follow her example and skip classes one day a week as a way of heightening the need for urgent action. In Brussels alone, 32,000 students and their supporters took to the streets during the final day of the WEC, to be followed by a reported turn-out of 100,000 the following Sunday. In France, on that same Sunday, 80,000 reportedly took to the streets in centres across the country, exceeding the turn-out at the previous day’s Yellow Vest rallies! [3][4]

Inspiring as the example of Greta Thunberg may be – she also happens to be on the autism spectrum – questions arise as to how exactly one teenaged girl managed to attract so much international attention to her cause, with a humble action outside the Swedish parliament.

Global Research audiences are well aware of how simple it is to dismiss and ignore people with narratives that threaten the powerful (think about challenges to the official stories about the White Helmets in Syria, Russia-Gate, 9/11, Venezuela’s ‘dictatorial’ president, etc). It should literally have been child’s play to sabotage Greta long before her campaign had a chance to touch the minds and hearts of millions. Is there more to the story of the rise of Greta Thunberg?

Investigative journalist Cory Morningstar, encouraged by this broadcaster, looked into the background of the young environmental crusader and revealed some rather concerning details about convergences with major players in the international environmental NGO arena. The result of her research is a comprehensive series of articles entitled The Manufacturing of Greta Thunberg – For Consent.

This four part essay, (part 4 is to be posted on or around February 3rd) exposes the involvement of a technology firm called We Don’t Have Time, which was pivotal in launching Greta’s online presence to viral status. Cory also outlines how Non-Governmental Organizations like AVAAZ, aligned with imperial interests and powerful figures like Bill Gates and Al Gore have been engineering climate solutions and climate activism for years. She argues that well-intentioned youth activists are helping to manufacture the demand for a program which will further assault the world’s most marginalized peoples, and devastate rather than heal a degraded planet.

On this week’s episode of the Global Research News Hour, we host a special in-depth conversation with Cory examining her research into Greta Thunberg’s background, the problems with carbon offsets, Carbon Capture and Storage, and other proposed climate solutions, and the figures manipulating the climate movement from behind the scenes to the benefit of the world’s financial elite, not the planet.

One important note: none of the criticisms registered in Morningstar’s articles or on this radio show should be interpreted as ‘climate change denial.’ Both the guest and the host acknowledge the science of abrupt climate disruption and recognize global warming as a serious threat to the near term survival of the human species, and possibly all life on Earth. It is the clandestine manipulation and exploitation of these legitimate concerns by the rich and powerful to promote questionable, self-serving solutions that is coming under scrutiny in Morningstar’s series and on this hour-long radio program.

Cory Morningstar is an independent investigative journalist, writer and environmental activist, focusing on global ecological collapse and political analysis of the non-profit industrial complex. Her recent writings can be found on Wrong Kind of Green, The Art of Annihilation, and Counterpunch. Her writing has also been published by Bolivia Rising and Cambio, the official newspaper of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. Her series, The Manufaturing of Greta Thunberg – For Consent is posted at Wrong Kind of Green and at her site The Art of Annihilation. She lives in London, Ontario, Canada.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 247)

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The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM in Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca . Excerpts of the show have begun airing on Rabble Radio and appear as podcasts at rabble.ca.

The Global Research News Hour now airs Fridays at 6pm PST, 8pm CST and 9pm EST on Alternative Current Radio (alternativecurrentradio.com)

Community Radio Stations carrying the Global Research News Hour:

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It is also available on 93.9 FM cable in the communities of SFU, Burnaby, New Westminister, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Surrey and Delta, in British Columbia, Canada. – Tune in  at its new time – Wednesdays at 4pm PT.

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Los Angeles, California based Thepowerofvoices.com airs the Global Research News Hour every Monday from 6-7pm Pacific time. 

Notes:

1. http://www.theartofannihilation.com/the-manufacturing-of-greta-thunberg-for-consent-the-political-economy-of-the-non-profit-industrial-complex/,
2. https://globalnews.ca/news/4727858/elections-truth-climate-change-teenage-activist/
3. Mark Hertsgaard (January 28, 2019), ‘The Climate Kids are Coming’, The Nation; https://www.thenation.com/article/greta-thunberg-climate-change-davos/

4. Milan Schreuer, Elian Peltier and Christopher F. Schuetze (January 31, 2019), ‘Teenagers Emerge as a Force in Climate Protests Across Europe’, New York Times; https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/31/world/europe/climate-change-protests-students.html?fbclid=IwAR0KMYzejCL3MZR5XVFIxUTF55ADiBIre5xFnokJrdjdrgXU6wXVR5iUtXc

 

A “suspensão” do Tratado INF, anunciada ontem pelo Secretário de Estado, Mike Pompeo,  inicia a contagem decrescente  que, dentro de seis meses, irá levar os Estados Unidos a sair definitivamente do Tratado. No entanto, já a partir de hoje,  os EUA consideram-se desobrigados e aptos a testar e a instalar armas da categoria proibida pelo Tratado: mísseis nucleares de alcance intermédio (entre 500 e 5500 km), com base em terra.

Pertenciam a esta categoria os mísseis nucleares instalados  na Europa nos anos 80: os mísseis balísticos Pershing II, implantados pelos Estados Unidos na Alemanha Ocidental e os de cruzeiro, lançados do solo, domiciliados pelos Estados Unidos na Grã-Bretanha, Itália, Alemanha Ocidental, Bélgica e Holanda, com o pretexto de defender os aliados europeus dos mísseis balísticos SS-20, colocados pela União Soviética no seu território. O Tratado sobre Forças Nucleares Intermédias, assinado em 1987 pelos Presidentes Gorbachev e Reagan, eliminou todos os mísseis desta categoria, incluindo os que estavam instalados em Comiso.

O Tratado INF foi posto em discussão por Washington, quando os Estados Unidos viram  diminuir a sua vantagem estratégica sobre a Rússia e sobre a China. Em 2014, a Administração Obama, sem exibir qualquer prova, acusou a Rússia de ter experimentado um míssil de cruzeiro (9M729) da categoria proibida pelo Tratado e, em 2015, anunciou que “em face da violação do Tratado INF pelo Rússia, os Estados Unidos estão considerando a colocação de mísseis terrestres na Europa”. O plano foi confirmado pela Administração Trump: em 2018, o Congresso autorizou o financiamento de “um programa de pesquisa e desenvolvimento de um míssil de cruzeiro lançado do solo por uma plataforma móvel em estrada”. Por seu lado, Moscovo negou que o seu míssil de cruzeiro violasse o Tratado e, por sua vez, acusou Washington de ter instalado mísseis interceptadores (os do “escudo”) na Polónia e na Roménia, que podem ser usados ​​para lançar mísseis de cruzeiro com ogivas nucleares.

Neste contexto, deve ter-se em conta o factor geográfico: enquanto um míssil nuclear de alcance intermedio, instalado na Europa, pode atingir Moscovo, um míssil semelhante, colocado pela Rússia no seu território, pode atingir as capitais europeias, mas nunca Washington. Invertendo o cenário, é como se a Rússia dispusesse os seus mísseis nucleares de alcance intermédio no México.

O plano USA de abandonar o Tratado INF foi totalmente apoiado pelos aliados europeus da NATO. O Conselho do Atlântico Norte declarou, em 4 de Dezembro de 2018, que “o Tratado INF está em perigo devido às acções da Rússia”, acusada de estabelecer “um sistema de mísseis desestabilizadores”. O próprio Conselho do Atlântico Norte declarou em 01 de Fevereiro, “o seu apoio total à acção dos EUA de suspender as suas obrigações a respeito do Tratado INF”  e intimou  a Rússia a “empregar os seis meses restantes para regressar ao pleno cumprimento do Tratado”.

Para a ruína do Tratado INF também contribuiu a União Europeia que, na Assembleia Geral das Nações Unidas, em 21 de Dezembro de 2018, votou contra a resolução apresentada pela Rússia sobre a “Preservação e observância do Tratado INF”, rejeitada por 46 votos. contra 43 e 78 abstenções. A União Europeia – da qual 21 dos 27 membros fazem parte da NATO (como faz parte a Grã-Bretanha, de saída da UE) – alinhou-se completamente com a posição da NATO que, por sua vez, se alinhou com a dos Estados Unidos. Portanto, na realidade, a União Europeia também deu luz verde à possível instalação de novos mísseis nucleares USA, na Europa, incluso, em Itália.

Numa questão de tamanha importância, o Governo Conte, como os precedentes,  alinhou-se quer com a NATO, quer com a União Europeia. E de todo o arco político não se ergueu uma única voz a pedir que fosse o Parlamento a decidir como votar na ONU, sobre o Tratado INF. Nem no Parlamento se elevou nenhuma voz a exigir que a Itália observe o Tratado de Não-Proliferação e adira ao Tratado da ONU sobre a Proibição das Armas Nucleares, exigindo aos USA, que retirem do nosso território nacional, as bombas nucleares B61 e não instalem, a partir da primeira metade de 2020, as ainda mais perigosas bombas B61-12. Tendo no seu território, armas nucleares e instalações estratégicas USA, como  o MUOS  e o JTAGS  na Sicília, a Itália está exposta a perigos crescentes como base avançada das forças nucleares USA e, portanto, como alvo das forças russas. Um míssil balístico nuclear de alcance intermédio, para atingir o alvo, leva de 6 a 11 minutos. Um bom exemplo de defesa da nossa soberania (consagrada na Constituição) e da nossa segurança, é aquele que o Governo garante, ao bloquear a porta aos imigrantes, mas escancará-la às armas nucleares USA.

Manlio Dinucci

 

Artigo em italiano :

L’affossamento USA del Trattato INF e le complicità europee

il manifesto, 02 de Fevereiro de 2019

Tradutora: Maria Luísa de Vasconcellos

La «sospensione» del Trattato INF, annunciata ieri dal segretario di stato Mike Pompeo, avvia il conto alla rovescia che, entro sei mesi, porterà gli Stati Uniti a uscire definitivamente dal Trattato. Già da oggi, comunque, gli Stati Uniti si ritengono liberi di testare e schierare armi della categoria proibita dal Trattato: missili nucleari a gittata intermedia (tra 500 e 5500 km), con base a terra.

Appartenevano a tale categoria i missili nucleari schierati in Europa negli anni Ottanta: i missili balistici Pershing II, schierati dagli Stati Uniti in Germania Occidentale, e quelli da crociera lanciati da terra, schierati dagli Stati Uniti in Gran Bretagna, Italia, Germania Occidentale, Belgio e Olanda, con la motivazione di difendere gli alleati europei dai missili balistici SS-20, schierati dall’Unione Sovietica sul proprio territorio. Il Trattato sulle Forze Nucleari Intermedie,   firmato nel 1987 dai presidenti Gorbaciov e Reagan,  eliminava tutti i missili di tale categoria, compresi quelli schierati a Comiso.

Il Trattato INF è stato messo in discussione da Washington quando gli Stati Uniti hanno visto diminuire il loro vantaggio strategico su Russia e Cina. Nel 2014, l’amministrazione Obama accusava la Russia, senza portare alcuna prova, di aver sperimentato un missile da crociera (sigla 9M729) della categoria proibita dal Trattato e, nel 2015, annunciava che «di fronte alla violazione del Trattato INF da parte della Russia, gli Stati Uniti stanno considerando lo spiegamento in Europa di missili con base a terra». Il piano è stato confermato dalla amministrazione Trump: nel 2018 il Congresso ha autorizzato il finanziamento di «un programma di ricerca e sviluppo di un missile da crociera lanciato da terra da piattaforma mobile su strada». Da parte sua, Mosca negava che il suo missile da crociera violasse il Trattato e, a sua volta, accusava Washington di aver installato in Polonia e Romania rampe di lancio di missili intercettori (quelli dello «scudo»), che possono essere usate per lanciare missili da crociera a testata nucleare.

In tale quadro va tenuto presente il fattore geografico: mentre un missile nucleare USA a raggio intermedio, schierato in Europa, può colpire Mosca, un analogo missile schierato dalla Russia sul proprio territorio può colpire le capitali europee, ma non Washington. Rovesciando lo scenario, è come se la Russia schierasse in Messico i suoi missili nucleari a raggio intermedio.

Il piano degli USA di affossare il Trattato INF è stato pienamente sostenuto dagli alleati europei della Nato. Il Consiglio Nord Atlantico ha dichiarato, il 4 dicembre 2018, che «il Trattato INF è in pericolo a causa delle azioni della Russia», accusata di schierare «un sistema missilistico destabilizzante». Lo stesso Consiglio Nord Atlantico ha dichiarato ieri il suo «pieno appoggio all’azione degli Stati Uniti di sospendere i suoi obblighi rispetto al Trattato INF» e intimato alla Russia di «usare i restanti sei mesi per ritornare alla piena osservanza del Trattato».

All’affossamento del Trattato INF ha contribuito anche l’Unione europea che, all’Assemblea Generale delle Nazioni Unite, il 21 dicembre 2018, ha votato contro la risoluzione presentata dalla Russia sulla «Preservazione e osservanza del Trattato INF», respinta con 46 voti contro 43 e 78 astensioni. L‘Unione europea – di cui 21 dei 27 membri fanno parte della Nato (come ne fa parte la Gran Bretagna in uscita dalla Ue) – si è uniformata così totalmente alla posizione della NATO, che a sua volta si è uniformata a quella degli Stati Uniti. Nella sostanza, quindi, anche l’Unione europea ha dato luce verde alla possibile installazione di nuovi missili nucleari Usa in Europa, Italia compresa.

Su una questione di tale importanza il governo Conte, come i precedenti, si è accodato sia alla NATO che alla UE. E dall’intero arco politico non si è levata una voce per richiedere che fosse il Parlamento a decidere come votare all’ONU sul Trattato INF. Né in Parlamento si è levata alcuna voce per richiedere che l’Italia osservi il Trattato di Non-Proliferazione e aderisca a quello ONU sulla proibizione delle armi nucleari, imponendo agli USA di rimuovere dal nostro territorio nazionale le bombe nucleari B61 e di non installarvi, a partire dalla prima metà del 2020, le ancora più pericolose B61-12. Avendo sul proprio territorio armi nucleari e installazioni strategiche USA, come il MUOS e il JTAGS in Sicilia, l’Italia è esposta a crescenti pericoli quale base avanzata delle forze nucleari USA e quindi quale bersaglio di quelle russe. Un missile balistico nucleare a raggio intermedio, per raggiungere l’obiettivo, impiega 6-11 minuti. Un bell’esempio di difesa della nostra sovranità, sancita dalla Costituzione, e della nostra sicurezza che il Governo garantisce sbarrando la porta ai migranti ma spalancandola alle armi nucleari USA.

Manlio Dinucci

 

The Trump regime withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal last May. Since then, signals from EU countries have been mixed.

Invoking the European blocking statute, updating it, effective last August, to protect EU companies doing legitimate business with Iran from the impact of US extra-territorial sanctions didn’t change a thing.

It’s hard to enforce. All 28 member states must be on board. Major European companies began winding down economic and financial relations with Iran – fearing Trump regime sanctions and loss of US market access.

That’s key. It matters little what Brussels does, just what European enterprises do. It’s hard being positive in the face of US legislation calling for cutting off companies from American banks and dollar processing transactions for not observing Washington’s sanctions on targeted nations – unless there’s mass opposition to US actions.

It hasn’t happened. At least 10 countries got temporary waivers to keep buying Iranian oil and/or gas at least through May.

While the US is largely isolated on Iran, most enterprises hesitate challenging its policies. EU guarantees are meaningless if corporate Europe fails to go along.

Britain, France and Germany (the E 3) announced another mechanism for facilitating allegedly sanctions-free trade with Iran – a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) called an Instrument for Supporting Trade Exchanges (INSTEX).

A joint statement by their foreign ministers said the following:

“INSTEX will support legitimate European trade with Iran, focusing initially on the sectors most essential to the Iranian population – such as pharmaceutical, medical devices and agri-food goods.”

“INSTEX aims in the long term to be open to economic operators from third countries who wish to trade with Iran and the E3 continue to explore how to achieve this objective.”

Whether INSTEX can be more effective than other EU policies on trade with Iran is unclear. Commenting on it, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Ghasemi issued the following statement:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran believes the recent move by the European Union to register and announce its special financial mechanism (for trade) with Iran is Europe’s first step in fulfilling its obligations towards Iran as per a May 2018 statement by the foreign ministers of Iran and the three European countries.”

He urged the EU to fully implement all its obligations in the shortest possible time. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA almost nine months ago, the EU doing little to challenge the move, Ghasemi adding:

“Following the US withdrawal from JCPOA, despite political positions held by the EU about protecting the deal and the need for Iran to gain economic benefits and limited moves by the EU such as updating its blocking statute, unfortunately we have not seen tangible results and practical moves to Iran’s benefit.”

“The EU’s move to create the special financial mechanism was carried out too late, and the E3 and the EU must ensure that the move will compensate part of the illegal US sanctions.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready for continuing constructive engagement with the European Union and its member states based on respect and mutual interests.”

“Meanwhile, considering the limited, incomplete and long overdue fulfillment of EU obligations outlined in the May 2018 statement, Iran believes the bloc must accelerate the move and the fulfillment of its other obligations to let the Iranian nation reap the economic benefits of JCPOA.”

INSTEX is supposed to act as a bartering arrangement between EU member states and Iran, bypassing dollar transactions. It’s unclear when the new mechanism will be implemented, details still a work in progress.

Over time, it aims to give non-EU countries access to the mechanism. The Trump regime reacted harshly, the State Department saying:

“We do not expect the SPV will in any way impact our maximum economic pressure campaign. We are closely following reports about the SPV to gain additional details about the mechanism.”

“(E)ntities that continue to engage in sanctionable activity involving Iran risk severe consequences that could include losing access to the US financial system and the ability to do business with the United States or US companies.”

European companies and others doing significant business in the US will hesitate losing market access to maintain normal relations with Iran.

That is what’s key. What’s needed is the world community breaking with Washington’s imperial agenda, resisting it – challenging its economic, financial, sanctions and hot wars, no longer partnering in them, isolating the US as long as its destructive agenda continues.

 

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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.